“I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?”

Well, I wish I could just be whelmed.  Sadly, after reading the Reluctant Disciplinarian and after our first subject meeting and after our last class where we ran down all the due dates, its needless to say that I feel overwhelmed.  I have been waiting for this moment to arrive and it has.  MTC has not made me cry yet, but I feel like the flood gates may open in the coming weeks.  The thing is, we just finished week three of summer school, and the thought of what we have to do in the next TWO weeks is just, well, overwhelming! The thing is though that I spent four years at Georgetown doing this exact thing.  Each semester finals would roll around and you would have a final one day that is worth 60% of your grade followed by a 15 page paper due the next day and another final two days away.  But somehow, I made it.  I always survived.  Finals never killed me.  Sure it stretched me thin, but I always rebounded.  And that is what I have to keep in mind.  Take each day as it comes and just know that I will make it through...

Those were my immediate feelings after closing the book.  But I do have general thoughts about what was discussed.  

• As with many things, these are all suggestions. What works for one person, may not work for everyone.  Just like at summer school. You absorb it all, but at the end of the day, its up to you and how you want your classroom to look.  I feel like the “What Does Work” section should have been entitled the, “What Worked For Me” section instead.  I just find it hard to believe that this guy has found the perfect calculation for what is necessary to be a good teacher.  For instance, if I did everything he said, I still think I would have many issues!  Teaching is unique because two people can have very different classrooms but equal success.  
• Start with traditional methods - use textbook and other traditional forms of assessment for the first few weeks of school.  Using traditional methods is how students define a good teacher.  This idea was new to me and caused me to stop for a moment and think about it.  I can see the benefit in doing this.  Students are use to text books and the traditional way of teaching.  However, I wonder if that then causes them to think that the teacher will be just as bad as the last teacher they had? Either way, I think this may be something I experiment with.

“Learn to find the truth in any advice” - this was the take home point for me.  Overall, I enjoyed this book.  I think I will read it again closer to the start of school and I will pick a few things that I want to focus on.  Yes its true there were a lot of antidotes in this book, but what’s the alternative? Reading a traditional boring education textbook?? I think not.  Rubinstein did a good job of getting the same points across in a much more interesting format. 

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