Friday, October 31, 2014

Blog 9: What Good Schools Look Like

When I think of what a good school looks, I think of a school building that is well-maintained from the outside, with flowers and a welcoming school sign. I personally don't really care of the location, it could be in the middle of a low poverty city or high class development, the only thing that really matters is the education, and what the students take away from it. Inside the classrooms, I want the desk set up in 4 rows of six, a total or 24 desk in the classrooms. I believe in a small classroom setting that way the teacher is able to make sure every student knows the content and can have one on one meetings if necessary.
  Each Wednesday, classes will be shorten so that each student takes a mandatory 45 minutes out of their day to go to the classroom(s) that he or she has make-up work in or their lowest grade of all their classes, to get extra help. As I said before, the classrooms will be small so the students will be sure to get help from the teacher along with staying on top of their school work.
  When it comes to dress code, I have no preference. I feel like each student should be able to feel comfortable in whatever they want to wear, although I will not allow any students to wear shorts that do not fully cover their bottom half, shirts that show too much of their top or belly shirts.
 I do believe in a no cell phone policy in the classroom, UNLESS recommended by a teacher. Each classroom you walk into, I think their should be a bucket for the students to put a their phones in, and they will be them back at the end of the class. In order for a student to learn effectually, there must be no distractions, and in my opinion phones do distract a student from learning, and takes away the respect for the teacher because they aren't giving the teacher their undivided attention. I do understand that sometimes you get done with class early, or do projects that involve your phone, which is understandable.
  Energy and a positive attitude is what students feed off of. If all the teachers have a positive attitude towards the learning then so will the students. I would cancel the whole teacher tenure idea and try to do what Michelle Rhee did and give the teachers a chance to have increase their pay by being an effective teacher or keep the same pay and no make progress in the students. By doing this, I think that the students education will be more productive because we will get rid of the teacher who believes in the "I get paid whether you learn or not" method, which is what we want!

Monday, October 27, 2014

Heights Field Expierence

   I really enjoyed going to visit Cleveland Heights, I think I really fell in love with teaching at the high school level if I decide to teach. I attended Ms. Browns classroom, there she made the students read a packet that was missing information. She then had the students read a different packet and added the information. I thought that the students weren't as engaged on the work given to them because they were talking about other things, like what happened the night before. Also Mrs. Brown put the students into groups of 2 or 3, and had them group annotate it. One of the students was unhappy that she was placed in the group that she was in. I'm not sure if her and the other girl had a previous conflict, but I felt like the two not wanting to work together extended on their actually group work because they got nothing done compared to the others group. As a teacher, you should place students in groups where they're going to achieve in and stay focused. Although, I do believe that the students should learn to work with classmates that they don't like because once they step out into the real world, they wont be able to pick and choose who they will work with and whether or not they like them.

  On this visit, I learned that if I were given the choice, I would work at an inner city school like Heights. I would want to teach here because I felt like I had a connection to them in a weird way. I understand that teaching at inner school is hard because of the amount of families that are in poverty and the students not really interested in the importance in education, but that's why I want to teach them! I want to be the difference maker in a child's life, by teaching them algebra or a sonnet. Don't get me wrong, teaching at any high school would e fun, but I feel like I would have more of an impact at an inner city school due to my diverse background and also coming from a school that was similar to Heights.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Blog Eight:Exended


    When extending on BlogSpot 7, I would like to key in on a pattern I saw. Working together. In the book, it talks about how the student and teacher needs to work together in order to grow and learn off of each other. I think this starts by the teacher creating a relationship with the student so the student feels comfortable in the classroom. Once a stable friendship is built, I think that the teacher should emphases how no question is a dumb question. I know a lot of students who are timid to ask questions, my self included, because they are afraid that the question they have is a "dumb" question and that his or her peers are going to laugh at them. Or the teacher will get mad because they already answered the question previously. In my opinion, if a student has a question, it means they are engaged in what is being taught. Also, I believe that you can not help a student if they don't want to be helped. So in other words, you cannot teach a student who doesn't want to learn, where again, working together comes into play. You'll have to find something that the student is interested in and relate that to what you are teaching him, and let that be his motivation. By doing this, the teacher is learning off the student because he is challenging her to take a different perspective on things and together they are growing.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Blog 7/8: Building Bridges

In the reading, Ayers uses the metaphor, building bridges, to describe how to get to common knowledge to a more complex knowledge of something. When starting this "bridge", you have your basic knowledge, and as the bridge continues to grow, or reach the other landing side, you began to create deeper meaning of the content and establishing new ideas. Both, the teacher and the student, are learning together on this journey across the bridge they build. The student learns by the teacher asking him or her questions to think more about the topic rather than the basic knowledge. The teacher learns because he or she is taking the students ideas and thoughts and creating new viewpoints that they probably didn't see before. The two patterns I saw in the reading was growing together by asking questions and forcing the students to think critically. Also the transition from childhood to adulthood.
  If giving the chance to teach my own lesson, I would teach a lesson on a controversial topic, for example, gun control. I would start the lesson by making each student write down on a piece of paper what all they know about it or have questions about. I would then let the class divide themselves into two sides, one side that is for gun control and the other that is against it. Then, we would have a class debate. I will use the comments and questions that the students wrote on the pieces of papers to spark up discussion and debate. I will make it mandatory that each students makes at lease two responses or comments during discussion that way I am sure everyone is involved. Also I will add in some questions of debate if we do not reach all the areas I want covered. There will be a bonus point for the team that can support each point given, which I will determine making sure to keep an unbiased viewpoint. Once I get through all the topics, I will make the students write a paper or do a project on their viewpoint of gun control, also making the student do research and further understanding of the controversy, building a bridge of learning on this topic.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Beachwood Field Expierence

