Week 6

In the reading this week I really struggled with choosing which reponse I would like to write to. Choose the bullet points or the metaphors? I decided to go with the latter of the two choices, as I came to realize that I find all of the bullet points so totally vital in the chapter that I could not imagine singling out merely four! Not to mention, there are a plethora of wonderful quotations from which to pull from the chapter regarding its metaphors...something I just cannot resist!

What I love about the portion of the chapter entitled "A Final Metaphor or Two" is the way it so elequently and constantly reminds us of the ambiguity at times about who is the teacher and who is the learner. "Our best lesson plans evaporate in the face of a riveting question from a child whose age is not a quarter of our own." What a unique and rare opportunity it is to be an educator. To see the light shining so brightly within someone who has only just begun to live and experience the world. This book has so totally shown be how special our jobs really are...and that teaching is not a job, it is an opportunity. It is a gift. It is a chance for us to grow right along side our students. How many other people have the opportunity on a daily basis to be inspired, reshaped, and refashioned by, of all peeople, children? When you think of teaching in that way, how can you help but to be so completely full of passion. How can you not fall in love? How also, can we keep this emotion with us throughout the tough times? How can we see humor and patience in the child who tests us most? How can we stay persistent in our efforts and keep our students persistent in theirs'?How can we stay forever in love with teaching?

"If we allow ourselves to fall in love with what we do, we will be reborn countless times, almost always in a form stronger and more fully human than the one that preceded it."

What a beautifully romanticized idea about teaching. This idea is strengthened by the metaphor that ends the chapter. A story is told of a baker in Saratoga Springs, New York who after teaching at a university found his calling in bread. As he grows, the bread evolves, and that makes him one with the bread. The book tells us that "this is a metaphor for the second challange and opportunity we have as teachers -- to allow ourselves to be reshaped by what we do, to become one with it." In a differentiated classroom we are as much learners as we are the teacher, perhaps some days we fall even more heavily into the side of learning. The first of the two challenges mentioned from the quote is to cultivate passion for what you do, then allow what you do to take hold of you and shape you, reflecting on and learning from what you see.

Perhaps though my favorite part of the story about the baker is the following: "He is transported when he talks about the complexity of the textures in various breads and the immense satisfaction he finds in the labor-intensive process of making loaves of bread by hand, one at a time." I think that this is so important to note. The "complexity of the textures in various breads" can be likened to the complexity of the characteristics that make up our various students. And one must note that the baker finds total satisfaction in the "labor-intensive process". So key in staying passionate and in love with teaching is accepting challanges not as things that will surely defeat us, but as moments that will make us stronger. These are the moments that reshape us, these are the moments when we take off our teaching caps and put on those of the student. Nobody said that this is an easy job, but it is when we can find pleasure in hard work, when we can begin to see the labors which we go through with and for our students as labors of love...it is then that we will cultivate passion for what we do. This is how we can stay forever in love with teaching.

Though there is no paved road for us to travel, it cannot be said that we are not laying the groundwork for the roads which our students travel. Though our road is never clear, and will surely have a pothole or two along the way, there is not reason why teachers cannot set forth a beautifully paved road along which our students can smoothly travel. And how do we begin? As the book tells us, we just begin. We begin and we keep on. And through differentiation, we can keep on keepin' on. You simply have to have the courage to take that first step. I have previously referenced an activity in which we were to stand in front of a sign that best described our feelings about differentiation, and our ability to implement it in a classroom. I stood in front of the sign that more or less stated that I understood the conecept of differentiation, that it totally embodies my ideas and philosophies about teaching, but that I was unsure of how to recognize it or use it in my classroom. I know now from reading this book, that though I am unsure all I can do is take the first step and keep on. I must make my students part of the process.I must allow them to teach me as much as I teach them. I must allow challenges to be part of what makes me a better teacher. I must never lose my passion for teaching, lest my students lose their passion for learning. "Our young, our shcools, our country, and our world are better for each teacher who musters up all the courage he or she can find and stays to the fox, 'Can you show me how to tame you'?"

As a sidenote, much of what was written in this blog can be echoed by much of what I wrote in Week 4, where I feel that I said it much better. Also, I have noticed that as I've been writing other papers and filling out paperwork for the internship that I have been consistently talking about differentiation and its importance in the classroom. I have repeatedly called it the "cornerstone" of teaching and a well-run classroom. I feel that differentiation is so naturally a part of who I am and a part of how I feel about teaching. I think my biggest concern moving on from this point forward is recognizing how to truly implement it in my classroom, and not only implement it, but implement it well. I truly want differentiation to be a natural part of everything that we do in my classroom or as much as it can possibly be. But how? Can I do it? Will it come has easily as I feel it? I suppose I should take my own advice in my blog above and simply take the first step. I need to accept that it will take time. Like like the baker who's bread evolved as he grew until he became one with it, differentiation in my classroom will evolve as I grow until we become one.

Struggling these days to find the words. I have this terrible habit of feeling like I've never said enough, especially when things aren't coming across the way I want them to...blah!! But as always, YAY DIFFERENTIATION!