Final Blog

Social Justice:
It seems to me that social justice is always going to be a fight in the education system. Teachers are always going to be faced with problems of society. Especially these days when the whole world seems to be going hay-wire, injustices seem to be on the rise and it's the educator's that society seems to look at for the answers. Teachers have come along way from teaching reading, math and writing in the days of the one-room school house. Children come in all shapes and sizes and from all different cultures. I believe that it's up to the community as a whole to help change the education system of today. It seems that there's a group of people that are making all the decisions for the rules and regulations of the educational system yet they are not in these schools day in and day out dealing with the actuality that the system is not working.

One of my major issues with the education system is teachers that are waiting there retirement and just letting children that need help slip threw their fingers.Most of the kids that are slipping threw the cracks just need good people in there life to help them stop heading in the direction that their heading. There are so many children with learning disabilities that just need an extra nudge from a supportive figure in their life, to give it another try or not to give up.

There are more of my family members with learning disabilities then there are with out and I have witnesses both aspects of teachers caring and teachers not caring and what happens to the child. I am going to talk a little about two of my cousins. Both of them have dyslexia and were having trouble in school right from the beginning. This is a story to show how children need a whole community to support them in troubled times. We begin with cousin A and Cousin B!
Cousin A was in a school where they took the time to really understand where cousin A was having trouble, but cousin B was in a school where they did not pay much mind to why cousin B was not understanding the curriculum and just kept passing him on, I don't know maybe hoping the next teacher would catch his problem... So lets move up to today, Cousin A is in college and doing great because cousin A had gotten the right support to help her fight her disability. . Cousin B has dropped out of school and is in and out of trouble because he did not get the support he needed from his educators. His parents did the best they could helping him when he was out of school but if he's not getting the same from the teachers then it's a up hill battle. I am not sure how a person who has promised to educate young minds could allow children to just get lost in the wind.

I guess that I have not been in a situation like that before so I can not really give an opinion on those teachers. But I watched my mother graduate with honors from college in her fifties with severe dyslexia. She just never gave up, she would get book on tape or stay with the teachers anything she had to do, plus her teachers were great. How are children suppose to have the courage to never give up if their educator's are giving up on them.

Interview:
I did my interview over the phone with a person who grew up living with a learning disability at a time when nobody really knew what learning disabilities were.
I explained that we need to interview someone about the social justice issue that we were discussing in our finale blog. The questions that I had were about living with learning disabilities.

Me> How was it like growing up with a learning disability?

Speaker> It was tough! What you have to understand is that back when I was young they really didn't know what learning disabilities were. Well at least not like today. They just figured that you were not trying your best and not really paying attention to the teacher. I can remember sitting in class and really trying to pay attention to what the teacher was teaching and I just could not comprehend what she was saying.

They use to make me sit at the kitchen table with no noise and read my homework over and over again. I would sit at the table and read say 30 pages. When I was done your mother would ask me questions about what I read and I would have no Idea. Even if I read it over I still would have a hard time comprehending what I was reading.

(She spoke about how she really didn't know how to study for quiz's and exams, and not understanding the homework or classroom lessons. That she started wondering why she was even there.)
Me> How did you make it threw high school?

Speaker> Eventually they realized that something needed to be done when I was going to fail out of school. I would get my report card and my conduct and effort grades were always B's or better, but the over all average would be a D because of bad test scores. So they decided to move me to the alternative school for a smaller class room setting and more one on one time with the teacher. This was a better situation for me, it was a slower paced class and that's what I needed. I didn't graduate on time but I graduated and that's all that matters.
As far as the kids I went to school with I was not really bothered. I grew up the youngest girl of seven with 5 brothers so if anyone wanted to make fun. They usually ended up with a fat lip by me. I learned from my brothers and sister not to let people put me down. I am not saying that beating up people is the right thing to do it's just what I did ( not often but).

For the rest of the interview we spoke about her life today. Today she is reading much better then when she was younger. She did say that when she learns to do something new, She will repeat the same steps she took the first time she learned and continue every time after. Schedules and organization is what helps a lot.

I learned a lot about what it was like twenty years ago for children with learning disabilities and the education system. It's amazing how today it's the total opposite. If a kid is not responding to the teachers style of teaching then they must have a disability. This is such a close issue to me because it touches my family......



