Bringing it All Together

Teaching for social justice is important; all the students need to be aware of what is right and wrong. In the article a child says "You know, Mr. Kohl, you can get arrested for stirring up justice."[i] I think this statement shows that the student doesn’t understand that it is ok to fight for something that you believe in. If no one stood up for anything then nothing would get done. It is important to be involved with the community outside of school to show that you care about what is going on in the community. I believe that there is also a time when you should not fight for something and it is important to realize when a situation like this occurs. For instance if you know a student is in the wrong class you need to stand up for them and try to help them get into the correct class. It is important that the student feels that the teacher is a good person. A lot of times students do not like a teacher and will not give there best effort. Although the teacher should have the trust of the students and respect there is a fine line between being liked because you are a good teacher and being liked because you are the “easy” teacher. It is important that all students have the same chance to learn even though each student learns differently it’s the teachers role to find that out and figure out how they can best teach them.

A good teacher needs to know their students and what they are like. I was reading an article and in it states “Most often, we do not teach in the way children learn but the way in which we want them to.”[ii] If the teacher knows their students then the way they want them to learn will be the best way that they learn. I feel that this is important because the relationship between the student and the teacher will be better if they know each other. Students will try harder for someone that they know and like rather then someone that they just see as a teacher just assigning assignments. It is not good for a teacher to not know what students’ interests are and not know how to connect with the students. I think that taking the time to get to know the students can help to figure out how you can teach to keep them interested in the subject. It is important that the teacher cares about the students but it is also important that the teacher does not get to wound up in being a teacher and doesn’t take some time to relax. If the teacher is happy it will carry into the classroom and will make it a happy place to be which will benefit the students learning.

Schools should be a place that is safe and enjoyable for all students. It is important that the schools provides opportunities for the students to explore subjects of interest. The students should be able to use anything that will help them learn. For instance schools should have computers and allow the students to use them. Students know a lot about technology and they should be able to use it. Children are on computers at home at a young age so if that will help them learn it should be used. “Schools are now using interactive tools to make lessons more enjoyable and fun for children.”[iii] This is important because a happy student who likes being there will be better off then the student who is counting down till the day ends. If a student is having trouble but they feel comfortable in a classroom they will have a better chance of understanding something. To make a student comfortable provide them with something they can use and feel comfortable with. I think that with the technology classrooms should have computers to help out the students.

Teachers face the problem of being stressed while at work. They have the responsibility of a classroom of students that they need to watch over. The teacher does not know every thing that is going on with a child and sometimes this can disrupt the classroom. A student that is having a bad day for one reason or another can be angry and cause disruptions to interrupt the class and cause the teacher stress. The teacher has to make sure that if a student does something inappropriate they receive the correct punishment and they need to make sure it does not cause harm to other students in the room. Teachers have a lot to worry about in making sure that all the students are safe.

In article teachers explain why they are stressed. The article was written a week or two after the snipers in Washington DC. One teacher said “I talk to parents but still can't get the children to attend to the task given. It's not an academic problem, it's a social problem.”[iv] When something happens like a big event that affects the children outside of school a lot more stress is involved because the students are on edge as well as the teacher. This makes teaching stress full and difficult to teach to the best of ones ability.
I interviewed a Kindergarten teacher that teaches at a private school in South Boston.

Q-Do you think that it is important to know your students outside of the classroom such as family, or activities they enjoy doing?

A-Yes, because especially when you are teaching elementary school it is important to know your students interests when you are trying to plan lessons to keep the kids interested. Family is important to know what is going on at home and that it could affect school. A tough family life might affect them in class

Q-Have you ever had a student that was having trouble in class and you found out that there were problems at home?

A-Yes, the student was misbehaving and through speaking to them bits and peaces came out that there was trouble at home. The problem was addressed and there was a meeting with the parents to try to fix the situation.

Q-have you ever been affected by what a student has done to the point that you keep thinking about it after the situation is over?

A-Yes, when ever there is a major situation you think about it afterwards because you are reflecting on why the situation occurred.

Q-Do you feel you handled it appropriately or is there something you would have changed?

