Dear Editor,

            If you have ever watched the new TV show Glee and know who Kurt is, then you would know a little bit about LGBT bullying.  LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.   Kurt is repetitively being bullied by students at school because he is openly gay.  Therefore, he decides to switch to a private all boys’ high school. This is just an example of LGBT bullying that many people have seen before.  Bullying can take place in many different forms.  Young LGBT students are at more of a risk to be bullied compared to their heterosexual peers.  In the National School Climate Survey, over ten years a total of 7,000 LGBT students were surveyed to see if they were bullied at one time.  The results stated that eight in ten LGBT students had been verbally harassed at school, four in ten had been physically harassed at school, six in ten felt unsafe at school, and one in five had been the victim of a physical assault at school.  With these statistics it’s astonishing that LGBT bullying is still happening in our schools. LGBT students may be bullied because of sexual/gender discrimination and bias by their schoolmates.  With this all said bullying needs to be stopped in our schools.  There are many different ways schools and parents can prevent bullying.  For example, I recommend teachers and parents to show the video “Bullied” to their children.  A person can get it free online at www.tollerance.org/bullied.  What are you going to do today to stop LGBT students from being bullied?  Like Kurt, many students have to switch schools and have many other negative experiences that affect their lives.

Sincerely,

Someone who cares

Ellen Becker

Rx: Read to Your Baby

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/education/edlife/edl-17read-t.html?ref=edlife

In the article Rx: Read to Your Baby, doctors say that parents should read to their babies.  Therefore, in a program called Reach Out and Read, doctors are giving books out to parents of low-income.  They are trying to influence parents to read more to their children.  There were many benefits that a child receives that this article stated.  It said that babies that were read to, by the age of three those babies had a vocabulary of 1,100 words compared to babies that didn’t get read to be 525 words.  “It’s a big cognitive, developmental and communicative step. It’s a huge step for a baby.” I thought this was interesting to read because in one of my classes we were talking about on average, in toddlerhood, how many words a child should have in their vocabulary and what can factors can influence this.  It was great to see that there is a program out there that is trying to help families that can’t afford books. 

For Students Raised on iPods, Lessons in Bridge

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/education/25bridge.html?_r=1&ref=education

I thought it was really interesting to read the article, For Students Raised on iPods, Lessons in Bridge.  It’s about how students in New York for instance, are learning how to play the card game Bridge.  This game is said to be very challenging and can help develop critical thinking skills.  Teachers are using this game to help teach students math concepts and problem-solving skills.  The article talks about how second graders are learning to play this game, so therefore Kindergarteners are learning how to count cards. This also allows students to do something else in their spare time then just playing video games.  It’s always interesting to me to see the different ways teachers create that try to help students understand material then by just giving a lecture.  The article also stated that students that play Bridge have been doing better on their assessment tests.  Overall, I really enjoyed reading this article. 

8th Group Presentation

Today in class we had the next group presentation.  They presented on Chapter 12, Creating Productive Learning Environments: Classroom Management.  I thought this group gave us valuable information other then the book which was awesome.  They talked about issues associated with the importance of classroom management, the teacher’s role, benefits of parental involvement, strategies to parents, and intervening when misbehavior happens.  The three ladies had shared a website that I thought would be a great resource to have, it was www. dailycafe.com.  They also had an interview with a teacher from Discovery Elementary School from Saint Cloud.  It was interesting to hear how this teacher’s classroom management.  It was interesting to hear how she has tables instead of desks, lamps on instead of the ceiling lights, and all the students material is organized neatly in certain areas of the room.  Her room is student-centered, not teacher-centered.  The videos that they showed were also another great way to share the information. Overall, I really enjoyed this presentation and thought that this group did an excellent job!

7th Group Presentation

The seventh group presented today on chapter ten, School Law: Ethical and Legal Influences on Teaching.  This group covered the main topics in this chapter really well. Some of the topics they included in their PowerPoint were professional ethics, licensure, teaching contract, collective bargaining, tenure, and academic freedom. They showed two videos that were really great because they were up-to-date and helped me understand the topics more fully.  One video used the example of how some teachers are getting fired because they are putting inappropriate pictures on their Facebook pages. This group didn’t get to finish their presentation so they will finish that end of the chapter up on Tuesday.  Overall, this group did an excellent job covering chapter ten. 

