This chapter was a wonderful story of perseverance…by Tovani. As I was reading her problem in the beginning, I thought to myself, how many problems can these kids have, and how is she going to get to all of them. She surprised me by saying “you don’t have to”. She had kids who were homeless, sleeping, fighting, and yelling about stupid assignments. This is a fear I have always had in my classroom and my one thought is “well thank God I’ll be the teacher and I can send them to detention. Seriously, this has been my one missing piece in practicums and I thought it will all get better once I can threaten them. This is what I have always seen in classrooms when it gets out of hand. Threats about what will happen if they don’t stop. Tovani plays it off very well in this chapter and whether she does anything at the time, I don’t know, but what I do know is eventually one of her kids writes her a personal note in his homework, asking to redo some of his earlier work. I have always thought to myself “man I got lucky” when I ask a teacher if I can turn in work late or redo it and they let me. Now I realize that a teacher isn’t just out to get the students grades down or be there to say I told you so, but they are there to encourage and get the students to do the work for themselves. Yes, in some small part I realized this before but in all of the Evangel teachers I have seen a different style than my public schools. Public schools are driven for making the grade because you have to or you will fail. I want to find a different way to motivate, a better way, and a healthy way. I want to find a way that helps kids learn from their own writing and ponder questions themselves. Not everyone likes answering questions created by a teacher, but everyone likes finding out answers to their own questions.
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