The Finale!

Well, the year's over! We still managed to have a great discussion today, despite it being the last day! I especially enjoyed the conversation I had when discussing my philosophy during the finals meeting because it gave me another chance to explore the ideals that I've established throughout the semester.

One core value that I spoke about was the belief that if you hold students to a higher standard, then they are more likely to reach that level of success. What I didn't necessarily think of, however, was how to get students to reach a higher level of success without giving additional work or causing students to feel overwhelmed by the subject. I was able to discuss various ideas during the meeting and further analyze how this situation would apply to my everyday teaching. One question brought to my attention was how you can have a high level of expectation for students without giving them busy work. We were able to discuss methods of keeping students ineterested and eager to learn so that busy work won't be required and students will want to learn more about whatever subject and reach the goals that you set for them.

Current Events

This past week in class, we began discussing ideas that could be taught to students. During this activity, our group started to discuss the idea of using the current oil spill in classrooms as a teaching subject. Each teacher in different core subject classrooms could spend time discussing many different sides of the argument and relate it to all of the subjects for the students.

This conversation evolved into the observation that a current events topic could be incorporated into all classes every semester. In my personal experience, the thing that I lacked in my education as a child was exposure and knowledge of current events. Typically, I was a very good student and studied/learned everything that needed to be known in class, but I didn't waste my time learning about the things happening in the world at that time because I didn't believe it was necessary since it was not required of me as a student. Given the chance to create a curriculum for a general classroom for younger students, I would allot several days in each semester to which a current events topic could be discussed whenever it presented itself and would try to incorporate the event into multiple subjects.

Chocolate Milk

Following our discussion in class about foods offered to children in schools, I spoke to my mom about the topic. We discussed the Jamie Oliver presentation and I explained what was said and how much I agreed with it. To my surprise, however, she didn't immediately agree with me and, instead, posed the question, "Where do you really think obesity in children begins? At school or at home?"

I tried arguing for Jamie Oliver's perspective but soon realized that schools are not the only place where obesity is developing in children in today's society. True, many students get their breakfast and lunches from schools today, but they learn about what foods they eat and how big of a portion size is deemed as "acceptable" from their experiences at home. Although I appreciate Jamie Oliver's move to reform schools and their lunches, I also agree with my mom in that it all truly begins at home. I agree with his stance that because children simply are not knowledgable about some foods and, therefore, will not eat them, we need to teach kids about these foods and let them know that it's alright to try something they may not have seen or tasted before! In addition to this, strides need to be made to teach parents in addition to their children. An ideal situation is a dual program that teaches families as a whole at a school district about the types of foods they are giving their students so that the family can change their lifestyle at home and not just rely on schools to make those changes for them.

RPG: Role-Playing Government

While researching for a paper topic this past week, I came across an article that detailed a story of children learning about the government at an elementary school. The teacher in this class of young children was inspired by the election of Jimmy Carter, current President at the time, and decided to pose a mock election in her classroom. The teacher taught her students through a tedious process, explaining the process of nominating someone that would be a good candidate, teaching her students how to vote (without telling anyone who you voted for), and even explaining what a vote was.

With the election, the person with the most votes became president, the second most became vice president, and so on. This process seemed to work so well that the teacher continued it with a monthly election so that multiple students would have the chance at the presidency. Ultimately, these children were able to learn more about the who's, what's, and how's of the government. Parents of these children were stunned by how much their kids had learned about this complex ordeal. It also paid off for the classroom; as students took office, they took their title seriously and would step into the role as the leader of the classroom for the month. When the presidential position was given to a rambunctious child, the boy seemed to calm down and take his role seriously. This government role-play seemed to be very beneficial both to learn about something and also to maintain good role models for the classroom.

Cutting Back

This past week, I received some disturbing news from home; schools in the Des Moines area were facing serious budget cuts. The school's response was to cut back on the amount of time allotted to the art, music, and gym programs. By cutting the amount of time given to these courses, the administration reasons that they can then cut back on the number of teachers working.

My first concern was that the schools were cutting music programs since I will be licensed to teach music in just over a year. I was furious that the amount of time given to ensembles in a week was restricted because this meant that these musical ensembles wouldn't have an appropriate amount of time to rehearse. Music is something that is best rehearsed as an ensemble and cannot easily be given homework assignments outside of class time to complete. In addition to losing time, the decision was also made that the 5th and 6th grade band program would be cut entirely and students would not be able to begin until 7th grade. This sort of move could either eliminate the interest in band entirely, assuming that students find playing instruments "uncool" by the time they reach middle school, or turn into complete and total chaos when students from multiple elementary schools filter into middle school and decide they all want to sign up for the program. Teachers at this level would be given the responsibility of teaching an extremely large group of students that were more than originally bargained for while the high school music program would greatly decline in skill now that students are robbed of two years of learning. The end result, I fear, is an extinguished band program altogether.

