YouTube Video

My group and I read the book Letter to a Young Teacher by Jonathan Kozol. In order to demonstrate key concepts in the book and to an Educational Psychology book, we made a YouTube video modeling 60 Minutes. To check it out you can click under my Video bar.

Career Meeting

I attended a lecture concerning the majors at Luther College and careers with these majors. This lecture applied to education majors because it showed all kinds of directions we can go. When we think of education majors, especially elementary education, we think that person is going to be a teacher for the rest of their lives. For some people, this is exactly what they want to do. For other people, the lecture encouraged that even though you are an education major, there are many different areas you can end up in. I think that this is important for education majors to know, especially myself, because I cannot see myself in a general classroom setting for the next how many years. I think I am going to need some variety!

Chalk

I thought this movie was alright. I think it was good for future teachers to see because although these situations were made up and exaggerated, we could come across a colleague like one of these teachers. In my education history, I had a teacher who was a mix between Mr. Lowrey because he acted like he had no idea what he was doing and Mr. Stoope because he still tried to make the students believe he was the best teacher. I didn't receive anything out of that class. A friend who I was watching the movie with commented that these teachers were making her frustrated and mad. I think it is beneficial for teachers and others to watch this movie because it makes them think about what they would want in the teachers for their own children. It may give them a new appreciation for good teaching and how much work goes into it.

Parent Lecture

The parent lecture was really surprising for me because of some responses the parents made. I went into this lecture a little naive about parent and teacher relationships. They say the biggest fear for young teachers is the parents. I had never thought about this being an issue until the lecture. I was brought up with parents like the father who was at the lecture. My parents were interested in my school work, my effort, and making sure I was learning, but if I had problems or issues, especially in middle school and high school, they wanted me to confront the teachers about them. This lecture was a good way to introduce me to parents with different thoughts and it brought me to understand these views and ideas.

A couple things that were mentioned that I found would be helpful to me as a teacher were the communication topics. I think that teachers will be able to develop a good relationship with the parents if they keep a solid communication line open at all times. I think giving parents hours and a phone number or e-mail address in order for them to contact you is a great idea. A teacher wants to keep that relationship open with each other and the hours give the teacher his or her personal time, as well. Although a teacher may be dedicated to their students, they should not be expected to be at the parents call 24/7. I think most parents would find this professional, as well.

Another thing I took from the lecture was to be personable with the parents by being aware and sensitive to parents' feelings at conferences and IEP meetings. I think many young teachers may be unsure of how to present themselves in an IEP meeting if they have not had much experience before. One of the parent's statements that was most helpful was to state the positives first at the meeting. I think this not only sets a good tone, I think the parents will have a better feeling that you are setting a goal that their child will be successful and you want to carry through with that goal. This also applies to conferences, if you state something positive about their child, they will want to hear more and in turn, be more willing to cooperate and help with the topics the student needs to work on in any ways they can. Because, like one parent said, teachers and parents are a team working together, not against each other.

Teaching with Students' Interests in Mind

In our last lecture, the teachers mentioned how they try to stay in tune with what is happening and what are the influences in their students' lives. I saw this video and thought this was a good way of incorporating the students' interests and learning into one project.


I liked how in the song, the students displayed that they learned about both parties, each party's platforms, and also the election in general.



Here is the song...
YouTube - You Can Vote However You Like

Here is a full interview and part of the song...

YouTube - Full Interview with Ron Clark Kids - You can Vote However You Like

New Teachers

I've really enjoyed hearing from guest speakers who come from "the outside" or "real world". This week was another addition to the informative lectures that I have attended. It was nice to hear from people that are in the spot we will be in a couple years down the road. I know that I am going to feel the same way most of them did their first year. I am going to be extremely excited and want to do all these great things with my new ideas, but I will have to remember that there will be teachers, probably on some teaching "team" that I'm on who will not want to hear about them. I thought the one teacher made a great point where when this happens you just need to be true to yourself and try things for yourself. I think new teachers need to make mistakes just as the experienced teachers had. This is how they learn, as well.

There were a couple of things that I was apprehensive about. I didn't like the idea of working two jobs. They mentioned that a lot of teachers work another job at a store or somewhere else. I really want to be a teacher, but only a teacher, not a cashier too. I understand that these are young teachers coming out of college which they need to pay for, but the comment turned me off from teaching a little bit. Another thing was that these teachers all knew they wanted to be teachers from the start. Since I am not completely positive about teaching yet, I wanted to hear that they tried all these different majors and came to see that they really loved to teach. If I'm not 100 percent sure I want to do this for the rest of my life, is that a sign?

