Whole Brain Teaching- {Beginning the Book}

I have began my professional summer reading book this week after making the choice to get rid of my clip chart You can read about my decision here! I ordered Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids to begin thinking of other ways to manage behavior.

The first 2 chapters are a brief introduction of how WBT began and the teachers behind the scenes.  They provided several statistics on crimes that happen at school. A quote that really stuck with me:

"Most Challenging kids genuinely want to be part of the classroom environment; this is why they work so hard and continuously to get everyone's attention." (page 2)

I can think of numerous students who fit this description. They don't want to be in trouble or "labeled" but they really don't know how to go about how to get positive attention.

Chapter 3: Seven Common Teaching Mistakes

"The greatest mistake we make as instructors is making our classes more difficult to teach." (pg 10)

1. Yelling at difficult students does not fix the teaching problem but makes it worse. Most of these students come from yelling families. If screaming helped our challenging students then "children of crazed families would be our model pupils." (10) So, control your temper.

2. Confronting challenging students with their peers gives them an audience which will make them braver or more likely to rebel. Talk to students without an audience

3. Teachers that lack structure will have chaotic classrooms. There should be a place for everything in your classroom and your students should know where it belongs. Be super organized!

4. Teachers that don't like teaching will have the most challenging students. This was serioulsy a DUH moment. If you don't like teaching then why in the world are you teaching??

So, fall in love with teaching.

5. The less work/prep you do the more work your classes will be.  This is what makes teaching so hard. If I left at 3 every day and did not prepare anything for the next day or do a little work over the summer to prep, I would fumble through my plans. So, work hard even when your not at school. I do believe you can have a healthy balance.

6. Your students are not like you in school. You cannot expect that they are going to super respectful/ Teachers loved going to school, we were the class pet, we chose to spend the rest of our lives in school. Some of these kids are counting down the days to get out and never look back.

7. Lack of professional growth and willingness to try new things. Our class dynamics are always changing. Don't be scared to try something new! Grow or die.

This chapter, to me, was a lot of DUH moments and I think you  would agree with me. These 7 points, I believe are facts and not opinions. And every though we know this we still have challenging disruptive students

I will be continuing to read this throughout the next week and blog about my reading. This helps me stay accountable and make sure I do a little Professional Reading this summer. :) Are you reading or have read WBT? What are your thoughts. Do you want to join me in reading this book? Order it here! Don't forget to come back and share your thoughts!