comments

I know others had problems accesing blogs or what not. I was only able to access less than 10 blogs but did what I could to share my comments between those people. Sorry about that.

2nd meeting (PTO) hometown

Going back to my highschool was a little wierd because I havent walked through the hallways thier in a few years. Moving on the PTO meeting was held in the library and the topic was applying for financial aid. The focus was on juniors and seniors as well as their parents. The meeting had a good turn and the library was packed, their wasn't an extra seat avaialbe for myself. The highschool is lucky enough to have a teacher who was previoulsy employed at a High School financial aid department. He is responsible for holding the meeting and explaining to the students and their famalies the importance of apllying for Fafsa. The library was a little hot and uncomfortable but I dealt with it. The parnets were very interested in the information the speaker was providing. They asked many questions and some parents were even taking notes. At the end the speaker offered his services for free and explained that he would be available to every student that needed him to fill out their own fafsa. I was only dissapointed with the lack of handouts made avaiable to the guest. The should have had more available.

1st Board Meeting

The first board meeting I attended was at West Side High in newark. The agenda that was available for the public had to be a couple hundred pages think. It was impossibe to read through it at the meeting, it was bigger than my anatomy text book. The board members were all from diverse backgrounds and varied in age. Some of the topics covererd were student safety, school fundings and spendings, and students from the graphic and art design class presented some of their material. Awards were given to parents who donated their time and effort to the school and students, and the top five students in the high school were also recognized. It was an interesting experience being my first board meeting ever, the pace was slow but moved, just wish thier was a bigger crowd.

Community Service 1 and 2

My first and second community service visit worked hand in hand because I did the same service both visits. I worked with the Phys. Ed teacher at the school. Initially I thought I would be working with the students in the classroom but I did not actually work in the classroom. When I arrived the phys. ed teacher expressed his need for help with computer grading. He was told that he must be more technologically oriented with his teaching style. Therefore he must transfer his gradebook to microsoft office. He had no idea how to do this and asked me to help him, of course I helped and created a grading layout for each of his classess. I had to transfer every students name and first qurter grade into cells and columns on office. It was challenging at first but eventually I got the hang of it and continued at a faster pace. The first visit I did was 3 and a half hours and the second visit was 3 hours. All of which consisted of helping him transfer his grade book to the computer. I also fixed his printer and he was vary grateful for the amount of help I provided him with. The service hours were not very excited or fun but I don't regret because I understood how much he could use the help. Thats really what we are there for is to provide help where ever it is needed.

Reading and video clip 11-07

The video with the parent teacher conference was very interesting. The amount of questions and the way the parent asked questions seemed a little overboard. I have heard of parents that are a little out of hand and that could be one way that they approach a teacher. She question the teachers teaching ability and lacked genuine respect. The teacher was very patient and handled her the parents actions accordingly. No child left behing has pros and cons. You have to teach to the test because apparently thats just the way things are nowadays. Its good that their trying to help students the best they can to keep them all at the learning level they should be at. Fundings are being provided for schools that lack it to help keep them on an even playing field with schools that do have the funding. Many sides can be taken its all a matter of what you think works best for the students progress.

Issue 9

I dont believe that schools should be only judged on the scores they recieve. Students learn in many different ways, some are better writers than others and those that are good writers may not be great in math or viceaversa. Students are only tested in certain areas and all are tested on the same thing. Some students are good with mutiple choice others are good with word problems. The credibilty of a school should not be measured only on the scores. If this is the case then a test that measures all the ablilties and different learning styles should be administered. Then again this will probably never happen so we must deal with what we have for now.

16 % children (over 9 million) 6-19 year olds are overweight

According to the CDC in 2004 "16 % children (over 9 million) 6-19 year olds are overweight or obese" this is three times what it was in 1980. Phys Ed Class helps students in being fit for life. It is evident that many people who are obese when young have a higher risk of being obeast when they are adults. It only makes sense that we keep kids fit and healthy at a young age to atleast increase their chances of being healthy into adulthood. Many parents do not motivate or help their kids to be active on a daily basis, or at least a few days a week. Playing one sport for 3 months a year is not going to help students stay fit, it needs to be year round, it needs to be more than one sport or activity. Moving on... Schools play an even bigger role in helping decrease the percentage of childhood obesity. It was said in class that some elementary classes only get one, maybe two days of phys ed per week. Thats just wrong. They are promoting this disease or at least their not doing enough to prevent it. Phys Ed is needed on a daily basis, activity, sport, all of this if we want to see a respectable decline in childhood obesity.

