The authors provide five statements that are attributed to being a better, more effective teacher. Reflect on these statements and explain how they apply to your daily interaction with your students.
So far out of all the chapters we have read I have found this to be the most interesting and most useful to myself. In the first part of the chapter it discusses how attitude affects a child. When I first started at my placement it was hard for me to not be intimidated by my students since they are in 9-12 grade it was hard for me to break out of my shell and not be scared or in some ways so I would just say things like "stop, be quiet". Now though I have learned saying things like "be quiet, stop it, dont even think about it" egged them on to misbehave more. The children seem to listen better when your not so negative toward them. I also like how the book brought up the "teachers lounger" situation. I have an awesome co op and she has told me from day one she stays away from the lounge. Since I have been here we eat lunch with two other teachers in my co ops room. I have however been in teachers lounges during my other placements and I have seen the complaining about students and work from other teachers. I think this is something that is common. This will be something that I turn away from as a teacher. I also liked how the chapter showed the different scenarios and what you could do to avoid it. Something that really stuck out to me was in part three the "how to improve the attitudes of your students" part. I teach social skills first period to my students and something we constantly focus on is Bullying. We have watched numerous video clips and videos where too many teachers are acting like teacher B in the scenario and it actually is really sad. As a special education major I think it is extremely crucial to be there for your students and help them out as best as you can whenever possible. For a lot of these students you are one of the only people that they can count on in their life and they need to be able to see that. Through out my placement I have had a few situations like this where children come in upset or get upset and start crying or are having a really bad day and I never ignore the situation or blame it on them. I one hundred percent agree with the statement that your attitude effects your students attitude. As in relation to the working cooperatively with parents that is something I have not done while being at my placement. The book I think though gives good ideas of what you can do to constantly be in contact with parents. I also strongly agree with the whole not just telling parents negative things about their child. Its just as important for them to know the positives of what is going on. This chapter really related a lot to me and I really enjoyed reading it.
The whole of a teachers' attitude can make or break a child's passion for learning. I too have struggled with my reactions to negative behaviors. We should make the effort to tune out what is negative and look more deeply into what troubles the child. As we progress through the day it's important to be a counselor, adviser and advocate for each child. It's crucial that we form our own opinions and ideas of each child and not listen to the those already cast.
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