Blog #5

Please find two different places where Carol makes a statement or quotes someone else, and this statement really touches you... really calls to your heart.
In your blog response, for each statement, give the page number where it is found in the book, copy the most important portion of the statement, and briefly tell why it matters to you -- why it has significant meaning for you.

I love the quote found on page 22. It is a short sentence but has powerful meaning. It says: "To deal with the details is to connect with students". Before this she is talking about DuShawn and the different culture and learning style he has. We need to be able to look at the little details of each student. We need to know their likes and dislikes, what some family traditions are. The sentence speaks for itself in that we cannot connect with our students as friends unless we take time to get to know the details. If we never pay attention we may not know why a child is struggling and how we can fix it.

My next idea is at the beginning of chapter 3, page 25 (sorry, I know you prefer it not to be at the beginning of the chapter). I want to take this quote/idea and run with it in my own classroom. It says: "Make sure we live inside our hopes, rather than admiring them from a distance" by, Barbara Kingslover. This was good quote for me in that I often had hopes and dreams but always thought those were things that only other people achieved. My hopes and dreams weren't always reality because of fear and I want to make sure that my students live IN their hopes. I am going to design a whole lesson plan for the beginning of the year to encourage this idea. I want them to realize they can achieve their dreams and with the rest of the class supporting them it will be that much easier. I need to build strong relationships with my students so that they will trust me enough to be able to share their vision with me.