Why?

Currently I am reading Tony Danza's book, I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High which was recently published. In the book he chronicles the life of a first year teacher, himself, as he navigates the world of an urban high school. Even though the book is a memoir of his year, it contains several nuggets that educators and parents should take into account. The first one is that students are more engaged in their learning when the learning is participatory. He painstakingly writes about the classes when students were not participating and the trouble that tended to arise from lack of involvement. On the flip side, he gives an example of a lesson using a Scavenger Hunt to review for a test of the book, Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck and the engagement level of the students completing this exercise. Really, how much more are we, as adults, interested in something when we get to participate? Another nugget of wisdom he supplied was that we need to look deeper than surface level before we judge or label a student. He was surprised to see the problems that students were dealing with on a daily basis. Problems that ranged from not knowing which college to attend to being abused by a family member on a daily basis. Most of the time the students tried to hide their pain and go through the day without talking about their problems. How many days do we short change another person by judging them? I can honestly say, I have done it and I am ashamed of that. As I get older, I think wisdom is kicking in and I realize we all have faults and judging someone else only serves to try to make ourselves look better. As a parent, there are many times that I mistook my children's attitudes and choice of clothes as being disrespectful where in truth, they were dealing with issues that were much more difficult than I could have ever imagined. As a parent, I have become much more accepting and quiet instead of always trying to have the answer. If you get a chance, read the book. It validated a lot of my beliefs in teaching, parenting, and in students. Now finally, the Why? from the title. Why because we never know when something as simple as reading a book can make a difference in the way we look at those around us.