Rethinking our Priorities

As I walked into a 3rd grade classroom yesterday I learned that the students would not be going to “specials” twice this week; thus, the teacher has no planning period and the students are left to watch the movie “Babe” so the teacher can finish her planning, organize the classroom, and/or attend meetings. When I asked why the students would not be attending computer class or music class the answer was budget cuts. There is not enough money to hire a computer technology teacher; therefore, teachers are in charge of taking their students to the computer lab and working with them. My first thought was what about those teachers who are slightly older and did not grow up in the “computer generation?” For example, my dad is 51 years old and “pecks” at the keyboard. How could you expect him to teach students the proper way to type when he doesn’t know himself? Also, I learned the music teacher that is hired is on a different track than this particular classroom; therefore, when she is tracked out the student do not have music class and the teacher does not have a planning period. I understand that the economy is in a recession and budgets have to be cut but by cutting the education budget we are affecting our future: the children. My question is this, where are American’s priorities?

THE ANSWER:
CNN reports that the Gosselins are paid approximately $50,000-$75,000 per episode of "Jon & Kate Plus 8." Daniel Radcliffe continues to rake in $25 million each time he dons his circular glasses to play Harry Potter. In 2007 Miley Cyrus earned $18.2 million dollars, Tiger Woods earned $115 million and Oprah came in at $260 million. If this isn’t bad enough Leona Helmsley’s dog, Trouble, took in $12 million! (When Helmsley died in 2007, she set up a trust for her beloved Maltese, giving the pet more than she set aside for her own family.)

So again I ask, “Where are American’s priorities?” According to Merriam-Webster the word priorities is defined as “something given or meriting attention before competing alternatives.” If we are concerned about our future, which are our children, why is education not a priority? My personal opinion is that our priorities are all substandard. Americans are more concerned with watching Jon and Kate Gosselin argue each episode than with our children’s education. If you don’t believe this to be true then why are “we” paying them $50,000-$75,000 per episode yet we can’t afford to hire teachers who make less than $50,000 a year? Can someone please explain this rationale behind this for me? Or better yet, Leona Helmseley left her dog $12 million dollars. That is equal to about 265 teachers’ salaries A YEAR (if teachers make $45,000). How can leaving a DOG money be legal? I love my dog but $12 million dollars, give me a break (that is a different blog for a different day)!

According to the article titled The Effects of Budget Cuts, “our students are expected to achieve more with less. The budget reductions force administrations to cut programs that are seen as least important. What programs are cut? How are these programs beneficial to students? Who is being affected the most? Students are entitled to a quality public education. If funding is reduced, the quality of education is reduced…The most common programs cut in K-12 public education school systems are arts education, early childhood programs, and before-school and after-school programs. However, these programs are crucial in student and school success. Schools are also cutting teaching, administration, and custodial positions. Students’ educational opportunities are being cut to the “core” subjects. Rosemary Coyle is president of the Connecticut Education Association and is concerned about the budget, “the trend I’m seeing is arts, music, P.E., and gifted-and-talented programs are either reduced or eliminated completely. In order to have a well-balanced education you need all of that. We’re not offering equal education…” (http://socyberty.com/education/the-effects-of-budget-cuts/)

So how is the budget cut directly affecting our children you ask? I could give you several answers but that would take about 100 pages and several hours so I will just name a few. To begin with budget cuts are affecting our students’ health. The childhood obesity statistics reveal the stunning fact that almost 60% of children in America are obsese children. The rate of overweight children in America is increasing rapidly. The obesity statistics of 2002 say that 22% of US preschoolers were overweight. Then, you can imagine how big the problem would be right now. Childhood obesity studies also reveal the fact that 40% of obese children and 70% of obese adolescents become obese adults. Indeed, by the time an obese child turns six years old, his/her chance of becoming an obese adult is over 50%. Many claim that obesity is an individual responsibility. And, they also think that children can easily cure themselves by following good eating habits and through regular exercise. But, all these people don’t realize some important facts. Many schools in American only offer each class P.E. once a week. With budget cuts physical education teachers are one of the first to go. Also, budget cuts are affecting athletic funding. Many schools are having to eliminate sports teams because they don’t have the money to hire a coach. Other schools are requiring students to pay to play. Don’t believe me? Read this article from the LA Times… http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/23/sports/sp-high-school-cuts23.

