Final Thoughts On Ed. Psych.

Well, this is my final blog as a student of Ed. Psychology here at Luther. Kind of sad really, but I guess all things must come to an end. I have to say I'm going to kind of miss our lovely class periods discussing anything and everything that comes to mind as it relates to education. I think that this class was very interesting and I did learn a lot. I wish that it pertained more directly to Music Education but it was still important information to learn. I really enjoyed working within the small 'study groups', and I think that having the opportunity to create i-movies and blogs really helped the concepts to sink in. I also think that the alternative final exam was an excellent idea. When we first received the book list I really wanted to read most of the books on the list, but often with time constraints reading for pleasure simply isn't an option. This project was super, in that it allowed me to read for pleasure while taking in much needed and appreciated information about teaching. I really had a wonderful time in this class. I'm really gonna miss ya Jim! :(

Chalk

During two of our Monday night meetings we watched a movie entitle “Chalk” the movie was very similar to the TV show “The Office” and focused on letting the viewer see what goes on in an average school district on a daily basis. I thought the movie was very enjoyable. It gave the viewer an opportunity to see different approaches to teaching and why they work, or as was often the case, why they don’t work. It was also interesting to see the dynamics that teachers had with their colleagues and the administration in the district. The movie followed the teachers through and entire school year so it was especially interesting to watch the teacher who, quite honestly was awful at the beginning of the school year, turn into a teacher who actually did have control of his classroom and who was even respected and liked by the students. It was also rather amusing for me to watch this movie as I am fairly certain that every single one of the teachers in this movie taught at my high school in one form or another. It was nice to just be able to laugh at the ‘rookie’ mistakes that were being made throughout the movie. Definitely a fun activity to include in the course!

Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year

For our Ed. Psych class we were given the option of choosing a project of sorts to serve as our final. I chose the option of reading two education related books from our reading list and then writing a paper that ties those books into our Anita Woolfolk text book. One of the books that I read was entitled “Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year”. I found this book extremely interesting! Not only was Esme writing about teaching in an inner city school, which is something that I am interested in, she was also writing about the ‘politics’ that go along with teaching and her everyday struggles to deal with students, parents, and home situations which were anything but perfect. She has constant battles of will with the administration throughout the book which I thought was often a little bit out of line, but I guess what a Norwegian Lutheran from Wisconsin and a Chicago public school teacher consider ‘out of line’ is probably quite different. Although I had a hard time relating to Esme or being able to agree with some of the things that she describes herself as doing in the beginning of the book, by the end I was completely sold on her untraditional teaching style. It was clear that her students were learning a lot about not only the subject matter but also about who they were as people, the students were thriving in her classroom, and in the end that is what it’s all about!

The First Lecture I-Movie

For our group project in Ed. Psych we were supposed to read a book and then make an I-movie to review it. The book that our group chose was “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. Randy died in the summer of 2008 from a very aggressive form of cancer, in an effort to leave something for his young children, so that they might know what kind of a person their dad was, he gave a ‘last lecture’. This lecture has taken thousands of people by storm, it has inspired many to reconnect with their childhood dreams, and many people are changing their lives in order to help others achieve their dreams. The book moved each of us in the group and so we decided to focus on dreams in our movie. I think that we did a very nice job with the movie and there is a link on the ride hand side of the screen. The movie is in two parts and I know that you won’t regret taking a look. Enjoy:)

I Have A Dot On My Forehead

Tonight during our Ed. Psych class we participated in a very interesting activity. We were told that we needed to close our eyes and that someone would be coming around and would touch our foreheads. After this had taken place we realized that each of us had a dot sticker on our foreheads and that there were three different colors of dots…blue, yellow, and red. We were then instructed to “Find our groups” but there was a catch…we were not to speak or use sign language. We proceeded to group ourselves according to color of dot. After doing so, we easily discovered that there were many more people with blue dots than with red, and especially than with yellow. The people who had blue dots were instructed to sit in the very back of the room, red dots in the middle and yellow in the front. Each of the color groups were then presented with a plate of Oreo’s. The yellow group, which had three people, was given a huge plate of cookies, many more than they could possibly have eaten, the red group was given a plate that had enough for each of them to have one cookie, and finally the blue group was given about eight cookies to split between about 20 students. Then our evening lecture continued with a student group presenting on Randy Pausch’s book “The Last Lecture”. After the group had finished presenting, it was time to discuss what we had learned from the dot activity. First of all how and why did we divide ourselves by color? We were all walking around with dots on our foreheads, that was something that we could have grouped ourselves by but we didn’t, we automatically moved into color groups because that is what we knew was expected of us, we have all been taught from a young age exactly how to put ourselves into groups based on our differences. We then went on to discuss how those people with blue dots sat and chatted during our classmates presentation, while the yellow dot people who were right up front paid attention to the entire project with out a problem. We discussed how multiple teachers have already predetermined their student’s grades about two weeks into the class, and how easy it is to make this mistake, even with the best intentions to do otherwise. Where is the line between grading the student based on a specific assignment, and grading the student based on their previous aptitude, or possibly the aptitude of other students in the class? I think this was an excellent activity and it definitely made me think about the fine line between making your students understand that you are grading their assignments and not grading them as people. Excellent activity, I really want to remember this one because I think that you could probably change a few of the objectives to demonstrate a concept like racism, or classism. Great Lecture, Point Taken!!!

