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.