Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Summer Reading Round 2!

With the second part of our book read there were some questions that were proposed with these questions it made me think of how everyone’s life is different and how everyone is going to handle situations differently. It is always a good life tip to handle things with as much of a positive spin that you can. Randy got cancer and that was devastating news, however he was able to look at it as how he had lived and not how he is dying. If we as teachers are able to at least try to put this positive spin on things that are a lot less detrimental as cancer could you imagine how much better life would be? It’s easy and human nature to be able to complain, but to look at things from a brighter perspective may be difficult at times, but in the end it makes a persons life happier. 


This section of the book also made me come to the realization that there are going to be students of literally all varieties. Some of your most brilliant students may have the flaw of being bad socially because they are “too smart” for everyone else. These students you need to find a way to try and both humble them without dousing their integrity. You also have to be careful to not be insulting of them.

When randy was younger and unmarried he would watch his Niece and nephew all the time. He taught them lessons that were beneficial to their morality and realizing what’s important in life. As a teacher it is important that you have students leave your classroom with so much more than what they read in a book.

After randy was diagnosed his wife had an issue with frustration with him around the house because of the little things he would do because he was focused on other things.Jai started writing down all her little frustrations and started letting them go because she realized they weren’t important enough to fight over. As a teacher I’m sure daily frustrations will happen and everyone needs to find their own way to cope with it, rather than letting something small eat at you or cause and argument. 

Randy said that the most important thing he would teach his kids was to be able to reflect on themselves and be able to critic themselves in order to become better people. I  think self reflection is SUPER important. It’s a necessity to keep moving forward in life.



Randy had a student that had a big dream, which was wanting to work on a set for a Star Wars movie. When that dream was realized he never forgot Randy and thanked him for helping him achieve his dream. As a teacher I hope I make an impact on students lives, so that they are able  to thank me later on down the road.

Lastly, the book talked about head faking students. This is when you have students do one thing, but in reality they are learning another. I think creativity goes along way and this can help a teacher teach any student if they find a way to line up that students interest with what they should learn. 


Excited to read the last part of the book! 

2 comments:

  1. Rachel, thank you for sharing your thoughts on the second part of the book and how you see the lessons from the reading connecting to your future experiences as an educator. Your blog post is still missing evidence from your book discussions with your mentoring team and their contributions and thoughts on the reading. One of the great things about the summer book club is the insight provided to you from your mentoring team that will help you discover new ways to apply the key points from what you're reading to agricultural education. For your last blog post, I would like to see you to find ways to better include and incorporate what was shared in the discussion with your team as well as some of their thoughts and connections to the material.

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  2. Rachel, so sorry I did not get a chance to contribute to your questions about section 2 before your blog post went up! I have enjoyed hearing what you're identifying and learning the most about in our read! You are totally right, handling life with that "positive spin" you were talking about would certainly change the world around us. "Adapt and overcome" has always been a mantra of mine in the classroom as I have been learning and growing in my first few years in the classroom. I think Randy shows some similar themes to that in this past section.

    I want to challenge you as we move into section 3 to point out some more specific connections from this book to your future classroom and/or student teaching experience!

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