Second Half

I like the point the author made about asking a student "why?" in the text. Giving students the opportunity to explain what they believe or think allows them to grasp a better understanding of the subject at hand. The theme of this section seems to be more about precise communication that is not without purpose.  When I did my "student teaching"/senior project for my undergrad, I worked in a pre-school classroom. We were encouraged to speak in the positive rather than the negative. For example, when a student would answer a question incorrectly, we would praise them by saying "good try" or something else that was positive. Later in the book, the authors write about saying "no" to students when they answer a question wrong. I believe in some situations such as problem solving, it is important to speak in a constructive and positive manner. When I work with students who are acting out in class or doing something that against the rules, I sit down and talk with them about what they could do differently next time. It models positive reinforcement and it helps with the students and staffs morale. If we said "no" all the time, we would be bogged down with the negativity. This doesn't mean that I think that "no" is a bad word. I think that it has it's place in our vocabulary for a reason. As long as "yes" outweighs "no", then we have nothing to worry about. I wanted to briefly point out the situation between Greg and his teacher during another students presentation regarding the language of Esperanto. When Greg was having a hard time, the teacher offered help. I liked how instead of thrusting herself into the situation and risk aggravating Greg, she stepped in for brief moments to pose questions. It was more of an "asking" than a "telling.



What I took from this section of reading is that communication is important. We think that teaching is much like normal conversation, which it can be, but in order to get our point across to a classroom of students, we must be clear and kind.