[MOSAIC] Question from future teacher-Patrick

[Bill Roberts]

>Within your post, what I see is a basic question:  "Why throw out the
baby with the bathwater?"<

Then again, how do you know what works?  That's a question that has appeared 
on this listserve over and over again.  If the students all pass the test, 
does it mean they learned the content?  If a student reads aloud perfectly, 
does that mean he or she comprehends what they are reading?  It's a question 
of what goals you have for your teaching....

Do you want your students to be better readers?  Pass the state test?  Is 
your goal the ability to use a dictionary?  Or is it to learn new words?

I don't remember much of my spelling tests from school other than the fact 
that I could pass the tests easily....not because I learned the words from 
the lessons, but because I already knew them from reading them in books.  My 
most memorable lessons as a student were the ones where the teacher unlocked 
my mind and showed me how to look at deeper meanings of literature, how to 
make connections between items, and - most importantly - showed me how to 
think.

Set yoiur purpose first for teaching a lesson, then figure out how to 
achieve it.  That's the key to teaching.  Don't just teach a lesson because 
it's in the book or because it's fun.  Don't follow the book chapter by 
chapter.  Figure out the needs of your kids, then decide your desired 
outcome.  If the kids don't learn it, figure out other ways to get the 
lesson across.

Bottom line, if a lesson isn't going to help you or your kids, why do it?

Bill