Soon after realizing my fears for the music program, I found that the greater thing that I should be fearing is the elimination of time spent on physical education. Already, there is concern at the rate that obesity is rising in the children of America. Some schools believe that by simply taking out vending machines or changing the lunch menus will solve this, but I don't think that enough time has been spent looking at the physical education programs and how important they are to children. They are also key to elementary schools. Without gym programs for kids to get excess energy out of their systems, how do we expect them to focus and pay attention throughout the day? Everyone, no matter your age, needs at least some time to do something active to get the body moving and alert for the rest of the day to come! Cutting physical education programs is the absolute worst thing schools can do!

An Outsider's Opinion

This past week, I was absent from class and given the assignment to discuss our case studies with a student that was not in our Paideia class. I chose to speak with someone who is a biology major and got an interesting response from them on these case studies. For the most part, she and I agreed on how we would try to solve these issues, but she seemed to struggle slightly more to give a definitive answer.

As a whole, she seemed to take a much more scientific and data driven approach to solving this issues. As we moved from one question to the next, she seemed frustrated by how difficult they were to answer. Then, after hearing the question, she would often say that her answer would depend on so many factors that she didn't know how to respond, such as who the individual was in the story, what her role was at the school, and other pieces of background information. At one point, when discussing a case study that involved test scores, she essentially threw out the question because no numbers for these test scores were discussed and, therefore, the question was not valid! It was good to see a similar point of view, but also interesting to see how our way of thinking differed!

Case Study Discussion

In my discussion group's last meeting, we decided to go back to the case studies that we spoke about in class on Monday since we didn't have as much time as we would have liked. One of the questions that our group found the hardest to answer was which of the three students should be chosen to participate in an advanced program. Although we could agree somewhat on the first two students, the third to join the program ended up being the hardest to pick because everyone had a different opinion as to what was most important for a student to have. In the end, we all seemed to agree that the process would be somewhat easier to determine who would or wouldn't particpate in the program if we knew the students personally.

It was just as difficult to determine what to do if we were in a situation where we were supposed to paddle a student. All of us seemed to agree that we never would have gotten into a situation that would require us to harm our students, even if it was permitted by the school and their parents. We tried developing some alternative ideas that could be used as a means of punishing students and maintaining behavior in the classroom without physical harm towards the students, but we felt that the children would only see us as weak or without power in the classroom if we tried any other form of non-physical punishment.

Surprisingly, the easiest question for us all to answer was how to handle budget cuts. If we were forced to choose one of the options, none of us would have cut AP or extended learning programs like the group in class chose to cut. Instead, we all decided it would be better to increase the classrooms by 5 students. This would be the best method, we all believed, since there would be no loss of additional programs. Also, we all commented that our class sizes in elementary school were around 30 to start with, so it didn't seem like a room of 30 children would be unmanagable.

Paideia II

This past week at my small group discussion, we thought it might be a good idea to begin brainstorming ideas for our paper due this Friday. Somehow our discussion got onto the topic of school being mandatory for students. This discussion ended up being one of my favorite education based peer conversations I've had in a long time. For the most part, the four of us brought up many different ideas pertaining to both the benefits of mandatory schooling and the weaknesses of our current system.

For example, we all agreed that mandatory schooling is good for those children who may need to be exposed to the benefits of education when their parents might not have had a good experience or believe in the schooling system. But as children enter older ages, when would it be acceptable for them to drop out of school and make this educated decision on their own? Even if these students think that they have a profession for their future in mind by the time they reach middle school and do not believe they need any further schooling for that profession, are these middle schoolers old enough to make this type of mature decision on their own and not an impulsive one? Certainly questions to ponder!

The Freedom Writers i-movie

This semester, my group and I had the chance to create a movie that reflected our knowledge of the book The Freedom Writers. Click on the link to check it out!

Amy Streck

Paideia Text and Issues Lecture (Going Green)

I attended Claude Mertzenich's paideia lecture on Green Chemistry. Similar to the Religion and Politics lecture that I attended, I didn't feel as if I knew a ton of information regarding the subject. Unfortunately, I don't feel like this lecture did as great of a job explaining the topic so I felt very confused during most of the lecture.

I enjoyed the fact that Mertzenich chose to use a powerpoint and a video to give the audience something to follow along. However, he tended to read straight from the slide when the audience was capable of doing the same thing. He also included a bit too much information on the slide, making it difficult for the audience to see everything that he had written.

Another unfortunate drawback was that Mertzenich seemed to have only an alotted time to give his presentation because he had to speed through the last half of his lecture and was talking too quickly for me to comprehend everything that he was telling us. However, with a bit more time, I feel like he could have been able to slow down and given us more information so I wouldn't have felt as rushed and confused.

