Knowing Our Students

This section of the article really caught my attention, "...teachers need to know something about their students' family makeup, immigration history, favorite activities, concerns, and strengths. Teachers should also be aware of their students' perceptions of the value of school knowledge, their experiences with different subject matters in everyday settings..."
The reason why this is so interesting is because last semester I thought I knew my students' backgrounds and thoughts. Wow, was I wrong. Our school offers a poetry class, and when I attended a few sessions I was blown away. I learned things about my students that would have definitely helped me when teaching them. It answered many questions as to why they couldn't make it to class on time, why they would fall asleep in class, why school was not important to them, etc. It was towards the end of the trimester when I learned all this, but I hope my schedule for next year will allow me to allocate some time for this.