New Views On No Child Left Behind

During some of our Monday evening meetings we were lucky enough to be visited by a few different groups of people who spoke on similar issues concerning education in and around Decorah. The groups represented were administrators, school board members, teachers, and parents of high or low achieving students. Each group gave us valuable insight into issues like No Child Left Behind, funding, and how to motivate students. I think the NCLB discussions were the most interesting to me. I had never really heard anything good about NCLB in the past, but after listening to the administrators, school board members, and shockingly even some of the teachers, I have kind of changed my views about it. I still don’t know that NCLB is realistic for every school district, but I think that it is much more about how the classroom teacher applies the findings of the test that matters. You certainly shouldn’t be focused on teaching to the test, but if all of your students are struggling in similar areas maybe you need to look into those areas and see what you as a teacher can help them do about it. I think that it is possible for the test to be helpful so that we can mark individual progress, but it is also important to be realistic when helping students set goals for themselves and that is where one problem with NCLB comes in. It just isn’t realistic that all students will be able to perform at the exact same level, no matter what school districts do or which techniques we try to implement, no two children will ever be able to learn the exact same concept in the exact same way, and then earn the exact same score on a standardized test, it just doesn’t work that way. We as educators need to think about these things when testing our students and try to make NCLB into a positive assessment that allows students to feel good about the progress that they are making.

Raising Small Souls

One of the education websites that I have linked to this blog isn't actually an education website, so I wanted to give you a little bit of background as to what exactly it is doing there...it is actually a parenting website but it has a very impressive and (I think) inspiring video on it. Click on the raising small souls website, then scroll down and there should be a purple box that when clicked on will allow you to view a movie for free entitled animal school. The video starts out by describing a school that is run and attended by animals. It goes through the different subjects studied in the school and then it talks about a few animals in particular and describes how they learn each of the different subjects. After going through all the animals, the video goes back and shows why each animal actually represents different learning styles of human students. This video also has very beautiful pictures and great music to go with it. I realize that it is technically a parenting video but I think that it has some important things for teachers to keep in mind as well. One of the last slides in the movie also talks about being an effective parent, which I thought was interesting as being an effective teacher is what we talked about in class today. Hope you enjoy the video:)

Mock School Board Meeting

During one of our Monday night sessions we had a mock school board meeting. It was great! Each study group chose a point of view to represent, there were teacher union representatives, parents of low and high achieving students, administrators, and arts representatives. Each group was given an opportunity to discuss the school's new plan to boost test scores. As you might imagine some groups were completely in favor of doing whatever it takes to raise the students test scores while others feared that the financial backing for the endeavor would cause their program to come to an end. Each group got to state their points and concerns and then the rest of us were able to ask questions. My group decided to represent the arts programs, there were a few different groups within that group and all of us had come up with something just a little bit different. Our group reminded the board that music classes are not extra-curricular. We explained that we are teaching theory and ear training which not only incorporate math but also science, history, and public speaking skills through performance based experience. The students who are in our classrooms are receiving valuable knowledge that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives, knowledge that could very well change the people they are for the better. Not only that but if we can keep this generation of students interested in music this issue of cutting programs might not come up in the future because students who will one day turn into the administrators and parents will remember that music meant something to them and they will hopefully fight to keep it in our school systems. I think that this was a super activity! It really did a nice job of simulating a real school board meeting where things like this are discussed. It was also very interesting to me that both sides were very well argued and you left the room with questions and views that you perhaps hadn't entered with. I only wish that we would have had a little more time to fully discuss some of the points that came up. Great Class:)

