Chloe's Chapter 4

There were a couple points that this chapter made me think about. I think that I find this chapter difficult because they bring up many components that boys need and want from their classroom environment.  The boys want the teachers to be more interested in them, they want the readings to be more interactive, they want a challenge at the right level, and so forth.  All of these are completely valid and I can see why they would want those, but what I find difficult (from the teacher’s perspective) is how to provide it all for them.  This is reinforced by how little concrete solutions the authors are giving us.  This chapter is better though than the others, because we get some ideas that are valuable.

As a teacher, I would love to get to know all of my students personally and be invested in them.  However, how realistic is that? Each classroom has potentially 20 students in it, and most teachers are teaching more than one class.  In some ways, the design of school does not allow for individuality.  Many of the boys said that "[teachers] want a collective" (p.100).  I don't think it's necessarily that they want a collective, but that one person cannot adhere to the needs of so many students.  Perhaps a compromise is to allow more freedom for the students, I like the idea of having students do an I-Search paper because they can choose a topic that is relevant and important to them.  Book clubs could also be a good way of letting students have more choice.

 I also liked the idea of the SRI as a way to process a story.  On a side note, I’m a little confused about how this would look.  If I understand it correctly, it can be more visual and hands-on.  This seems like it would give the students way of working through the story in a way that’s meaningful to them.

The other point that I definitely agree with is the idea that students should have more interactive activities.  In the example of the two English classes that were working on the play, the second class (where they had to act out portions) seemed much more successful.  I think having an interactive classroom is better anyways (not just for boys). I wonder though if that I the norm, because if they boys are afraid of looking incompetent, or foolish, would they do the interactive activities? I suppose that depends on the type of scaffolding that the teacher provides. What do you think?