Philosophy of Education

This digital scrapbooking design created with Smilebox

Education at Home

Yesterday we had a panel of people who either taught their children in home schooling or were home schooled themselves. I found this lecture eye-opening and interesting from the perspective of a future educator. Although home schooling for some is a perfect combination, for many others it is highly unrealistic. However, I think there were many ideas we can take from the structure of home schooling and use it in public schools.
Some of the ideas that stuck out in my mind were

1. Tailor the education to the student. When a child is home schooled he or she is the only student in the class, his or her entire education is tailored to fit his or her needs. Although one on one in public schools is impossible, we can use this to have smaller class sizes with a smaller teacher to student ratio.

2. Not sticking to the curriculum or the book. Home schooled children develop the skills that they want to learn. There is motivation, interest, effort, and more learning being done when the children explore ideas. Basic skills such as math, reading, observation, etc. come along with this structure.

3. Using resouces, experts, and hands on activities to learn and discover. Home schooled children might not have very many resources, however, they are being taught how to find what they want to know. Going out into the community is an important part of one's education. This can be modeled in public school more, as well.

4. Learning because they want to. Home school children do not have required grades. They have the motivation to learn for the right reasons, not for their GPA or grades.

5. One of the most interesting to me was the children would learn to read when they were ready. This could be nine years old. This could be easily changed in public schools. There is not a real need for a five year old to be able to read unless they are wanting to and wishing to do so. Children develop at different stages. A child should not fail first grade because he or she cannot read yet. Studies show that there isn't a real advantage to reading early. Eventually the students who took longer, catch up and do not feel like failures because they didn't read as a five year old.

Prayer in Schools

There are many instances of prayer being in public schools. From the Pledge of Allegiance to Friday night football pre-game rituals. Or if you grew up in mostly conservative, Northwest Iowa like me, as you ran to get in line for lunch at a public school, the teacher would ask the person in the front what prayer the class would like to recite today. My teacher taught us many, my personal favorite was Johnny Appleseed. Being in second grade I had no idea this was against the law. Looking back on my education, do I feel like praying before lunch or saying the Pledge of Allegiance hindered my learning? Not at all. But what if I practiced a religion other than Christianity?

I think I would have been confused and have an internal battle between what my teacher (the person I think knows all at that time in my life) teaches and my family teaches me.

The United States of America was founded on freedom of religion. Saying the Lord's Prayer before high school football games or Johnny Appleseed before school lunch is not representing freedom. Instead the time could be used for a moment of silence. One could pray, one could reflect, or in second grade, a child could think about how fast they were going to eat in order to get out for recess. It leaves the freedom up to the child without placing one's own religious beliefs upon the students.

Chocolate Milk contest

After hearing about the chocolate milk contest that happened at the community school I attended, at first I was proud that my school had won! When looking at all the details, it appeared to be a bad idea...

The school system had entered into a chocolate milk drinking contest against other schools in order to win $15,000 from the Midwest Dairy Association. This was a fun way to have the students participate in helping the school. The students were trying to see how many cartons of chocolate milk they could drink in about a month's time frame. Hearing about this contest, a couple of questions came to mind...

How does this become a bad idea? When I found out chocolate milk has just as much sugar as pop! Looking at the different figures including chocolate milk having 3 teaspoons of sugar per carton and each student averaging a little over 3 cartons per day is promoting unhealthy habits.

Since our society likes to blame somebody for effects, who is to blame for all this sugar in the schools?

If you look at the Dairy Association, they want to make money like everyone else. If it had been white milk, there would be some extreme milk drinkers that would get really into it and try a gallon challenge, but I don't think there would be 62,289 cartons drank at one school alone. Students like chocolate milk. The Dairy Association's role in this contest is to promote milk drinking so they can make money. In this sense, I don't blame them for the "unhealthy" use of chocolate milk. They are a business trying to make a profit and this was a very creative and successful way to do it.

So then does it come to the schools?

When reading the article about the chocolate milk promotion throughout the schools, I think the teachers did a good job of incorporating it into their curriculum through speech presentations, research about chocolate milk, and having the whole school participate. It also seemed that the school was unaware of the sugar or unhealthy milk they were promoting. They probably looked at the chocolate milk contest as a healthy alternative to pop or sugar juices. I am not a chocolate milk drinker, so I was not aware how much sugar was in chocolate milk. This could be the same for the administrators, lunch personal, or whoever agreed to the contest.