Educational Model:
My own personal teaching model is a interactive learning environment. There should be tons of activities and manipulative toys for children to learn from. I do not believe that teachers should just stand in front on a class and lecture. It's boring for the students and it's has to be boring for the teacher at least for me ti would be. I believe that students should work together more often and share ideas with one another. There should be more group projects so they can learn from each other. I am doing a presentation for one of my other classes and it's fun to collect different information and then get together share what we have learned. I feel that grades k-12 should be doing the same kind of learning. I believe I have already talked about kids and there energy in another discussion from this class. But I am going to express my feelings on it again. Children have so much energy as it is, then they are expected to sit in chairs and listen to a adult talk for just about 5 hours or so. No wonder these kids are tuning them out, they probably hear 2-3 words out of every other sentence. I know when I am in a class that's boring I only hear about 1/3 of what the teacher said I am too busy counting the minutes till I can leave.

The schools are so focused on these standardize tests that we are losing site of what education is all about. Education is suppose to prepare our children to be future leaders, teachers, bus driver or what ever. The problem is that they are only being taught what is on these tests and there's no time for anything else. That's not OK, kids need creative expression and time for their minds to absorb all of the information that they are being taught, they are not robots they are children. I find my self thinking of ways that I can have creative time and still be preparing my students for the tests. The education system is eliminating a lot of key classes that children should experience, can you imagine if you never had art class or music theory or gym for that matter. I feel that the education system is heading down a bad road and needs change immediately. Maybe the administrators need to take a closer look....

Another Issue:

Another issue that I have is the misleading information that U.S students are taught about U.S. History. I can remember when I was in high and school and middle school they did not teach us about the Indians and how they were nearly wiped out from the European settlers or how bad slavery really was. I don't think that racism was ever really brought up. I am a true believer that as children we should be taught the truth about this country's history good or bad because that's the story of us.If we don't know the truth, then how can we make it better.


I promise that as a teacher I will do my best to keep my classroom and active learning environment for all who come threw the door.

Planting a tree.....

At first I was having a hard time with this blog because I did not really have my own metaphor for teaching. So I have always thought that tree's were good tools for metaphors because they can mean so many things.

I look at teaching like as if I was planting a tree. The first step to planting a tree is finding the right place to put it. I feel that parents are the ones who find the right school for their child to attend, I believe that's the first step to creating a base for the children to learn.

From the moment the roots start to grow into the ground they become the base for the tree. Once the place is found we dig a hole and plant the tree. From that point on the tree needs water and care for it so it can grow older and wiser and as time goes by more and more branches grow making the tree more and more complex.

I use the tree as my metaphor because I believe that once the tree is planted and starts to grow, it becomes more complex as time goes by. The branches start to grow and expand. I believe that children are just the same. They come to school with a base of knowledge and as they move ahead to each grade their minds grow bigger and open to new knowledge. Children begin to acknowledge different ideas and their minds become more complex then they were in the beginning. Children's minds start to develop at a rate where they want to reach out and learn everything.

I feel that the tree in a good metaphor for children because they grow older and their need for knowledge becomes great. Just as the tree becomes older and it's branches extend longer and longer and their need for water becomes great. But once it is done growing it's there to beat the test of time. As children grow and learn they are their to be our future leaders and educators. And the tree's that we plant are there to help this planet survive.

Human Trafficking

How could we stop human trafficking??

Human Trafficking also know as the sex slave trade is still a huge problem for millions of people (both male and female) across the world. There is an estimated 2 million women and children that are sold to the sex trade each year from around the world. Sex Trafficking is a form of modern day slavery of a person under the age of eighteen who are forced into sexual activity.

TUPA- stands for the Enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection act of 2000. This act made sex trafficking a serious violation of federal law in the United States. But there are still girls being brought into the U.S at an alarming rate, but not as high as western Europe. The "Commercial Sex Act" States that any sex act where anything of value is given or received by any person is considered a violation.

Sex traffickers use phycological as well as the physical minipulation to force young people into submission. Victims of sex trafficking can be any gender any age but women and girls are the majority of the people being forced in the sex trafficking. Traffickers lure their victims in to sex trafficking by promiing good jobs in other countries, false ideas of marriage or being sold into the trade by parents, husbands or boyfriends or kidnapping.

Some of the various methods that sex traffickers use to condition their victims include rape, abuse, starvation, threats of violence to victims and their familes, these are just a few of the methods that sex traffickers use. The health risks that these victims face are things such as drug addition, physical injuries ( broken bones), suicide, STD's or forced aborations and many more.

