". . . he does not understand the task at hand and reverts back to what he can do and what interests him." (Pahl, 49).
The student in this example is "off task" and not completing the math assignment that you have given him. As a teacher I would automatically infer that he is not doing the work because he doesn't want to, not because he can't. This troubles and excites me. I am excited because the student wants to work, but it troubles me that he can't. It goes back to the question of do I know my students? I need to make sure that I can understand my students so when situations like this arise, I handle them correctly. The book brings home the point that I need to play on the interests' and prior knowledge of my students. I am happy to start thinking about how to implement this into my own classroom. I can motivate a lot of students by using subjects that will interest them. If I can also use the knowledge of what they already know, I can make my lesson plans a lot more effective. Our students know a lot, outside of the classroom tasks that we assign them. The more that I can learn understand these things, the better experience my students will have in class.
The hard question to ask ishow can I figure out what my students already know? How do I find out what intersts them? And then how can I mesh them all together?
This is an interesting thought. This makes me think about our management class and all the time we were told to spend getting to know the students at the beginning of the year. Making a distinct effort to understand our students and what they are interested and what they already know may make all the difference.
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