Fires, Chapter 4

This chapter was about creating a culture of success, and I totally agreed with the part that said that you should never compare your classes or your students. You might have to tweak a lesson completely for one class compared to another, but that is all about the challenge and the beauty of teaching. Giving students the opportunity to revise their work is another teaching theory that I will totally adopt when I am a teacher, because students aren't as likely to get down on themselves or do poor work when they know they will have the opportunity to fix things, that they get more than one set-in-concrete chance. I also am a firm believer in feedback, in actually writing on students papers if you think a certain part is well done, or needs improvement, and HOW to improve it. Too many times my teachers just put, GOOD JOB! On the top of important papers, and gave me like an 85-90. I wanted to know WHY!!! Of course, with standards based grading this won't be as much of an issue, as you will have to justify your grades anyway, but still. I also hate teachers who call out grades. The smart kids then feel badly and the kids who didn't do as well feel even worse. This is just creating animosity where it doesn't need to be in the classroom.