Although I didn't love this lecture, I was glad that Mertzenich was able to relate the lecture to Luther. At several points during the presentation, he was able to address the audience and explain how this applied to us at Luther, including using examples about different groups on campus.

Amy Streck

Religion in American Politics

One of the lectures I attended this year was David Domke's lecture on religion in American politics. At first, I was hesitant to attend this lecture because of the topic of this lecture; I'm not exactly knowledgable in the religion or politics department...

However, once he started on his presentation, I was immediately drawn into his lecture! Within minutes, Domke had been able to insert the occasional joke to keep the audience entertained while still engaged in his lecture. He also included a visual aid (powerpoint) into the presentation and used it in an effective manner. He included pertinent information that we wanted on the slides, but didn't read the information off word for word.

Domke also really impressed me with his ability to be able to improv on the spot. At one point, someone made a comment about his presentation and he was able to respond without appearing flustered by the interruption. He was also incredibly current on his knowledge. In fact, his last slide included information that wasn't even two hours old!

Overall, this lecture was an excellent example that I would love to follow. David Domke really impressed me with his ability to speak in front of a crowd of people and I hope to have the chance to follow in his footsteps someday!

Amy Streck

Chalk

The movie, Chalk, that we've been watching in our Monday night classes has been quite entertaining, to say the least. I believe that all of these teachers, individually, are horrible teachers, but if you combine their traits, you could end up with a great teacher.

It's important to have a fun teacher who is interested in getting to know you as a person, but when that becomes their primary goal in class rather than teaching the curriculum, there's a problem. It's also important to have a teacher that isn't afraid to need to use discipline in a classroom situation, but too much of that can be disastrous.

The gym teacher seems to be the only character in this movie that is a "good teacher." She seems to be able to teach the proper things in class while also maintaining a fun environment. However, as discussed with her colleague, she can be rather pushy at times. Other than that, I think that she's a great teacher. There was one moment when she caught a student that was late to class and the teacher of the class didn't do anything about it. When the gym teacher confronted this faculty member, she said that they all needed to agree on the rules and enforce them because all of the teachers were working as a team. Although, yes, she came off as very pushy when telling this other teacher what to do, I do agree with her statement; teachers are a team and they should agree on a set of rules that should be enforced.

Amy Streck

Parents

It was interesting to hear the parents' perspective on teaching. The strongest point that they seemed to emphasize was that parents aren't our enemies and they're not trying to scare or intimidate us - we're a team! The point of school is to help kids learn. Both parents and teachers want the same outcome for their students/kids, so why should teachers be afraid of parents?

Another point that one parent brought up was that at parent-teacher conferences, they want to hear about some good things that their child does. I learned that at these conferences, you should always begin by telling the parents something good that their child does. It's incredibly disappointing if they constantly hear that their child is always doing poorly in school.

After this interview with the parents, I started thinking about the diverse students that I might have to work with in the future. I always picture my future students as replicas of my former classmates, but I can't depend on that idea for my future students. Each class I get will have unique people with different problems or disabilities that I will need to learn about and learn how to teach around such obstacles. I think that this is one of the areas that I will need the most work when I begin teaching.

Amy Streck

New Teachers

I was thrilled to connect our discussion with the newer teachers in the Decorah school district to the book that our group has been reading. In The Freedom Writers, one of the very strong points you see is that you don't need to be an older teacher to be an expert teacher. And just because you might be a new teacher doesn't mean that you're inexperienced! I was disappointed by the comments these teachers made about feeling as if they're not listened to by older teachers just because they're younger and aren't experienced. I really hope I don't have that sort of a situation!

One great thing that I heard at this interview was that we are all lifelong learners. It seems like such an obvious statement, but it's very important to remember! When you aren't constantly seeking out information or trying to improve, then you begin to level off and teaching isn't nearly as exciting as it once might have been. You start to believe that you know everything that you need to know about the subject that you teach, and this is when you begin to decline as a teacher and the school day becomes a chore, not a new adventure to help students achieve success!

I was also very glad that there was a music teacher present! Sometimes I feel like it's hard to relate this class to how I would conduct a choir because it's very different than teaching core subjects, so it was good to see how some of these ideas are applied to him!

Amy Streck

School Board

I thought this interview was good, but I didn't like it quite as much as I enjoyed our discussion with the administrators.

As always, No Child Left Behind was mentioned and discussed for quite a while. One thing that caught my attention was that they said that, even without NCLB, the schools would probably continue to give standardized tests so that they still have an idea of where their students fall and what needs to be improved in their community. This just goes to show that even if the government may not be using these numbers in the best way, they still help our schools and our teachers to improve.

