The Ron Clark Academy

I just really liked this video and wanted to save it for later reference. So here it is...

The Ron Clark Academy

Dance Classes in Mabel, MN

Here is a link to the dance class' website that I teach in Mabel, MN. STEPS dance class

This dance class has been very helpful to my development as a future educator. I have had to handle different learners, discipline issues, upset parents and also making lesson plans. 

I learned how to make something as simple as stretching fun and exciting. One day I was bored with the normal stretching we did, so I made each action something besides what it was. We would make pizza in between our legs to stretch in straddle making sure to get the crust as far out as possible so that your pizza was nice and big. We would go on adventures to outer space as butterflies and so many other things. 

One time that I had to try something different with my teaching strategy was with teaching the girls a dance. They were struggling with remembering what came next so I made up a story to help them remember the order. 

One thing that we had problems with was with one of our girls. She probably had some personal things going on at home but we did not know what they were. (It also seemed like the teachers were not doing anything and had given up on her, which was more upsetting than anything else.) She would often come into dance class moody and sad about something that happened earlier that day. One time she broke down because some other girl earlier in the day got upset at her because she did not laugh at the other girls joke. In order to help her get past what happened earlier and focus on dancing every day I would talk to her and ask her about her day and if anything bad happened that day I would remind her that its in the past and that she's at dance today and that we're going to do a lot of fun stuff. This didn't always work, but for the most times it did. Unfortunately there were some days where no matter what I said to her or no matter how long we let her cry it out she would never get better and it was just a bad day. However, by the end of the year she was one of our best dancers, it was amazing to see her dancing up there full of smiles. Its days like this that remind me why I became a teacher. 

One Campaign Hunger Banquet

This was suppose to be an older post but I got behind on post so I'm putting it here. 

So today I went to the One Campaign Hunger Banquet. The One Campaign helps raise money to give to people across the world who need help fight aids, global poverty and many other global concerns such as education. During this banquet, Natalie Sugira spoke about her life as an immigrant from Rwanda. She talked about how her family was so poor that she was the only child in her family to go to school and her father had to sell their cows and goats in order to send her there. This got me thinking about the things we talked about in my diverse and exceptional learner class. We lately have been discussing extreme poverty. Today in class we did a project where we got in a group of three and had to pretend we were teachers in a school that was getting three new students. These students were in extreme poverty and lived in a van. It makes me sad to realize how many students are living in extreme poverty and are stuggling to just get a good meal and not get sick. According to Gardner, if these simple needs are not satisfied it makes it even more challenging to teach them things like math or english. How are we as teachers going to meet these basic needs and help them get the best education when we have no control? 

Funding for Education

Today in class one thing that was brought up was the fact that the govt. spends so much money on jails and other more reactive things while they spend so little on schools. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this problem. Although, I completely agree that the govt. should spend more on schools, I think that as teachers we need to realize that we have four main ways to go about handling it. (there are possibly more these are just four that I see right off the top of my head. I am willing to try other things but this is what I see.) 

1) We continue to do what we are doing right now and complain about it. (this way will not really get us anywhere.

2) Fundraise or ask for donations. Find our own way to get the supplies without spending money out of our own teacher salary. Or if you are willing to you are more than welcome to take money out of your own salary. Or even creating a mass company that gives teachers books for a minimal cost or even for free. 

3) Go to the govt. Write letters, talk to representatives, get the idea out there. 

4) Find a way to work with what you do have. 

I do believe that with any of the first 3 ways, we still need to know how to do number 4. We can't keep using the lack of funding as a scape goat. We need to find ways to give each child an equal education no matter what their circumstance. 

Spelling 101

I just thought this picture was funny and that it brought across a good point that spelling is very important. haha. Thats all really about this picture. Just thought you all would enjoy it.  

Brain Development Lecture

Tonight we went to a lecture about brain development and how it is effected with substance abuse. I thought that the information was very valueable and that middleschoolers could benefit from this knowledge. However, the lecturer's approach was not as effective as it could have been. I did like the animation, however, I felt that she over did it which created a distraction from the topic that she was discussing. I also felt that some of the lecture was too childish for middle schoolers. From this lecture I learned that it is important to not overdue special affects and also to be aware of the age group you are addressing. 

Think Different

Here's a great video I found online about creativity and not being afraid to try new things. It is actually based off of a quote that I have come to really enjoy, so I thought I would share it with you all. So here is a link to it:
Apple - Think Different

I think this is important for us as teachers to recognize originality even if it is in the form of misbehaving in class. I think it is important to not discourage creative behavior but to redirect it into a better, more useful form of creativity. This video also shows the benefit of creativity to mankind. Although some people believe that art is not beneficial to schools it helps foster creativity which will help future generations come up with new inventions to help further humankind. Without this creativity we would not have electricity, computers the internet and all of those other things that make our lifes easier. Hopefully, if we as educators are willing to encourage creativity of all types, we can help the future generations come up with a way to save our planet from our current distructive ways. 

I just thought this was funny and thought I would share it with you all. It does bring up some issues that schools are dealing with now. One big problem in classrooms is the amount of cellphone usage within classes. Also, this instant gratification that has come about from technology is another issue that we as educators have to deal with. Since students are use to getting information quickly, it will make sitting in a class for 60 minutes listening to teachers drag on pretty unbearable. So it is important that we as teachers prevent distractions within the classroom and make sure that we are keeping our classes interesting and fast paced to keep the students interest. 

