Ch. 12 (Differentiating Process)

It seems that in schools today, the child is supposed to conform to work with the teacher, and how they function. They must get used to doing certain subjects at certain points in the day, lining up the way that works best for the teacher, and usually learn in a way that works best for the teacher. Through reading this chapter, it has shown me more how backwards this is. It is important to get to know your students and see what they need and how they think. Students need many different opportunities to learn to find what works best for them. Giving students options to explore and make knowledge their own makes learning more interesting to them, and is more productive in the long run. Allowing the students to express their learning in a kenestetic way, and having them learn from it beats going over the same topic again and again, and making no progress. It is throughout all of our books that learning should be natural, not forced. If learning occurs naturally, then the students actually learned something, and didn't just memorize it for a few days or hours.
In the other book, Tales of Thinking, it talked about having students be thinkers. I do not see students being encouraged to just think about things in my classroom, and see that it is the cause of many shortcomings. Allowing the students to experience math, science, or language, and having them sort out what is what and form understandings is much more sensible than teaching from a book that allows for no personal connection with the students.