Budget cuts may also force schools to either raise class sizes by almost 25 percent—which is currently occurring in Wake County, shorten the school year by a month, lay off hundreds of thousands of teachers and employees and have hiring freezes.

Although the economy is suffering and many Americans are suffering, we really need to rethink our priorities. Why do we pay actors hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to make movies yet we can’t afford to pay educators to teach our children? Oh yeah, we pay them the money to make movies that our children can watch while the children should be learning in other classes such as art, music, Spanish and physical education. That makes a lot of sense, right? Budget cuts are significantly affecting our future and it is time that WE do something about it!

Video to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AZQj23Td9o

Reflection on teaching lesson

Like always when I begin planning a lesson I get all of these ideas and try to squeeze so many of them into one lesson. This lesson was no exception. After viewing a typical social studies lesson I saw how the students were unengaged in the material. Many students talked with their neighbors, looked around the room, played with objects in their desk and begin to fall asleep. My goal in designing this lesson was for the students to meet the intended objectives and for the students to be excited and engaged in the activities.

Upon arriving at the school to teach I felt very confident in my lesson. I felt that students would benefit from the lesson and learn a lot from the readings, while also enjoy sharing their ideas with each other and writing a candidate’s speech. Before beginning I set two goals for myself. First, I would make sure to give lots of positive praise to the students and communicate with them how much I liked their ideas and their behaviors. Secondly, if my lesson didn’t go as planned I would not flip out but go with the flow. This last goal is very hard for me because I am a type A person and like things to go as planned.

As I began my lesson the students seemed excited to voice what they knew about leaders and the government. They did a great job at defining both of these terms. Next, students were given a handout to read. I complied this reading from two third-grade social studies books and I wrote a few paragraphs on my own. As students read aloud many of them read clearly and fluently but others seemed to struggle with some of the words. This surprised me as I felt the readings were on a third-grade reading level. After each section of reading the students shared their ideas with their neighbors and then we discussed these ideas aloud and I wrote what they knew under the L in the KWL chart. I felt by combining reading and discussions students were gaining new knowledge yet voicing their understandings of the content and opinions on their readings.

Not surprisingly I noticed that we began to run out of time and I really wanted students to get a chance to write a campaign speech and explain why they are good leaders and why they are a great candidate for a certain position (either Mayor, Governor, Senator, President, etc). Fortunately Ms. Blakemore informed me that the students had already copied down their homework assignment and if I ran a few minutes over that would be okay. To accommodate I read the last section of the reading and asked students to follow along. Also, I shortened their discussion time with their neighbors to about two minutes. This seemed to help a lot. Lastly I passed out the directions for the assessment task and explained to students what I wanted them to do. Students were so eager and excited about writing a candidate’s speech. I gave students about eleven to twelve minutes to complete this assignment. While walking around the room I realized that students needed more time to complete this assignment. Unfortunately I was overtime so I instructed students to wrap up their speeches and allowed five students to share aloud their speeches.

Overall I was very happy with my lesson but there are a few things I would do differently. First, I would allow students more time to complete their campaign speeches. All students seemed to love writing a speech, yet many of them did not have time to complete their speech in class. Secondly, I felt I gave lots of positive praise by giving the groups Popsicle sticks and constantly praising students. However, I would be sure next time to not continuously say “Good Job” but also use other words of encouragement such as, “I like how Sarah is sitting up straight and listening to Ethan read. Thank you Sarah!” Lastly, I would work on revising the reading so that it does not give students as much difficulty. I was very happy with myself for not panicing when I was running low on time. Instead I accommidated and I am very proud of myself for that. After teaching several lessons over the course of the last eleven months, I have become more confident in myself as a teacher and every time I step in front of a group of students to teach I feel I continue to learn and grow. This lesson made me very excited about teaching third grade this coming fall :)

Different points-of-view and ESL learners.

What are your reactions or experiences with point of view, perspectives, biases in history?

