REFLECTIONS ON CHAPTER 23

Following are some of the statements from Chapter 23
that I think educators, including myself,need to keep in
mind when creating school policies or planning
instruction- 1)Individual characters can greatly affect
success in school and life; these characteristics
include: Gender, economic status and ethnicity 2)The
above characters are linked to the literacy problem
described in Chapter 23. 3)With regards to gender: 
Writing:-Female writing ability is closer to average
than many males' abilities Literacy: three-fourths of
poor readers are male The percent of men attending
college have seen a decline It is still difficult for
women to achieve the highest rank
 
The authors recommend several possible solutions:
1)Teach so powerfully that socioeconomic status, gender
and cultural diversity are not a factor (a goal we need
to strive for) 2)Devise better curriculum 3)Increase
Achievement 4)Identify and recognize that children and
parents of poverty also identify themselves as poor
learners along with their teachers and administrators
5)Train teachers to use curriculum and instruction
strategies that address learners suffering from poverty
6)Instill pride in all cultures and students'Primary
Language Realize that: Low income workers have less
chance to acquire technological skills at home which
often translates into different levels in knowledge of
technology for children. 2)Failure to learn leaves
people with a life-long self image that they are unable
to learn. 3)There are no gender differences sufficient
to prevent boys and girls from having equal degrees of
excellence in all areas within the general curriculum.
4)Race does not predict academic ability but good
education does. 5)Academic excellence affects
self-esteem.
 
Because I work in higher education, I meet men and
especially women who are reticent to go back to school
and earn a degree because they had several bad
experiences in their k-12 education. We now know that
individuals can learn at any age and many middle-aged
students are proving this to be true. There are times
when I could actually see some of our graduates'
self-esteem grow as they reached out to receive that
piece of paper at graduation. In addition to learning
how to teach to students from diverse ethnic and
socioeconomic backgrounds, it is even more important to
plan and conduct more challenging and engaging types of
curriculum that will entice all students to learn and
make them life-long learners. This I think, it one of
our greatest challenges.