Subjects Matter Chapter 1

Subjects Matter. As an educator, we all like to believe that our subject, our class, our assignments reign supreme. In the first chapter of Subjects Matter, we learn that reading is a subject that is important across all fields and all disciplines.

As we discussed in class, reading ability can affect a person’s success throughout life. Reading can determine if you are able to get a good job, support your family, and be independent. As a teacher, we can make or break a student’s attitude toward reading. Subjects Matter ties our knowledge of this to real life examples in chapter one of the book.

In the first chapter of Subjects Matter, there are two anecdotes of teaching strategies employed by different teachers. In one, the students find a subject they are passionate about and incorporate what they learn in reading into a creative expression project. In this way, students are developing independence, creativity, and critical thinking skills. Rather than being told what to read and how they should interpret the information, they are encouraged to look outside of their lens of the world around them and expand their horizons. As a gifted student in school, I was encouraged to learn in this manner. My gifted classes were structured by the students, and we were encouraged to pursue individual interests and ideas. We selected projects of interest, pursued them in our own unique ways, and shared what we had learned with each other. For example, in third grade my gifted project involved research into the cultural life of ancient egyptians. I read from various sources, interpreted what I learned, and created an inclusive look at life as in ancient Egypt. In this I learned, that when independence is involved, the passion can drive something far greater than a reading assignment. This is the teaching strategy we see in the first story in Subjects Matter.

In the second example however, we see a very different picture of reading and learning. The students are merely assigned reading and are not encouraged to think critically about the subject. In these two different pictures of learning, we see very different results as well. The students in the second teaching method felt apathetic about their learning, and did not feel encouraged to think independently. As a science and social studies teacher, I can (and should) choose to incorporate reading into my lessons. It is important that students develop their abilities across the board. That is why cross-cutting curriculum standards exist.