Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire- Chapter 4 and 5- Writing and Add It Up

Chapter 4-Writing
In today's society, many people are losing the ability to write. Whether it is through texting, email, computer software, or anything else technological, we have found other ways to "write". Society has lost the ability to write because of the dependency on technology to do the writing for us. I remember my 8th grade math teacher saying he had lost the ability to write in cursive over the years because he always chose to write in print. That has stayed with me for a long time. There is also something I have found kind of disturbing when I'm writing an essay or paper in Microsoft Word. If I make a mistake such as forgetting to capitalize the first letter of a sentence or get the letters in a word mixed up, the computer program will automatically fix my mistake even without me noticing. That's one thing about writing that I think is so important. If you make a mistake writing, you have no choice but to fix it yourself. Writing is a very important skill to master. It's how you express yourself on paper. It's how you convey your thoughts in an essay. It's another way of communicating with people. It's a vital part of our lives that is easily being thrown away. I think as a teacher, it will be very important to keep my students interested and excited about writing.

Chapter 5- Add It Up
Math has always been a subject I wanted to like, but I never have. In fact, I've been quoted on many occasions as saying "I hate math!" I think it's like that for many students. I know as a child growing up, I saw how other students grasped the math concepts and I wanted to understand it like they did. I really liked Rafe's game "Buzz". It seems like a really good game to get kids to pay attention when they are counting and to really understand the meaning of the numbers. The mental math warm ups were neat too. Games like this would've been really helpful when I was in school. They seem fun and exciting. They really seem like games that would help students get excited about math. The games would be great bell-ringers to start the day off with. That would help keep the activity stress-free. Math activities used to be very stressful for me, but whenever we did a bell-ringer activity like these games could be, I always felt better about it. It was a chance to work on math and learn something new (if I didn't know how to work the problem) without being tested or graded on it. I hope I can help my students stay enthusiastic about math by using games like the "Buzz" game and the mental math warm ups.

The Excellent 11- Chapter 3- Creativity

This chapter was definitely one of the most helpful things I've ever read. It was so full of ideas and new ways to help the students learn but still keep things creative and fun. Creativity in the classroom has always been a concern of mine. How will I teach my students in a way that will be fun and exciting for them? This chapter has really opened my eyes to a lot of things I could possibly do to help the students have fun at the same time they're learning. My favorite part was when Mr. Clark talked about his class reading "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and the hunt for the witch in their school. My third grade class did a similar thing to that. It was a lot of fun to go room to room, teacher to teacher, looking for clues. I also loved his idea about the vocabulary and the classroom dictionaries. This chapter has made me very excited about teaching and being creative with the different content areas I will be teaching.

The Excellent 11- Chapter 2- Adventure

I was really excited when I started reading this chapter and saw that it mentioned field trips. Field trips were always fun and exciting when I was in school. One thing that I liked about them was they did seem to bring our class closer together, which Ron also mentioned in this chapter. Field trips can be educational, but they are also bonding times. I really liked all the advice and little tidbits Ron gave about planning field trips. It's nice to have things like that to go by once you're teaching and trying to plan things like that. Honestly if I was teaching right now, I wouldn't have any idea where to start in planning for a field trip. However, I loved his idea for a mini-field trip- going outside to review for a test the last 10 minutes of class. That's the kind of thing that could break up the monotany of the day and really encourage the students to participate and really take an interest in the review. I also like Ron's ideas about preparing for the field trip. The students will appreciate where they are going more if they know a little about it beforehand. Having them write papers, look up information on the internet, and read books about it will really get them intrigued about the trip.

Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire- Chapter 3- Reading for Life

I really enjoyed reading this chapter. Reading is a very important part in the curriculum as well as in every day life. I mean, just think about it. How hard would our lives be if we couldn't read? Growing up, I loved reading. It was a way to take my mind somewhere else. I loved reading classics like "Mary Poppins" and "Alice in Wonderland", partly because I had the movies and would compare the books to the movies. That was one thing I really liked about this chapter. Rafe noted that one way you could get students more excited about what they're reading is to show a movie or play adapted from the book after the students finish reading the book. My elementary school teachers didn't do that much, but my high school teachers did that a lot. It always helped, especially with the more complex books. My favorite part of the whole chapter was when Rafe talked about Luis. The fact that a young boy could appreciate literature at such a level that it made him so emotional was really astounding. I hope I can somehow encourage my students to become that emotionally invested in literature. Reading is such a powerful tool that students will carry with them forever. They might as well learn to love it and enjoy it since it will benefit them for the rest of their lives. I really hope I can help them get on the right track with literature and help them develop a love for it.

Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire- Chapter 1- Gimme Some Truth

Whenever I talk to teachers about what it was like their first year of teaching, they always say it was rough, but "I had to show them who was really in charge". I remember whenever I would be in a class with a teacher who had either just started teaching or had only been teaching a few short years. The first part of the year was really rough. The teacher always seemed so strict and angry. Eventually, once he or she had gained our respect (which was really fear), he or she would lighten up and have fun with us. Yes, it was effective in the end, but what about those first few weeks when we were all so fearful of the teacher? Isn't the teacher supposed to be someone who supports you and encourages you? Someone you respect and not fear? A teacher shouldn't be someone who instills fear into students. There has to be a better way to gain respect from the classroom and not scare your students into respecting you. Teachers sometimes think that just because a student doesn't understand something, it means they weren't respecting them enough to pay attention and listen to the instructions. In most cases, that's not it at all. As teachers, we have to be sensitive to the fact that some kids take a little longer to grasp concepts than others. We all learn on different levels. I hope that's something I can take into my classroom and apply it on a daily basis.

The Excellent 11- Chapter 1- Enthusiasm

This chapter was absolutely amazing. I've always said that when I become a teacher, my goal is to make my students excited about learning and getting involved. If I'm excited about what I'm teaching and can go about it in an effective manner, my students will become much more involved in the learning process and be excited about learning. When I was in school, I could always tell a difference in the teachers that were excited about teaching and those that just considered it a way to put food on the table. The teachers that were enthusiastic about teaching always got the students excited about what kinds of things we were going to learn next. We couldn't wait to see what kind of project or experiment we were going to have the next day. However, those that were just there to get paid always made us feel uncomfortable, almost like we were walking on eggshells. Those are the teachers that made me feel like I couldn't ask questions or make statements in class. A teacher's outlook on learning and teaching can affect students a lot more than many people understand. If can literally make or break a student's ability and desire to learn. Ron Clark has many excellent ideas to make learning fun and exciting for students. I definitely plan on taking some of his ideas and incorporating them into my classroom.