Dayton Urged to Stand Firm on Higher Ed Cuts

http://www.sctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011104140038

There was an article called Dayton Urged to Stand Firm on Higher Ed that was in the Saint Cloud Times informed us about higher education cuts.  The governor Dayton, which is a Democrat, wants to limit the amount of cuts to higher education but the Republicans which has the majority, wants to make large amounts of cuts.  There was a discussion with a bunch of different people, such as students and universities.  These cuts would affect colleges and universities in the state of Minnesota.  There was a quote in this article by a student that said that she understands how there needs to be cuts but we can’t cut higher education because students need these opportunities because they are the future.  Another student from the Univeristy of Minnesota wrote  that these cuts would make the class sizes larger and it would be harder for students to get into classes.  Overall, I think there is a lot of work that needs to be done and it will be hard for colleges and universities to know where to cut if these cuts happen. 

The Finland Phenomenon

                Today in class we watched a movie called The Finland Phenomenon.  It was an excellent movie and I am fortunate that we were able to watch it.  We were asked to write about three things that are different in Finland then the United States for teacher preparation.  The first thing that I noticed was different was that it’s a lot harder to get into the teacher education program in Finland.  They only take the top students.  The students have to have really good grades and be successful.   The next thing that was different was that teachers there had to go to school for five years.  Three years were for their bachelor’s degree and two more years for a master’s degree.  The last main thing was that student teachers and college professors watch other student teachers teach and provide critical feedback.  They are all evaluated multiple times and have multiple sessions doing this.  Overall, Finland’s teacher education program sound/looks like it is working and it is a lot different than the programs over here in the United States. 

Cathleen Black Is Out as City Schools Chancellor

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/cathie-black-is-out-as-chancellor/?emc=na

Cathleen Black Is Out as City Schools Chancellor was an article in the New York Times.  It was very interesting to read because we were talking about the chancellor of Washington D.C. and about how educators need to be there for the students and not for themselves in class this week.  Cathleen Black was the chancellor of the New York Schools and is being replaced by Joel I. Klein.  It seems to me from this article that Black wasn’t a very good chancellor.  She had offended many people throughout her work.  Her popularity was down to 17 percent when she was done.  She also didn’t have much experience in the area of education.  In contrast, Klein, the man that is replacing her, has done a lot with education.  He has attended public meetings about schools, has been an educator for many of years and has many other qualifications.  I thought it was interesting to read in the article that Black was more about herself and not for the students.  It said that she was asked how she felt and she said that she felt good.  I’m not sure how she can feel good knowing that she wasn’t doing a very good job.  It kind of shows where her priorities were.  Overall, it was an excellent article and I recommend others to read it like some one recommended it to me.   

studentsfirst.org

      We were asked in class to write about the website studentsfirst.org.  This is a non-profit organization.  It’s a movement to transform education.  Also, this site wants people to come together to save great teachers because usually the teachers that are the last ones hired are the first ones to leave, even if they are great. The site is led by Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of Washington D.C.  Here is the mission of the website, “Our mission is to build a national movement to defend the interests of children in public education and pursue transformative reform, so that America has the best education system in the world.”  I think that this is a great thing that Rhee is doing.  We need more people like the ones that are associated with this site if we want our education system to improve.  

Group 6 Presentation

            Group 6 presentation talked about chapter 9.  This chapter was about governance, finance, choices and how schools are funded.  They touched on school funding sources, school districts, school boards, and the jobs of the superintendent and principal. They did a great job! The information that they talked about was very interesting.  I liked how they gave us information other then the stuff that was just in the book.  I know the basics on how schools are funded, but it was nice to learn more about it.  Since I want to become a teacher, it is essential to know this stuff.  The videos that this group showed us was an excellent way to reinforce the information. Overall, I thought this group did a great job!

Waiting for Superman

            Today in class we finished watching the movie Waiting for Superman.  It was partially about charter schools in Washington D.C. and about the education system in the United States.  There were so many interesting points in this film.  Here is a bunch of the statistics that the film provided that I thought was interesting.  Since 1971, reading and math scores have flat lined.  40% of students that don’t graduate on time from a school are known as dropout factories and there are about 2,000 factories in the United States.  It costs 132,000 dollars to send a person to prison for four years and 107,900 to send a student to a private school.  Our country could have sent them to a private school for less cost.  Also, in almost everything, the U.S. is far behind other developing countries.  Tenure isn’t allowing schools to get ride of the bad teachers in schools.  This is known as passing the lemons because schools can’t get rid of their bad teachers so they just pass them around from school to school.  

We then were asked in class what affected us the most in the video.  I said that it was hard to see such young students so sad when they weren’t called for the lottery in charter schools.  These students are so excited to learn but your educational system isn’t allowing many of them too learn.  There are many factors that contribute to this but one of them is because our schools haven’t been changing while the world is.  Taken as a whole, this movie was really great and I’m really thankful that we got to watch it in class.

