Chapter 5: Teaching to the Individual, Working with the Group

"..I practiced all night to say this --And so I just put my head back down on the desk" ~ Vance (page 88)

This chapter is all about how teachers need to evaluate their students individually and how to put them in successful groups. The section of the chapter the quote is taken from is about participation of students and why they do or do not participate. In this section Vance offered up a perspective in his physics class, and the teacher shut him down, and Vance just proceeded to not interact and put his head down on a desk. The beginning of this chapter started with a list of different personality types in the classroom and defines them. The group working aspect of this chapter was very in depth. It discussed how teachers need to evaluate the students to put them in the best groups possible. The key idea is to find the students strengths and let them use what they are good at in group work assignments. One key to this was to have the class make a list of important roles a group would have and define them to find the best fit student for that role.

I thought that this chapter was the most interesting so far in this book. It is still very interesting for me to hear student opinion's on what goes on in school/classrooms. I felt very bad when I read the quote from Vance about his science class. If teachers are really like that out there and disrespect their students ideas and opinions then I am not surprised students do not want to participate. Also, I found it interesting when the teacher/student relationship was compared to parent/child. I think if teachers treat their students with the respect they would their own children, then students would be much more receptive to their teachers. All students in my mind deserve an equal oppurtunity whether their instructor thinks so or not. If school is not fun or interacting for the students then why would they want to do their best at it. It seems we still have a long way to go to get the best out of our students in our society.