Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

SPED200

By: Tori Altermatt & Stefanie Pearson

Should Minnesota Teachers be Tenured?

            Much controversy has been stirred up about whether or not teachers should be tenured. There are many benefits to the teacher tenure, but I believe the negative aspects out weight the benefits. The tenure contract does not take into consideration the quality of the teachers. This allows teachers to become complacent and less motivated to improve their teaching style. We need to think about the students first. Are they receiving the best education possible, and are the teachers who are responsible for these students highly qualified?

Unfortunately in many schools, this is not the case. There are a great amount of schools that will get rid of their new teachers, even if their great, simply because they are not tenured. This negatively impacts recent teacher college graduates. Schools are not as willing to hire newer teachers, who many times, have great fresh ideas and could benefit these students greatly. In many cases, new teachers will be hired and right before they are tenured they will get laid off. I have witnessed this personally. One of my friends would be getting his tenure contract next year, but they recently sent him a notification saying his contract will not be renewed next year. This is because he was one of the two teachers to be hired last into the system and he currently does not have his tenure. The school didn’t take into consideration how well his students are progressing and how effective his teaching is. The only aspect that was looked at was whether or not he was tenured. Now tell me, how does this benefit the students?

Teachers should be kept because they are great teachers. One bad teacher can put a child behind for the rest of their schooling, but on the other hand a great teacher can send a student above and beyond what is expected of them. Statistics say that a bad teacher will teach about 50% of the required material and a good teacher will teach about 150% of the curriculum. Good teachers are able to go above and beyond what is asked of them, taking initiatives to give the students the best future possible. The impact loosing these teachers is huge on these students’ lives. The tenure contract is in no way encouraging the school systems to keep their really great teachers.

Good teachers should be rewarded not punished by getting fired simply because they are not tenured. We need to reward teachers whose students are making progress and show improvements in teaching each year. Instead of giving them a tenure year contract we need to think about a system that rewards teachers like giving them raises if they are making visible improvements. I also feel we need to better prepare our future teachers so these students do not continue to fall behind. Teachers should be observed and critiqued intensely throughout their whole career. For example, teachers in Finland receive a great amount of experience and feedback throughout their training. They also require high standards in regards to getting accepting into the teaching program. Citizens in Finland find it to be a privilege to become a teacher. In the United States it seems that the bar isn’t set very high for future teachers. Finland must be doing something right since they rank amongst the highest nationally on the PISA tests. So, I think instead of continuing to do the same things in our education systems we need to look at what’s working in other countries in regards to preparing teachers since we are continually falling behind and we need to take another look at how the teacher tenure is impacting the students.

Group Eight Presentation

They started of  talking about the importance of classroom management.Ways you can help manage the class is to use posters to display rules clearly. A positive learning environment is very important to the students learning, time management is a big part of that. The group shared a website with us called daily cafe, this website includes different ideas for setting up a class room, and classroom ideas to avoid problems like, everyone shares supplies. The teacher's role in the learning environment is another thing that is important to being an effective teacher. It is important that the children know that you care about them.  They showed us an activity that helps you evaluate what kind of learning style your students may be by classifying them under colors. She interviewed a teacher and that gave her lots of advice for becoming a new teacher. She gave her some do's and don't of first year teaching. Parental/ guardian involvement allows the child to connect school and home. Children want to please their parents, there is a higher graduation rate with children who's parents are involved in their schooling. Barriers to consider with parent/ teacher involvement are: economic, cultural, and language. Kathy added in to this that you should never ask the child to be the translator between you and the teacher. An idea for teachers to better communicate with the parents is to make a website and update it frequently. The last part of their presentation is misbehavior intervention, effective types of intervention is awareness, dignity, consistency and communication.

For School Children, Where is the Water?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/04/18/water.school.children/index.html?iref=allsearch

This article is about the issues of children not having enough accessibility to water at school. They are finding that water fountain do not to the trick of hydrating the students through out the day. A few problems with drinking fountains is that it is easy to spread germs, the tap water may not be healthy and that there are usually only a few within the school. Many students complain that they do not want to get up in the middle of lunch to go to a drinking fountain and then wait in line for a drink. I feel as if schools should provide water bottles for the children.  Students safety and their health is very important. If a student is suffering from hydration that can cause problems with learning. They have been trying to come up with ways to make water more accessible in schools in a way that schools can afford.

The 3 main ways teachers are prepared differently (Finland vs. United States)

1. The first was teachers are prepared differently is that in Finland you are required to attend other teachers lessons. You are to attend the lesson then critique it and share your thoughts with that teacher after words. Also they watch for helpful ideas, strategies for learning that are effective for the students and what techniques work and what don't work. The feedback process for Finland's teachers is very important they feel that feedback is an essential part of becoming a affective teacher.

