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.