final blog - spring 2006

so. i guess this is it. one semester in the school of education done. it's crazy how fast time flies.

well, i can safely report that i have completed all of my practicum hours and then some. and i can also say that i had a good time doing it. my teacher is amazing, and he has already said that he will let me steal all of his materials and make copies so that i will have something to start from. so that's pretty exciting. he is a very nice human, and seems like he genuinely cares about everyone.

i got to witness back to school night which was very interesting to see the difference between how mr. ambler interacted with his students and their parents. and it was remarkably similar, but not in a bad way. instead of treating both sets like children, he treated them like the adults that they are. he teachs twelfth grade, so most of his kids are going off to live on their own in college the next year, so if he were to demean them by treating them like children, i think he would have had a much harder time controlling them. as it was, there was a little senioritis in the classroom; the students were always performing for him. which i thought was a very good sign.

he also gave me lots of advice and ideas that i can carry over to my own teaching. needless to say, i am very excited about getting to teach more next semester. i think the worst part will be the getting up at the crack of dawn, and the being on a different time schedule from my friends. but i think i will be more prepared for the real world because i will essentially be doing my future job next year; i will still have a safety net and people helping me along the way while my friends may not have that advantage.

yeah real world. woot. i can't wait. (ew)

summerhill and sudbury

i just wanted to post these two websites because i thought that they were very interesting and revolutionary. before we discusssed these schools in class i was fairly certain that they were god's gift to education, and while i still feel that they are wonderful, it was good to discuss them with other people. (although i did anger some people with my super liberal hippy talk.) i will admit that i never would have realized that these schools had the ability to not properly prepare children for life in the real world. i guess i just thought of it in the way i would respond to an environment like this; i would be studying and going to as many interesting classes that i could.

these schools are really just like college but for younger children, and i think that is a very novel idea. i know i did well in a structured environment, but i am also doing well in a non-structured environment. but at the same time, my brother did awful in high school, so much so that we had to convince a college to take him. but now that he is dictating his own education, he is doing beautifully. so i really think that this kind of school could work for either very structured, mature, responsible students and for students who are crushed by structure. regardless, i was glad that i was introduced to this type of school, and i am still trying to make up my mind about how i feel about it.

a. s. neill's summerhill school

sudbury valley school

this old school

so i went to this edutopia website, and there was a lot of interesting things. i wanted to get an article about history (seeing as how that is my area of concentration) and i think that i found a winner.

this old school talks about a learning project in woodstock, connecticut that allows for third grade children and teachers to go back in time for a week and learn the old fashioned way, all in attempts to teach the students about the local history.

historical accuracy is stressed so the students are required to: dress in old fashioned clothes (long skirts, aprons, and bonnets for the girls; straw hats, knickers, and button down shirts for the boys), write with quill pens, use rotes and chalk boards, learn crafts (they allow for some deviation from historical accuracy by teaching both male and female students the crafts), and learn how to cook with a wood burning stove.

i thought that this was such a unique way of teaching students about history, and it is so effective too. i mean what student is going to forget something that they have to live through for a whole week. and i think it is a very important cultural tool; it helps students learn the history of local traditions and cultures, as well as learning about how most of the country lived in the 1830s.

if you want to reference the article it can be found at: this old school

additionally, edutopia had another article that tried to help out teachers who may have wanted to start something similar in their area. i really think that this idea of putting students into the shoes of people who lived in that time period, or at least simulations of important events (model un, model oas, model congress, act out nuremberg trials, etc) is a very good one. students are more apt to learn the material if they can interact with it and live it. at least that is the impression that i get. (my cooperating teacher is currently doing a model congress, and students who normally don't participate are getting into and really understanding how congress works, and i think that is great. it brings the information alive to students, and that is how they learn.)

the additional article can be found at: how to: breathe life into history

another edutopia website to possibly check out is articles on project-based learning. it just lists different articles that could be helpful with more project-based learning techniques.

jonathan kozol

so we were required to go to the lecture given at kimball theatre tonight by jonathan kozol, and i have to say that i am very glad that we were told to go to this event. he was amazing.

when i decided that i wanted to become a teacher i was fairly certain that i would not be able to handle teaching in the suburbs, with privileged children who are handed everything by their upper middle class parents. the thought of teaching in an inner city setting has always held an allure to me; urban school children need good teachers and need help to get out of the bad situation that society perpetuates for them, and i saw myself as a way to help out. so when jonathan kozol was talking about his work in inner cities all over the nation it spoke to my heart.

i had never heard of kozol before tonight, but after hearing him speak for a little over an hour, i have a desire to read all of his books to understand more about the work he has done to reintegrate schools, and to understand more about the drive to help the underprivileged. i signed up on his sheet so that hopefully he will be in touch with more information, the educator's attempt at networking.

