Chapter 2

Turning Points 2000 Chapter Two
The big over-arching theme of chapter two is the notion that schools should work to create safe learning environments and help to create “well-rounded” students who are life-long learners. What is vitally important to take away from the Turning Points idea and platform is the notion that this structure is meant to help change the lives of ALL students, not just most of them; schools should not try to help the wealthy over the poor or try to help the white over the black students – schooling is meant for every student no matter what they look like or where they come from. The sooner we realize that the better everyone will be. Two other points in the chapter that stood out to me were the notions of a healthy environment and of doing the job correctly. It is vital to have a safe and healthy environment for students or else they will dislike going to school, will not open up to their peers or teachers, and will be miserable; the obvious result is that they will just not show up to school. It has to be a safe and fun place and, when that happens, students will greatly enjoy going to school. The other important thing is that if you are going to make changes then you better do them in full instead of “half-assed” so that the things do change and make school a better place for kids.

I agreed with everything that the chapter spoke about, but I especially agreed with the line “staff middle grades schools with teachers who are expert at teaching young adolescents”; I think that a major problem with our schools today is that the people being hired to teacher either are just not good at it, don’t want to really do it, or were trained so poorly that they couldn’t be a good teacher if they tried. I am of the mindset that too many teacher education programs continually pass students through the system so that they can keep up a reputation or because they so desperately need the tuition money – this does nothing except ruin the lives of the students that these teachers will eventually go teach. I really think that the programs need to be more strict on who they allow in and spend time throughout the year checking up on students to make sure they are not drinking excessively or using drugs. Teachers have to want to teach or else they will not make their students want to learn because, like wolves, students “smell” fear and can sense when a teacher does not want to be there. I am all in favor for more accountability for teachers so that we can hopefully adopt these items from Turning Points and refurbish our education system here in the United States.