letter to the editor

Dear Editor,

          Technology has become a huge part of everyday life.  Today's kids have grown up surrounded by technology.  They would rather research online than search through a library for the same information.  In order to keep their attention and get them excited for learning, schools need to incorporate technology into the classrooms.  Teachers need stay up to date on the newest ways to use technology.  New apps or upgrades come out all the time, and there are amazing apps for teachers to use for educating their students.  Teachers should find out what interests their students, have them form a hypothesis, research it, and apply that research.  Instead of writing papers and handing it in a hard copy, allow students to try new things.  Have them create a blog or make a video that covers the same content.  Let the students be in charge of what they do.  Find ways to take students’ interest in technology and use it to get them interested in learning. 

          Most of the other professions have had to ‘upgrade’ its techniques over the years to fit the needs and wants of their consumers.  Education should be the same way.  If we can find a way to spark student interest, we can find the key to unlocking their future.  It’s worth a shot right?

final group presentation

I loved the video you started out with.  I did a great job showing how kids learn much differently today than they used to.  That they are digital learners and teaching methods need to change in order to accommodate for this.  The interview had good points on how to motivate your students.  The idea of giving students control of their learning was a great concept to talk about, because many teachers think that they are the only ones to control student learning, and when you think this way and make students do things your way without listening to what they want, why would they want to do it intrinsically?   Great job presenting the information!

Final Work Study reflection

     Last September, I started my 150 hour internship at Paynesville Elementary.  I was able to observe open house and conferences plus all the prep work to go into them!  I also got introduced to such things as copier machines, writing letters to parents, the headache of scheduling para professionals and foster grandparents, and doing countless other prep work!  I was able to work with five wonderful teachers during my internship and observe a few others.  I was able to observe two school meetings, and also a program put on by the kids.  Most of my time was spent working one on one or in small groups with the kids in special education.  I loved being able to do this.  The teachers were great to let me work with the kids and I came away from it all with a lot of experience and confidence.  I think it is easier to reach kids when they are given one on one time.  It is easier as the teacher, because then I can tell if the child understands or if I need to approach the topic another way.  I think it is easier for the student, because then they are able to ask questions if they need help.  I also spend around an hour to an hour and a half a week in the second grade general ed. classroom.  This is much different than Special Ed.  The classroom I helped in had twenty six students.  One teacher to twenty six students is a huge difference than the one on one in Special Ed.  I think it would be much harder to teach to that many students. 

      I had the opportunity to see an IEP review,Other things I was able to see were a music class, an afternoon observing the speech clinician, ECSE (Early childhood special education), a few phy ed classes, and a departmental meeting (child study meeting).  I learned about social stories and other various ways to deal with behaviors.

  I would recommend any student planning on becoming a teacher see most of these areas.  It was pretty interesting to see what goes on while the kids are not in your classroom.  Another exciting thing I was able to do was plan and teach my own lesson to second graders!  I was actually given the opportunity to teach it to two different second grade classrooms.  I planned an hour long lesson on roman numerals.  None of the kids knew what roman numerals were, so it was an all new topic for them.  I created a power point to give a very brief background on roman numerals and to teach them how to write the numbers one through ten.  I also explained how roman numerals compared to our number system, the Arabic system. 

    Two mornings a week I was able to work with the Barton system.  It is a reading and spelling system that works on phonics.  It starts out with the basics of listening to sounds and realizing what sound is different from word to word.  The main goal is to train the student’s ears.  As the students learn and progress in the system, the lessons get harder and more in depth.  The last level I was able to work with was level four, where the kids were working on phrases in sentences.  They worked on decoding what the who, did what, and where parts of each sentence were.  The kids really enjoyed this curriculum.  For the first half of my internship I observed and participated from the student side of the lessons, but during the second half I was able to teach the lessons to the kids.  I loved it! 

   I learned a lot during my time at Paynesville Elementary School.  I learned things about me like which path I want go into as far as sped (DCD, LD), and which one to stay away from (EBD).   I learned that I have the potential to be a great teacher.  I am many times more confident about being in a classroom with kids than when I started.  I also learned a few things about being a special education teacher like how stressful and time consuming the job can be.  I also learned how to deal with students who are misbehaving.  I started my internship knowing very little about special education.  Now at the end I have a much larger knowledge base as far as what areas there are, what a sped teacher does, what is expected, and just how to do things. What better way to learn than to do it hands on?  Overall I think I really grew from being still unsure of myself and my role as a student helper into being a respected teacher.  I would not take back this experience for anything.  I gained friendships and contacts with my supervising teachers and also great relationships with the students I worked with.  I cannot express how beneficial this experience is and can honestly say that I will truly miss working with the kids and teachers.  Another part of this experience I will miss is seminar.  It felt nice and comfortable to come in once a week and tell the other women what I have been doing, and hear the joys and struggles they have been working with too.  It was also nice to get feedback from Lori on how we are doing, and things that we could try.  It felt like we were all a team and that we were all there in each other’s journeys becoming teachers.