A-I feel that at the heat of the moment I handled it correctly, looking back at it I may have changed the way I handled it, but that is part of teaching to learn from how I handled this situation so if it happens again I will be prepared.

Q-Do you enjoy teaching and why?

A-Yes, I enjoy knowing that every day is different especially with young children. I enjoy positively impacting children’s lives. When they succeed they are happy and that makes me happy, and feel like I succeeded.

The School by: Vikanya Chea

The school where knowledge goes wild.
The school where delinquents thrive.
The school that people despise,
is the same school that I cherish.
The school where I learn vast amounts of knowledge.
School of my hope.

The school I wish to avoid.
The school that always makes me wake up at 5: 30 in the morning.
The school where ideas come alive,
is the place I learn best.
The school with a freedom of speech.
School of my dreams.

The school where vibrant faces don't go unnoticed.
The school where smiles lift people up.
The school that forces you to communicate,
is the best way to make friends.
The school with so many different personalities.
School of my being.

The school that receives no credit.
The school that is a burden.
The school that is one of a kind,
is what makes the school itself special.
The school, which is my haven.
School of privilege and adventure.[v]

---

[i] http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/15_02/Just152.shtml

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61601-2002Oct21.html

[ii] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Services/Now_schools_use_interactive_tools_to_make_lessons_enjoyable/articleshow/3751181.cms

[iii] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Services/Now_schools_use_interactive_tools_to_make_lessons_enjoyable/articleshow/3751181.cms

[iv] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61601-2002Oct21.html

[v] http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-school-2/

Building a Staircase

The students reach the top when they understand what has been taught to them.

The students build off of what they have learned to gain a better understanding of the subject.

The students need a good base knowledge so that they will be able to have the basic understanding of a subject.


Once the teacher knows what type of students they have the plan for teaching the subject will be able to be worked out.

Building a stair case is like teaching. You first have to start by getting all the materials and make a plan on how to build the stair case. Like teaching you need to start by finding out who your students are and the best way that they learn, so that you can most efficiently teach them. Once you know what materials you have and a plan at how to construct the stairs you start by building a foundation that will be sturdy enough to hold up the stairs. As a teacher you need to provide a base knowledge that the students can build off of. You build the staircase one stair at a time off of each other. As a teacher once the base knowledge is learned you start to teach off of that. The main goal of the stairs is to reach the top. As a teacher you teach the children in increasing order until they reach the main goal of knowing the material that you are teaching in depth. So it all starts with learning who your students are, giving them a basic knowledge of what they are learning, and going in depth so that they learn the material that is being taught. You would not want to build your stairs on a foundation that is not sturdy because they will fall over. Just like teaching you can not teach someone effectively if they do not have a basic understanding before you get into the more detailed material.

I chose building a staircase to compare to teaching because there are so many different ways and materials a staircase can be built but in the end each staircase’s purpose is to bring you to a different level. Like teaching there are so many different kinds of students with different learning styles but each student’s goal is to gain better understanding of a subject matter.

Using Race to decide what students go to what school

I chose to do my blog on race in school. I first started by looking for cases where race was a problem in the classroom but ended up finding a case a little bit different. I found a case where the community decided that the families can send their children to any school in a given district. At first thought I thought this was a good idea but once I kept reading it turned out that the problem was too many families wanted to send their children to the same schools. The school had to decide what students to take and what ones had to find a different school in the district to go to.

The problem was that with so many families wanting to go to the same school the school needed to let some students leave. When deciding on what students they should take in the school race became an aspect of who stays and who goes. The schools say that they wanted to have students of all different races in the schools and that’s why they chose the way that they did. Many families feel that it was not a fair way of deciding because kids were having to go to schools that were no where near their homes. A group of parents got together to sue the school district saying that it didn’t make sense the way that the children were being chosen. The school did not get sued because the students were not being kicked out of the school district just the specific school. I think that it is good to have a school with a mix of students with different backgrounds but I also think that students should go to the schools that are close to their homes for convenience.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/05/scotus.schools.race/index.html

Vocational-Technical Schools

I picked Vocational-Technical Schools because I think that they are valuable to have for high school students. It provides students who want to learn a trade a better opportunity to learn it. If the student goes to a public school they will take a lot of classes that do not interest them and possibly have the student not want to go to school anymore.