Chapter 8 Presentation

In class, the next group presented chapter eight, The Organization of American Schools.  There were many topics in the chapter that they covered.  For example, what is a school, school personnel and the physical plant.  I really thought it was interesting to learn about the different kinds of schools and the pros and cons to each.  The videos did an immense job pulling the information together for a better understanding.  The group also talked about some of the characteristics that are needed in order to have an effective school. Overall, this group did a great job presenting chapter eight in our text.

How was my school organized?

How was my high school organized?  First off, I went to Eden Valley- Watkins High School.  We went to school 5 days a week and had school from 8:30a.m.too 3:12 p.m.  I wish that our school would have gone year around but it didn’t.  There are so many benefits if our schools would go year around.  This originated from when most kids lived on farms and their parents needed them in the summer.  We aren’t like that anymore, three months is to long for a summer break.  My junior high and senior high school students were in the same building.  So, many of the teachers that taught junior high students also had classes that were for the senior high students.  Block scheduling was not in our school and I wish that it had been.  I really liked my school but I wish that there were some changes.  For example, the block scheduling would have been a great idea, school going year around, and our school was a little larger.  I know that the last example a person can’t fix, but our school would have been able to offer more classes in different areas.  There are some other little things I would like to change but the ones that I listed were the more important to me. 

Education Nation- Chapter 5

Chapter five in Education Nation, is called the Co-Teaching Edge. It mainly talks about how teachers, experts and parents need to work together as coeducators.  Yes, it’s true that teachers are a very important factor in a child’s education but parents are also just as important.  Here are the five main points that I feel were the most important in Chapter five.

1.                            “Teachers are prisoners of time.”  Our system doesn’t allow teachers to learn new teaching styles that are needed for the twenty-first century. 

2.                            Co-teaching with other subjects can be very effective.  The book used the example of using opera to help students write. 

3.                            Parents need to become involved in their students academics.  They’re the third leg of a three legged stool.  Where one leg is the teachers and the other leg are students. 

4.                            The internet should link school and home.  So parents know what’s going on at school.  Teachers can post information about assignments and other activities on the internet for parents and students.

5.                            Superintendents are important in schools.  Those that are effective are the ones that are true leaders of their schools. 

“The Co-Teaching Edge is about forming closer partnerships between the adults in children’s lives: their teachers, parents, caregivers, and others in the community.”

2 Million Minutes

Today in class we watched a documentary called 2 Million Minutes.  It followed six student’s lives, two from the United States, two from India, and two from China.  This movie was a great eye opener for me.  I didn’t really know much about the education systems in either China or India.  The name 2 Million Minutes is the name because the average student spends 2 million minutes at high school.  Americans aren’t globally aware about what is going on around in other educational systems.  They don’t have nearly as much homework as China or India students.  It seemed to me that American students don’t really know what they want to go to college for unlike the other two countries.  There were many interesting statistics that this documentary had.  For example, China’s school year is a month longer then America, and the student there spend twice the amount of studying then American students during their time at high school.  China and India spend most of the spotlight on the sciences and mathematics; where as the United States’ focuses on other things such as the arts and sports.   There are also other differences as well; the parents of Chinese students invest so much more into their children because China has the rule that one child per family.  It seems to me that not all parents of American students help their children with their education.  Overall, I really enjoyed this movie and am eager to learn more about other countries educational system. 

Let Kids Rule the School

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/opinion/15engel.html?ref=education

Obama stated in a recent speech that nearly a quarter of American students are dropping out of high school.  Our school system is failing to educate students not just for college but for everyday life.  The education system is only letting students have little opportunity to explore the world of learning.  This is why we need to rethink the way our schools work.  In this article, a woman follows a group of eight students around in a high school in Massachusetts.  These students basically ran there own high school classes.  They had the guidance of teachers but the students monitored each others work through out the semester and there were no grades.  Coming up with their own set of curriculum about they wanted to learn was one of the biggest advantages.  They got to read classic novels, cook, and learned different topics in math and science.  Some of the students that were part of this group were students that were considering dropping out but by the end they couldn’t stop thinking about school.  I really liked this different way of learning for children! If we could change our educational system to be more like this, I feel that we would be helping our students out a great deal more. 

Group 4 Presentation

Today in class the fourth group presented chapter seven, Educational Philosophy.  They talked about the four main areas of philosophy of education.  They were Perennialism, Essentialism, Progressivism, and Social Reconstructionism.  Then they went on to explain in detail what each one of them was.  Perennialism focuses on enduring ideas.  The teacher teaches by lecturing, questions the students and has discussions.  It really focuses on academic work.  Where as Essentialism’s goal is to have students acquire the basic skills to survive in the world today.  Progressivism is student-centered and the students learn by doing.  The teachers like to have problem based learning.  The last of the four is Social Reconstructionism.  The curriculum is geared toward social issues.  The goal is to have students understand their role in society and how they can improve the world around them.  Then they showed us two videos to go with two of these different areas.  This really helped me better understand what each of the two areas are and how it actually applies in the classroom.  They had many great quotes throughout the presentation too.  In addition, I thought it was great that the group made each of us take a quiz that examined each of our own beliefs.  It asked us questions and then at the end it had points depending on your answers, it then would place us into the areas of philosophy.  This will be a good source to go back to when we are writing our own educational philosophy papers. 