Types of sex trafficking:

• Prostitution
• Pornography
• Stripping
• Live sex shows
• Mail order brides
• Military prostitution

The John Hopkins University has a project called " Protection Project". The Hopkins University is located inWashington D.C and is a researched based institute. This protection project is to promote human rights and values around the world. The research, train and exchange with people and other programsn throughtout the world. The goal for this project is to educate people and help in creating a global civil society. A place where people are safe from harm no matter where they live.


http://www.acf.hhs.gov
http://archives.cnn.com
http://www.protectionproject.org

Charter schools

I picked Charter schools because I never really knew what they were about and wanted to know more. Charter schools are designed to challenge traditional public schools and create a system that the community needs. Charter schools are independent public schools supported by state funds but in some degree are not held to the same regulations. These schools are based on contracts between school organizations and sponsors like the board of education or universities. Organizations are in control of the hiring and firing and budgeting money. In exchange for allowing these schools to run they are expected to exceed the expectations of a typical public school when it comes to test scores and such. This is one debate about charter schools, that they are spending all this money and the kids will test the same or worse. I believe that we need to keep experimenting with different type of schools, so we can figure out what's best for the children

Since legislation began passing in 1990 three thousand new charter schools have opened. Charter schools teach their children reading, writing and arithmetic just like a normal public school but they are allowed to change the style of teaching if desired. They have more money to spend on programs in the art's such as music and drama, extensive art classes. This is a wonderful thing in a time where public schools only care about tests scores and are eliminating classes like art and so on. I am a firm believer that children need classes that expand their creativity not take them away.

Educational Philosophy

"Education is life itself". -John Dewey

John Dewey is the philosopher that I would align my own views with. John Dewey was born in 1859 and died in 1952. During his time he was looked at as one of the greatest educational thinkers of the 20th century. He was born in Burlington, Vermont and stayed there until he graduated from the University of Vermont then he received his PH.D from John Hopkins University. Dewey started his career at the University of Michigan where he taught for just about ten years. From Michigan he became a chairman in the department of Philosophy for the University of Chicago. He was then elected president of the American Psychological Association and the American Philosophical Association. Dewey taught for over twenty years at the University of Chicago. Dewey supported many social issues a few of them being Woman's suffrage, Progressive education, Educators rights, Humanistic Movements and world peace. He wrote many articles and such on these matters. Some of the writings in education that Dewey wrote were called Education and Democracy,The Child and Curriculum, Schools of To- Morrow, Art and Education. Some of the shorter articles are The teacher and Society, Education and social order. Dewey helped moved forward the "progressive education movement" and developed the " Experimental education programs", such as "Outward Bound"

(Outward Bound is a non-profit educational organization that serves people of all ages and backgrounds through active learning expeditions that inspire character development, self-discovery and service both in and out of the classroom. Outward Bound delivers wilderness-based programs to participants across the country and focuses its outreach on underserved youth. Customized courses provide curricula developed for struggling teens, groups with specific health, social or educational needs and business and professional organizations. Expeditionary Learning Schools Outward Bound offers a whole school reform model to more than 150 elementary and secondary schools throughout the country./www.outwardbound.org

Dewey's Philosophy on Education:
John Dewey believed that learning was active and schooling unnecessarily long and restrictive. Children come to school to do tings and live in a community which will give them real life guided experiences that would help them learn how to adapted and become contributing memebers of society. Real-life taks or challenges is how children should learn.

If we look back to chapters 14 nd 16 both of these school settings are putting their students in real life settings and guiding them in the right direction . I believe that John Dewey was the reason why schools such as The Met or Summerhill could run the way they do. I feel that THe Met school would be more up Dewey's ally though. Becuase he also beleive that education needed some sort of guidence.


I align my view with Dewey because I agree with him that learning should be active and the school days are too long and boring. I think that if their were more hands-on activities in school then the days would not feel so long. I think six hours is good but it's the dragged out lessons that kids are tuning out before they even begin. I feel that the education system is out of date and all the testing is stressing kids out. If they had a more relaxed setting with more activities they might want to come to school. They should feel that they are part of the classroom, not just little robots repeating the information that is given to them. I would like to of met him.

http://dewey.pragmatism.org/

http://www.wilderdom.com/experiential/

Is Active learning the way to go??

