Chambliss Lecture Response

The lecture and discussion with Mr. Chambliss seemed very informative to me. I was especially interested in his talk about the difference in "school diversity" and social statuses of students as he moved from school to school. Going from a mid-income level school to an elementary with 60% low-income families had to be a difficult adjustment for him. In thinking about the difference, I related it back to the information in Chapter 7 regarding behavioral approaches to learning. Low-income students often require more assistance and push for motivation. As laid out by Santrock, the punishment for students' behavior probably varies for each child. I find it interesting to think about the possible techniques teachers use in their classrooms. With varying need levels of students, teachers have to re-wire how they use reinforcements. Some kids may react differently to positive and negative reinforcements, where some students may take well to the Premack principle. Learning which child requires which type of attention serves as a difficult task for educators.

Another interesting note from the lecture was Chambliss' encouragement for "rural raised" teachers to stretch themselves out of their comfort zone into a bigger school system. I've always thought of myself as teaching in a smaller school, just the like the high school I attended. Listening to his advice, it made me question whether or not I should look into teaching at a different sized school or in larger city.