Race to the Bottom

I just finished reading the article 'How to Raise The Standard In America's Schools' by Walter Isaacson.  I first have to comment on how well written this article was, and say that it sparked a very passionate feeling towards this issue in me.  I have to admit that before reading this article, I was always very skeptical towards the topic of  "standards" in education.  The word 'standard' has gained  a relatively negative connotation, and in general lots of resistance is met, especially in education, when the problem of national standards is addressed.  

My understanding of what it means to be a teacher is changing.  It's not just about what goes on in the classroom, everything is connected.  Our future success as a country is embodied in these young students and we are consciously lowering the bar, cheating them out of a proper education just so our respective state can look like it's proficient.  We NEED to stop beating around the bush and focus on creating a specific standard for these kids.  The way I read this article, these standards aren't focusing on the need for every kid to meet them at all costs. Instead they are focusing on providing a solid goal for these kids to work towards that will get them moving forward to a complete education, fully preparing them to be competitive with their peers around the world.  Equality has always been a big issue in the history of this country.  Why can't we realize that we are creating inferior kids, who have the potential to be the best, just because we are lazy and can't agree.  Is it really worth it?

While reading, I was thinking how this relates to my own life.  I experienced the inequality in levels of education last year in my first year Paideia class.  One of the objectives of requiring the Paideia class for every first year, is to create a common experience and community for the incoming students to build on.  However, because every freshman has to take Paideia, there are many different teachers for the class.   Here is where the problem arises, and the goal of the course is lost.  There is no common standard set up by the teachers for what we as students are supposed to have learned by the end of this course.  And because there is no set common ground  on what to learn,  consequently there is no common standard for grading.  This is really where I felt the inequality.  I had a teacher who graded significantly harder than other Paideia teachers because he held a higher standard of learning for the students in his class than other teachers held for their classes.  Even though this was beneficial towards my overall education, I felt that it was an extremely unfair situation.  The amount of time and work that I put in to write an C+ paper, would get a student in a different class an A paper.  After reading this article, I now see the purpose and importance of having standards in education.  We need a common base in order to effectively evaluate and improve important aspects of education, and to fully prepare our children for the future.

Role Playing.....Help or Hinderance?

We used a different approach towards teaching and learning in Monday's class.  It involved a mock proposal presented by Dr. Langholz and Dr. Knick, and role playing by us students, representing a variety of different parties in the community. The proposal aimed at increasing student achievement in the mock High Stakes Community Schools. Creating this whole scenario and learning experience for us as students obviously took some extended effort from Dr. Langholz and increased cooperation from the class.  We spent a significant amount of class time looking over the proposal and discussing it in our respective groups before we actually participated in the presentation of and response to the proposal.  

I feel that even though it took an elevated amount of effort from everyone involved, this role playing experience was very successful.  It allowed everyone an opportunity to participate, and it was also important that everyone was representing a different viewpoint/opinion on the situation.  We were able to evaluate the proposal and had to think critically in order to properly defend our position and be able to question the viewpoints of others.  In addition to this, the role playing can also be seen as effective because it actually prompted heated discussion because we had to defend our positions.  In my opinion, the role playing process is a legitimate educational technique because it actively involves students, and encourages the  analysis, evaluation, and questioning of a situation.

Chalk and Wire Lecture

We had our Chalk and Wire tutorial lecture last Monday.  Afterwards I was extremely overwhelmed with all the Education requirements that need to be met.   The Chalk and Wire information was a little confusing too because I hadn't even logged into my portfolio at that time.  Even though all this information was a bit much for me all at once, it was all really important information that I needed to review.  Sometimes I freak myself out with thinking about all of the stuff like licensing, portfolios, passing the PPST, endorsements, and paperwork.  I also have times where I worry a lot about my ability to be the BEST teacher I can for the kids.  I am not sure if I am going to be able to manage them properly, or even more importantly keep them motivated to learn.  However, I know that Luther will fully prepare me to be a future educator.  Not only did this lecture provide me with lots of essential information but it showed me that if I ever need any help all I need to do is ask and there will be someone who can answer my question or who can find someone else who can.

Since that lecture, I have logged into my Chalk and Wire account and successfully uploaded my first artifact.  All in all it was a pretty self explanatory process and it felt really good to finally get started on my portfolio.  I find that I just have to focus on doing one step at a time and I will be able to complete things without too much stress.

Regional History Day 2009

Felecia and I attended the Regional History Day 2009 at the Decorah Middle School on March 14th.  This was a very inspiring event to attend.  Viewing all of these student's projects really displayed the tremendous amount of commitment, and the quality work that middle schoolers are capable of.  I was very impressed with each and every one of the displays.  Each poster/display had an immense amount of information presented on it, and it was obvious that these projects took lots of time and motivation to complete. Each student chose a prominent person in history to research and develop a thesis on.  The fact that the kids got to make the choice of who to study was a very important aspect to the success of this project, I believe.  Because the students had a personal interest in what they were researching, their levels of motivation and enthusiasm were very high, as evidenced by the work I saw displayed.  Several people had built rotating four-sided display stands for their projects.  Others had conducted interviews with ancestors or relatives of their historical figure, and had them playing on DVD.  Still others had written letters to various people connected to their person and had their written replies displayed.  Not to mention just the creation of the projects, but also there appeared to be a huge amount of time spent planning and organizing this event.  There were flyers listing the schedule for the day, each individual's entry, the list of judges, and the different rooms where everything was to be held.       

