Chapters 1 & 2 Book Club Assignment

Chapters 1 & 2: Intro and Origin

Coach B says... "You've just been made principal of a charter school 
and you're about to address your staff for the first time. Select three 
points from chapters 1 and 2 that you are going to talk about describing 
key aspects of Whole Brain Teaching. Include one story about your 
teaching experience."

Whole Brain Teaching is a way of teaching that increases engagement and decreases common management problems. It isn’t a system, or a program. It’s a mindset!

First, students are “emotionally involved in lessons that require seeing, saying, hearing, and physically moving.” We’ve all learned that in order for students to be successful during a lesson, and retain the information taught, we have to move past lecture and basic discussion and toward the students teaching each other. WBT provides a structure for teachers to constantly engage their students and for students to retain information and solidify it as real learning rather than regurgitation.

Second, students CRAVE fun and excitement. It’s difficult as educators for us to compete with video games, iPods, and social media. WBT structures lessons in a way that encourages “orderly fun.” When students buy-in to the game format in a classroom, review becomes fun… challenging even. It helps us as educators move past surviving and into actually thriving in the classroom!

Finally, educational neurology is proving what we as educators have known for years… the more modalities a student uses, especially simultaneously, the higher their engagement and the more they learn and retain. Coach B adds, “If a student’s whole brain is involved in learning, there isn’t any mental area left over for challenging behavior.” By engaging students in sight, sound, speaking, doing, and teaching, all at the same time, we get 100% of them 100% focused on the lesson and there isn’t any time or energy left to contemplate and manipulate.

I have taught in two very distinctive classroom environments. In my first environment, the most challenging behaviors I experienced were students (yes plural, as in more than one) who brought knives to school to threaten me and actually toppling classroom furniture onto me. They were first graders. In the second environment, the most challenging behaviors I experienced were giggling and talking during my lessons. In both instances, WBT rescued my classroom from failure. When I switched from the first environment to the second, I believed I wouldn't need WBT because I wouldn't have kids physically trying to harm me. However, for our students to truly succeed in school (beyond a standardized test) and become productive, well-educated students, they need a classroom structure that encourages the highest level of cooperation and thinking—what is truly expected of them as adults.


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