Chapter 10: Going Beyond the Classroom

Find ways for students to learn when they are at home or on summer break. Students are only at school 8 hours a day; continual learning must take place outside of school for continual growth to happen. By finding ways for students to learn outside of the classroom, the material also becomes more important.

Going beyond the classroom is one thing that daunts me a little. I worry that I will not be able to achieve this very well. Even just think about it now I feel like it will be a lot of work and don’t want to do it. I hope that as a teacher, I will find actually going beyond the classroom easier. I try to think of what Erin Grunwell did in Freedom Writers Diary. How can I do things like that or my students? I am sure I will eventually think up ways. Perhaps I can ask students to find a catchy phrase around town and write it down, then I will relate it to our unit on figures of speech. I still have no clue on what I could do in the summer months to keeps students thinking outside of the school year, and yet, I feel that is the most important thing of all. Student won’t truly learn until they try to learn for themselves under their own motivation. Hmmmmm, quite a challenge.