Thing 12-Creating Community Through Commenting

The two points that I feel are most important when it comes to commenting on blogs is 1. Remember the Power of Words and 2. Write a meaningful comment. There is a time and place for everything. When writing your comments, they should not be hurtful thoughts, but should be meaningful. Whether you agree/disagree with the author, your comments should always pertain to the topic being discussed. I always refer back to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

I commented on blogs from my list on Google Reader.

The first topic that drew my attention was on “What to know about Bullying.” This drew my attention because this is a topic I deal with a bunch with my students in my ISS class. Here is my comment on this issue: I don't think bullying will ever stop. I feel as an educator we have to act proactively in order to prevent several future occurrences. We must educate the kids about bullying and let them know those actions will not be tolerated and will be dealt with accordingly. Mainly we need to let them know we are always there to listen to their situations. Sometimes we get caught up in doing what we are doing and are not actually listening to them. For the kids I work with, the school is a lot of my student's safe haven and they need to know we are there for them, at all time.

The second topic that drew my interest was on “Classroom Management for Substitutes.” I really liked this because I subbed for a semester before I got into teaching, to see if teaching was the right fit for me. Here is my comment on this topic. I was a substitute teacher for a little over a half of a year before I got into teaching. One thing I learned after being a sub and a regular education teacher is that if the regular ed teacher has set a firm set of guidelines in their classroom and the students understand that you mean business, then they will follow those same rules for the sub, for the most part. As a teacher, now I let my kids know that disrespecting my subs is like disrespecting me. I also let them know that no matter who is in the room, when I am not there, they better treat them with the same respect as they would to me or consequences will follow. I haven't had a serious problem yet. I have learned that telling a kid that they have disappointed you has more affect on the kid than just telling them you are mad at them.