I think the problem lies in a bigger issue. We all stick up our noses at the school food because it doesn't taste good and it is not as nutritious as we would like. However, I think the schools are doing the best they can. They have a tight budget, as well. If the school is going to provide lunch/breakfast/snacks/etc., they have the responsibility to keep the meals healthy and nutritous. I believe it would be beneficial to have a nutritionist as part of the school staff. This person would be able to spend their time examining the menu, finding sources for nutritous food that can be prepared by the lunch/breakfast cooks, and could educate the school and students on what is healthy. This person could possibly serve as a health teacher as well. Then, maybe next time there will be a white milk drinking contest for the schools?

Traditional vs. Choice

I thought that the international student panel was very interesting and enlightening in class. We talked about topics such as a typical school day, homework, expectations, and assimulating. To me, the experience both of these students are having is amazing.

One student from Ghana is able to see two ways of schooling, choice and traditional structure. I enjoy the freedom of choice I have in the United States even though some people think our schools are failing, maybe because of this reason. When I heard about the structure the student had at the boarding school, I felt two emotions. I was so happy I did not have to go to school like that to get to Luther College. On the other hand, I was a little jealous. This student seemed very bright and intelligent. He seems to have a great work ethic and values (this coming from only a half hour of talking to him). Then I wondered if I would have been through that type of schooling, would I be as knowing as him?

After pondering about the idea, I decided I probably would know what "real work" is and probably be even more thankful for my air-conditioned job in the summer. However, whether being in a traditional boarding school or an U.S. "choice" school, I think it comes down to work ethic. People in the United States have great work ethics when they make the choice to. People in the United States are very intelligent if they want to. In the U.S, it seems we put emphasis on you will get out of it what you put in it and that is your choice. In Ghana it seems you have no choice, you will do the work! I think teachers, administrators, parents, etc. should try and help students choose to have a good work ethic because they know and want the benefits.

Although, other countries seem to be "beating us" through education, they seem to have very strict ways to do this. I don't think the United States should change to these ways, however I do believe in general a different attitude/expectation should be utilized in society.

ECE

About a week ago my discussion group got on a topic about early childhood education. Many different viewpoints were brought into the converstation which made for a great discussion. We hit issues on different areas of Early Childhood Education but the hot topic was if preschool should be mandated for all children. Most recently in my education at Luther I've learned a great deal about the benefits to Early Childhood education. The intellectual development before the age of 5 is extrodinary. The group seemed to agree, or at least somewhat, on how the development during this time is crucial. The children should be educated during this time period. Should this be left up the parents? Should preschools be offered but not mandated? Should all children be required to attend preschool?

In a perfect world, it would be great to have all parents able to stay home with their children and teach them values, social concepts (like sharing, interacting with others), etc. However, now and especially with the economy, both parents are needing to work to provide for the family. This indicates that children are kept with other caregivers during many of their waking hours. Are these caregivers giving the necessary help and guidance to the children? How should we ensure that this is possible?

Also, how are preschools to be funded? An interesting comment was made that the funding for early childhood should go to grades K-12 to better that education through resources or other areas. During the discussion I thought this was a response that many people in the United States could argue and it appears valid when many schools are "failing" at those levels.

So....I decided to turn to my early childhood education professor for a quick answer. She stated, "The K-12 schools aren't funded by the government; they are funded by the state property taxes. If the federal government were to divert this money to the states, how would it be done equitably--poor states get more, everybody gets the same?" She also mentioned the thought that we need to compare the budgets of early childhood programs that are government funded (only one is Head Start) and compare it to other government funds. Where is the money (the attention) going to? Where does education come on this scale?

NCLB and children with disabilities

NCLB, what a popular topic! If I started talking about NCLB, the entire blog would be filled so I decided to focus on one aspect that I knew a little about which is special education students. I was placed in a 3rd and 4th grade special ed. classroom for my freshmen observation. I was there a month and was able to observe a lot about the students in my class.

