Chapter 9

"Did I Miss Anything? Did I Miss Everything? Last Thoughts"

"If teachers become distant from their own learning they will most certainly become distant from the learning of their students."-Alisa Wills-Keely

This chapter is about realizing what is most important in teaching. She describes incidents that occur in her classroom on a Monday. First, her reading workshop class didn't go to well, she found a note in her school mail, two boys at the back of the room were slap boxing, a transfer student was very uncomfortable, and a young girl came in crying. She thought about what she should do first and decided on reading the note. The note asked her if she saw a urination incident and if so to write a statement. Here, she realizes that there were so many distractions and was wondering if she had to address these current problems, would that leave her any time to teach students how to read? She then reminded herself to keep in mind what is important, and to forget the rest. She is stressed out about the state test coming up and hands out a poem for the students to read. One student says that he has no clue what it is about. She reminds him once again of the strategies they use to figure out what a text is talking about and to her surprise the student gets the assignment done, but also asks to redo an earlier assignment. She says that the classroom is the place where the students can take risks and show us what they are thinking.

Cris ends with saying that we will never have all the answers. She says that we become teachers because we love our content so much that we want to teach others what we know. This last section is basically telling us teachers to hang in there. A good teacher is never happy or satisfied with what happened during the school year. A good teacher is always finding ways to improve their instruction. She says that the only way this book will help us is if we believe in our selves that we can teach students how to read. We know more than we think we do about reading instruction.

This book was a good text in helping me to understand why I need to teach reading in my future math classroom. It has changed my view about reading and has given me the tools to get through boring texts. I have to remind myself to have a purpose when I am reading. So, sorry that my posts are late, but I thought that I might as well finish the assignment.

Renee