I learned that vocational schools offer more programs then I thought that they would. The school provides numerous job training classes for students who are interested in a certain trade. Some that surprised me the most was dental assistant, criminal justice, surgical technician, and medical assistant. I originally thought that it was mostly a school for, auto repair, piping, food preparation, and other jobs of that nature.

I think that this type of school is a good opportunity for students to pursue a career. It gives them many options of different trades that they may be interested in. It can help out students who struggle in public schools not because they are not intelligent but because they are not interested in what is being taught. I like in the book in the paragraph that starts “slackers need not apply” (197) because it shows that the school is not looking for students who are trying to take the easy rout to get out of public schools.

http://www.hightechinstitute.edu/career/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_term=vocational+schools&utm_campaign=HTI+-+Corporate+/+Identity

John Dewey

I agree with the philosopher John Dewey, I liked his views on how people think and the idea of finding the truth. His main philosophies are that people thought becomes fact. As he stated “the world of fact does not stand apart from thought, but is itself defined within thought as its objective manifestation.” He is showing that in order for something to become a fact it has to start off as a thought. I have heard this theory before a couple times, one place I heard this idea was in the movie James and the Giant Peach when they land in New York and James is saying in order for everything to be created it had to be dreamt first. This is slightly different then the ideas of John Dewey but is along the idea that people have to think of something before it can be a fact.

Dewey’s second point is finding the truth; He argues that the truth is found when it agrees with reality. He states “the traditional correspondence theory of truth, according to which the true idea is one that agrees or corresponds to reality, only begs the question of what the "agreement" or "correspondence" of idea with reality is.” He is saying that truth is only something that we believe because it fits in with reality. Something could not be true but because it corresponds with reality we believe it to be true. He also talks about how something is only true if it is successfully employed in the pursuit of human goals.

I agree with Dewey because he uses good points about the truth and how we know if something is really true or just believed to be true. I have talked about this idea of is there anything that is really true in a class I have taken. There are people who come up with different reasons why something is not true and it is interesting to think about, so I enjoyed reading about John Dewey.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/dewey.htm

Social Justice

I think that nurturing your students is important to keeping them on task and involved with the class, but could that lead to other students thinking you are favoring a student or group of students over another. I think that all teachers should try to help every student they have to the best of their ability but they need to be carful not to leave any students out. Once a students feels they are not getting the attention they deserve their work will start to decline, and then they will become a student who gets more of the attention causing another student to fall behind. Nurturing the students is important to show them that you care and that the work they are doing has a reason.

I liked the fourth point that Herbert Kohl brought up, about not letting teaching take over your life and still having fun and enjoying different aspects of life. I think that is something that a lot of teachers forget and sometimes they will bring outside moods into the classroom. If a teacher has fun and has things to look forward to doing besides school work they will be more relaxed and more enjoyable in the classroom for the students. If the students see that the teacher is no uptight about everything they will be ready to show up to class enjoy the time that they are there and learn more because they are not just waiting until they get to leave.

Special Education in Schools

I went to school with students with disabilities. The school provided a room that the students with disabilities went to for a period a day. I would go to the resource room with a lot of students to get help. I was never embarrassed to go there I actually enjoyed the help I received and thought it was worth it.

Teachers have to prep there day for different levels of class, for instance they may teach an English academic class and an honors class in the same day. The teacher has to take their time to set up two lesson plans for the different abilities. It is not fair to make a teacher to have to figure out how they are going to teach an academic classroom of students and one disabled student.

There was one student in my class that was very disabled. The school did not have a program for someone as handicapped as he was. His parents decided that they did not want to put him in a private school that could better help him so he went through the public school system. This was unfair to a lot of people. It was unfair to him because he was probably not getting the best education he could because he was in normal level classes. It was unfair to students in his class because occasionally the class would have to slow down or stop so that he could try to catch up. And it was unfair to the teacher because they would have to make separate tests for him. He was in one of my classes when I was a freshman. He would sit in the outside row so that his helper could be close and help him. The teacher of that class would make up special vocabulary tests that were completely different from the ones that the rest of the classes were taking. This was unfair to everyone because he is in the same level class as everyone else but is not at the same level of education as everyone else.