Philosophy of Education reflection

After completing the survey in class I scored highest in social reconstructionism (19) and second in Progressivism (15.5) third in perennialsim (11.5) and last in Essentialism (7).  Social Progressiveism says that most of the class time should be spent on discussing various topics about society and its issues.  Teachers would encourage kids to think about what can be done to deal with the issues in society.  This does reflect on what I believe, I think that discussions are a lot more interesting and a better way to learn than just listening to someone lecture.  I also think that kids today should know what is going on in society and learn how to think through, collaborate with others, and come up with a solution to a problem.  Progressivism is the idea that real-world problem solving and individual development is important.  The purpose of schooling is to develop students as completely as possible-physically, intellectually, socially, and emotionally.  The curriculum should be composed of experiences that reflect today's world, and instructionally, teachers should guide students in the process of development.  I also feel like this view fits me.  I think that students should be able to problem solve and be helpful pieces of a society when they are finished with school.  I think that students should be able to come out of school being as prepared for life as they can be.  It is a waste of time to send students through 13+ years of school for them to come out only knowing how to take a test, but not remember anything they were tested on.  So by looking at my results, I feel like education is the right path for me, and I feel like teaching is exactly what I want to do.

Waiting for Superman

In class we watched a movie called Waiting for Superman.  It talked about how some inner city schools are really suffering and are not doing their best to teach students.  The movie talked about the fact that there are over 2,000 'drop out factories' in the United States.  These are schools were most of the students drop out before they graduate.  Administrators, teachers, students, and parents all know they are called this, but they continue to run and allow students to drop out.  This is insane to me.  If there is one thing that screams HELP! to me is that.  There is no way I would send my kids to a school like that unless I had absolutely no other option.  Even if it was my only option, I think that the administrators and teachers need to make an effort to change how the school is seen.  One fact that was shared in the movie is that 68% if inmates in prisons are dropouts.  $33,000 is spent on each inmate, for that same amount of money we could have sent that inmate to a private school and still had money left over to put towards college.  This is ridiculous, especially now when we are in debt and are having to cut so many things especially in education.  First, what the hell are we giving our inmates if we spend that kind of money on them, second, if we invest more into each child who is currently going through school, think of the money we could save later!  Not only the money, but think of what each one of those kids could contribute to society instead of filling up prisons.  Another concept in the movie that really shocked me was the idea of 'Passing the Lemons.'  This is the idea of passing around teachers who are no good at their job and they along with everyone else in the school system knows they are terrible teachers.  Since they are tenured, they cannot be fired, so they are passed along between schools hoping that the 'Lemon' they get in is better than the 'Lemon' they tossed away.  I am sorry but this is just stupid.  We saw on the movie that some of these teachers literally sat at their desk reading the newspaper while the students did whatever they wanted.  What are those students learning in that scenario? That education is pointless because my teacher doesn't even think I am worth their time?  How sad.  If someone in any other profession went to work and did that type of thing they would be gone in a heartbeat and it would be unlikely that they would be able to hold another position.  So why do we allow it with teachers, those people who are leading our kids on their path to knowledge?  I am not saying that tenure is all together a bad thing, since hey job security sounds great to me, but on the other hand I do not think that it should be that solid that teachers can literally do nothing and administrators have absolutely no right to fire them.  In that respect I believe that teachers should be paid according to their performance.  The more they are helping and teaching their students, the more they get paid.  I believe that would act as motivation for teachers to stay up to date and to continue learning and incorporating new ideas into their classrooms.

Group 7 presentation

Excellent job girls! I really liked how you switched back and forth between people talking instead of each of you doing your share of slides then moving on to the next.  It made it seem like you all knew all of the content and that you really worked together.  I thought your discussions on facebook/social media affecting teachers jobs and also the one on corporal punishment in schools were great! All of your topics were interesting and I enjoyed the whole thing!

Group 6 presentation

You guys did a great job over-viewing the chapter and bringing in more information.  The items discussed were great and were interesting.  I really liked the interview you guys did.  Overall great job!