2. Less is more. The students get much more freedom to work at their own pace. They do not give much homework and the deadlines for work are very generous. The students are trusted to do their work and they also know the quality of work that is expected of them. The teachers also do less "talk time" and more student work time. In the U.S teachers spend about 85% of the class talking while in Finland the teachers only do about 60%. Students are better prepared before they even get to college and decide they want to be teachers. Here in American I feel as if High School was just a time for football games and hanging out with friends, not a preparation time for your future.

3.Finally the last way that teachers are prepared differently would be that the program is not easy to get into. Most people in the U.S can get into a teaching program with no problem. In Finland they realize that not everyone is cut out to be a teacher. Teaching is not an easy job and not a job for the average Joe off the street. They have higher standards to get into the program and expect you to work up to the standards while in the program. Also most teachers in Finland have a masters degree. Which means more preparation time and more education.

The Global Achievement Gap Chapter 5

When in a workshop at the beginning of the chapter, Tony talks about how when teachers sit together and watch  a recording of another teachers lesson, the grading results are very different. All the teachers watched the same lesson and the lesson was graded from an A to a F. I thought it was interesting when he talks about why this happened. It happens because teachers have different standards of what a good lesson is,  everyone is on a different page. All teachers need to find a way to agree on what it takes to be a good teacher.


Another point of Tony's that I found interesting is when he is talking with a man who had a business degree and went back to school for teaching. He said that Educators struggle with questions that other professions have to deal with daily. We struggle to find answers to our questions when the answer might be right in front of us.


When this man said that he was officially certified by a masters program yet he did not feel prepared to be in the class room I felt upset. This surprised me because you would that that all the schooling he had gone through and his masters program that he wouldn't have this problem. It is confusing to me that professors don't know how to better educate their students, weren't the teachers once students? You would think that "teachers" would be able to teach people how to be teachers. They can use their past experience from teaching to help others understand what it takes. 


I can imagine how frustrated he must have felt never getting any feed back from the principal or while doing his student teaching. Feedback is important for any job. The principal should have the ability to evaluate him effectively.  There should be more than just a check sheet full of areas to mark satisfactory or needs improvement.  Everyone will always have an area they need improvement in, so the fact the principal gave him no further instruction or advice on how to be a better teacher is frustrating. When he is interviewing a retired CEO of a company who went back to school to get his teaching certificate. He said that you should study teaching like you would business or law, and study cases. 


I was shocked to read that "more than three out of five report that schools of education do not  prepare their graduates to cope with the realities of today's classrooms." I just do not understand why a school would not find that an important thing to teach their future teachers. Sometimes the problems with education seam so simple, for example: teach your teachers about current issues. I know they are not all simply solved, but this one seams like common sense. 

Group Six: Chapter 9

Group six presented on Financial issues within the school. They had a great presentation with an interview from Anoka-Hennepin and they showed 3 videos. They started by talking about how schools are funded and where most of the money comes from that schools receive. Most of this money comes from state revenue. There are many issues in funding, one being that we are expected to spend more money than we are going to take in next year. Of course this is a huge problem because whenever you are taking in more money than you are spending there will be trouble. The biggest issue about funding inequality is that each school district has different needs, and many times these needs are not met.  Next the group discussed the pros and cons of having mayoral control vs. Local school board. There are many different benefits of having mayoral control but they explained how this can cause major issues in districts that are spread over a few different cities. They ended talking about the different choices of schools. There are public schools, private, charter, Kipp and homeschooling. It is important to be a proactive parent. Finding the right school for your child is very important. People often overlook their other options and just go with the local public school but this is not always the right choice for your child.

Waiting on Superman Response.

This movie gave many shocking facts about education. It saddens me to know that there are so many horrible schools and horrible teachers out there. Children deserve an equal and quality education.  These children in the inner city schools CAN learn and they want to learn but because of how bad their school is they do not have that chance. The only way they can get a better education is if they make in into a private or charter school. The education offered at such schools should be available to everyone. Like we talked about in class, I have realized that i have taken my education for granted. i had a decent school but never took advantage of its opportunites. I was in the middle part of the system. I never needed extra help but I was not advancing in any subjects. I could have been but I didn't want to and no one told me that I could. It broke my heart to see these children being rejected from schools that could change their life's. For many getting in these better schools is the only chance they have for a better life.

Good education starts with with good teachers and principals. Many schools do not have quality staff. The tenured rule is just stupid to me. If the teacher is not performing to the standards set by the schools districts they should be helped or let go. Children are our future and they deserve the best education.

What kind of teacher do you want to be?

Well of course I want to be a great teacher and i hope that everyone who goes into the teaching field strives to be just that. i want to make an impact in the life and education of my students. I would hope that my students and all the people around me would be able to see my passion for teaching. I would hope that by encouraging my students they would also want to be the best they can be. If a teacher shows that they are putting in 110% I feel the students will be more likely to do that as well.

How serious are you taking your education?