The article for social justice started to make me think about how I was going to change the banking system in my own classroom. I have always been a firm believer that justice is worth the fight if you believe what your fighting for. I believe that children are worth fighting for no matter what! Schools today are so concerned about what scores American kids get on the standardized tests. They put so much stress on these kids to do well on these standardized tests, that teachers today are just feeding the information into the minds of these young ones to pass these tests and not showing them what they are explaining. All of these children are memorizing word for word of what their teacher is saying. Are they actually learning? According to the Article that we had to read today's society and it's values are putting self interest and personal gain ahead of compassion and the communal good. I think that this is one of the problems with the educational system as a whole. A school is a community and children play a big part of that community. We need to make sure that it is a learning community not a memorizing community. I have been saying it over an over children learn with their senses. They also need to feel that they are all in this community together try to leave little room for feeling of left out. I was skimming parts of chapter 16 in Democracy and education by John Dewey and he states that education is suppose to promote independent, self motivated and critical thinking from these children. I do not believe that teachers standing in front of their students reading from their books is the best way to learn or achieve self motivated critical thinkers. We need to come up with projects for both individual and groups to learn the material. We need to show them what we are trying to teach. Let them feel what a pine tree feels like or actually create a constellation. Think about it, remember going to the museum of science and all the stuff that you got to touch and smell and jump on. It helped you learn about the lighting, animals and how the waves worked in the ocean. Not just a teacher telling you that's how it happens. We need to find ways to help them learn in the same way museums do on a smaller scale. I found this cone of learning on one of my searches and thought it fit perfect with what I was talking about.
http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/Publications/Projects/digitexts/dewey/d_e/chapter15.html

Where do we cross the line for what child makes it into typical classrooms?

Since we are reading about Inclusion I thought I would blog on it. Inclusion in the classroom is being pushed into typical classrooms at an alarming rate. This type of education involves rethinking the structure of the regular classroom setting. Which means that schools are going to need different types of resources. Resources like extra teachers in each classrooms, trained teachers in special education fields and medical equipment that a student might need. A typical child learns certain types of behaviors which are appropriate for classrooms settings, children with severe disabilities might not learn before their school career or be able to learn those types of behaviors in a regular classroom setting. Another concern I have about these types of classrooms is that they are over crowded as it is and the classes are just getting bigger. Now they want to add children that have all different types of disabilities. We need to carefully look at what is the best way to help all of these children typical kids included.


Don't get me wrong I am not an advocate for exclusion classroom settings I believe that children should be able to learn in the least restrictive environment, none of us like restrictions but some are necessary. I totally agree that some children would benefit from being in a regular classroom settings with typical children and typical behaviors. According to http://www.education-world.com feels that certain standards would make Inclusion easier to work out for everyone.

• "adequate supports and services for the student,
• well-designed individualized education programs,
• professional development for all teachers involved, general and special educators alike;
• time for teachers to plan, meet, create, and evaluate the students together;
• reduced class size based on the severity of the student needs,
• professional skill development in the areas of cooperative learning, peer tutoring, adaptive curriculum, varied learning styles, etc.,
• collaboration between parents, teachers and administrators,
• sufficient funding so that schools will be able to develop programs for students based on student need instead of the availability of funding, or lack thereof."

Last year during one of my field observations for my intro to special education class I saw a perfect example of Inclusion working the way it should. There was a child with one ear the was not formed all the way which he/she could not hear out of at all and the other ear was hard of hearing. The teacher would wear a microphone to amplify her voice and there was a speaker on the child's desk for the times that she was giving lectures.This piece of technology was perfect for it's purpose and the child was able to participate in a typical class. There was another class that I observed and one of the children was so autistic that his/her behavioral issues would keep him/her in a classroom that was totally sub-seperate until he graduated. This child was extremely bright but being in an inclusion classroom would do more harm then good. So I ask you where is the line drawn for children that should be put into inclusion classrooms and the ones that don not??? And how does it affect the over all picture?

How do we help At - Risk students....

Recently the chapter that we read talks about at risk students and programs that there is for them to succeed. The problem I find is that some of these kids want to take the help but the home environment might not support them. Unfortunetly children that do not finish their schooling have a higher rate of living in poverty for the rest of their lives. The sad thing is with out education they will never know that they don't have to stay in that class-status. That's the good thing about America, if you have a dream follow it. It's amazing what a human brain can do if it's put to the test.... According to the U. S Census Bureau the following conditions may contribute to different levels of At- Risk.

• Has at least one disabiltiy
  
• Retained in a grade at least once
• Speaks English less than "very well"
• Does not live with both parents
• Either parents emigrated in the past five years
• has a family income below $ 10,000
• Neither parent or guardian employed

At- Risk students can have all or none of these factors they just serve as a guideline for educators. There are also children that have one or two of these conditions and be the exeption to the rule and succeed above and beyond. I feel that as educators we need to really look and interact with these children before we start to label them. There are federal funded programs that have been created to help these children such as

1. Upward Bound
   
2. Pull out programs
   
3. Compensatory education program

There are also mentoring programs for children that don't have the right adult to look up to. Programs like Big brother or big sisters that give one -on-one attention to these children that need the help. Another way for these kids to succeed in school would be parents getting involved but that doesn't always happen, Programs for parents to get involved are as follow

1. PTA
2. PTO
3. Parent teacher conference
   
4. Open house
   

I understand that there are more At-Risk students then there are educators. There has to be a way for us to help our youth......