Reading about NCLB "Distracting Schools from Productive Reforms" in the article Evaluating "No Child Left Behind" by Linda Darling-Hammond I completely agree with some of the statements. One statement was the thought, "It is impossible for the subgroups (English language-learners and special-needs students) ever to be 100 percent proficient. Schools serving a significant share of these learners will inevitably be labeled failing, even if all their students consistently make strong learning gains." This statement was true in the school district I was placed in. The school had a good special education program so parents from other school districts were open-enrolling their students and sending them to this specific school district. My cooperating teacher notified me her school district is close to being labeled "failing" and it could be due to the large population of special need students in the school.

Reading another article on NCLB entitled Ten Big Effects of the No Child Left Behind Act on Public Schools by Jack Jennings and Diane Stark Rentner made the point about the frustration of actually giving the test to the special needs students. They state the tests are "inappropriate and serve no instructional purpose." I witnessed this first hand. My cooperating teacher was required to test her students. Like all teachers, she read the directions to the student who was a fourth grader functioning at a 1st/2nd grade level. After the directions, she couldn't say much more. The student looked scared and confused, like the teacher had just talked in a foreign language. He did not even know how to begin. Finally, the student began clicking answers like it was a game because it was a computerized test. Comprehension or learning were not present. The student could not read the question or answers. He could simply pick a letter, since he did know his alphabet.

I felt it was a waste of money (for the test itself) and time for the instructor and student. If the government expects to assess special needs students, the tests need to be appropriate for the student. I know NCLB has flaws and good ideas, some much more complicated than others. I feel like test appropriateness is such a basic concept, it amazes me this has to be an issue.

Reflecting on article - "A How-to Plan for Widening the Gap" By Kim Marshall

"Academically needy students have expanded learning time during and after schools, go to summer school, and have the materials and incentives needed to maximize learning outside school." After reading this passage, I immediately pictured this...

A struggling first grader who wakes up in the morning crying to his or her parents, who did not graduate from high school, not to make him or her go to school. After the struggle of jumping on the bus to go to school, the student walks into the classroom sits down for morning meeting but half way through is told it's Tuesday and he or she needs to go to the speech teacher for 25 minutes. This now takes away the time works on daily work (math problems, figuring out the day/time/etc.). After the student returns, it is time for recess but the student had missed daily work, so the teacher said the student will have to stay in and finish. Now the student starts to panic and rushes through their work just to get out for recess. He or she does not care about the work being done or the learning presented. As the day continues, the student misses his or her favorite music class for time with the Title 1 teacher and later stays after school to receive help with a volunteer math tutor. When the student comes home he or she has to practice spelling words, eats, and heads to bed. Now although this may be extreme and drastic, no wonder some children who struggle academically hate coming to school.

Being reading and early childhood endorsements with a special interest in speech and language pathology, my career seems to be heading towards educating the students whose schooling is extended past the traditional 5-18 age range or who will be pulled out of classes for extra work on certain academic areas. Even though I fully believe in the effectiveness of intervention programs and extra help, especially in the early academic years, there may be an argument that needy students are pushed harder and harder to meet standards and benchmarks, which may end up actually hurting them.

Going back to Marshall's article, I do agree with most of the "15 effective practices" that could be implemented and it seems there is support to show growth, but is this as easy as it sounds? Are these ways always best for the students? And how can the parents, community members, etc. help resolve the issue?

Trading Schools....Is it the teachers, money, or expectations?

Watching this video about students from an inner city school and students from a suburb school switch schools for a day, a million questions run through one's mind. How can public schools be this different one half hour away? Are the teachers inadequate in inner city schools? Should we be pouring more money into inner schools and less into well established schools? Trying to answer these questions is near impossible but watching the video, all I could think about was the expectations of the society, the parents, community, teachers, administrators, and of the students. With a graduation rate of 40 percent at the inner city school and a ninety some percent rate at the suburb schools expectations are different. It would seem that society puts an expectation for the students in the suburbs that it isn't a questions whether they graduate. For students in the inner city it may be that students skip school and do not try because education isn't emphasized to be a top priority. Also the teachers may have different expectations for students. In inner cities, goals and expectations may be to get students to come to class or to not misbehave during a lesson. So how do we go about changing society's, parent's, and teaching expectations in our schools?