Week 4

This week I have chosen to share three quotes from the reading that I found meaningful to me. Right off the bat in the first sentences I saw words that I found inspiring...it happens so often throughout this entire book. However I decided to hold off and wait for something else, perhaps slightly less obvious, that would stand out to me.

A quote from Chapter 3 at the bottom of page 32 reminded me of an activity we did in class last week, where we grouped ourselves based on how we felt about using differentiation in the classroom. I found myself in the group that felt differentiation was a natural extension of my philosophy of education and felt confident to try it, but that I was unsure of how to recognize and implement it into my classroom. There were a few paragraphs in Chapter 3 that spoke to those feelings, and they are as follows:

"These teachers ultimately say to their students, 'I want to be a leader in creating a place where each of you becomes more keenly aware of the possibilities in yourself, the people around you, and the power of knowledge. In this place, I want us to find together a good way to live.' Such teachers are not perfect people. They lose sight of the vision from time to time. When they do, however, they understand that htey have lost their compass, and they hunt for 'North' until they find their way again. They have no road map for the journey. It is their expectation, nonetheless, that they will learn more than they theach and taht each discovery will reveal another step along the way."

The last sentence in this quote is what really caught my eye. "YES!", I thought to myself, "This is exactly how I feel about using differentiation in my classroom!" I have no idea what my classroom will look like, what kind of children will fill it each and every day, nor do I know exactly what my teaching style is yet. I understand differentiation, and I enjoy romanticizing the idea of differentiation and its uses in my classroom...but will I actually be able to implement it? I find comfort in this quote, because though I may not be able to see the vision right away, and though I may lose sight of it on more than one occasion, I know that there is no direct path to a perfectly differentiated classroom. But I know that each day I will learn more and more about how to take steps along that path toward truly knowing my students and allowing them to capture whatever it is that they hope for in this life.

Echoing the sentiments above, at the end of Chapter 3 on page 35 I read this:

"...it should be obvious that 'differentiated' teaching seems an imperative if we accept the teacher's role in connecting with the students. How could we issue an invitation to the risky endeavor of learning if it is a mass-produced invitation? How could we dignify a learner without offering that learner things to do that are important enough to give roots and wings to his or her dreams? How could we learn about the needs of the individual student or attend to those needs without full investment? How could we make it all work for such varied individuals without dogged persistence? How woud we find our way and help our students find their individual paths without deep reflection? It is circular. To establish ties with a student, we must come to see how each student is unlike every other - and to see that we must form ties with that student."

Can I just say, "AMEN!"? Sometimes I honestly feel like this book speaks my language. The way this book is written is exactly how I often write, making it so easy to connect to. The quote above reminds me that differentiation is imperative and that though it requires much effort, the ending result makes that effort so worthwhile. So, when I do find that I have strayed from the path and lost my focus, I have to remind myself that I don't have a choice in the matter. There is a way to find differentiation in the classroom, to utilize it, and to make it work to the benefit of your class. My students deserve my greatest effort, they deserve for me to know them completely, they deserve persistence and reflection on my part...they derseve all of this and they are worth it. Seriously I could have just put the quote above and said, "That right there says it all. That is all I have to say." But, I felt like I needed to reflect, so I tried!

In chapter 4, I found myself drawn to a quote that might seem somewhat mundane or unimportant to others. It is an idea so basic, so general, that one could easily skip over it and miss its importance. On page 44, in a section entitled Guidelines for Classroom Operation, it says:

"Learners are adaptable. It's likely that most of them can adapt to varied sets of rules or guidelines most of the time. It's important, of course, that the learners are clear on what they guidelines are and why they exist. Classroom guidelines are generally best conceived not as arbitrary rules recorded on paper, distributed to studetns, and disccused on the first daya of class, but as agreements forged to ensure a classroom that supports maximum success for each of its learners."

It still amazes me how important classroom management is to the total success of both teachers and students. It is so interesting to me this concept of making rules tools for success, which now as adults we know is exactly what they always were, but do children every really see them that way? How can we make this idea known to our students? How can we help them to see that rules are there for their benefit? I believe this is the age old question between every teacher and student, parent and teacher, between a higher power and we lowly human beings...but it is often something that we realize only in hindsight. I suppose I don't have an answer or grand thought as to how to solve this problem, but it did make me stop and think.

I am also coming to realize that not only is classroom management essential for a well-run classroom, but differentiation is as well. Differentiation should not be something that we strive for, but should be something that we master as a definite tool in our classroom, much as we do for classroom management. I know that when we all speak of our philosophies regarding education - when we speak of the kind of teachers we want to be and how we view or value education - so many of us are describing differentiation. Most people will tell us that our philosophies at this point are most likely romantic ideals that will be quickly broken down in the classroom, and I'm sure often times the dream world of education that we all fantasize about quickly becomes a very different reality, but our ideals about differentiation must stay as they are. We must always look back to the days when we dreamed about the kind of classroom we wanted to have, because most likely that is the kind of classroom out students are dreaming about at this very present moment, and they should not have to look back on what could have been. Nor should we. Differentiation...do it!