When I first read this question I thought, “I can’t think of any experiences I have had with point of view, perspectives or biases in history.” After thinking about this for a little longer I came up with a few ideas. My first experience I can recall towards being very biased was when 9/11 occurred. I remember the hatred I had for Muslims. There were a few Muslims in my high school and on 9/11, and the following days, people were so mean to them. They would not sit near them at lunch, they would not associate with them, they would write hate words on their lockers and do a variety of other mean things. Although I never participated in any of these things, I can’t say that I was totally innocent. I concealed these same feelings inside and when someone did something mean to a Muslim a small part of me thought they got what they deserved. Even a year after 9/11 I was in New York City. A cab driver stopped to give my family a ride and he was Muslim. I remember thinking, “Oh great. He is going to kill us.” Right now I know everyone reading this is thinking I am the meanest, heartless person in the world but I bet if you take a minute to stop and think about how you felt on 9/11 your feelings weren’t that much different from mine. It took me a couple of years to really understand that it wasn’t “Muslims” I hated, it was terrorist that just happened to be Muslim. This is the first time in my life I can really remember being biased and having to really work on getting over my biased thoughts towards a group of people.

I think a current biased that a lot of people currently share has to do with illegal immigrants. From my point of view I don’t appreciate the U.S. not taking a firmer stand on this issue because it affects our health care system, our education system and almost all areas of life. But if I take a minute and look at illegal immigrants’ perspectives they just want a better life for themselves and their families and they will risk their lives to come to a better country. Another point of view on this issue is, if they want to come into this country fine. But do it the legal way. This is a very sticky subject for most people, so I won’t elaborate further, but I do believe this is one issue that there are several different points-of-view. It just depends on whose perspective you are looking at.

How will you assist an English as a Second Language learner in your classroom?

Although we discussed this issue in depth in Dr. McKinney’s class I still believe assisting ESL students will take lots of hard work and will be a challenge. But with the right strategies, ESL learners can learn as much as other students in the classroom. Below are a few ideas on how to make an ESL student’s school experience the best it can be:
· Make the learner feel comfortable in taking language risks
· The teacher should focus on teaching students using authentic text and situations through the use of materials that have not been specifically produced for the purposes of language teaching such as manipulatives and note cards with pictures and the name of the object.
· Total Physical Response method
· Use lots of hands on learning such as computers, pictures, manipulatives.
· Provide ample wait time when questioning ESL learning
· Get to know the student
· Allow the student to share things about his culture to teach other students such as music, holidays, art. The student may be able to teach the other students some words in his/her native language.
· Don’t try and force the student to speak right way. He/She may be in the silent period.
· Work with the ESL teacher to differentiate instruction

Is memorizing facts useless?

On the first day of class Dr. Duncan asked us to write down what we remembered about social studies during school? Pretty easy question, right? Sadly all I could remember was the name of a couple of my teachers and how bad I hated reading the long, boring chapters in my textbook and answering questions afterwards. I can’t recall any social studies projects I completed or any fun field trips. The reason I can’t recall anything exciting from social studies is because we never did anything exciting in social studies. My teachers would say, “Read chapter 9. Copy the definitions in the chapter, answer the questions at the end and we will have a test on this information on Friday.” I was taught that memorizing equals learning. I am living proof this is wrong. Ask me today any key facts about the Civil War, World War I, the Great Depression, or any other major events in history and see how much I can recall (hardly anything). Well I memorized these facts in school so shouldn’t I know them? Hence, memorizing doesn’t equal learning. So the questions is, is memorizing facts useless?

According to the article, “Learning by heart is pointless for Google generation” the author writes, “But for today’s youngsters, tedious rote learning is pointless because such basic facts are only a mouse click away…” Also in the article Tapscott suggest that memorizing facts and figures is a waste of time. When I first thought about this question, is memorizing facts useless, my first response was yes. But after reflecting on this article I do not think that totally dismissing memorization is a good idea. First, anyone can post anything on the internet. Does that make it true? Of course not. So although there is lots of valuable information on the web, there is also a lot of erroneous information as well. Second, memorizing facts helps us recall information very quickly. For example, when I was studying for the GRE I memorized a lot of prefixes and suffixes to help me with analogies. This proved to be a big help when I was trying to figure out a word’s meaning that I did not know. I could use the prefixes and suffixes as clues. Don’t get me wrong, memorizing facts is not always a good idea but there is a place for it.

