Chapter one is called the Badlands. Throughout this chapter Rafe Esquith talks about how teaching is very tough. You very first year of teaching is going to be rough no matter how much of a prodigy you are. You are also going to have a lot of bad days throughout your career. On page 8 Rafe explains that “when you have a bad day, you are not a bad teacher”. Rafe also speaks about with his experience with a student named Joey. Joey is a student that had a rough life and is described as “a true contrarian” by Rafe. This chapter is a brief description on how Rafe’s teaching goal is to “teach students that they can control their own destinies and make their own lives extraordinary”. This chapter …show more content…
This chapter is Rafe explain that no matter how well my lesson plan is put together something will always go wrong. This happened to Rafe when he was planning an astrology lesson and none of the students knew their birthday. When this happens, you must be quick to fix the problem. In Rafe’s situation he gave the students random birthdays for this lesson. When you make mistakes like this you must learn from them. On page 57 Rafe explains that “every disaster that happens is an opportunity for you to get better”. This chapter taught me that I will always have room for improvement with every lesson that has a disaster. Also, that some disasters cannot be …show more content…
Throughout this chapter Rafe talks about how “This job can kill you”. Many people may know that teachers care a lot about their job. When a teacher is unable to help a student, they feel as if they have failed. Some teachers take this very deeply and emotionally. Teachers have died from over stress which caused other complicates to their death. Rafe explains that we cannot blame ourselves for not being able to help a student because we cannot help everyone. On page 94 he explains that teachers are important in a student’s life, but if a student has a difficult home life, it is very difficult to help the student. All we can do as educators is try. We must always remember to take time for ourselves and not to stress out too much. Make sure to de-stress on the weekends. This chapter taught me to not take a failure too personally. As a future educator, I will fail because educators have many variables playing against them.
Chapter 7 is called a question of Balance. This chapter talks about students and homework. A student has a busy life in school and for a student to grow, they must get a sufficient amount of sleep every night. A teacher cannot expect a student to do over an hour of homework every night. Rafe believes that “students should be told that homework is giving them an opportunity to be responsible and independent” on page 103. This chapter teaches me that homework is a good thing, but not to assign too much. Also, I have learned