Kim's Teacher Blog

According to the dictionary Intelligence can be described as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Children are highly intelligent, however it does not always come across to teachers.  We expect children to know, understand, speak and write what we want them to.  For some children writing an opinion essay about the worst weather disaster is extremely boring and difficult because they know nothing about the subject.  Therefore, the student is either going to not write anything at all or is going to write something that does not show their true intelligence level.  If a teacher’s objective is to have the students write an opinion essay and she knows that a particular student will not do well on this essay based on the subject, the teacher could take the student aside and offer a different subject, one that the student has a great deal of knowledge in, for the essay.  The objective of the lesson is being met even though the essay is not the same as the rest of the student

1. Describe how you believe teacher "WITHITNESS" (Jennings, p. 43) reduces teacher bias and improves the culture of a classroom. What does "wititness" look like in a classroom setting? What does it feel like? I believe that a teacher that has withitness improves the culture of the classroom by genuinely knowing their students and being aware of what is going on in their classroom.  If a teacher knows that a student had a basketball game the night before and the student came in the next day quiet and sullen, the teacher could take the student aside and talk with him about the game and how he did his best and that there is always another game to improve his skills at.  Just acknowledging the fact that you remembered he had a game goes a long way to improving this student’s mood for the entire day.  Teacher’s that practice relationship management also have a better understanding of self-awareness and social awareness.  They are also able to control their emotions.  T