School Board Members

I found this lecture to be informative in ways I wasn't expecting. I thought that they would talk more about the "good teaching" questions we had put forth, but I found the most informative part of the lecture to be realizing what the school board actually does. It was interesting to hear about how they deal with issues and compare them to how the administrators deal with the same issues. These issues were anything from NCLB to budgets. I was informed on the way Iowa has decided to budget or use funds. They seem to put money in categories and that money can only be used in those categories. At first I thought this makes sense so that a lot of money isn't spent in one area and other areas are neglected. However, I think that this system leaves areas where someone could find many loopholes to get around certain "rules" about the budget and funds. I don't know a lot about how other states budget their educational funds but it doesn't sound like the best way to handle educational money.

I also liked the ideas talked about regarding foreign language. I am starting my sixth year on a foreign language and I still don't feel fluent. I had an encounter in one of my classes where I was forced to use my Spanish with a three year old child. I could communicate certain commands and small talk with the child, but it made me think about how he is only 3 years old and has been talking for a little Spanish for a year and a half or so and I have been speaking for 6 years and he knows more than I do. I think it makes sense to start children in elementary school with a second language. We could at least expose them to another language so when they reach high school it isn't something that is entirely foreign.

Guest Administrators Lecture

I thought that the lecture with the two administrators from the Decorah School District was a little taste of reality. I liked hearing their sides and views of NCLB. In class I feel like we discuss how NCLB has so many flaws and how it isn't good for education all the time. In Ed. Psychology I think it is okay to talk about or challenge NCLB and different laws, but the administrators gave the reality side of things, which I really enjoyed hearing. They talked about how you deal with NCLB and how it can be beneficial to students and teachers. Not knowing a lot about NCLB before I started my education classes, I was finally relieved to be able to hear a different perspective. I thought the comment by the middle school principal about comparing a surgery that is research based to a classroom that is research based made a lot of sense. As a teacher, I want to know that what I am teaching and how I am teaching it in the classroom is adequate and works. I would also feel much better and more confident about what I am doing if I have data to back it up. I also think the data will then help me to see where I can improve. Overall, I thought it was great lecture, and I learned a lot by attending.

Article in class about Multiple Intelligences

In class, I read the article titled, "It's No Fad: Fifteen Years of Implementing Multiple Intelligences" by Thomas R. Hoerr. I found this article to be really interesting because it kind of compares "old school" teaching with "modern" teaching, or that's the way I took it. It was the article that listed the intelligences and had famous people who were evidence of the intelligence listed.
The Multiple Intelligences schools (MI schools) have the theory that "the job of an educator...becomes identifying the ways in which children exhibit intelligence and using their particular strengths to help them learn." The article also talked about a school that included Intrapersonal Intelligence and Interpersonal Intelligence on the report card. These two intelligences "addressed areas such as motivation, confidence, problem solving, responsibility, effort, work habits...appreciation for diversity, and teamwork."

I think that MI seems to be a good thing to keep in your mind while teaching. I still think that children need to learn the reading, writing, math, etc. concepts, but there are many ways you can teach these ideas. All students are different in how they learning and this is where MI could come in, but I don't think it should show up on report cards. The two intelligences that I talked about above seem like they could possibly fit into personality categories and I don't think they should be graded on areas such as these. I think these areas are really important to work on but not be graded on. Talking about these areas with the student and parents is a good idea, but putting it on the report card seems too official.

High Stakes Lecture

Not being able to attend class on Friday, I was very confused about what was going to happen at the lecture. Talking to my group members they informed me that there was going to be role playing going on within a fictional school district meeting with a fictional school board. I really liked the idea behind this lecture. I thought it was a different way of learning about NCLB and its aspects. I liked how we had people from each side bringing different ideas to share with the group for each one of us to take into consideration and learn more about NCLB. I also thought the roles were designed well in the sense that many of them could be found in a real life setting.

What I found frustrating with the lecture was the debating itself. I think it was a great way to voice people's opinions about NCLB within their role but it seemed to get a little out of hand at times. Some people would say things which others contradicted. Right away they would blurt out their opinion and while that person was finishing another person would be screaming theirs without listening. Also, if someone would ask a question, some people seemed to get a little snotty about it. I know its a debate and the people were arguing their sides, but can't you argue respectively of other people and keep an open mind? I felt like we would have a good 10 minute discussion and then the next 10 minutes were out of control craziness, which then seemed like a waste of time. We needed a judge in the room keeping order. This part of the lecture was hard because we weren't able to hear everyone's ideas or even listen to all of the roles that should have been presented. In a real life situation, I don't think a lot would have been accomplished in this meeting.

Library Lecture

I thought that the lecture was helpful because all of us are probably going to have to use those things on the library website in our future. Since the website is a different set up since last year, it was nice to see how to use anything and other helpful tools she gave us. I also thought this lecture was helpful because it's nice to know of the people out there that can help you with different things.