Shoule there be art in schools??

I feel that there should totally be art in schools. I was observing a class over the past week and I noticed that there was not many pictures or projects that the kids created them selves, like during an arts and crafts class or a time where they could create. The response that I got was 1. we don't have enough time during the days to give creative time and 2. there are many cut backs and those are the types of courses that are the first to go. I know that I am artist kind of person when I have the time and is it wasn't for my art classes I would of had a harder time in school. We still learned while we were in art class, it just was not in a test book. Art was just a different way to learn. Art helps communication skills and will help later on in life. It said that art was important in the curriculum but it's the first one to go when the budget gets tight. Then I thought about spending regular class time for creative thinking or drawing, coloring whatever but when I talked one of my teachers that I was observing I quickly found out that there's not room there either. I was told that with all the standardized testing there is no time for arts and crafts. They have certain curriculum to follow to make sure these kids stay on track . This for me is getting out of hand. There has to be a way to mix learning and art into one course. A course where they can draw, paint and sculpt and still learning the curriculum.

Studies over the past several years have found that the arts – whether as part of the curriculum or as supplemental programs – can have the following benefits:

• Reach, and increase the performance of, students who often struggle to succeed in school, including disadvantaged students, English language learners and students with disabilities
  
  
• Provide new challenges for those students already considered successful
  
  
• Reduce recidivism rates of incarcerated youth while strengthening their job skills and self-esteem
  
  
• Improve cognitive skills involved in reading, language development and mathematics; and develop problem solving and critical and creative thinking skills – all of which serve students in school and in the workplace
  
  
• Motivate students to learn and become more involved in their schools
  
  
• Increase student attendance and engagement
  
  
• Promote students’ self-confidence and foster better relationships among students and teachers
  
  
• Nurture the curiosity and creativity of students.
  

http://www.ecs.org/html/issue.asp?issueid=211&subissueID=0

How do we fix the problems of the No Child Left Behind??

How do we fix the problems of the No Child Left Behind Act??

Education is like a double-edged sword. It may be turned to dangerous uses if it is not properly handled. Wu Ting-Fang

The funding gap:

" The gap between what was written into the law (authorized levels) and what has been funded (appropriations) comes to $56.1 billion over six years. In Title I alone, the cumulative shortfall is at $43.6 billion, and more than 3.5 million children will be left behind. (See enclosed charts on NCLB and Title I funding gaps."

www.nea.org/esea/policy.html

I thought that this program was called No Child Left Behind. The more I read about NCLB the less I like it. I thought NCLB was to actually help out Children in trouble. I also thought is was suppose to help the education system. The schools are suppose to be getting funding to update them and buy materials for their students but the schools are not getting the money that they should be. There are schools out there that do not have enough materials for every child in each classroom. Then their going to blame the teachers for not doing a good enough job teaching. What are teachers suppose to do? During my field observation last yearI noticed that most of the supplies that were in the room were bought by the teacher. They are putting so much stress on the whole learning experience for these children and their educators that eventually something's going to break..

If the schools are not getting enough funding then they are not prepared for the technology that is out there today and if there not ready for today then what happens tomorrow. This is going to effect the future generations.

The big squeeze:

"Since 2002, when NCLB was passed, 71 percent of the nation's 15,000 school districts have reduced time spent on subjects like art, social studies, and history." www.nea.org/esea/policy.html

The schools are also eliminating certain types of classes so they can spend more time on reading and Mathematics for these standardize test, which is a requirement now for graduation. I agree that kids need to be tested but I believe the test that are given andhow they are given only adds UNneeded stress to many students. I can hear the frustraion in some teachers I have spoken to,when they talk about what they can fit into their everyday class schedule and there's not time for art or music.

Fall days

So I have been playing around on this web site for a few days. I am getting a little better at it. I am really not sure how to add a java-script to it or what a java-script really is!!!!! Anyway.....

Just when your not looking fall creeps in and summer creeps out. I am both glad and sad to see these season's come and go. The summer is a lot of fun in the sun but a true New England person welcomes the fall. The changing of the leaves, Apple picking and Football.. As I grow older these are the things that remind me of being a kid and living at home with my parents... It's always the fall that makes me miss being a kid...... (pictures not anyone I know, it just fit my blog)

Test run....

This is my test blog to make sure I am doing this right.......