Chapter 3: Seven Common Teaching Mistakes

Pick two of the errors described in Chapter 3, pages 9-13, of "Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids" and write yourself a letter of advice about how you're going to avoid these mistakes in the coming year.  Include one or two useful quotes from the chapter. 

Dearest Krystal,

The 2012-2013 school year has ended and as you do each summer, I am certain you are reflecting on your past year. I bet you have celebrated all of your student’s triumphs and questioned what could have been done differently. One thing is for sure, next year’s class will be completely different from the previous.

One area that you have worked so hard on this year is the area of student discipline. You controlled classroom chaos by challenging difficult students to change their behaviors. One error that you had was confronting challenging children when they had an audience. Even though you were trying to stop a behavior immediately, this was not always the best way to handle these students. They find ammo in your words and use them to create an army of disruptive supporters.

While in your heart you want the best for each child you could stand to love each student for who they are, for you can’t make an elephant climb a tree. You tried so hard to challenge students to change bad habits and attitudes. You worked hard in the beginning but fell into resentment towards the end when they fell back into bad habits. In the words of Chris Biffle, “Invite students your world; don’t expect to find them already there.”

You know teaching is a practice, the more you continue to grow as a professional the more happiness you will have in your job. Too many teachers fall victim to this quote by Biffle, “Bad teaching breeds challenging students.” No one should make their job harder than it already is.

Yours truly,

Krystal