I think I will probably be a little confused when I use this by myself for the first time because it was a lot of information to pay attention to at one time. I also think the handout was really nice because if someone, like myself, can't remember everything I can look back on this.

Postville Panel

The Postville Panel was very informing and emotional for me. Growing up about 20 miles away from Postville, I knew about the diversity in Postville. I knew there was a large population of Hispanics that lived in the small town and worked in the plant.

When the raid happened, I was clueless about what was happening. I thought raids were more towards the southern border, little did I know the largest one would be 20 miles away from me. Since I only received the general idea of what happened, I thought it would be good to go to the panel.

That night I walked into the room thinking they would give their opinions about how the raid should have been handled or if there should have even been a raid. What I found most interesting was that they didn't discuss those matters as much. We heard from a few ladies that were effected by the raid. They were Hispanic workers whose husbands were sent to jails. They talked about their children, the day of the raid, and many other details of how their lives have changed.

When the ladies were telling their stories I began to tear up. I'm not saying that what they have been doing was right, but the way these ladies are now treated and how it effected their family really touched me. The stories that effected me the most were the ones of the children being told at school that they might not have one or both parents at home when they came back from school and the story of the mother who has a son that has had eye surgery in order to be able to see. The dilemma she is having is about her son. Her husband was deported and why she waits to see what happens to her, she is faced with the problem of what to do with her son. If she is deported she can either take him with or leave him in the United States with another family since the son is a USA citizen. The son has had surgery in the United States to be able to see. The doctor told the mother that if she took her son back with her to Guatemala, he doesn't think he will be able to see again because he won't have his regular doctor's appointments. As the woman sat there with an electronic shackle on her ankle, I started tearing up thinking about how the raid has really impacted this woman and her family drastically.

From the teaching aspect of their stories, I don't know what I would do when I heard about the raid with many Hispanic students in class that may have their lives changed forever. The school told the Hispanic students that their parents may or may not be home tonight. I think they probably scared their students half to death, but then on the other hand you don't know who's parents were arrested and who's weren't and they do need to be informed. What I would want to do as a teacher would be to escort every child home and make sure they had some one there after classes and after the school had told them. If they didn't have someone at home that night, then I would take them home with me. I don't know if that is how you are to professionally handle the situation though. It is a very hard situation to inform your students about and it's hard to know the best way to do so.

Chalk and Wire/Teacher Licensure Lecture

I am really grateful that we had this lecture! I feel like at times I am completely lost in knowing what we have to do as education majors, but this lecture just gave us everything, which was a little overwhelming but at least we know!

Regarding the Chalk and Wire aspect of the lecture, I felt that it just sounded like another thing I would have to pay for, remember, and learn how to do while at Luther College. However, I do think it will have benefits. It seems like everything is really organized and laid out so I will know what I have to fulfill to complete this online portfolio. I hope we can still have a hard copy of our portfolio because sometimes keeping stuff just on the computer makes me a little nervous, from past experiences.

Now to the Teaching License part of the lecture. First, I think that Jennifer should NEVER retire. She seems very knowledgeable about what she does and very helpful. I don't know what the Luther Ed. Department would do without her or the Luther Ed. students. I liked how she gave us most or all of the information that is important to us for our majors. It seems very overwhelming and scary because we have now less than 3 years to finish it all.

I thought the lecture was very helpful and both ladies did a very nice job at presenting their information. Hopefully we all of us can figure it all out!

Lions For Lambs Thoughts

As we began watching Lions for Lambs, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Our first time watching the movie, I was extremely confused about the three different plots but the second time around, I started to figure it out. I liked how in the end all three of the stories were tightly wound together with each story effecting the other stories. The movie made me reflect not only on the teaching aspects it held but also the political side it brought out, as well.

Reflecting on the teaching aspect, I first started off disagreeing with how the professor was approaching his situation with the student who had become unmotivated. I disliked how he was in a way bribing the student. Toward the end of the movie when I was reflecting on the meeting between the teacher and the student, I found that I did indeed like how the professor held the meeting. He was blunt with the student and yet kept the student curious as well about the points he was trying to get across. I thought his line about teachers being sales people by selling their students to their students' selves held a lot of truth. Teachers should be putting the student first, but if the student is not putting themselves first, the teacher needs to be the person to sell that concept to them. I think it is a different angle towards teaching that everyone could use at one point for motivation. Being able to sell each of your students to themselves will be an everyday challenge that a teacher can look forward to working on each day with each student. Once a teacher has done this, like in the movie, you don't have a lot of control over what the student will do with this confidence, but you will know that they are working towards what they want to accomplish.

My First Blog!!

This is my first time using a "blog", but here it is!