Teaching Hope: Rejuvenation

In this section, I found that I had more appreciation for the practical testimonies--those which had what seemed like a more realistic outcome. Of course, I am assuming that all of these teachers are telling their stories in truth and with little embellishment, but I can't help but feel as if there is an underlying tone of exposition in most of the stories. Sometimes after I've read a chapter I feel as if I've read a selection of very short stories from a bunch of teachers who want to be recognized for their story-telling prowess.

The testimonies that sparked all of this metacognition were some of the first entries in the chapter. The teacher who finally got a chance to read her problematic student's journal entry and the teacher who received a negative note from her sub both mentioned issues in their classrooms that I am most likely to face. I feel as though every other teacher has avoided or neglected these problem areas up until this point. For instance, I ended up asking myself: what do I do when I get a bad note from a sub? How can I most effectively punish the kids who were out of line without unjustly judging innocent students? What if I have students who refuse to go to the office when I tell them? What will I do? The teacher who wrote this doesn't offer any suggestions or remedies, but now at least I know that when any of these things happen (and they inevitably will) I will be comforted with the knowledge that it has happened to someone before.

Somewhat outside of my experience and level of expertise is the crippling reality of the sheer amount of work that goes in to cultivating student/teacher relationships. After her problem student shared some extremely personal information with her (which the author tactfully omits) the teacher is not all that surprised to find that the change was not immediate.

I think that a main issue I have with this book is its format. With so many short glimpses of extremely specific examples of teaching experiences, I am having a hard time differentiating between what can be considered absolutely situation-based testimony and that brand of testimony that will teach me something worth carrying into the field. The fact that I have had to read 3/4 of this book before finding some objective teaching advice (however inadvertent) speaks volumes for the effectiveness this text has on my teaching career and educational philosophy as a whole.