Reforming Education Reform

     I watched the webinar on Reforming Education Reform.  I didn't know we would ever have to write another blog, so I was a little taken aback.  However, this does allow me the opportunity to talk about one particular piece of education reform that really bothers me:  privatization of education. Many of my friends from back home in Kalamazoo went to a private Catholic school.  They always talked about how public education was lacking, deficient, and full of bad teachers and terrible students.  They claimed that public schools lacked a real education and that they came out on the whole much smarter than anyone in public schools.
     I would like to say to anyone who may be reading this and holds the same views, which I doubt in this program, that you are wrong.  I went to a public high school and was afforded many opportunities. We had a good handfull of AP classes, much better arts programs than the private schools in my area, and we had the opportunity to enroll in college courses (any college or university of our choosing) for free paid for by the state.  I did well enough in my high school that I was admitted to the University of Michigan on a full ride scholarship.  I was recognized in the local newspapers for my achievements.  None of the friends I had who bashed public schools did well enough to get into the U of M.
     In private education, there are not nearly as many rules, guidelines, or standards that they have to follow.  Private schools are able to choose whether or no they teach religious views about science (specifically evolution).  I don't think that children should be taught creationism in schools.  Of course this is a view coming from a rational thinking atheist.  A lot of private schools also teach abstinence, which we had all better know is terrible.
     In conclusion, if our country ever switches to private education, which is something Mitt Romney wants (VOTE OBAMA!!) I will be the most unhappy camper....
     I think the concept of a webinar is really cool and great way to reach a lot of people who otherwise may not be able to attend such conferences.

Edubloggers

http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical/2012/07/what-economists-dont-understand-about-educators.html#comments

That's the blog I commented on.


     I think it is awesome that there is a way for teachers around the country to communicate with each other about their careers and classroom activities.  I feel like this is a tool that I actually will use in my future.  There should always be a space where we can get our thoughts and opinions out.

     The blog I read was about teachers getting bonuses at the beginning of the year, with the purpose of making them more motivated to make sure their students did well on standardized tests. If the teacher's students did not perform better than in the past year, the teacher was forced to give the money back.  I think this is a terrible idea.  It implies that teachers aren't already trying as hard as they can to educate their students.  That's insulting.  Plus! Why should we be focussed on simply making sure our students do well on standardized tests?  That's not the point of teaching.  The point of teaching is to accomplish our classroom goals and make sure the students are fully educated on the topic.  I disagree with standardized tests.  We should not be educating students about how to test.  We should be educating them on our subject matter.

Reflection on class, the day of the twenty-seventh of the month of July between approximately ten before midday and one after the sun is at its highest

Friday's class was a nice change of pace.  I actually kind of enjoyed putting together my own presentation for my group.  It made me feel like I was just sitting blindly following instructions on how to use some new piece of technology, but that I was in fact responsible for showing my classmates the usefulness of the networking tool I was assigned.  If someone tells me what I'm learning is important, I'm much less apt to believe them than if I am expected to find out for myself the uses and importance of a site and help my friends and classmates understand.  

I will complain about one thing from class.  Time management.  I don't think there was any way each of us from my group of four could have presented for a whole twenty to twenty-five minutes.  I know my presentation was closer to ten.  I don't think that's entirely my fault.  There isn't all that much to say about Dropbox.  It's a cloud.  You put all your music, videos, recordings, links, documents, and everything on there so that you and anyone you want can view it.  Also, there are tutorials on the website.  What I was able to give to the presentation that the online tutorials were not was how to apply Dropbox to the classroom.  

I know that some of the other groups were able to spend extra time they had more effectively, but we weren't sure what to do for about forty minutes.  This is not to say that we are lazy or didn't prepare as much, I just think we were concise.  

The second half of class was interesting, but I am just a little too overwhelmed with all these different social networking sites to really get the fullest experience I can out of learning about google rss feeds.  It's starting to make me feel a little crazy.  You can link your Dropbox to your Facebook, and your Facebook to Twitter, where you can find my Weebly, and in case you'd like to see it, you can get to my Google+ from Weebly, and if you want to check out this google rss feed you can get there through Diigo, Facebook, Weebly, or Twitter, and you can get from most of these to the others, but only if you really know how to circumnavigate around the web, and you may or may not have to sign up for a couple of these sites if you want to view my content.  Make sure you friend/follow/add me!!!!!!

I am not a flickr picture.

Friday's class was... interesting.  I came in a little late, but was able to catch up to what the class was doing within about five minutes.  While weebly is a neat site, I can not realistically see myself using it.  When I get a job, it will be because I was recommended for it by UM, or because my colleagues told me about an opening.  I'll be hired because of my interview and resume, bot because of weebly.  Also, I don't feel all that comfortable putting up information for or about my class on a site that anyone can see.  