Ideal Teacher Prep Prorgram

When asked that question if I could think of an ideal teacher prep program, what would I like it to be like?  There were many different things that popped into my head.  First, I think there needs to be more time for student teaching.  I feel that students that are studying to become teachers learn the most when they are actually in the schools and seeing what’s going on.  The more hands on students can get, the better teachers they will become. That’s why I believe that more experience is required.  I also think that while we are student teaching, they should put us in two completely different schools. For example, put a student teacher in a school that has a lot of money and then one completely opposite.  Also, we could do student teaching abroad. Another thing they could add to the teacher prep program is have students take more special education classes.  They could teach students different strategies they could use in their classroom. These are just a few things that I think will help the teacher prep program improve.  I’m sure there are many other great ideas that I didn’t mention. 

Mexico Puts Its Children on a Diet

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/americas/14mexico.html?_r=1&ref=education

The people of Mexico are the heaviest in the world.  In this article, it says that one out of three children is overweight or obese.  Therefore, Mexico City is trying to put their children on a diet because obesity starts young.  So, the health and education officials are trying to stop the selling of junk food at recess (schools in Mexico don’t provide lunches).  I found this fact in the article to be interesting; nearly one third of Mexico’s health funding goes to fight diseases that are connected to obesity.  After seeing this fact, I can understand why Mexico is trying to have their children start eating healthy.  They are trying to educate students to eat healthy and to exercise. Also, I think they need to inform the students about other issues that are a result of obesity later on in life.  It doesn’t help that the schools are trying to improve the health of students when venders are right outside of school trying to sell students junk food as they are on their way home from school.  I think it’s a great idea that Mexico City is trying to do something and I hope that they will be able to figure out away to lower the number of students that are over weight. 

21st Century skills/ Tony Wagner

In class we watched a video on Tony Wagner that was called 21^st Century Skills.  He is the author of the book Achievement Gap that some of us are reading in class.  He has a list of seven skills students need for the future in order to succeed. 

1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
2. Leading by Influence/ Collaboration
3. Agility and Adaptability
4.  Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
5. Affective Oral Writing Communication Skills
6. Accessing and Analyzing Information
7. Curiosity and Imagination   

After hearing the list of skills that Tony Wagner talks about, I would have to agree that students need for the future.  I don’t think many schools today teach these skills and schools need to be changing with time. 

Education Nation by Milton Chen- Chapter 4

Chapter for in Education Nation is called The Time/Place Edge: Learning Anytime, Anywhere.  Education isn’t just learning in schools but it needs to be taking place everywhere a student goes.  It shouldn’t just happen when school is in session and stop when the final bell rings.  Here are the five main points that I think were the most important in this chapter.

1. Since children have to travel far to and from school, internet that is available on buses has shown that students are able to continue learning.
2. Learning doesn’t have to happen just at school.  After school programs are a great way to continue learning and a different way of learning. 
3. Summer can be “the third semester”.  If students were able to continue learning throughout the summer, their knowledge improves greatly compared to students that don’t learn in the summer. 
4. Place-based learning allows students to see how their studies apply to real life.  It permits students to go to different places in their community such as museums, parks, historic sites and even National Parks. 
5. The design of school buildings is similar to prison cells.  Classrooms need to represent learning.

Unequal Education Movie

Today in class we watched  a video called Unequal Education.  It followed two different students, one from Riverdale, Bronx and the other Southfordhum, Bronx.  It was crazy to see the difference in these two schools.  The Riverdale school is from a richer part of town and it doesn’t have a lot of diversity.  On the otherhand, Southfordhum is a school that is located in a poorer part of town.  There are many differences in these two towns.  Some of the differences consist of Riverdale having qualified teachers, outdoor track, nicer school, and positive attitudes.  Where as Southfordhum’s teachers aren’t qualified, they have negative attitudes and they don’t have microscopes for example.    I feel that these differences are due to the amout of funding that the school is recieving.  In class we talked about how it isn’t fair for some schools to have large amounts of money in their school and in other schools there isn’t enough money.  The money that a school recieves mainly comes from taxes within the community.  So the richer the community the more money the school recieves.  I’m glad that we watched this movie in class because it brought up the unequal education issue.  It really showed the differences and challenges that are occuring within schools.  This is a huge issue and I know there isn’t a simple solution to fix this problem. 