I can honestly say that i have not been very serious about my education. I didn't realize in high school the importance of learning the information. I passed all my classes just fine but never worked harder than I needed to or went above what was required. I put out the work but never really learned about it. Knowing what i know now about how important a good education is, if I could go back to high school I would have done things much differently. I know I would have been able to handle honors classes but I never wanted the extra work. My classes were easy for me I never had to try very hard. I am trying to find my passion to learn and have been working much harder in school. Taking general education classes I have found that not many of the professors are passionate about general courses, so it has been hard to be motivated to do that work, but I am trying!

Chapter Three: Global Achievement Gap

This chapter is titled Testing 123 and talks about testing here is the U.S. It starts off by giving us sample questions from the standard MCA's. I grew up in the Anoka School Districts and we were required to takes these tests. I believe we started testing in third grade. It was the worst week I hated tests after the first couple hours I began to just guess. I would assume I am not the only child who did that. One important thing I took away from this section is that many students struggle to pass these. That is an issue and that issue cannot be solved by more testing.

Another important piece of information I took away from this chapter is that applied skills is at the top of the list for important skills. Students today lack many of the necessary skills for math and science. These subjects are so crucial for learning because they allow you to not only solve a math problem but think critically about the many ways you can solve a problem. That is the same with science.

I thought it was cool when it talked about AP course and college. Many people think if you take AP courses you will be smarter in college. That is not always the case, in the chapter on page 93 it said, "taking any academically challenging course in high school with show an association with success in college."

Then the chapter moved on to talk about Citizenship Readiness. Do students that we send out into the real world really have the ability to be an important part of the community? Do they have the skills it takes to vote for who will make the better changes, or be on jury duty? If students are not learning critical thinking skills or how to accurately judge a situation how would you feel if they were a jury member on your case? All these questions made me think about myself, if I have these abilities or not. The seven survival skills are just as important for citizenship as they are for work.

There was a quote I took from page 111 that I found very interesting and my favorite part of this chapter. It says. "In todays world, it's no longer how much you know that matters; it's what you can do with what you know." I think that quote is pretty self explanatory. :)

Duluth schools take on high-tech bullies

http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/314783/

Technology has made it so much easier for students to bully others, and has made it harder to see bullying happen. Often times children get bullied by texting, Facebook, and other internet sources. By the bullying being as personal as cell phone to cell phone it makes it harder to get caught, and easier to do. These Duluth schools have been trying to come up with different ways to address bullying in a way that will be effective for everyone. They have given students and teachers techniques to handle bullying and to notice it. I like that the school encourages other students to stand up for each other.

DC schools' test scores under scrutiny

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/04/03/endo.dc.school.testing.scandal.cnn?iref=allsearch

This video looks at the issue of cheating, in the DC school districts, on the standardized tests. When there was a sudden rise in test schools for the DC schools so an investigation began. The automatic test scoring computers notice a high rate in eraser marks. It is thought that adults had cheated and erased children's wrong answers and put in the right ones. This is very sad, the children are being cheated out of a fair education. The tests are to show how much the children are learning, by cheating like this the children will never get the help they need. Cheating also hurts the school, it may look like their test scores are getting high but the students in the school are not getting smarter, which will hurt the school reputation.

Are School Nurses Disappearing?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/04/04/school.nurse.shortage.parenting/index.html?iref=allsearch

This article really bothered me, the story it shared about a student dying from an asthma attack that could have easily been prevented it there was registered nurse on site. I feel the well being of a child and their health and safety comes before academics. A nurse should be the last person to get cut from a school. I would never send my child to a school that did not have their own nurse on site for the WHOLE school day. Now what about children with special needs? Often times they need medical attention daily, who hands out the drugs that children take daily? A nurse is qualified to give medicine, to give injections, and know what to do in a medical emergency until further assistance gets there. Nurses are needed in schools, and that is disappointing to find that many schools do not have them.

Ideal Teacher Prep Program

I have not really thought about what I would want in a teacher prep program before the question was asked. There are a few things programs and ideas I feel would be very helpful during this prep time and also the first year on the job. First of all during the prep program I find that it should be required students take a second language. Being able to speak to someone in their native language is a cool thing. Also during the first years of being a teacher, I think it is important to have emotional support. Having someone to kinda help you out for your first year or two until you feel you are ready to be totally on your own. One other thing I think would be helpful in a prep program is international studies/ student teaching. We had the honor of listening to a teacher who did her student teaching in South Africa. The things she learned and the new perspective on life that this opportunity gave her is priceless.

How my school was organized.

I attended Anoka High School. Our school was organized in a block schedule, with about a nine month school year from September to the beginning of June. I had four classes a day for a semester, some elective classes switched at the end of the quarter but the core classes lasted for a whole semester. I enjoyed this schedule because it allowed longer time in the classes and less stress about having to worry about homework for 6 or 7 classes. One thing I did not like about this was that if I had math at the beginning of my freshman year then not until the second semester of my sophomore year, that leaves a big gap of not having a math course. Over all I thought this worked out well, and now this year at Anoka they have switched to trimesters and 5 classes a day, I am glad I left before this change.