I found Jeff's lecture very interesting.  As a language major, I was very hyped about deciphering the coded message.  That was all about students being exposed to something new and not knowing quite how to deal with it.  However, my partner Jack and I didn't have much trouble with it once we realized that the message wasn't written in a strange font, but was actually more of a picture message.

The guest lecture by the math teacher was innovative.  I had never thought of using Angry Birds in classroom, but it was an ingenious application.  I don't think I could use that sort of teaching tool in my future Latin classroom, but it's nice to think about.

Games. Gaming. Gamers.

     When I was younger, I played video games. Didn't we all?  I had a Nintendo 64 and a Play Station 2. I spent a lot of time on those little mind-killing boxes.  I've also played a few computer games like WOW and Rome:  Total War, but I was never very into those, probably because we didn't have computers good enough to play games on when I was young.  By the time I was sixteen, though, I had stopped playing video games because I wanted to go out into the real world and experience what life had to offer.

     While I understand the point that video games can help with problem solving, I think there are plenty of other ways to learn about problem solving.  Anyone read Sherlock Holmes?  There are also other ways to learn teamwork, e.g. sports, acting, debate class.  In fact in most video game scenarios in our day and age, games are played online with strangers and since people don't think about behaving themselves like they would in real life, they let their anger and other emotions fly.  Online games like Halo and WOW are breeding grounds for fowl language and degrading others.  I've been around people who play, and homophobic, racist, and sexist insults fly like crazy.  There is one game that I may approve of for problem solving, that being Portal, which is just one giant puzzle game.

The only video game that I really learned from was...you know what, I don't even remember what it was called.  This game I played in third grade, and it taught me how to type.  Very practical.  I may one day use Rome:  Total War to demonstrate to upper level Latin students how commanders would fight their battles.  But that's pretty much as far as video games have any real implications in my classroom.

Read a book.  Go outside.  Gamers generally are just awkward kids who don't know how to really act in public.

Didn't know I could title this..... ha!

Hokay so!

     This is my blog.  

     I though the first three hours (of six!) was really productive.  I had some trouble trying to come up with applications for the Soda article.  I didn't realize we were supposed to come up with a lesson plan for the last blog.  

     The librarian, whose name I can't remember, was really insightful.  She asked us a lot of questions that made me question some of the things I knew about being a teacher.  Also she was really friendly.  And she used her iPad to help teach us, what a coincidence.  

     Being with the other foreign language interns was useful.  Preston really helped me understand the purpose of the assignment.   We came up with a pretty decent lesson focussing on bans in ancient Rome.  

The second half of class was long and slow.  Yes, podcasts can be useful.  

This blog is short because I have way too much other homework to do.  The next one will be better.  

     I can not believe that it is already the end of the fourth week of the MAC program!  In not even four weeks I have learned so much and have already been in front of middle school class teaching.  Guess what, kids, Taxonomy!  It's real.  I have to admit I'm a little stressed out.  Six to seven hours of class a day plus the occasional brown-bag is tough, but we all know it's worth it.  Some of us have already experienced writing our own lesson plan and teaching (can I call it performing?) in front of a class of middle schoolers.  I thought those hours of trying to memorize all that teaching jargon (don't tell Deanna I called it that) couldn't be nearly as useful as everyone told us it would be, but I found myself thinking about metacognition and scaffolding while planning our lesson for the sixth graders.
     I have gotten to directly witness some examples of teaching with technology lately.  My mentor teacher, Mrs Ransome, showed her class of incoming sixth graders videos from Big History.  While these videos were interesting I think they were over the heads of most of the kids.  A lot of them tuned out after the first couple of minutes because they couldn't understand it.  This is of no fault of the technology, but I think it relates.  The videos were not selected by the teacher, but simply come along with the Big History curriculum.  If there is going to be technology in the classroom it needs to be chosen by the teacher.  Some of the videos wouldn't even play.  That is an example of problems with using technology in the classroom.  There always needs to be a plan B.
     Overall, I think the article about banning soda and other high sugar drinks is about rules for the betterment of the people.  Maybe more of guidelines.  We've learned in our Psychology of Teaching course that it is very important to set up classroom rules.  Even if students don't like it, some rules are for their own good.  I can think of one very specific way I could apply this article to my content area.  I am going to be a Latin teacher.  In my classroom students will have to look up a lot of vocabulary words.  On their tests, they will want to be able to use the dictionary, but I won't allow it.  Just like the mayor of New York wouldn't allow unhealthy drinks.  Looking up words in the dictionary is not healthy for their acquisition of the language.
     I'm having a little trouble applying that article any further...  "That's all I have to say about that."