Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire- Chapter 8- Rocket Man

I remember how boring science class was, for the most part, in elementary school. We mostly just read from the text, took notes, studied those notes, and took tests over the text and the notes we took. I remember the only times we would ever get really excited in our science classes were when we occasionally got to use our notes or the book on a test. That was the highlight of our science class. My 7th grade science teacher was probably the most influential science teacher I had growing up. She always tried to make things interesting and understandable. She never really used new technology or expensive kits to help us learn. But you could tell she was interested in the students actually learning and taking something away from the class instead of just memorizing facts out of the book in order to pass a test. That's what this chapter reminded me of. You don't have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars in order to help your students learn. You just have to be creative and interested in helping your students learn. I really liked it when he mentioned letting the students learn on their own. I think too many teachers scold their students for getting things wrong or failing. I don't see wrong answers as failures. I see them as opportunities to learn and discover things. Those "failures" can lead to open class discussions, and the students may learn something through those failures and discussions that they many not have otherwise learned.