Group Five Presentation: Chapter 8

Group five presented on chapter 8, organization of American schools. The presentation was full of information about the types of different schools and how they are setup, organized. They talked about the characteristics of an effective school, a few examples are: optimal school and class size, clear academic focus and strong leadership, and a strong parental involvement. We watched a video on virtual schools. Virtual schools are schools that take place completely online. This had become a more popular trend over the years. Then they went on to talk about 4 day a week schools, and the pro's and cons of going to school only four days a week. We talked about year round schools, block scheduling and all day kindergarten. This group did very well providing us with plenty of information.

2 Million Minutes

Today we watched a video in class called 2 Million Minutes. They estimate that students spend on average 2 million minutes in school this video follows school in China, The United States, and India. In each countries those 2 million minutes are spend drastically different. The difference in how time is spent reflects how students do on testing, their level of determination, and the career path they choose to take.

In China there determination comes from wanted to get out of poverty, they want a better life for themselves and their family. Most of the students time in China is spent either at school or at home. They are not allowed to drive at the age of 16 like we are here in America. Their family wants nothing more than for their child to succeed in school and get a quality education. Chinese students are in school twice as long over all than here in America.

Indian schools are for-profit schools.They have education much like China with long days and an intense work load. The students parents push the career onto their child that they feel will make them successful. They do not take jobs that are risks like careers in sports, music or arts. They want a career that will allow them to be financially stable. One girl stated she felt "American education is like a dream no homework, light syllabuss and study only when you want to." This statement is pretty much true. Most, not all, American students do not spend as much studying as they do hanging out with friends or playing sports.

The American school they visited was a suburb school with great test scores. These students spend much less time on school work then they do on other activities. We scored 24 out of 29 countries in math. One professional talked about how Americans do work hard that is not the problem. The problem is how we spend out time, many students are involved in extra circular activities that take up a lot of time. For example, football there is an average of 20 hours a week spent practicing football. If the time was spent on homework and school there could be a big difference in school work completed by the student.

Unequal Education Video

In  class we watched a video called Unequal Education. This video consisted of taking videos from two very different schools for a time period of the semester. One school was in the Suburb called Riverdale. The second school was an inner city school and I do not recall the name of this school. The school in the suburb had very new equipment and much more equipment than the inner city school, there was a nice rec area and many activities for the students to do after school. On the other hand the inner city school had no such thing. There gymnasium was small and crowed, they have only basketball hoops to keep the children busy. This school is also in the bad part of town so the fact that they have no place to escape to after school is very upsetting. The education between the two school is drastically different. The suburbs school is equipped with fully trained teachers, text books and equipment. Many of the teachers in the inner city school are not qualified to be teaching in the areas that they are teaching in. For example their science teacher, he did not go to school for anything related to science, he is a dance instructor. Although the principal at the inner city school is very inspiring. He knows that his school does not have the best educational system, but he goes out everyday to make sure these children get to school, and receive some sort of education.

The video also followed around some children from each school. Lonnie is from the inner city school. Lonnie is a smart boy, but he hates school and is very bored with his classes. He feels they are too easy but has no interest in even doing the work that he claims to be "easy." I feel he would do much better in classes that are of interest to him and if he knew that he was getting a quality education. The students they talked to at the suburb school knew what they wanted to do after school, assumed that they would be going to a good college. It is very disappointing to me to know that these differences in schools is a reality. All students deserve an equal education but that just doesn't happen.

Group Four Presentation

Group four did there presentation on Chapter 7 which is called the Philosophy of Education. I thought that the presentation today went very well. We got an important quiz that helped us find what our philosophy of teaching is. These results are will help us write our paper and the end of the term. The group gave a lot of insightful information as well as showed us a few video clips that related to the PowerPoint. They went through four different types of philosophy: Perennialism, Essenitalism, Progressivism and Social Reconstrutionism. For each of these different types they gave us detailed information from the text about them. They also included some very inspiring quotes.

21st Century Skills Video

In class a few weeks ago we watched a Clip of a speech by Tony Wagner. He went through a part of his book  The Global Achievement Gap. There are several skills that Tony came up with that current employers are looking for when they hire an employee. The seven are as follows:
1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
2. Collaboration Across Networks
3. Adaptability and Initiative
4. Accessing and Analyzing Information
5.Effective Oral and Written Communication
6. Curiosity and Imagination
Watching this video and reading this book by Tony Wagner was inspiring and will be very helpful. I think the first step of Critical thinking and problem solving may be the most important. Students these days do not do this as much as they should, and like Tony said when you are thinking and problem solving you will ask questions. Asking good questions shows that you are dedicated to learning new things, and are able to figure it out.

