Blog Post 2: Szwed

Szwed has a very good point in his article, it is important for teachers to teach reading and writing for their life, not just for school; and it is important to think about the nontraditional reading and writing that takes place every day.

There was a sentence in the beginning that stood out to me, it is the thesis, I believe, of this whole article: “it is entirely possible that teachers are able to teach reading and writing as abstract skills, but do not know what reading and writing are for in the lives and futures of their students” (422). When I read this I had to stop, think, and reread it. Then I shared it with two of my roommates who are also going to be teachers. We had a discussion about what was said and we all agreed with this statement very much. There is a certain truth to what was said and teachers do need to start paying attention to what they think they are teaching reading and writing for; it is used for so much more than just reading a text book or writing a research essay.

One of the topics discussed I the article was the fact that not all students read alike. For example “a boy, otherwise labeled as retarded and unable to read assigned texts, may have considerable skill at reading and interpreting baseball record books” (423). I love to read a good dystopian or utopian novel, but hate to read textbooks because I do not like being told what to read. Every child is different in the way they read and interpret what they have read.

This whole article reminded me of the video we watched in class, Ken Robinson: Changing Education Paradigms. Robinson was saying how doctors just fills kids with medications and teachers try to teach the kids in one way, which is not the right way for everyone; we must use divergent thinking.