Holler If You Hear Me Analysis

Teaching to Help Students Succeed

Many young learners attend schools with hopes of attaining the skills and knowledge to succeed in life. However, because of the vast numbers of students a school can have, teachers are unable to help each student individually. In order to regulate the school population, the school system uses generalized standards for both students and teachers. While this system may work to ensure that each student has a desk to sit in, it does not guarantee that each student will benefit. It does not account for the fact that not all students learn the same way. In the end, the students are criticized unfairly and many fall through the cracks. In the book, Holler If You Hear Me, by Gregory Michie, the author shares his experience as a teacher. By building positive relationships with his students and discovering their strengths, Michie was able to help his students engage in learning. Michie’s experience shows us how a system that uses standardized teaching methods and testing can be detrimental to a student’s educational achievements and how customizing teaching methods according to the students’ learning styles can be effective.

When Michie began to teach officially, he was faced with the challenge of relating with his students and getting them to want to learn. They were tired of the same teaching methods and Michie was at a loss for ideas. Michie decided to use an unorthodox method of teaching when one of his students, Tavares, spoke up in class: “Well this is what I think we ought to do. We oughta put this school on trial” (Michie 8). Tavares’s idea had sparked an interest in his classmates, and they all agreed to his suggestion. Instead of turning the idea away, Michie recognized this situation as a great learning opportunity. It was decided then that they would have a mock