IDI Blog

My IDI score was about where I thought it would be. My perceived orientation was 124. Then my developmental orientation was 103. The gap between the two was pretty high a "meaningful difference." As our teacher explained throughout our next few years we are going to try to find ways to close this gap and get out developmental orientation higher. I went to a school with a lot of diverse students, but I never really interacted very much with students outside of my group of friends. The next few years of schooling I would like to branch out and have new experiences within different cultures.

Day 4

I love my class!!! I went in today because they do not have school tomorrow and we are on spring break so I had some extra time to make it in. This is such a wonderful class, and Kari is a great teacher! I also LOVE being at Ramsey because I know so many people there. I got to see some more children from Adventures plus in the hall way. They are in second grade now and are growing up so fast. I got to see one little girl, Maddie who was at Adventures Plus as long as I was. It is true how children have an impact on you.

When I got to the class the children were excited to see me. I was able to work with three children on their math boxes. Doing this once again made me realize how much different they are teaching math. There was a subtraction problem that they were having a really hard time with. I did not know how to explain it to them, and felt kinda stupid. So I asked Kari how to best explain it to them and she told me  few ways they are taught to subtract, a main thing is them understanding why their method works. So we talked about that with them and I had the children work together to figure the problem out. After math Kari asked me if I would read a chapter from their story to them, I forgot my glasses today but I made it through the chapter. :) Today acted as a Friday and we did fun club after the story. A child's father brought in some ice cream snacks and the children loved that! They were very wild today since it was the last day of school before break, but I had fun! This has been a great experience so far and I am excited for the rest of my time I am able to spend at Ramsey.

Obama Pushes Education Turnaround

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110308/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_6

This article talks about Obama's visit to a school in Boston and how Bill Gates and his wife donated money to the school and they improved their graduation rate. Also, that the responsibility for getting a better education system falls on everyone including the students. Both parties of the house are coming together and realizing something needs to be done about our education system. Our schools need more money, that we don't have, but need to find a way to get. There are many changes that need to be made and I just hope they will be able to be made fast and start making chances as soon as possible.

Group Two Presentation

Group two did chapter 5; student diversity-development, ability and exceptionalities. They started with passing out a IEP and some other handouts. They did a great job going through the specifics about the chapter. Their information was very in depth. They talked about how teachers can accept students into their classroom and how they can adapt things to help the children with disabilities. They gave a list of ideas from the book about specific things a teacher can do, I like that they included that into the presentation

Group One Presentation

I was in the first group presentation we did chapter 4; student diversity. I enjoyed working on this presentation, my group all got along very well making it easier to work on a project. We had an introduction of diversity and the concepts that go alone with that. Also some main facts about diversity in schools, what it looks like now and how it will be in the future. After that we went in to talking about bringing diversity into the classrooms and acceptable ways to do that. Then finished with how it affects the students. We did a class discussion and I was surprised by the responses and very pleased that people did respond. I enjoy hearing what the class has to say and their opinions. Over all I felt our presentation went very well!

Day 3: Field Experience

Each day had been going about the same way. Today I was able to go into the office and catch up with some of my old friend's mothers who work there. It was very nice to see them and be familiar with the people at Ramsey Elementary. Also a mother came in from Adventures Plus where I used to work, which was nice to be able to catch up on how the kids were doing! The children were very excited to see my like usual when I came in. Friday we did exploration activities for math. The children were asked to practice making estimates. Also they used polygon blocks to explore fractions with shapes. The math they are teaching is a lot different than when I grew up and I like the new way. They also worked on problems from their math books, and I had the chance to work one on one with one of the little boys who was a little slower and needed some extra help. I felt bad for this child because he was slower I noticed that he never really finishes his math problems. He is smart, it just takes him a little more time than the other students. This student is going through a very hard time so I know that this time we spent on his math problems made him happy, even though it was only a few minutes. Kari spent a little time explaining to me the lesson plans and how they work. It is pretty much all laid out for her, and I feel as if that leaves her with no room to be creative or to expand the learning. It is do the lesson, worksheets, a game or two then you test them. There is a lot of teaching for tests for math, this is talked about in the book we are reading Global Achievement Gap and I have been able to see that first hand. It is sad that it is that way.

Speaking in Tongues

On Tuesday we watched a video called Speaking in Tongues. It was about immersion programs and mainly focuses on Spanish and Chinese. I was blown away by how well these children were able to speak a new language at such a young age. Being bilingual has many great benefits. These children that know another language are going to have a much easier time finding jobs, they will not be limited to jobs in the U.S. Being bilingual allows them to eliminate limitations that exists by being monolingual, it gives them more options for a better future. In the video it stated something along the lines of, learning another language at such a young age allows them to use and trigger parts of the brain that typically are not used at such a young age.