   Going to Beachwood was a fun experience for me. My favorite part was visiting the two classrooms and seeing the different ways the teachers motivated the kids. In Mrs. Karims class, they were taking a test, but it wasn't just any test, it was a group test. At first, I personally wasn't too fond of this idea. I thought that not all students would be benefiting from this because some students would do more work than the others or know one area and not the other. But she explained to us that she would grade one problem from each students test, making each student recheck their answer because they don't want to hurt not only their grade, but their peers as well. This is a really great idea, I got a chance to see the students helping each other and explain why one had the correct answer and the other one didn't. These students were on task the whole time, which was very nice to see. the only concern I have with this teaching style is that this class in particular was an advanced math class. I would like to see how it would work out with students who aren't as strong in the math area, and if it would still be effective.  
    The other classroom I went to was Mr. Smiths. In there, they were going over the vocabulary homework. At the beginning of the class, they were discussing an upcoming test. He was telling the class how he wasn't sure, but he thinks he will make it a group test. The students all commented on how they wanted it to be a group test. I thought this was a familiar thing,coming from a class that just took a group test. I am beginning to wonder if it was just that school or if it is all middle school students who like group testing, and why? Is it easier or do the kids just like the support? Later in the class, when the teacher was going over the homework, he made a deal with them that if they got 20 questions right in a row, he would give them one extra bonus point. I thought this was a good idea because the students were engaged and excited to get that extra point. I noticed that the teacher would call on everyone to make sure they were all involved, which was a very good idea, but also noticed that when he called on certain people, other students didn't have confidence that he or she would get the answer wrong, which they didn't because Mr. Smith would peek at the students work,to make sure they had the right answer. Halfway through you could tell that some off the students were losing interest, and the Mr. Smith would change the tone of his voice to make the students stay on task a little longer. He would also challenge the students by saying "No one has gotten this one right today in all my classes" which motivated the students to make sure they had the correct answer, which I thought was a pretty neat idea.

BlogIt-Post 6

"His task is to fill the students with the contents of his narration-
contents which are detached from reality..."

This quote really stuck out to me for various of reasons. First, it says the teachers task to "fill" the students with contents. As a teacher your job shouldn't be to "fill" the student with to content, it should to be to teach the student the content so he or she knows and understands what is being taught to them. In order for a student to like something they must be engaged in what they are learning, by "filling" or forcing the student to learn something, he or she wont want to learn nor understand what is being taught because they lost interest.

Also, I think that this method of teaching isn't very effective because the student is only getting the information that his or her teacher is teaching them. The teacher could leave out parts that aren't as "important" or “necessary” to learn which in my mind, isn't fair to the student because the student isn't getting the full story or just a bias opinion. This learning style is called a pedagogy method, which is the way students K-12 are being taught. I think this method is good, but not effective because the students learning is limited.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Blog Post 5

Rofes (2005) makes clear distinctions between liberal and radical conceptualizations of addressing homophobia and heterosexism in k-12 schools. Discuss these distinctions with examples from schools you attended. How does Rofes (2005) discuss childhood? What do the liberal and radical distinctions of addressing homophobia and heterosexism have to do with contemporary understandings of childhood? What do you believe and what is your vision for the school where you hope to be teaching in the next four years? (250 thoughtful words).

     In the schools I attended, there wasn't any negative behavior towards the LGBT students. I went to a public school where homosexual students had the same rights as the heterosexual students. We did have a radical case where a male student was transitioning into a female and started to wear female clothing. At first no one really minded and viewed him as a regular student. Once the weather got nicer, this student began to wear short skirts, which brought attention to the student. Girls argued their rights to shorter skirts and how this was night fair. The principal then made an announcement that all students had to same dress code "with reason." This was the only radical case that occurred at my school while I was there.
     Rofes discusses childhood as a period in life where what the child thinks, doesn't matter. our society is set up so children's viewpoints are irreverent because he or she is too young to understand something, but in reality that child is learning the more, just by listening and observing what an adult or parent is doing. Rofes also mentions childhood should be more structured around the child's needs and wants because he himself had to conform around what people wanted and not what he wanted.
     When we address homophobia and heterosexism I think that in order to address it in a contemporary way we must create an enviorment where the student feels comfortable and freedom to tell how he/she feels without being judge. I think that starting a Gay-Straight Alliance will help with the a lot of things other than with LGBT students. I had this club at my school and I thought it was cool how it wasn't just LGBT students joining the program, it was everyone. their motto was to "feel comfortable in your own skin" which was a great motto because it create a chance for everyone no matter what size, gender, color or preference to feel at home
     I believe that we should view every student as the same. As a nation, people as becoming more accepting and opening to LGBT students and people, which is what I like to see. if I get a chance to teach somewhere in the next four years, I hope that the students, as well as the administrators are accepting to these students and giving them the same opportunity as others.