I am the product of the memorizing generation. If you could not memorize while I was in school you would not do well. In school I was not taught phonics, I was taught to memorize sight words. Hence, this is why I’m still a horrible speller today. Also, I had to memorize my times tables. I would take tests and have to answer 20 multiplication problems in less than 5 minutes. If you could not do this you would have to keep practicing until you could. This is where I agree with Ofsted when he reported that key facts is not good enough to enable students to form overviews and demonstrate strong conceptual understanding.

Just like everything else in life memorizing has its place, just in moderation. Learning sight words is great. Students do not need to sound out every single word they read. But students need to learn phonics as well so when they come across a word they do not know they can sound it out. Memorizing my multiplication tables has been of great benefit to me. But it is important to understand the meaning behind multiplication (that it is simply repeated addition) before memorizing these facts. In all subjects, especially social studies, it is very important for students to learn about history and to understand the world and why things are the way they are. This cannot be accomplished by simply memorizing basic facts. This goes back to the saying if you don’t know history you are likely to repeat it. So to answer the question, is memorizing facts useless, my answer is NO. I do agree with Wardrop’s article that we need to teach children to think creatively so they can learn to interpret and apply their knowledge but I do not believe memorizing facts is totally useless when done the proper way—in moderation.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few engage in it--Henry Ford

As teachers we should encourage students to think by asking them questions such as why, when, how, who and where. We must ask them to justify their answers and encourage them to think on a deeper level. According to Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist who developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior, found that over 95% of the test questions students encounter require them to think only at the lowest possible level…the recall of information (http://www.officeport.com/edu/blooms.htm).

As a student I recall asking my third grade teacher why I had to answer the end of the chapter questions. She told me by answering these questions she would know if I understood the content. I remember thinking, how is copying an answer straight out of the book going to tell my teacher if I understood the information? Isn’t this simply just letting the teacher know that I have taken the time to go back into the chapter and copy the answers from the book? According to Bloom my teacher was requiring me to think only at the lowest possible level by simply asking me to regurgitate information. Sadly many teachers are still continuing this type of assessment today. They aren’t asking students to apply what they know to different situations (application level) or compare and contrast what they have read to another situation (analysis). My question is why?

I don’t think any teacher walks into the door and says, “I am going to do the bare minimum today.” Honestly, I think there are many reasons that teachers simply do not falter from the textbook curriculum. First, it is very time consuming. Why write your lesson plan when there is already one provided for you? Why stress on finding plans that meet the standard course of study requirements? Second, it requires teachers to think outside the box. Instead of simply reading from the textbook teachers must create or locate lesson plans for their students. Third, teachers must focus on language arts and mathematics heavily for students to do well on the end-of-grade test. After planning so hard for these two subjects many times other subjects such as science and social studies fall to the back burner.

Understanding by Design (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005, pg 125) asks "If the textbook contains the answers, then what are the questions?" My answer…THEY ARE NOT REALLY QUESTIONS? My mom use to tell me, “God gave you a brain so use it.” Are students really thinking if they can look back in the textbook and find the single, correct answer? Of course not! The questions we ask our students should provoke a higher level thinking. They should allow students to argue, assess, justify, illustrate, express, distinguish, experiment and compare and contrast answers. They should promote class discussions. There should be more than one correct answer. In our everyday life there is not one single answer to solve a problem. If so the President of the United States and a CEO of a major company would just look up their questions in a book to their major problems and find the single correct answer. Unfortunately life isn’t that simple. We are always going to have to “use the brain God gave us” to come up with answers to everyday problems. As a teacher it is very important to ask students questions that provoke a higher level thinking and encourage them to justify and explain their answers.

Backward Planning is like learning to retie your shoes

I am really confused about this whole Backward Design planning thing. I have read Chapter One of “Understanding by Design” twice now and there are many good points in the book but I still don’t really get it. Since August I have been taught one main way to design a lesson plan. First, look at the standard course of study for the grade I am planning a lesson for. Then find the subject, math for example. Next, either a teacher tells us to plan a lesson targeting a specific goal such as 4th grade math, goal 1, objective 1.01 or we use the pacing guide for that grade and subject to design a lesson for a specific goal and objective of our choosing. Next, we look through textbooks, online sources or simply write our own lesson to meet that standard. After deciding what to teach I gather the materials, practice teaching the lesson at my house and then go to school and teach it. After teaching the lesson I give students a quiz, test, drawing, or some type of assessment to complete so I know that they understand what I just taught. According to Wiggins and McTighe this is referred to as a content-focused design. These authors suggest using a results-focused design instead. According to Wiggins and McTighe I have been approaching lessons for the past eleven months by hope instead of by design.