when kozol discussed the fact that within the inner city school systems of most big cities in the united states the schools are essentially as segregated as they were before the civil rights movement it sent chills down my spine. why should the wealthy be the only ones to benefit from a good education? and why is society insisting on keeping the country segregated? and possibly even more importantly, what are we going to do about ending the cycle that people who are born in the inner cities suffer from? (here i refer to the cycle wherein jobs move to the suburbs, and so do all of the people who can afford it; then there are the people who can only afford the housing in the rundown areas of the inner city who can't get to the jobs in the suburbs because they are too far away or transportation is bad. or even, when the jobs move to the suburbs they become skilled labor jobs, so the people who live in the inner city and can't get to the jobs anyways, can also now not work in those jobs because, for the most part, they are part of the unskilled labor workforce, and they can't become skilled laborers because their schools are so run down. really the people who live in the inner city don't have a chance; society keeps perpetuating this, and the situation continually gets worse.)

anyways. kozol got me fired up and excited to teach. and hopefully deborah walker will soon get ahold of the school in hampton so that i can at least observe an urban school, which will be much different from the suburban jamestown high school where i currently observe.

the world is flat

first of all, i would like to thank karen for making me add one more book to my endless list of books to read. i mean, we only had 20 pages to read out of this book, but i found it really interesting and i'm totally hooked. thanks a lot.

the concept of the world being flattened by technology is a very interesting one i think. as i started reading i must say i was rather confused and couldn't really figure out what he meant that the world was flat, and that technology was flattening it even more everyday. but as i continued to read it became clear.

the idea of work flow software, i think, is crazy. the idea that you could work on a project with people from all over the world, and it be fast and seamless, with little mistakes because all of the software overlaps, is mind boggling. i mean i knew something like this was coming, but i had no idea it would come so quickly and be so thorough. and the fact that this work flow phase directly correlates to the next phase of "open source intelligence gathering" (93) is also amazing. i had no idea so many people were working on free software around the world, or that the system they have in place is a big step in taking down the man. (i am a firm believer in taking down the man whenever it is humanly possible. and i've got to say that i would love to see people stop using microsoft because there is all of this free software out there that may be even better than it. that would be a beautiful thing i think.)

i also found the parts about wikipedia and mozilla firefox really interesting. i have to say i don't know that much, if anything, about computers and software, so i didn't know that wikipedia was an "intellectual commons collaboration" (94) or that it worked by consensus. over the past year or so wikipedia has grown in usage, particularly for me. i love wikipedia. it seems to have everything you could ever need to know, so it is nice to know that what you are reading is, for the most part, factual information that is monitored so that it remains factual and useful to the community at large. mozilla's firefox is another new thing that i have been using just recently. it's brilliant, with it's tabs and search bar, which i now have set to not only google, but to wikipedia too; i don't even have to go the wikipedia home page anymore, all i have to do is type it into my toolbar and i'm off. with firefox again i enjoy the fact that internet explorer is going down in shares, because it is affiliated with microsoft, and it is about time someone messed with that monopoly. (although, i do have to say that i enjoy my microsoft outlook more than mozilla thunderbird, even if the only reason is that it doesn't do the automatic spell check and correct thing.)

finally, the issue that microsoft is worried about, if no one is getting compensated for their work where is the drive to make the free software better, and more importantly (for greedy microsoft) is how do we keep track of who owns what software if some is made for free and some for profit. both of these it would seem would be troubling. (i should put in some sort of disclaimer: i am a fairly avid socialist, so the idea of all benefiting from free things is a good idea to me. i think it will help to even the wealth gap, and keep the playing field even) the idea that there would be no drive to produce better software merely because one isn't compensated for it is preposterous. first of all, is it so insane that people would want to help others out with their gift of software programming, or that they may find it fun and enjoy it, or even more basic than that, that the mere competition of making a better program would spur people to achieve bigger and better things. bill gates asserts that we "need capitalism [to drive innovation.]" (101) however, the economist states that perhaps "the open-source approach represnts a new, post-capitalist model of production" (103). and i can only hope that they are right; it would be a step in the socialist direction i think, and i think that would be beautiful.

random...

how difficult is it to get more than one license? i just ask because it seems that it might be necessary if i want to teach in the inner city. i only say this because with the lack of teachers these days, especially in the inner city, i could see a very real possibility of my having to teach other subjects besides social studies. and according to NCLB, it is also necessary that i am "highly qualified" and this may not necessarily be the case if i am teaching other subjects besides history and government.

fyi: early childhood is best for learning a second language, preferably around age 4.
fyi: doing tasks for learners delays development (61)

reflective teaching

so in the course of reading and just thinking about the teaching experience there are a couple things that i would like to jot down, so i can stop collecting millions of little pieces of paper with all my thoughts written down on them.

