Chapter three in The Differentiated Classroom is titled Rethinking How We Do School – And For Whom. It was a little too common sense for me and didn’t provide me with the type of information I came to this book for: specific differentiation strategies I can use in my own classroom.
The chapter discusses the fact that school has changed substantially in the last 100 years, and so have students. While many different types of students did not attend public schools years ago (students from poor families worked, students from rich families went to boarding school, physically disabled students were homeschooled, etc.) significantly more attend today.
Students are all extremely different, and as such, all of their learning needs are different.
This chapter felt, to me, like a justification for why we need to differentiate. Nothing rubbed me the wrong way, I’m just already on board with differentiation so the entire chapter felt like a sales pitch for something I already own.
One point which did stick out to me was that children learn best with moderate challenge. If something is too easy, they’ll become bored and if something is too challenging, they’ll begin to lose hope and think they are “stupid”. The challenge as teachers is to find just the right point for where the child is at.
Here’s to hoping chapter four is a little juicier! If you’re interested in learning more about the book, here’s a link to it on Amazon.
katieisateacher.com 