3.12.08- Jon

I had to walk away from this book for a bit. I hate to admit, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. I am glad I did. I read the afterword and marinated on Mary Cowhey's message for a while. With our curriculum changing slowly from QCC to GPS, the crux of the change is to adopt a philosophy of less is more. We are urged as educators to go deeper into our curriculum and really dig in and help the students develop mastery through submersion into a subject. And basically, this is what Mary Cowley does. She takes the students deep, deep into a subject and gives the students several perspectives. She advocates that they search their identity by advocating that they find a voice, and she exposes to the students positive outlets for their voice to show that they do matter and that they have a place in our adult world. She enhances the students lives with her passion. That is what Mary Cowhey is about- being an activist. And so, when she takes her students deep into a subject, she brings her passions with her. It is unavoidable. The best math teacher I ever saw was a middle school teacher, and her passion was NASCAR. All her lessons centered around NASCAR. She was teacher of the year in 2004. The students excelled in Mathematics. Passion comes through in your teaching in many forms. Who am I to say which vehicle is more appropriate than another. Mary Cowley's passion is activism and that is okay. My only concern: It is imparitive to make sure that what you are passionate about is age appropriate and focuses on curriculum standards.

Jen:

She definitely teaches who she is--she brings that into the classroom and that is how she teaches--activism, community, critically, etc...

I have received so many great ideas from this book and overall it is a good book if you look at it as a whole.  Like I said before there are a few topics that I struggled with but it goes back to letting teachers be teachers and have the variety of teaching in the classrooms.

She is a very passionate teacher as Jon says and she really brings out this passion during this book.  I really get what teaching critically means after reading this book.