When Dr. Duncan first introduced us to backward design in class yesterday I initially thought, “It will take forever to write a lesson plan this way.” After looking at the backward design stages and reading about each several times, I think that the first lesson I plan like this will take a lot of time. But like anything else, with practice I will get better at it and I will get faster. Backward design makes sense but it is still a confusing and intricate concept to me. Like all the other lessons I have planned in the past few months I begin by identifying the desired results. I ask myself, “What should students know, understand and be able to do?” “What content should I teach?” To answer these questions I look at the standard course of study. This part is no different from how I have been planning. Next, in backwards planning you must determine acceptable evidence so you know if students have achieved the desired result. This part is totally different than what I am use to. Traditionally I plan a lesson and then designed what product, test or quizzes I will give the students to assess them. I understand that the backwards approach encourages teachers to “think like an assessor” before designing specific units and lessons but to me this seems difficult to do. Lastly, you plan your learning experiences and instruction.

I think backwards planning is going to be like having someone show me how to tie my shoe. At first the concept is hard but after much practice I understand (traditional lesson planning). Then when I think I am getting good at tying my shoe someone comes up to me and says, “You are tying your shoe the wrong way. He is how to do it (backwards planning).” Then he/she shows me a different way to tie my shoe. This new way of tying my shoe may be hard at first but after practicing this way for several months it will become habit (or at least that is my hope).

NC Art Museum Visit

I am a MATH person. I like numbers and equations and problems that have one correct solution. Numbers are fun and are a benefit to me. I can balance my check book; I even make a game out of how close I can estimate my grocery's cost at the grocery store. Yesterday, for example, I added my grocery items in my head as I added things to my cart. I 'guesstimated' my cost to be around $50.00. When I arrived at the counter the cashier said, "Your total is $52.91." "YES," I thought, "I was very close." I say all of this just to demonstrate how much I like math.

Art. Oh this is something I have no clue about. I can’t cut straight with scissors. I can’t color in the lines in a coloring book. My stick people are always crooked and I took band in middle school to avoid art class and Spanish class. So you see I am not an art person. I recall watching many episodes of “Sex and the City” where Carrie and her friends would go to art shows and gallery openings. They would all gather around a picture for several minutes and stare in complete awe. It was like they were trying to analysis the art or ‘see’ the message the artist was conveying through his masterpiece. Every time I would see one of these scenes I thought, “Why don’t you go see a movie or go out to dinner? Anything would be better than this.”

Needless to say when I learned we were going to the art museum I thought, “Can’t we just go to class and have Dr. Duncan show us some more cool dances or pottery. This will be way more interesting.” The day of the art museum visit finally arrived and again I tried to look on the bright side. I thought, “Well we don’t have class until 8pm tonight and the history museum turned out to be a lot of fun and full of interesting things so maybe the art museum won’t be as bad either.” I am not going to lie and say that the art museum was as interesting to me as the history museum, because it wasn’t, but on a scale of one to ten I will give it a seven. (Before arriving I gave it a three so a seven is great improvement).

There were many positive things I can say about the museum. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about all the exhibits. She did an excellent job explaining the art to us and teaching us how we can use some of the art pieces for teaching our students. This was very helpful. Secondly, I loved the student gallery. The students did a wonderful job and this is a great way to encourage students to become involved in the arts. My favorite art piece at the museum was one where an artist carved faces of several individuals. No two individual heads looked alike. This was AMAZING. Lastly, I loved the butterflies that formed a jet. The pictures of faces on some of the butterflies were amazing and it took creativity, hard work, thousands of hours and lots of patience to create this art piece. I was very impressed.

Although art is still not my favorite subject, the museum opened my eyes a lot. It made me see the many different ways we can integrate art into the curriculum. It also made me appreciate the artist, their talent, their patience and their creativity. As a teacher we need to exhibit many of the same characteristics that these artist demonstrate when creating their masterpiece.