When we started talking about competing academically with other countries - specifically China - I was surprised by their response. Yes, they agreed that China might be further ahead than we are, but that's because they are constantly being fed math and science and are left with little time to do other things that are common in a child's life. Because of their lack of free time, some of these students in China aren't necessarily as well-rounded as they are here or in other countries. I guess different countries value different things in school!

Amy Streck

Guest Speakers

Our latest Monday night class was, by far, the best one I've been to this semester. I really appreciated everything that our two speakers had to say about schools and their view. The most interesting portion of these questions were about NCLB/standardized tests. They brought up some great viewpoints that I don't think we discussed enough in our classes and that we probably should have.

One thing they mentioned was that the tests get teachers talking about what they can do to fix certain aspects of their curriculum. True, standardized tests may not be the most accurate way to test certain students, but if your scores in one area are consistently falling with all students, you can clearly see that there is a problem with the way that teachers may be teaching that subject and we can work to improve the students' education.

The other thing that I thought was great for them to bring up is the fact that standardized tests are just one part of the puzzle. Students are not being assessed solely on how they perform on ITBS tests or ACTs. The point of standardized tests are to get a rough idea of where students are compared to other schools or other classes. If you are teaching the right things and using the appropriate methods to help students learn, then there shouldn't be a problem with standardized tests! Students will do just fine if they're being taught the appropriate things in class, so I don't think it's fair to assume that standardized tests are completely bad!

All in all, I'm very glad that these speakers came. It was great to hear their input on issues that we've been discussing for several weeks. I really hope we get a chance to interview with other teachers in different school districts in the future!

Amy Streck

The discussion on Monday night was definitely an experience! I thought it was very creative to use this method to see different perspectives and opinions on the matter. Before we met on Monday night, I had thought that there was no way I would be persuaded to actually believe in the support for this plan, but I found myself agreeing with a few issues that were brought up to support it. (I loved when opposing views would throw excellent ideas back and forth - very fun to listen to!) I had hoped there might be more people who tried to support the plan instead of nearly everyone being against the plan. It would have been a greater debate if there had been several people on both sides, but I definitely think it got everyone thinking about the pros and cons of each argument!

Amy

Library Information

Personally, I don't believe that the Monday night meeting about the library's website was a great use of our time. I understand that some people might have trouble navigating the school's library website, but I think that our generation has a better handle on how to get around the internet. Also, we had this same presentation in our first year for Paideia, and this felt very repetitive. Last week, the review of Chalk and Wire and the requirements for the education program was a great review because there was a ton of information to remember. This informational meeting, however, dealt with issues that I don't believe needed to be discussed for an hour. It might have been a bit more appropriate to discuss the library's website for half of the time and maybe use the other half hour to discuss copyright issues, which we only got a handout for.

Amy

Chalk and Wire and Education Requirements

Our Monday night class was a REALLY great review for me.

About a year ago, I remember hearing the same lecture about the upcoming requirements for becoming a teacher. At the time, I was terrified of all of these deadlines that I would need to remember, but now that I've been in the education program for a year, this was a great review and reminder for me. I was able to actually take a breath and realize that I was doing better than I thought I was. As a freshman, I think Jennifer's presentation was extremely overwhelming. We were all just getting used to the change in our lives, and then she just threw all of this information at us! But now that I've had time to relax and absorb her speech, this presentation was a great reminder to help me stay on track so I can graduate in the right amount of time.

The Chalk and Wire program, however, isn't quite as clear as my plan for the rest of college. I've seen her presentation before and I had a chance to use the Chalk and Wire program once before, but I'm still worried that I might mess something up. I understand the basics of how it all works, but I think I'll just need to use it a bit more to get a good grasp on how it's supposed to work. I just need to spend some more time using the program before I feel comfortable with it.

Amy

Lions for Lambs

I thought the interaction between the student and the teacher in Lions for Lambs was interesting. The first thing I noticed was the fact that the student and the teacher had a very close relationship. In some aspects, I think that's really great that a teacher is good friends with a student both inside and outside of class. But on the downside, I think the teacher might have crossed the line just a bit. My concern is that if you're too friendly with your students, they might start to think of you as a peer and forget that you are their teacher or the authority figure in the room. There's also the chance that they could start to disrespect you. (But the student in the movie was also a college student and both are adults, so my thinking would probably apply more to high school, middle school, or elementary school.)

The other thing that stood out to me was when the teacher said that the two former students of his, Ernie and Aryan, had a great potential, but he only gave them a B on their project. That moment really stuck with me, because I realized that straight A students aren't necessarily the ones with the most potential. The teacher probably recognized the passion or the drive behind Ernie and Aryan's work, even if their work wasn't fully accurate. That's definitely something to think about!

Amy