Reading Response chapter 3-4

2. Share 3 (three) exact quotes that are meaningful to you (from across these two chapters), and explain why they matter to you.

Quote #1:
"(some teachers) are not remarkable because they are more gifted than other teachers or because they have taught longer or because they went to more exclusive colleges. They are remarkable because they live what they believe. "

I love this quote because it proves that just because we didn't go to Harvard for an expensive degree, the biggest influence on how good of a teacher we want to become is our ATTITUDE. It also shows equality in advancement for teachers, where first year teachers and 50th year teachers are on the same playing ground.

Quote #2: following the first quote
"Such teachers are surely aware of the constraints and imperfections of schools. Somehow, they see the possibilities more clearly than the impossibilities. They look beyond those things they cannot change toward the young people, learning environments, curricula, and instruction they can change."

I put this as two separate quotes, because I love them both, but they have the same underlying meaning, that your effort to recognize each student's needs which may seem impossible to meet can be viewed in the opposite manner of "possibilities" in many areas (your classroom, curriculum, and your instruction). We may be told what and who to teach each year, but HOW is what we choose.

Quote #3:
"Thus, if the student says, "I need affirmation, contribution, power, purpose, and challenge," such a teacher replies, "I will respond to those needs. Otherwise, how would I assume I could truly teach you? Otherwise, how would I assume we could build together a place in which we can all become what we are meant to be?"

This is also a very great quote. How can we as teachers really teach each student if we are not looking for the different ways in which they learn? The classroom is really a community of teachers and learners, teacher included. The better the teacher does at trying to use various methods of teaching and assessing, the more the she and the students will learn about and from each other.