one teacher's journey.

When we were first told that we would be blogging about our thoughts on different articles, I was not thrilled. Reading is not something that I enjoy. So reading articles about incorporating reading and literacy into my math or science classroom did not sound appealing to me at all. But One Teacher's Journey by Victoria Gentry Ridgeway caught my eye before I even began reading the article. If I am going to read, I enjoy reading about the lives of teachers and their ideas about what to do and what not to do in the classroom. A quote in the first paragraph drew me in, making me want to continue reading what Ridgeway had to say..."A quarter of a century is a long time, but the following events so changed my life that I remember them as though they happened yesterday." Obviously the following events impacted her life enough to share with others, so I wasn't as skeptical about reading the article.

At one of the meetings that Ridgeway attended about content literacy, her thoughts resembled mine very closely..."Something about reading in the content areas, something about using reading to teach science - what kind of nonsense was this?" Like I said before, I am not a big fan of reading so the thought of incorporating reading into my science or math class just kind of slips away. But after reading her success stories of how she incorporated content literacy into her teaching, I am beginning to be more open to the idea.

I really liked the statement that Joy Monahan shared with Ridgeway..."She said that students could all learn, but that they all learned in different ways, and the learning environment in which they found themselves created observed differences in achievement." This is something that I try to keep in mind always! Realizing that all students can learn in the right environment, and creating that environment for them can make a huge difference in the life and learning of the students. I hope that as I begin student teaching next Spring and teaching on my own that I will consciously make an effort to meet the needs of each student and incorporate some of the ideas shared in this article.