Afghan Girls' Education

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110224/lf_nm_life/us_afghanistan_girls_1

A lot of the time I forget how lucky I am to live in a place where as a woman I am accepted to school. That growing up my school was never more than 10 minutes away. I take for granted being able to go to school with out the fear of my school being attacked. In this article it talks about girls in Afghan how at the age of 18 only 18% still attend school, while the males are at 42%. Some girls that do go to school, do not attend everyday and it can take up to 3 hours to get there. How are they supposed to learn like this? I just cannot say enough how truly blessed we are here being able to go to school unafraid.

Field Experience: Day 2

Today at Ramsey went much like last week. It worked out very conveniently that Friday's were the best day for me to go in, since Friday's are the only day I am able to go. Kari (cooperating teacher) told me the children had been asking about me all week, making sure that I would be there on Friday. So when they came in from recess they were very happy to see me, which made me feel pretty special :) The routine was pretty much the same but had a few minor changes. Today they had more independent work time in their math books. They also had a math quiz on counting money and finding change. Kari also took some children aside one by one to test them to see if they can apply what they are learning. A reason that I love working with children, is that I love watching them think. One of the student that has been having some behavior problems did exceptionally well during his math work time. This impressed me. I was impressed that when he actually found something that he liked to do, he was able to sit and concentrate. Also, there is a boy that I will call Matt. He comes from a rough background, he just moved here a month or two ago. And he and his mother moved to get away from an abusive dad. They have been having problems with this student, but I mean do you really blame him? Kari told me that other students complained he is saying violent or crude things. But really he doesn't know any different, I am sure that when his father was around he heard and saw way more than a second grader should see/hear. It breaks my heart to know that he has gone through more issues and problems in his 8 years of life, not to mention much more extreme, than I have in my entire life. Today while working with math, Matt asked me a question. I am not too familiar with how to explain to him the problem, I mean I could figure it out, but I do not know how they have learned it, and so I asked if he could ask a friend to help him. So Matt turned to the girl sitting next to him and asked for help. This girl is so sweet, she smiled and said yes. She didn't just give him the answer but she taught it to him! I was very impressed with her ability to explain and to help him instead of just telling him what to write. Even after the problem Matt initially asked for her help with, she continued to watch and help him through the page. Students like this little girl, make me so happy. Matt is a little different and she has seen him act out, yet she had no hesitation when he asked for help. What a sweet girl. 

My first day of field experience!

My first day was Friday the 18, I arrived at about 1:20 and ended up leaving at about 4:20. The cooperating teachers name is Kari.  I know her personally from my previous job.( I worked at Ramsey's program for students before and after school, called Adventures Plus.) She is a great woman and mentor! When I got to the class the students were just coming in from recess. Before the students got to class Kari explained to me a little about the class and what she wanted me to do. They were very excited to see me as Kari had been telling them all week about me coming in on Friday's. A few of the children were familiar to me, so that was fun. (From my previous job) They started off with independent reading, then they all went into the second grade area, with all the other classes for a reading of the mystery book. This is when a teacher reads a small section of an unknown book, then the children go back into their class room and write down their guess for what book was read, and at the end of the day there is a drawing. When they came back in they all sat on the floor and I was able to share a little about myself. I told them where I went to school and why I was in their class, my favorite color, that I had a brother and sister. Then I took questions from a few children, they asked if I liked Harry Potter my answer was yes, they were excited about that. My favorite question was "What is college like?" I told them about my classes and how they were a lot like theirs, I had math, music and a geography class. Then I told them I lived in St. Cloud on the campus. Some were confused by this, but one of the students I knew from Adventures Plus blurted out that I lived in a Dormitory. Yes he said Dormitory, I laughed at this and was impressed that a second grader knew this. Then they connected it to of course Harry Potter. One of them said, "OH like in Harry Potter how they live at the school." I said yes, but those rooms are a lot nicer. After this discussion the children were eager to get to know me more. So Kari broke them out in to two groups for some group work. The group that I lead, had to make repeating patterns with shapes. They understood the assignment right away and got to work, some faster than others. They asked if they could make another one more challenging, with more shapes. The rest of the day went great. There are a few students in here class that need extra attention and a few boys who misbehave quite a bit. I am very excited to get to know the class more!

Chapter Two: The Global Achievement Gap

In chapter two Tony talks about how students in AP classes know how to pass tests but not how to observe. Like the story that is told about the students doing a lab, when something goes wrong they look to the professor to help them for him to give them the answer of how to fix it. You would think that in advanced placement classes the students would have the knowledge and critically thinking ability to fix this on their own.

Another main point that I found to be interesting was when Tony talks about how "teachers are not encouraging deeper levels of thinking or question asking. He states tests are multiple choice, teachers are trying their best to get their students prepared for tests." This problem deprives students of that very important skill of critical thinking, I can see now that when I was in Elementary School, that yes, the emphasis was put on getting us prepared for tests. I feel like I am missing out on important skills that I should have been taught but wasn't.