Education Nation-Chapter 3

The Technology Edge: Putting Modern Tools in Young Hands is the name of chapter 3.  This chapter talks about how education hasn't been keeping up with the growth of technology.  There has been many research projects that say that if students don't use technology to in schools they won't reach their full potential compared to if they did use it. Here is the five main points that I felt were important in this chapter.
1.  There should be a 1:1 ration, one student to one computer in schools.
2.  There are many different ways to learn language.  Students can use iPod, iListen and iRead to improve their reading.
3.  Online learning has been growing and has had many positive effects.  Such as if a student wants to take a class that his or her high school doesn't offer they can take it online.  Therefore they have the same opportunities as other students.
4.  The lectures are decreasing because there are so many other great ways to have students learn.
5.  Advances in assistive technology great for teachers and students.

Atomic Learning

We went over in class how to use Atomic Learning.  There are so many great tutorials that I can use through out school and my career.  I really like how we can click on the tutorial, for example I want to learn more about powerpoint, so I click on it and it will have a list long of options I can choose from. I wouldn't have to watch and hour long video just to get to the one little thing I want to learn about.  They have many great programs that I don't know how to use, so I'm excited that there is a place I can go to learn more about them.  Even the day in class I took 5 min and I learned a lot about Blogger.  This is a excellent tool and I plan on using it a lot.   

Education Nation by Milton Chen- Chapter 2

This chapter talks about how education needs to be more hands on.  We need to have different and more up todate learning styles, not the ones that are parents used back in the day.  There are so many different ways that we can teach our students with all the new technology that is coming out.  Here are the five main points that I feel impacted me the most in this chapter.
1. Education needs to be more project-based, research has shown that the achievement is higher in students.
2. We need to think globally by understanding and addressing issues in other countries.  Becoming more knowledgable is also another example.
3.  Film and music should also be included in schools. These two things can bring together many topics that are being taught in class.
4.  We need to understand that students bring their hearts and their minds to the classroom. 
5.  we have to know more and understand assesments.  Assesments and testing are not the same thing. 

Second Group Presentation Chapter 5

The group that gave their presentation was on chapter 5 Student Diversity: Development, Ability and Exceptionalities.  At the very beginning they did an activity, they would ask questions and if you applied to the question you stood up and then you could see who is like you.  I thought this was a great idea; this showed alittle bit about others in our class! Then they did the same sort of thing as the first group did by showing a Youtube video about what it would feel like to be a student with a learning disability.  They then passed different hand outs such as an IEP.  I have never seen one of these before so I thought that was a great idea.  They mainly talked about Special Education and what it is and then finished up with another video that descriped learning disablities from a different perspective.  I thought this was nice because then we could compare the two; the student vs. the teacher. Overall, it was another great presentation where I learned a bunch of new things. 

Group Presentation on Student Diversity Chpater 4

The first group presentation really set the bar high for the rest of the presentations.  I really liked how they showed a video about what they were going to be talking about at the beginning so we could get the feel about what they were going to talk about.  They talked about concepts such as what is culture, cultural diversity, ethinicity and mulitcultural education.  They gave us great information about how we can incorporate differenty cultures into the classroom, and not just doing every now and then.  Torwards the end of the presentation they showed us a youtube video named Did You Know which provide really interesting facts. Then to make the presentation a little more interactive we played the game Jepordy with the information that we just learned.  Overall, it was a great presentation and really exceeded my expectations

Speaking in Tongues

Today and in Tuesday's class we watched the movie Speaking in Tongues.  It was about immersion programs in public schools.  I think that these programs are great!  Becoming bilingual, studies have shown that our students brain capacities increase.  It not only does that, but it will help them in their future careers. Also, the students are becoming more aware of other cultures. Some more information we found out in class that there are only 13 schools that have immersion programs and 6 of them are here in Minnesota.  I hope that in the future more schools will have immersion programs.  If there was an immersion program in the area where I grew up, I would have wanted to go to school there.  I think they are a great idea and it will only become more important that our children become bilingual. 

Snow days virtually eliminated with Web tools

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-02-08-1Asnowdays08_ST_N.htm

This article talks about how schools are using Web tools to accommodate with snow days.  I think it's a great idea to have students use the Web to continue classes when we get big storms like we did this winter.  It would work great for when schools are shut down for multiple days.  A professor delivered a lecture in his pajamas, while the students were at home on their computers watching.  Also, the Web tools such as Skype is being used in public schools to connect with other schools across the world. Of course there are going to be some flaws such as not all students aren't going to have high speed internet at home.  Also, not all students are going to go online and check to see if there is something going on in class.  I feel that right now there are some glitches that need to be worked out, but in the near future I feel there are going to much more of this sort of thing happening, especially on snow days. 

