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.