Autism and Education

Today I read the article "Autism and Education". It was written by a mother who has two children. Her son has autism and her daughter is gifted. She discusses her inner struggle on deciding who to help. She finds it frustrating that her son gets one on one attention and is pushed to excell while her daughter is sitting in class bored out of her mind. Lindsley, the mom, thinks that they should put more money towards the gifted programs. She believes that we are stunting their educational growth. She believes that with more one on one instruction her daughter could do great things, such as prevent the next worldwide flu, invent a new form of transportating or even discover a cure for Autism. Although, this is very true that many kids will not reach their full potential because teachers are aiming to teach the middle level students, I do not know how much additional funding will help. Lindsley wants her daughter to recieve more one on one instruction, however, if the special kids and the gifted kids are getting individual helpers, why not the average students. They should not be penelized for being right where they are suppose to be. Eventually, if this was to happen everyone would just have their own private tudor, however, there are only so many teachers in the world. This would leave more and more students being uneducated. So despite the nice thought, I do not think this is would be the best option. 

I think instead we should be teaching future teachers how to do differentiated instruction. Teachers need to stray away from the lecture model and get involved with the students and give each student more one on one time. 

Effective Teachers

Today Mr. Steve Chambless, who has been working in the schools for 41 years, came to visit. He has had countless jobs within the school including everything from teaching to being a superintendent. From his experiences within the school he came up with some different views on what makes a good teacher. The two main components he found to be important were a liberal arts education and getting away from what you are use to. 

I found that these both had to do with getting as much exposure to different experiences and courses as possible. By looking at all the different learning styles and John Dewey's belief about making connections with the outside world it becomes apparent as to why he finds these so important. By getting as many different experiences as possible it makes you more able to teach to all different types of learners. Along with that, the more you know about the outside world, the easier it will be for you as a teacher to make connections to whatever your students are interested in. Knowing that your students come from all different types of backgrounds and are learning things differently then you are is important as a teacher to know and to be able to identify with. The easiest way to understand where the students are coming from and what they are dealing with is by experiencing it first hand. 

Overall, I would have to say I strongly agree that it is important for teachers to step outside their comfort zones and try something new. It might not be easy but it will help you become a better teacher sooner. 

John Dewey- connections with the outside world. Doing different things makes you as a teacher more prepared to make connections to the outside world for a wider variety of students. 

New Teacher Panel

So today we had three current teachers come join us in class today. They talked about the perks of working in a small school which I found interesting however, I think I would rather work in a bigger school. I grew up in a bigger school and the idea of everyone knowing everyone is a little scary to me. Also, from the class and school I was at for jterm I realized that the students then know how to work off of each other and are better at distracting the teacher or getting things the way they want. Of course, if I was offered a job in a small school I would definitly take it. One thing they mentioned I did not know about was the primary license. I figured you would be licensed and that would be that. 

Another topic we talked about was the use of technology. In the schools now, all of the older kids have personal laptops, all the kids have cellphones and they use these for everything. I found it interesting that the teachers were complaining about the kids using computers instead of dictionaries or playing with toys, but they did not just tell the kids they could not use it. I think it is very important that kids know how to function without electronics because the internet does not always work. If I were the teachers, I would say that they can not use computers unless I say otherwise. Also, I think there might be a correlation between the lack in hands on learning and the amount of computer usage. The teachers were saying that they use computers so much more and that they did not have time for hands on activities. However, they did not make the connection that the lack of hands on learning was because of all the use of computers. I would use the computer less and use hands on learning a little more. This way all types of learners are being benefited. 

However, they gave a lot of good advice that I will have to make sure to remember. They said to make sure to observe classroom management more, observe as many grades as possible and to volunteer and work with kids as much as possible. I am really glad I have already done that a little bit, but I will make sure to save time for more of it in the future. 

Paper Clips

So, I mentioned in my last blog about a movie called Paper Clips. In this movie, a school in Whitwell, Tennesse started an after school project to learn about the holocaust. The whole paper clip idea came when someone wanted to know how much 6 million people was. So the teachers had the students come up with something they can collect 6 million of, so the kids choose paper clips. Along with collecting paper clips they also learned about the holocaust and had visiting speakers who had surved the holocaust tell their stories. Overall, I think that this project was very useful to teach the students about prejudism and the teachers emphasised how a lot of people have predjudist view points. However, the documentary did not talk about what the students learned outside of the basics of what happened and the predjudists. I would have liked to see maybe a little more historical information. I also would have liked to see them connect these violent acts to other violent acts, maybe even some that we as Americans did to others. Of course, the video did not tell us everything they learned, so it is possible that they did tell the kids this information. However, overall I think it is a great idea and that it is obvious that it did have an impact on some of these children. 

My First Blog Entry

Hello!

Welcome to my blog for Educational Psychology. So far I am really enjoying this class. We are learning a lot already about the psychological aspects of education. Today we learned about child development and the different viewpoints there are about how and what effects a child's development. There is the very controversal and well known idea of nature versus nurture, however there is also continuity versus discontinuity and early versus late experiences. 

In this class we also watched the film "Paper Clips" which is a documentary about a school in Whitwell, Tennesse that did a project to learn about the holocaust. It was actually interesting because this week at the Decorah Area Middle School they were having a underground railroad activity. In this activity, students that were learning about slavery all became fugitive slaves for the day. They had to go around all day without laughing, smiling or talking to get signatures from teachers. The teachers were all secretly either friend or foe. If the students got three friend signatures they were set free, however if they got three foe signatures they got sent to one teachers room to become slaves again. I think that it is really important to be creative and be able to make the topic come alive for students, especially with history because it is so long ago that its hard to relate to modern day. Well that is all for today. Hope you enjoyed my blog entry and that you come back for more information on how my class is going.