Teach With Your Heart, pgs 62-103

Abstract:

With her student teaching coming to an end, Erin felt emotional about letting her students who she'd become so close to go. After meeting Steven Spielburg and transforming her students lives in so many ways, it was an emotional and heart wrenching good bye for them all. The following year, Mrs. G was introduced to her new class of all freshman, who she described as 'even worse' than her previous class. She knew it would be just as difficult if not more to reach these students. With Sharaud and Manny's (previous students) help, she engaged her freshmen with lessons that related to their life, for instance talking about Snoop Dogg or relating Romeo and Juliet to Gangs. By linking parallels in her curriculum to the lives of her students, she was able to reach her students much better. Although her students were somewhat engaged, she realized that there wasn't a close bond as there had been last year with her students. Mrs. G decided to plan a field trip for her students to meet some individuals who had come from great hardships, like they were involved in, to become successful adults. She thought that introducing them to positive roll models would be a good idea. After the field trip, her students wrote in their journals about all the surprising things they realized on the field trip, like how these people really cared about them. Towards the end of the school year, Mr Beard, the head counselor, ask Erin if she would be interested in teaching sophomores the next year, including some all of her current students if they wanted. Erin was very excited but wasn't sure if her students would want her again. The next day she sent around a sign up sheet for the students who wanted her as their teacher the following year. Every one signed it.

Reflection:

As a read further and further into this book, I am more amazed with every page by the hardships her students went through, by the hardships Erin went through and by all of it together. These chapters were very emotional. First Erin must say goodbye to the students she's become so close to and who care about her so much. Then, she gets a group of freshmen who are even worse then her previous students. I found it interesting how Mrs. G didn't try to use the exact same material with her new students. She used the same teaching strategies, but different topics. For example she used Gangs in Romeo and Juliet instead of the Holocaust. She realized that these students were different in their own ways. To reach them she would have to try new stuff, especially since she was under such restrictions from the English Department, and alienating herself again this year may be too risky. Although her class did not bond so tightly through out the year as she had hoped, they still began to acknowledge each others hardships. I can't wait to read on about the following year!