Jim Langholz says he's 'Not the Cool Mom'

On Wednesday October 1st we had a very interesting discussion about the role of media in students lives. We discussed how songs, ads, tv, and many other things influence what teens in our society view as 'okay'. For example I was shocked, (and appalled) when Dr. Langholz brought up the topic of the teenage girls who were running a prostitution ring out of the Mall of America. What makes this story interesting is that these girls were from very wealthy families who you wouldn't imagine would have trouble coming up with money. However, they considered themselves intelligent because they had figured out how to make hundreds of dollars in one night, which allowed them to be able to purchase anything that they wanted. What makes this story even sadder is the fact that these girls didn't see selling themselves as a moral issue at all, and what's even worse is that their parents chose to ignore what was going on, simply to keep their children happy. The parents didn't want to be the 'bad guys' and have their children dislike them so instead they let them work as prostitutes? yeah, okay because that makes perfect sense! The point of our discussion was that media has a huge impact on issues like this because our culture shows situations like this as being okay, and girls see no moral issues with it at all. As teachers I think that its really important for us to be concerned with teaching and developing the whole person and not necessarily with just teaching the facts. In order for our society to be at its strongest we need to work to develop individuals who can succeed in the workplace and also in situations which require emotional and moral sensitivity.

A Little Uncomfortable About Blogging

So, I'm just gonna be honest, this whole blogging thing makes me feel a little bit nervous. I accepted a long time ago that I live in a world filled with shades of gray. It is often extremely difficult for me to pick one side and stick to it, because I can often see both sides of any issue. It also makes me kind of uncomfortable to put my views out on the Internet for anyone and everyone to read because I think that there are exceptions to just about everything that ever takes place. So......just be aware that many of my blogs will probably contain support for different points from both sides and realize that that's just me, and how my mind works, so there ya go! Happy blogging:)

Politics and Religion

David Domke from Washington University gave a lecture on politics and religion on Wednesday the 17th of September. He described how the Republican party is viewed as the 'daddy' party and the Democrats are the 'mommy' party. He also explained that when the US as a whole is worried about the economy the Democrats tend to do better in the polls, whereas when the US feel unsafe or threatened, such as in 9-11 the Republicans do better. He also talked about the current political situation. For example Hilary Clinton was running essentially as a 'man' hoping to get people to see her as a strong figure that they would want to vote for, as we know that didn't work out the way that she thought it might. Palin on the other hand doesn't have to put up the 'manly' front because she is already in the 'daddy' party. He also suggested that because she presents a mothering attitude(she has five kids)she and McCain make the perfect 'father/mother' running team. The discussion went on to suggest that women tend to do better in the polls for elected offices when they have children however having children also makes them much more accountable than men who may also have children. For example people don't usually have a problem with male politicians being away from their children to focus on their careers, however if a woman is away from her children for any length of time she can be considered a bad mother. This was an extremely interesting lecture and really made me think about some of my political stances.

"Teacher of the Year" Exercise

For this exercise we were to assume that we had been selected to receive the Teacher of the Year award for our school district. Our speech after receiving the award was supposed to outline our views/philosophies on education.

“When I stand before God at the end of my life I would hope that I would have not a single bit of talent left and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me’.” This quote by Erma Bombeck reflects one of the larger goals of the teaching profession. Not only should we as teachers use our own gifts, but we should help our students realize their dreams, find their passions, and use their talent to the fullest potential. No two students are the same, something that inspires one student may have no affect on another, this is one of the things that makes teaching both challenging and wonderful. As teachers we have a chance to shape the future. But in shaping that future each of us strives to teach our students more than just ‘the facts’. Don’t get me wrong, of course being able to recall dates of major world events or finding Nigeria on a map are things that each of us should be able to do, but we also need to teach our students how to function as adults in our society. This of course includes basic skills like technology use and how to survive in the workplace; but on a deeper level we need to teach kids to have confidence, perseverance, and compassion. How can we teach these qualities if we don’t first put in the time to understand how each student is different? The answer is that we can’t. As teachers we must remember to put the students first, to not only show our knowledge and confidence in the classroom, but also our enthusiasm and passion. It is important for us to give individualized attention to all students whether or not they seem to be a ‘stand out’ in one area or another. By getting to know each of our students and how they learn we will be able to better help them to realize their true potential in whatever it is they choose to pursue. A truly great teacher never stops learning, and continues to touch the lives of those around them, sometimes without even knowing it.