Internet Cheating Scandal Shakes Japan Universities

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/world/asia/02japan.html?ref=education

This article's main idea was about how a number of students that were taking an entrance exam at Kyoto Univerity in Japan were cought cheating.  The students must have taken photos of the questions or wrote them on the internet to get answers.  The cheaters did this while the testing was going on.  The question was brought up about how are Univeristies and schools going to monitor this type of cheating.  I feel that this isn't just an issue that is happening in Univerities but is happen in High Schools and even younger grade levels.  This type of cheating is going to continue with the advancement of technology and the growing number of students in classrooms.  It is hard for teachers to monitor everything by themselves.  I hope that in the soon future we can come up with ways that will be effective that will eliminate cheating in schools.

Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) Report

On Thursday's class we all recieved our own individual profile report of our intercultural development. This report shows us where we are in our intercultural development. I was glad when we were told in class that we were going to take this test.  I feel that in today society diversity is big and becoming a teacher it's huge that we are culturally competent. When I got my report back it said that I was at the minimization stage.  I thought that's were I was probably going to end up.  I grew up in a small town and graduated with about 50 students.  In my school we didn't have much diversity.  There are many things I'm going to work so I can move up on the developmental orientation (DO) scale.  I would like to learn a foreign language such as Spanish possibly.  Also, learning general and specific knowledge and skills of other cultures would help me.  Third, just simply be more aware of other cultures.  I know that my score isn't up to par and I have a long ways to go, but I'm going to try and achieve these goals.

Pa. teacher strikes nerve with 'lazy whiners' blog

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-02-16-teacher-blog-suspended_N.htm

In this article, an English teacher from Pa. was writting negative things on her blog about her students.  She wrote things such as how they are lazy, not motivated and how could parents not raise their own kids to be "good children".  I feel that it is probably true that students can be lazy and have bad tempers but this doesn't give that teacher the right to write such negative things.  It isn't very professional of her and I feel this was very inappropriate.  I feel that if she doesn't like her students and think they are not motivated, then she should find a different profession if she thinks of it so negatively.  Also, instead of complaining about her students, I feel that she should try and make things better.

Private Effort to Improve India’s Public Education

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/business/global/18teach.html?_r=1&ref=world

The schools in India, we could say they aren't very nice.  The students have to sit on the concrete floor and their lunches are cooked outside behind the school on a fire of burning branches.  Many students dropout before they even reach the tenth grade.  But Azim H. Premji is donating money and trying to improve the school system.  They are trying to train teachers and guide teachers that are already working with the students.  I think it's great that this man is putting the effort in to help out schools in India.  In India, the government wants its students to memorize and have its students take stressful tests at the end of the year, but many of the students end up failing.  But with Premji, he is trying to have the students be creative thinkers.  This article aslo listed some statistics about how students are doing in their classes and it makes me more aware about where other countries are.  I didn't realize they they were so low compared to China. I think what Azim H. Premji is doing!

First Day In My Field Experience

Today from 8:30 to 10:30, I went to a 5th grade classroom.  When I first walked to the door all the kids were looking at me with big eyes wondering what was going on.  Mrs. Steffes introduced me as Ms. Becker and told them I was going to be helping out. The first half hour I was there, I worked with students in English.  They were working on a reveiw assignment because they have a test the next day. 

Then, the next hour I worked with students that had any questions regarding to Math.  Today, they learned how to find the perimiter of an object.  It was very exciting to see how the students were so eger to learn.  They were practicing problems on the board and as soon as Mrs. Steffes would ask for the answer, the students hands would fly up into the air.  It was all so very exciting to watch them get so excited. 

The last half hour was a study hall.  The students worked on homework that they didn't get done in their previous class.  I worked one-on-one with a little boy named Cory.  We worked on finding the common denominator for fractions, which was pretty difficult for him.  When we were done, the teacher asked Cory if it helped having someone work with him and he nodded his head up and down.  When he left he had a big smile on his face.  This felt good that I was able to help him.  Overall, I'm very excited to continue going to help out in the 5th grade classroom.

Finding Hope in Anoka-Hennepin

http://www.tolerance.org/blog/finding-hope-anoka-hennepin

Lately in Anoka-Hennepin School District there was an agreement that two LGBT students were allowed to walk up together in their schools Snow Day's events.  At this time last year LGBT students couldn't bring their dates to prom.  In this article it said that Anoka-Hennepin School District hasn't had very good issues with LGBT students. Atleast four LGBT students have commited suicide from being bullied. Two teachers have also been in trouble for harassing LGBT students. It's hard to believe that teachers would harass their own students because teachers are suppose to help their students.  Also, the neutrality policy has been a controversal issue. "It states that staff members shall remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation including but not limited to student led discussions.”  I believe that every student has the right to have a safe education.