The school did all that they could to help this student out, He even graduated on time with the rest of the class. It is not fair to put the student in the school that he is not ready to be in. The student would have benefited greatly by going to a school that could accommodate his needs. I have a friend that when he was in middle school his parents decided he should go to a different school so he could get more assistance. At this time no one thought that he would ever be able to go to college. He went to a special high school that he lived at for four years, by the time he was done he was ready to go to community college and he completed two years successfully. It was because his parents knew he should not be in the public school system and got him the help he needed, that’s why he was able to go on to college.

http://specialed.about.com/cs/teacherstrategies/a/Strategies.htm

Safe Sex is Good Sex

Sex education is an important part of high school. There have been debates about how the teaching of sex education should be taught at the high school level. Some people feel that it should not be in school at all and is a terrible idea, and there are also a lot of people who feel that it is very important that the kids learn about it.

There are a number of ways to teach students about safe sex. The teacher can show films about teenagers that are pregnant to show the students the negatives it can have. The class can also talk about the positives as well. I believe that the classroom is an excellent place for teenagers to learn about sex. There are so many myths that are out there about sex that it provides a good place for the student to ask the teacher and learn the truth.

Recently on the news I heard a high school was talking about giving away free condoms to students. I think that this may be going a little too far, it is promoting safe sex, but at the same time it is also promoting sex in general. If students feel that sex is just something to do then they will being doing it all the time and this could lead to more problems.

http://newteachersupport.suite101.com/article.cfm/high_school_and_sex_education

Should there be cameras in the classroom?

Cameras in schools have its advantages and disadvantages. Having a camera in the hallways and overlooking doors is a good way of protection. School officials would be able to monitor who is in the school and what they are doing. This is a good way to secure the safety of the students. Anyone should be able to watch the tape if they desire and have a good reason to be doing so. Schools are watching over the classrooms and are only allowing limited people view the tapes unless they go through court. A parent brings up a good point in "If my child in school is accused of something ... I would certainly want to see that,"

I believe that if there are cameras in the classroom it may change the way a teacher and their students interact with one another. This could harm the educating process by making the students and staff feel that they are being watched over at all times of the day. Both the teacher and the students should not be doing anything in the classroom that would be bad on camera but I feel that it still changes the atmosphere of the classroom. I do think that cameras can help the students feel safe but also hurt the students in making them feel watched over.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/08/12/classroom.cameras.ap/index.html

Should schools have computers in the classroom?

Computers are becoming more popular throughout school systems. School districts are providing more and more computers to public schools, “they usually start with the high schools and work their way down to elementary.” How effective is a computer to a student? They should be able to learn basic skills on the computer. The basic knowledge of a computer will be helpful as the student progresses from grade to grade. Elementary schools are trying to get more computers in their schools, “Many elementary schools have found their own resources or are lucky enough to be a part of a district which has been able to equip everybody.”
If there is limited amount of computers in the classroom it can be utilized more effectively then having a larger number. The teacher can assign two students to one computer to have peered tutoring. The teacher can assign each student to a different task and give all the students in the class an opportunity to use their skills at the computer. To make sure this is effective the teacher can have the students keep a journal to make sure they are taking something out of the lesson.

The students can use computers as a beneficial way of learning. Norm Bishop states that “He suggests using multimedia computers to present information (video slides), with CD-ROM encyclopedia and almanacs and skill-based computer assisted instruction. Another suggestion he has is to place one of the more powerful multimedia computers on a cart for easy access.” Using computers to help the students learn can help them and can change the way a teacher teaches to give them more time to spend with the students and giving them one on one help.

http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec596r/students/Simmons/Simmons.html

About Me

I am a sophomore at Salem State. I am from North Reading but now live near school. I enjoy living in Salem, a lot of my friends are here in Salem. I played hockey and football in high school, these days I enjoy exercising and staying in shape. I like playing catch with the football, soccer, and hanging out with my friends. In school I enjoy history and sociology. This is a picture of my friend Jeremy and I last year.