first. the whole idea of teaching i am finding to be slightly scary. especially the first couple of years. i mean you will be (in my case, teaching high school) only four years older than your students if teaching seniors, and only slightly older if teaching grades nine through eleven. it seems difficult to imagine that most students will respect someone that is so close in age to them. i remember what it was like to be in high school; you already thought that you knew more than the teacher, even if they had been teaching for twenty years. i can only imagine that a brand new teacher would be shat upon by know-it-all students. and on top of having to gain their respect, you also have to control them, and hopefully gain their trust, and teach them something at the same time.

also. do you tell them it's your first year teaching? or is that just a recipe for disaster? the first time you meet your students, are you supposed to be super stern so they know who's boss? or are you nice, so they respect you, and maybe then be easier to control? (i realize the approach you take may very well be based on the type of class that you are teaching. for instance, you wouldn't very well be stern to first graders, but you might be to a class in an inner city high school. etc.)

there is also the idea of planning an entire days worth of activities. that seems very difficult. in fact, the more that i think about it, the more respect i have for all of my teachers; it is a hard and thankless job. (although, it is my understanding that someone is going to teach us how to plan a lesson, so that will be good. also, i feel like i would try and talk to experienced teachers and take a peak at their lesson plans. also, i totally plan on using information that my teachers distrubuted to me when i was learning the information. (is that bad?))

last semester i took a sociology class, mainly because it was required for secondary teachers specializing in social studies, but it turns out that it was very interesting, especially when we discussed education. there were articles that highlighted studies that there was an overwhelming amount of sexism in the classroom. it was sad to see, but at the same time, i recall feeling reluctant to raise my hands for feeling stupid, even though a majority of the time i did in fact know the correct answer. so the idea of calling on everyone individually seems like a very good idea. and there is the added benefit that by asking more questions students are supposed to learn more effectively. (this is a just a mental note, so that i don't forget that i should do this.)

another mental note. i really want to make sure that i teach as many different religious and cultural holidays, so that my students are ignorant to what is happening around the world. i wish i had been taught all about that kind of stuff when i was in school. i also wish my teachers, especially the government or history teachers, had gone over more current events, so that i was up to date on what was happening on a daily basis around the world. another thing that i don't think i was ever taught, was history after the 1970's. i mean we learned about the cold war, but besides that we learned very little about historical events that happened right around the time of our birth. i think it is very important to know what is happening around the world, because while it may not affect each of us directly, it is still very important to understand .

finally. is there anything extra that i should know about inner city teaching? clearly it would be different than teaching in the suburbs, i just wonder if there is anything special that i should know, so i don't fail outright. (maybe watching dangerous minds and stand by me could help, even if it is a hollywood version of the inner city.)

purchase rookie teaching for dummies? it might be helpful. (although i've always felt that people who buy those dummie series books are morons, so i'm not sure if i can bring myself to do it.)

on a totally different note. in reading for my educational psychology class i wondered why doesn't iowa have standards set that students should learn or be taught? and how are the students doing there, academically? i mean are they so advanced that is why they don't need specific state standards? or are they way behind the national average? (and can that even be figured out? the way students in iowa are progressing versus the rest of the nation, i mean.) they students must have to take some sort of test one would imagine. i guess i just would like to look up more information about iowa and their educational policies.

ok. i guess that is all of the questions and mental notes that i currently have. but i'm sure there are many more to come.

my technological biography

all through school we used technology; in elementary schools it was macintosh computers, in middle school we switched to pcs, then in high school there was the smart board. my high school was (and probably still is) partnered with a company called landmark systems. landmark systems invested a lot of money in my school, and soon all classrooms were equipped with smart boards and projectors, and there were a few portable classrooms where laptops could be moved around the school for all the students to have access to. the teachers used the smart boards for power point presentations, typing up class notes, and as a virtual blackboard, where notes could be saved and used the next day. in the classes that i took i was required to know how to make a powerpoint presentation, and probably made at least one powerpoint every two weeks or so. we were required to know how to surf the web to find information that could be used in class and we extensively used microsoft word for written assignments.

my personal relationship with technology is not the best. i mean we get along fine, but there is the occassional fight, where i try not to beat the technological device to a bloody pulp. my first cell phone and i did not get along particularly well; i was known as the girl whose phone could cut you off at any minute. (i blame it entirely on verizon though. when i went to ask a question about my plan, i told them how crappy the phone was and they admitted that they no longer sold the phone; it was only a display model. needless to say, i was not happy.) earlier this year i had a problem with my computer where norton would no longer can it for viruses and the simplest way for solving this problem was to erase the hard drive and start all over. (although i would have preferred to get a mac instead, as they are by far superior to pcs.) other than that, i have the occassional problem with other technological devices, but for the most part we get along alright.

this is a test