"It is only in an occasional honors or art class where someone may see deviations from the standard lesson." (Page 64) This is sad to me. Students should be able to ask questions that are not related to the standard lesson and they should get an answer! Students should have some freedom to explore topics that are an interest to them, even if it is not always related to the "standard lesson."

The fact that teachers have not been trained on how to teach all students how to reason, hypothesize and analyze takes away from the learning of the student. I feel the fault for this should not go to the teacher but to who taught them. If the teachers were not taught themselves how to think this way, how are they going to teach the students.

Like talked about a lot in this chapter, teachers are focused on the "wrong things" you could say. They are teaching exclusively on the reading and math BASICS. Why just the basics? Learning should have more depth, creativity and exploration. Students don't get excited about learning when it is the basics and they same type of lessons: worksheets, papers, multiple choices tests.Learning should be fun and exciting, and instead of students thinking school is boring they should want to go!

Anoka High School Crowns Teen with Downs Syndrome Royalty

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/education/teen-with-down-syndrome-crowned-king-feb-6-2011

I graduated high school from Anoka last year so I have been able to see first hand the acceptance of students with disabilities in the school. Of course not everyone at the school is so accepting and Anoka has it's share of problems but this article shows that there are students at Anoka who are willing to go out of their way to help people feel special. Anoka had its winter dance a few weeks ago, which is called "MORP" the day of this dance their is a pep fest to crown a senior boy and girl, king and queen. Last year the king who was crowned was a student with a disability, and this year that student had the opportunity to pass down his crown to another fellow student who has downs syndrome. 

I find this to be an amazing thing for the students to do, they were able to see through their differences that they have with Collin and realize that he is a great person. To see the students accept Collin and truly appreciated who he is as a person is remarkable. Although Anoka has many issues, through out my years there I have seen the student body do some really special things for some really special people!

Presidents Day celebrants place emphasis on education.

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/22/3419870/presidents-day-celebrants-place.html

In this article, it explains how usually Presidents Day is used to honor the Presidents. The article states they are not exactly sure which President it was made for either George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson or all of them. But the reported found the people gathered at the ninth annual American Heritage Day at Mount Vernon Memorial Park believed this day should include more educational traditions.

I agree that Presidents Day should include more educational traditions than just honoring Presidents. I remember in Elementary School that Presidents Day was just a day we got off of school. I probably could not name you more than 7 of our 44 Presidents. And I really do not know much about them. I don't know if I just never paid attention in school or if I never really learned anything about the Presidents of our own country. But teachers should take the time to educate their students about Presidents Day and the reasons that we have to honor our Presidents.

Today I watched the movie Bullied...

As a future teacher I find this video will be a great teaching tool. As a future teacher I can't seem to understand why these principals and teachers did not do more for Jamie. Obviously he was getting bullied, anyone could have figured that out. But the thing that bugs me is that he asked for help so many times, he was mentally and physically abused. That takes a tool on a student, especially when it goes on for as long as, and was as bad as Jamie had it. How did these people around Jamie at school including teachers, principals, and other students just stand by and watch this poor kid get abused day in and day out.

It doesn't matter how you feel about his lifestyle choices, that he is gay. Whether or not if you "agree" with Jamie being gay, he is still a human being, a student, a child. He did not deserve to go through this. Everyone no matter who deserves to be treated well and loved.

I am glad Jamie decided to stand up for his rights. I feel like by doing this he realized it was not his fault what happened to him. That he knew that the way the other students and principals treated him was wrong. Like he said in the movie, when the principal told him that if he didn't want to get picked on he shouldn't act so "openly gay" and he started to think something was wrong with him. No one deserves to feel like that. By winning his case I hope that he did realize that there was nothing wrong with him but there was something wrong with the principals.

Chapter one: Global Achievement Gap

I really enjoyed my first chapter of The Global Achievement Gap. As a student that will be heading into the world of work it was very helpful to read about what employers these days look for. In this chapter they talked about how there is a loss for critical thinking expression in schools. I would agree with this and say that there hasn't been room for students to think critically and be expressive for a while. I know that thinking critically about situations and finding more than one answer is something I struggle with. Putting kids through days of MCA testing is ridiculous. That is so much work and way to much to put young kids through. One quote that I found interesting was "yesterdays solution doesn't solve tomorrows problem." (p22) We need to find new solutions and look at education in a whole new way. The Seven Survival skills are very cleaver and helpful as well.

Transforming Africa Through High Education

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/17/world/africa/17iht-educSide17.html?_r=1&ref=internationaleducation

I feel that more people need to think like Mr. Awuah and try to help where ever they can. Mr. Awuah started a private college in Africa with a class of 30. These 30 students have big dreams and large hopes for their future. Mr. Awuah coming from a good job in the U.S. to go to Africa to help others is very selfless and encouraging. When I say more people should think like him it's because later in the article he says that he could not handle just sitting back in his "middle class Seattle suburb, and do nothing." We get so comfortable with our own worlds/lives we don't think about what others need. In America we are very blessed with many things, we could spend some more time helping out, we don't have to go open a new school yet there are small things we can do to help.