Bullied Movie

Today I watched the movie Bullied, as a future teacher I'm going to do everything, to the best of my abilities, to stop bullying in schools.  All teachers need to stop bullying, not just a couple, but all.  I also want to be a teacher that students will be able to approach, not one that they feel will do nothing to help them.  Bullying is a HUGE issue in schools. As teachers, we are the ones that can make an impact.  We are the ones that can stop it.  Schools need to inform students about bullying and how it is such a negative thing.  I feel that many people think that it isn't such a big issue but it really is.  One way we can show students the consequences of bullying is by showing them videos such as the movie Bullied.

Education Nation by Milton Chen -Chapter1

Chapter 1 -The Thinking Edge, Getting Smarter about Learning

I very much enjoyed reading this chapter.  The first quote that I came across while reading that I really liked was, "as we know from efforts to change politics, religion, and even our personal relationships, changing our thinking can be the most difficult thing we human being can do, especialy when our opinions are firmly rotted in personal experience." This I believe is so true, it's hard for us humans to change our way of thinking because it's what we have always done.  We are ment to love learning, but this isn't the case necessarily today in our education system, which is really upsetting.  The author writes about hybrid thinking, this means that we need to think of new and exciting ways to educate our students.  For example, when Sesame Street came on tv, it was a new approach to learning.
"Here when we want the elephant to grow, we feed the elephant. We don't weigh the elephant."  I love this quote, it means that instead of always testing our students to see how smart they are, we need to teach them. Teach them that learning is more then just memorizing stuff.  At the very end of the chapter, Chen used the example of how we don't teach basketball out of a book, then why should we teach math and the other subjects out a book.  This I believe is true, we know of many different ways to teach sports then why don't we come up with new ways to teach different subjects.  Here is a question that Dewey left us for building an Education Nation, "Could we design a school system in which every child could investigate the facts which they see, feel and touch everyday?"  In this chapter there were many different points Chen hit, but overall the biggest point was schools need to be exciting and challenging.

January 27th Class

On Thursday's class, January 27th, we meet on the first floor of the education building in the computer lab.  We learned about what is atomic learning and how to use it.  There are many great things that we can do on atomic learning.  It will show you how to use different programs such as dreamweaver, how to blog and excel for example.  I plan on using this tool in the future.  We also learned about the Purdue Owl.  A person can go to their website and learn how to write in the APA 6th edition.  ISTE was also another website that we learned about what teachers and students should be able to do with technology.  It shows, for example where a 6th grader should be at being able to use technology.  I think this website is awesome and I know I will refer back to it many times in the future.  Overall, the time spent in this class was productive and I learned many great things about the web.

More Germans are Opting to Study Abroad

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/world/europe/24iht-educSide24.html?scp=3&sq=Europe%20education&st=cse

I thought this article was very interesting.  The number of German students that are studying aboard nearly doubled from about 52,000 to 102,000 in just eight years.  I thought that this was amazing.  It helps that German students could go to different organizations that would help fund it. There was one specific foundation, European Commission, which allows 200,000 students to study abroad.  I think studying aboard is a great idea; like that article stated it "enrich their skills and gain culturally from mixing".  I feel that studying aboard can only help a person grow.  A person can learn so much from experiencing something new.

Rethinking Advanced Placement- New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/edlife/09ap-t.html?_r=1&ref=education

I think this is great that they are going to change the advanced placement exams in biology.  Like it said in the article, there was way to much stuff that the teachers were supposed to go over in a very short time. It put stress on the teachers and on the students.  It's good that they going to have standards that the teacher will have to meet.  This will make sure that every ap class in biology will roughly be going over the same topics.  Different testings and classes like advanced placement classes need to be updated every so often.  As the years go by, many things are changing and ap testing is one example of something that needed to be changed.  One concern I do have is will this cost schools more money and if so how much?

The Freedom Writers

The Freedom Writers. What a great story!

What are some of the hopes and expectations Erin has prior to starting her first job?
On Erin's first day of school she had many expectations. She wanted to be able to change her students lives before they would get into trouble and end up in the courts. I liked how she had such big hopes.  I know it was hard at first but she keep to her expectations which allowed her to help her students even more because she didn't want to give up.

