Chapter 23

The staff at the school and Torey come to the decision that if Lori does come back to school, she will be in Torey's classroom almost full time while still officially being on Edna's class roster. Lori will stay in Torey's room for all subjects except for physical education, music, and social studies. When Torey contacts Lori's father, he tells her that he can't bring himself to force Lori to go to school, but Torey tells him that the best thing for Lori is to come back, and that she can't make things right if Lori isn't there. Finally it is agreed that Torey will come to their home for a visit. When she does, Lori is pretty upset and tells her to go away. She tells Torey that she is never going back to school because of what Edna did to her, and basically that no one was going to make her. Torey tells Lori that she is sorry that everyone made reading out to be more important than it really is. She tells Lori that she has so many other gifts and talents and she just happens to have a hard time with reading. At the end of the chapter Lori seems to be somewhat more convinced to come back to school.

It is devastating to think about a child not wanting to come to school because they feel like they are vulnerable to humiliation not just from their peers but coming from their own TEACHER. Teachers should always be striving to make students feel safe, not to make them feel stupid and like a complete failure. One of the things we talked about in our EDUC 250 class is about the downfalls of "popcorn reading", where students read aloud one at a time from a certain story/passage. I think that this does more harm than good, and that there are plenty of opportunities for students to read aloud without having to feel humiliated if they don't get through a chapter. There are many things teachers can do in order to promote a POSITIVE learning environment for all of their students. I know I will take these things into consideration when creating my own teaching philosophy and classroom structure.