chapter 6

The first thing I thought of when I read the "fight or flight" was my third grade teacher. This teacher was a drill sergent and was constantly belittling students. We were practicing for our spring concert. Our class was doing line dancing and we had to practice the "electric slide" Nothing has changed since the 3rd grade because I still can't dance! The teacher saw me missing the steps and she just started yelling at me and embarrasing me in front of my peers. This is the first and probably the only time that I yelled back at a teacher! She made me mad and I yelled back and ended up with a trip to the principle's office. Now when I think of 3rd grade this is always the first thing that pops into my mine. This teacher failed to build my confidence, instead she shot it down even more and it caused me to fight back. Self-worth is to be encouraged. I have found in my classroom that the students eat up the praise and really strive to show me what they can do.

I found the different perceptions of achievement to be very interesting. I liked how they tied the perception of a woman's idea of shopping to a man's idea of shopping. I have a little boy in my classroom who struggles academically. However, this young boy has a tremendous work ethic. He spends twice the amount of time on a homework assignment and triple the amount of time studing for a test to receive a c or B. He is always so proud of his work and focuses more on what he has achieved rather than what grade he got.