W hat realities and challenges confronted her in the beginning of the year?
One challenge in particular was I don't believe she was expecting teaching to be so hard.  She didn't know that that her students would have such low testing scores.  Many of the students don't usually make it to graduation which also suprised her. The students didn't respect her in the beginning of the movie but at the end one of her students even ended up calling her ma.  I felt that this was huge. She not only got her students interested in learning but she was able to get respect. Erin also didn't have the support from other faculty members. She wasn't able to do certain things that she wanted to because the faculty didn't want to go out of their way to help her.

What were some of the case scenarios of the lived experiences of the students she had in class?
Almost everyone of the students didn't have a very "good" life outside of school. Many of them were, almost all, were in a gang and had seen a family member or a friend die due to gang violence.  I thought that this was really sad. One of the boys in her class had seen his friend shoot himselve by accident when he was younger.  This boy was also homeless. But it was nice to see that at the end of the movie he went to go live with his mother.  I believe that this was due to the fact that he was doing well in school. 

How did the student's attitudes towards learning impact their academic performance?
In the beginning of the movie the students didn't care about coming to school at all.  They had very negative attitudes toward learning.  It didn't help that the students were fighting a war outside of school. Therefore they didn't even see the point in learning. Threw out the movie their attitudes started to change and I feel that this was due to Erins' teaching style and her love for teaching.  Then you could see at the end of the movie that when they liked coming to her class they started to do better and end up graduating.

What strategies did Erin incorporate to break down the barriers between the students and the teacher?
Erin really tried to connect with the students.  The one example that really sticks out is when she brought her music box into the class and played music that was an example of poetry.  She really showed that she cared about her students and that she loved what she was doing and I believe that this showed the students that she truely cared about them.  I really liked that the movie showed that if your students can tell that you truely care about them, then they will know that and I think they will start to respect you.

What kinds of teaching methods worked with the studenst?
Erin did a lot of hands on activities.  I thought that this was great.  It got all the students to interact with each other instead of just sitting there and listening to her talk the whole time.  I really liked when the students came back for the next semester she had the students come forward and state what they wanted to change or what they were thankful for! Her teaching methods resulted in the students really wanting to come to class and some even called it home.

How did Erin develop curriculum that connected with the students?
In the beginning of the movie Erin had a lesson plan that didn't seem to interest the students what so ever.  She then developed curriculum that the students could relate to in their own lives.  She had them read books such as Diary of Anne Frank.  The students could really relate to these books that she developed.  It was great to she her change her curriculum to best fit her students.

What were the roles and attitude from the other teachers and administrators?
It was really sad to see that there were so many negative attitudes from the other teachers.  I know it's probably hard to teach students that don't want to learn but you can't just push them away and say that they are nothing. The teachers should want their students to learn.  It was really sad to see that the principle wouldn't let the students use their nice books, therefore the books just had to sit there.  It was terrible to hear that some of the teachers say why waste your time teaching students that don't care about education and all they are is violent and break roles. Therefore, the school won't get any better if some of the teacher don't change their attitudes.

What role did Erin's expectations for the students have on their learning?
Erin had great expectations and she stuck to her expectations instead of giving up because it was to hard.  She wanted her students to learn and graduate and so that happened.  She also went out of her way to get another job to buy books for her students, which I thought was really great! I believe that her expectations allowed her to succeed in being a great teacher!

What lessons did I learn from watching this movie?
I really admired Erin because she took the extra step everytime to help her students out. I want to be one of those teacher sthat take the extra step and truely love what they are doing.  I learned have expectations. If I have expectations it will help me to be driven to truely help my students. Second, if things are hard at first and your original plan don't work, don't give up. Keep trying and try different things to get to the students. As teacher we have to be creative in the ways we teach our students. We also have to understand that there will be situations in the classroom that we won't learn about in college.

Alternative Teacher License

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=900178

After reading the article about alternative teacher license article I feel this could be a good possibility in some aspects. For example, it will help schools finded teachers for areas that need help such as science and math. I'm sure some of the alternative license teachers will be very good at teaching and there will also be some that are duds.  On the other hand I don't feel the alternative license would be a good idea for Special Education.  A person getting a four year degree in Special Education will learn many things that a person of a different degree wouldn't know.  I do have some concerns also.  Will the teachers that get the alternative license be truly qualified for teaching?

Why I want to be a teacher?

When I was asked the question why I want be a teacher there were many things that popped into my head. First off, I had many teachers that weren't so good and I also had teachers that were great and had a huge influence on me.  I want to be one of those teachers that can impact others and isn't there just for the summer and the money.  We need more teachers out there that are truly kind hearted, know what they are doing and love what they are doing.  I really enjoy helping others and especially children.  Since I was given the opportunity to go to college, I feel that teaching is one of the better ways to help others.