Chapter 7: Teaching for Understanding

This chapter is by far my favorite of the book yet. Simply because it is calling out the education system of how and what they are teaching. It argues that covering material is a terrible way to look at a school day and we should be teaching students so they understand what is supposed to be learned. The book also states that understanding and higher level thinking is not reserved for those students that have mastered the basic skills. This is the theory and model I want to build my classroom around. I want students to think, and know how to think. They may need a calculator to figure out 10 times 5 but if they are aware of what they need to tell the calculator to do and why I think they are far better off in terms of math and life. Understanding the material is far more important than being able to spout random facts.