reading charter school

Reading and finding out more about charter schools was interesting because in my hometown we have a charter school of our own. I also heard that they were recognized this year for their outstanding work and ranked at the top of the charts for charter schools. I've always heard the name charter school but never really new what went on their. Now I know that Charters schools can be put together by anyone or any group that has a specific purpose for teaching. They must prove that they can put this purpose together and run it succesfully. The don't teach to any kind of standardized test, they teach only what the student is interested in and make them stronger in that subject. This is good because students will love what they are learning and hopefully they become interested in the subjects which they dont like as much.

headlines disscusion

We had a class disscusion on a health clinic in a public middle school with the option of birth control pills being made available to young students. Ages (11-14) This was definetly one of the deepest dicussions we have engaged in. Ultimately I hope that no school In the world would need to give out birth control pills but the fact is that we are in the year 07 and there are more and more teen pregnancies every year. The question is should their be bitrh control pills available in schools. I feel that it depends on the demographics of the city in which the school is located and the school itself. You have to find out how many teen pregnancies are their, how many kids are in unstable famailes or homes that are influencing bad decisons. There are dozens of areas in america where teen pregnancy is not a big issuem, but their are others where the numbers are overwhelming. The idea is not to promote sex or teen pregnancy but to stop it. This is how I see it, if students are getting pregnant young and every other option to help stop it was tried, then maybe birth control is the way to stop it. Maybe it can be used as a final alternative when all else fails.

Jane vincent

Reading this case study many things come to mind in determining which path julie should take and why. She has one of her students who is hard working and continues to show progress every year. This students grade is lingering 2 tenths of a point from being boosted up to the next letter grade. The new standards that she and other teachers enforce prohibid her from doing so. For starters I dont think the higher grade should be handed out to him only its just unfair, she also risking him spreading the word and other students approaching her for the same favor. I see it as julie should have implemented a certain guideline that would allow every student the opprtunity to raise their grade by a point or so. For example she could say that every student who hands in every homework assignment on time will be given 1 point towards their final grade. This will make it fair for all and give everyone equal oppurtunity to boost their grade. If this student works as hard as the case study explains then he should have no problem meeting the guidelines for recieving the extra point.

Shadowing a teacher (Observation)

This pass friday I completed the other half of the orientation assignment by shadowing a Physical Education teacher. I must say this was another great experiance. One thing that made this experince a good one was the fact that melinda who is in our class was also doing her shadowing at the same time I was. We were able to talk about our experience and express our views of what was going on in the class. The teachers were very welcoming and made me comfortable from the second I arrived. Ever since I chose the carrer path of becoming a Physical Education Teacher I have always told myself I want to teach highschool. I am going to strive to be a high school varsity coach which is why I want to teach highschool so I can teach the same students I coach. I would like to do this to have a bigger influence on them and have a better relationship with them. Well after observing pre-k through forth grade classes I must say that I am now considering teaching elementary students. It was amazing to see first hand how happy these kids were for an entire 50 minutes. They had a smile on and were estactic through the entire class period. Being an uncle to 7 nieces and nephews it is hard to resist a young kids smile, Im great with kids and I feel like I would be a great asset to elemantary grade levels. I could just see myself in that teachers shoes helping these kids have an enjoyable time. It's safe to say that I am now undecided in which grade level I want to teach when the time comes. It's crazy how one single observation can have such a great impact on a person.

Orientation

I would just like to say a few words about our orientation visit this past Monday. Going into this visit I knew the hipe was high because it's a new school and it has only been open for a month. With that said I was still completely blown away by this facility and how modern technology was brought out for these kids. Every resource you can possibly think of is available for these students. Definetly the nicest school I have stepped foot in by far, and to think that it's an elementary school.
Besides the school itself being great, the faculty and staff was just as nice and polite. Everyone there was helpful and happy to answer any questions that were asked. The round robin was a bit long but answered alot of questions I had without me having to ask them. It was just a great experience and im glad I got the oppurtunity to take part of it. Experiences like this is what keeps me going and gets me excited to teach.

Issue 5

I do believe that public schools can produce good citizens because I myself came from a public school and I know that I am a good citizen. I am always intersted in current events and since I have turned 18 over three years ago I have only missed one voting campaign from my home town. I watch the news and I love reading the paper besides that my highschool teachers emphasized the importance. We had current event assignments and always spoke about world politics. I think that public schools must guide students in the right direction to make them become responsible citizens. Students must realize the importance and one good way is for teachers to explain that to them.

culturally responsive teachers/article

In this article it talked about how are public schools continue to grow in diversity, and I think that this is a good thing. I understand that it may pose a challenge for teachers, new teachers especially. As theachers we should except challenges because it's the only way to get better at our job. Gaining experience in different teaching situations will help us in becoming a great teacher. Diversity is one issue that no teacher can escape, every one of us who plans on teaching will experience diversity in the classroom and we will have to find a way to meet every students need.

