After reading chapter two there was a sentence that really stood out to me, that I had to go back and reread. "So much of what happens in school seems artificial to students, a series of meaningless assignments that they must perform for the teacher or else fail." (27) When I was in high school I remember thinking this exact same thing for just about every assignment in just about every class. The big question on my mind was "why?" and not a single teacher answered that for me. Jago not only answers "why" but also tells us "how" in this chapter.
Students need guidance and as an English teacher I think that is a big part of our job. Guiding the students to achieve a higher learning. Without a set purpose this task would be next to impossible, purpose meaning why as a student do I need to learn new vocabulary words. A higher vocabulary means a higher understanding, it is as simple as that. Understanding leads to knowledge and knowledge leads to success or power or whatever you want to use it for, but no matter how it is used the importance of it cannot be argued against. A student should be able to recognize the importance of the lessons we are trying to teach them, they should want to better themselves as learners. This can only be done with a teacher who possess the ability to motivate and interest. For the inexperienced teacher, such as myself, I think Jago offers plenty of decent ideas for a majority of situations that will occur in a classroom. She talks a lot about the zone of proximal development and rightfully so, since I agree that the importance of this zone cannot be overlooked, students must be pushed in all aspects of their schooling and that includes vocabulary.
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