As I mentioned before, attending this Regional History Day was inspiring to me because it gave me hope for our future generations of students.  We have been hearing a lot about how poor the United States education system is, and about all the different problems there are.  I know that all of this talk is very true, but it makes me depressed sometimes, and I wonder if it can be fixed.  The history event at Decorah Middle School reconfirmed to me that all of these students are more than capable, and it is just our job as teachers to bring out their abilities.

Reaction to "Chalk"

My initial reaction on Monday night after viewing the first part of this movie was mixed.  I couldn't decide if it was believable, and whether or not I could take it seriously.  I found myself laughing quite a bit while watching it, and it definitely kept me attentive and entertained.  But after class, I was wondering if these were really the appropriate responses for me to have, and what my reaction meant.  

It was really almost painful to watch the portions of "Chalk" where the social studies teacher was attempting to teach his lessons, engage his students, and keep classroom management under control.  He seemed to fail miserably at every single one of these things.  I was thinking to myself while watching this, how could this situation even happen, because it seems that any person who could make it past the student teaching and out into the real work force, would at least have a vague idea about how to handle these situations.  However, as I thought about it more, I realized that almost every one of us has experienced a teacher like this first hand.  So it has to be real.  Now I see how extremely crucial it is for us future teachers to learn effective classroom management, because it can literally make or break a classroom of students, or a teacher.  

In connection with "Chalk," I read the article "The Building Blocks of Positive Behavior" that was linked to our homepage. This gave me a new perspective on how to approach discipline and management in the classroom.  It talked about PBIS, "Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports," which is a system for improving student behavior that has been implemented in several schools in Alabama.  It is a school-wide approach that focuses on reinforcing positive behavior, so you catch the behavioral issues before they happen.  Two really important ideas that I took away from this method were the fact that the entire school is on board with this system, and that it really concentrates on the positives of behavior and not the negatives.  With the whole school operating on the same system, the children know clearly what is expected of them, and won't be able to get away with different behavior depending on whose class they are in.  This is a huge deal because it is CONSISTENT.  Concentrating on the positive is always better than concentrating on the negative because it takes the ATTENTION away from those doing the inappropriate things (which is what they are seeking by doing those things), and puts it towards those who are exemplifying the right behavior.  Both key ideas for successful classroom management.

Mr. Steve C's presentation

I thought that all of the advice that Steve gave us was pretty valuable in one aspect or another.  He talked about a lot of things but several specific things caught my attention.  First, I was intrigued by Steve's background in teaching.  He did some of his teaching in a suburb of Chicago and discussed how different and what a difficult experience this was.  This especially interested me because I have always thought that I would want to start out my teaching career in inner city Chicago.  I know that this would be a very ambitious and somewhat daunting task, especially in the first years of teaching, when many are likely to discontinue.  But I have lived in St. Paul, Minnesota all my life and coming to college in Decorah, Iowa has made me realize how much the city atmosphere means to me and how much it influences me.  I would really like to return to a city to teach, and I know that I could impact lives by teaching in a very low-income area.  In contrast to the panel of young local teachers that we had last week,  it was nice to hear that Steve had actually gone and had all of these experiences.  Despite the undoubtedly many obstacles and hardships involved in teaching in an area like inner city Chicago, I was able to see that it was possible and that he gained many valuable teaching experiences from teaching in an extremely needy area.   This gave me hope for accomplishing something that not many people really think I can have success with.

Another point that Steve made that I thought was really important was that he told us how important it is not to do the same thing for 40 years.  He emphasized that it is crucial to switch grade levels, schools, teaching positions, and administrative positions in order to continue to grow and learn throughout your teaching career.  This was quite important for me to hear because I tend to be someone who gets very comfortable with routine and will sometimes be scared of change.  I see now that I need to stay active in my career and open to learning at all times because it will ultimately continue to make me a better teacher, which will allow me to better prepare my students, which is what truly matters in this profession.

Teacher Panel Reflection

The Teacher Panel was very interesting for me.  One of the things that really caught my interest was when the question of how much technology should be allowed in the classrooms was brought up.  I am all for using and integrating new technology as much as is helpful when it comes to teaching, but I was really, really surprised when one of the teachers said that every kid in his classroom had their own laptop.  From my own personal experience, having my own laptop is extremely convenient, and it is a great resource.  However, I am a college student, not an elementary student.  I find the fact that each student has their own computer in an elementary/middle school setting, kind of disturbing.  From what the teachers said, every spare minute of time that the kids get, they are glued to their computer, playing games, on the internet or on Facebook.  

When I heard all of this, I kind of related it back to our discussion on development last week.  In my personal opinion, I feel that elementary and middle school kids should not have their own laptop computers.  It is just not developmentally appropriate at that age.  It seems to me that it takes away from their hands-on learning activities, and their ability to learn some basic skills like calculating math problems, problem solving and imagining, and establishing a good use of vocabulary.  These are things that we can't afford to lose in education.  I feel especially strong about this coming from a future art teacher's point of view.  Creating art is an extremely imaginative, hands-on, original process. This cannot be done on a computer.  Sure there are computer programs that can assist kids in learning about how to make art, and in making graphic design pieces, but they are still just that, computer programs.   I feel that these days kids are being rushed to grow up and be tech savy.  In this we are taking the simple pleasures like developing imagination, playing outside, and reading books away from them.  I see this as very unfair because these kids don't even know what they are missing because they have never experienced childhood as anything different.  I think that part of our responsibilities as teachers is to make sure that these kids still get to be kids while they are young.