UbD Chapter 4

I really liked the part of the chapter where the authors reminded us that we are teaching people, not just empty heads waiting for content. I think teachers sometimes forget to think of their pupils as kids instead of just students; we need to remember that they have problems, goals, and challenges just like we do, and all of those things affect their education. The curriculum should serve the students, not the other way around. Knowing myself like I do, I think I could end up having the tendency to focus a little bit more on the instruction portion of teaching, because I really want to connect with my students and make their classroom a safe, happy environment. But now that I know that there must be a perfect balance between the two, I can prepare myself to make the content the foundation of my safe and happy classroom. I also think that what the chapter says about embracing the different learning styles and levels of students is definitely something that I want to make a part of my classroom. In order to effectively teach our students, we need to stop thinking of their differences as something to be bothered by. Even students who have some form of disability are not lacking as learners; they simply bring a different kind of intelligence into the classroom, and instead of bemoaning the difficulties that this can sometimes bring to teachers, we should be celebrating the way we and our students can learn from each other’s differences.