English Language Learner

http://www.sctimes.com/article/20110129/NEWS01/101290019/St-Cloud-schools-see-mixture-of-spoken-languages

In high school for one of my Child Care classes we worked in the preschool that was inside to the high school. There was a boy who was about 6, he only knew Spanish. The preschool teachers did not speak Spanish, I mean they knew their colors, numbers, letters but not much more. The boy often stood around confused because he could not understand what the teachers were telling him. I felt bad for him he spent the whole day in preschool with no one he could communicate with. Reading this article reminded me of him, and how much help it would have been to have someone who could give him the one on one attention that he needed. The English Language Learner program is great, and I am glad it exists to help students get through their days and to learn English.

Freedom Writers

Revised Post. (Answering the questions from D2L)

Starting off going into this teaching job Erin hopes that she will be able to inspire the students with literature that they will have a passion for it as much as she does. Her eyes are opened when her class of students doesn’t respond as quickly as she had hoped.  She realizes that their skill level is not up to what she thought it would be and that it will be harder than she thought. When Erin realizes that this class is not what she expected she takes a new approach on reaching them. She learns about them and their life. Most of these students have had family/friends that have died due to gang violence. One of her students shared his journal entry and expresses his appreciation for what she has done and the class. He shares that he has no longer has a place to call home, to feel like he belongs because his family was evicted from their home. He shares that when he is in class with these people he feels like that is where he feels at home. As a teacher that would be so encouraging to here. At first the attitudes of the students about learning was very negative, they did not understand how learning about music, math, writing would ever help them in the “real world.” This affected them because they had no interest. It is hard to want to learn about something you feel is useless to you. Once Erin realizes this she come up with ways to connect their learning to them personally. She changes the traditional teaching methods she has to first prove to them, show them, that what they learn in school can help them have a better future.  One of the strategies that Erin uses to break down the barriers was the line game. Doing the line game I feel so beneficial to the class for them to realize that just because they are from different parts of town and different ethnic groups that they still have things in common. Also, I feel like when Erin begins to spend her own money on the students they realize that this teacher really cares about them. I feel as a teacher it is important to have other teachers to look up to and connect with. Erin struggled with this she has little to none support from the teachers around her. Having high expectations for the students made them want to reach them they wanted to prove to people that they can learn, that they can graduate and make it to college. Although Erin’s expectations were high, she used that in an encouraging way. A lesson that I learned would be to strong. As a teacher you need to be a person that your students can rely on, you cannot give up on them.  Stand up for your students and show them how much you care.

(original post)
Freedom Writers is a very inspiring movie. The scene when Mrs. G sits down with her dad because she is flustered about how to help these students. I feel like her struggle with how to help them (with things outside of school work) is something that many teachers will face at some point in their career.  I like when the teacher realizes that this class full of students was not what she expected, she steps back and thinks outside of the box and comes up with ways to help her students in a nontraditional way. It is so sad to hear the stories of these children, they are in high school they shouldn’t have these problems. Although this is a movie, these issues are real. It is not easy to be in high school, students are faced with difficult obstacles throughout the four years. To have a teacher like this, which the students are able to come to makes a huge difference. That is one of the reasons I want to become a teacher. I want to make a difference in the lives of children. The difference that Mrs. G makes in the lives of her students, I feel that every teacher would strive to have that kind of impact. She kept pushing them and encouraging them to do their best. That is a good teacher.  

Why I want to be a teacher!

The last two years before I came to St. Cloud State University, I worked for an after school program called Adventures Plus. Being in that program and working for them, I found that children are my passion. I love the look on a child’s face when they learn something new, I love watching children grow and mature. All children need positive role models in their life, they need someone they can look up to and learn from. Now days, with the hours that parents work vs. the time they spend with their children, a lot of children get the short end of the stick. I’ve seen it firsthand working for Adventures Plus, parents dropping their children off at 6 am and do not come to pick them up until 6 pm. So those hours not spend with their parents is spent with teachers and teacher assistants. Children need to know that they have adults who care about them. I feel as though God has blessed me with the patience and the motivation to help children and teach them. As I said in my blog above not everyone has the traits to become a teacher. So those of us that are blessed with these traits should not waist them.  

Response to Minn. House takes up alternative teacher licensure

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

I feel there are good and bad things about making new ways for people to become teachers outside the existing process. Teaching is not for everyone, I feel the experience that is provided when going through a college degree is crucial. Although it would create diversity in schools, adding teachers who are "mid-career" with experiences than the average teacher. I feel as if that would be a great addition to schools.