Case Study 1

I just wanted to point out that when I first read the case study I was stuck between melinda and babera's teaching methods. I like Melinda's approach to creative hands on learning but Barbera's paranoia over the standerdized test kind of made me think. I do feel Barbera went a little over board with some of her request. After discussing the case study in class I could really care less about how Barbera wants Melinda to teach her kids. I am all for Melinda teaching which ever way she feels is best for her kids to learn. After all like we discussed, it is her first year and that is the time where you explore different things and where it is ok for you to make mistakes. Who knows her kids may even do great on the test, no one will ever know unless she is allowed the oppurtunity.

Adler/Holt reading

Adler and holt produced two complete different sides of teaching. Adler believes that students should follow a three main objectives and that every education system should follow these strct criteras. This plan will inculde only one elective and eliminate all others. This is just crazy I mean students need electives, everything about school cant be drill all day. Its not boot camp were talking about its school. Holt thinks that students should choose what they want to learn, when they want to learn, and how they want to learn. The kid runs the show? I dont see this working, the closest you will get to this is charter school and we should be happy with that. Letting kids choose when, where, and how they are taught is way to farfetched for my book.

Noll, ISSUE 2: Should the Curriculum Be Standardized for All?

Mortimer J. Adler Argues that a public school system should establish uniform curricular objectives for all students.
I noticed that he breaks his curriculum standards down to the absolute tee, with great detail. His essentials of basic schooling are laid out in three different columns, all of which include what he feels is most important to be taught in the public schools. The one thing I would like to vouch for as a Physical Education and Health major, is the fact that this subject area is put on the back burner of his plan. I mean I understand how important language, math, history, science etc, are important I also think Phys ed and health deservere more attention in his plan. Our country is facing a major epedemic where a large portion of our population is obeast including many of our adolescents. I feel that kids being overweight and unhealthy are more likely to struggle in class than those who are fit and healthy. Kids that become obeast face many obstacles both physically and mentally which can affect there progress and succes in the classroom. They may also be targets for bullying because of there appearance, which can result in a decline of their academics. Pyhsical Education can also help reduce stress through the many activities that are offered. I believe that Physical Education is essential to help bridge our youths ability to focus and learn at a pace that is not interupted with such minor things like poor health and physical education. As future Physical educator I am proud to say that teaching our adolescents how to keep in shape and healthy is an essintial part of their lives for as long as they live. This is just a mere opinion that I have, and is not intented to take away from any of his propositions. Much good things can be said about his great ideas, but this is just one thing I chose to comment on.

Dewey/Hutchins reading

The schooling and social Experiences society argues how important social interaction is in students learning. I understand deweys side when he says that social interaction is important to a students learning. Hutchins believes that it is not as important and thinks that it will take away from a students learning experience. I feel that social interaction can help more than it can hurt a students learning most of the time. When I was in school I didnt always understand what the teacher was trying to teach. therfore learning from my peers was always the next alternative and most times it worked. I was comfortable learning from my peers and this helps for those reasons. Going along with hutchins he doesnt think that social interaction should be emphasized. I do see his point that students are in school to learn but along with learning the material a student must also learn how to interact. Socializing and interacting is apart of everyday life, school is where students spend most of their time in the day so socializing should be emphasized.

Eisner Reading

After reading Eisner's Questionable assumptions about schooling, there are some arguments that I agree with and others that I question myself. One thing that I do not agree with is Eiesner's idea of students being taught by the same teacher for a few years rather than just one, and moving on to a new teacher. I believe that all teachers are different in there own unique ways, as to say that all of them have something special to offer that others may not have. If students are left with the same teacher for 3 or 4 years, they are being held under one teaching style and one source of knowledge. It is essential that kids are educated in the many different teaching styles that are out there. This way they can adapt to varios learning enviorments and be versitile enough to educate themselves through different teaching methods. Having different teachers will also help with their social skills, because they will have a new teacher and new classmates each year. We are not here to influence anti-socialness to our adolecents, or offer them knoledge from one source. Change is good.

I do agree with Eisner when he stated that all children should be at the same level intellectually is a little bogus expectation. Many students learn and read at different paces, some are smarter than others or pick up on things faster. Saying that all 10 year olds should be at the same level is alot to ask for because you have to take the students personal life into account. If a student is having family problems or is a victim of bullying, there intellect may be slowed down, as oppose to a student that is not experiencing this. On the other hand it could be best if students at the same age are kept in the same grade level. Just because one student in the third grade has a sixth grade reading level, that doesn't mean he/she is ready to be in a classroom with kids that are 3 or 4 years older than them. Booksmart is one thing, but their are many other aspects to a childs life that need to be taking in to consideration.