ELL

ELL students do not make up a large portion of the United States but they are spread out and no matter where you live or teach, you are bound to encounter them at some point. Team 1 showed a graph that said even in towns and rural areas there is still about the same amount of ELL students. As we went through the different group activities, I had a lot of fun actually. Team 1 did a great job demonstrating ways to teach ELL students and brought up a lot of interesting points about those students. For example, whether a student is from a different country or if they are from the Bronx, they may have different challenges when it comes to an English lesson about the Three Little Pigs. Some students may have trouble with slang words, while others have trouble with grammar. The rotation that I enjoyed the best was definitely the one where we had to write down a vocab word that students will hardly use outside of the classroom and make an easy to understand definition of that word. We also had to draw a picture to describe what that word means. It was fun to see the different content areas during this lesson because it offered up great ideas as well as a certain level of humor in some areas. Overall it was a good way to get us to think creatively about how we present new words into our lessons. 

Alternative Schools

Alternative schools are an interesting concept. At some point, people got together to design a different kind of school that better accommodates certain students. Alternative schools are not for everyone, as team 3 mentioned. They are created with a specific purpose in mind depending on what their target audience is. I really enjoyed the part of the presentation where we got to create our own alternative school. It was a fun exercise that got each of us thinking about how to make an involved and educational school. I personally do not think that I would have preferred an alternative school. I never had any behavioral problems or a mental illness that made it so I needed a different sort of education in order to be successful. That being said, I definitely see the benefits of attending such a school. I have never had a school that was designed for my own needs. The group did a great job of showing us the different types of alternative schools. It’s interesting because they can vary depending on where they are in the country. If they have access to more land and a nice outdoor facility, then they can do a lot of work outside and give students an experience that they may not have had otherwise. These schools seem like they would be more expensive than your average public school. I believe that is a big problem when it comes student’s needs. If they come from a low income family, they will not be able to have the same opportunities as a family that is more well off. 

Voices

The “Voices” packet was filled with multiple and interesting educational philosophies. Confucius saw his role as inspiring students with the truths of great ideas. I identify most with his view of education, especially from a health standpoint. He focuses on the morality of education and how the two should be inseparable. As a health teacher, I have a moral obligation to share my knowledge about how the human body works and what it needs to be healthy, to help all my students. I have mixed feelings about Sappho’s philosophy of education. Sappho was big on memorization and helping girls develop and mature so that they could marry and become outstanding Greek women. While I don’t agree with that, I do agree with her idea that students should have physical development through activity. For her, she wanted it to be dance. Other than that, she focused on preparing women for successful marriages. Socrates was all about asking the right questions to help develop students mind. He wanted them to come to the answer on their own. This is a technique that I have seen in many classrooms when teachers are trying to edge students in the right direction, whether they are close to the answer or far from it. I must say that agree with this method because it gives students a chance to find the answer for themselves rather than having it given to them. It brings a reward to working through the problem. Between Confucius and Socrates, I think they make up most of what I believe in as an educator, while at the same time, showing me that many of the teachers I have enjoyed in school over my lifetime have used elements from both of these philosophies. 

Bright Futures

The first thing that stood out to me was the Bright Futures mission statement. It is all about better the middles level practices. It has high expectations for all their students and uses the Maine Learning Results as a basis for the curriculum, instruction, and assessment. I have been a big fan of the Maine Learning Results for a couple of years now because it breaks everything down into simple standards that are easy to follow. One of the best things about it is they advocate for young adolescents even if what they do may not be current practice or easy to accomplish. This initiative has been growing for many years and that’s what makes it a lasting and profitable resource. It is always evolving and improving in order give young adolescents what they need and part of that is making sure that the teachers are all up to date and knowledgeable about all things in their field of teaching. Those teachers need to make sure that the learning experiences in their classes are meaningful, coherent, and relevant so that students can think at high levels. This will better prepare them for their futures. Aside from academics, this curriculum helps students understand themselves and the world they live in, while broadening their views on such things. Bright Futures talks about what it is like when students first reach middle school. They have a heavier work load as well as an increase in sophistication of reading and writing in multiple content areas. Focusing on these areas with ongoing instruction will improve the literacy in all content areas and bring each student to the same standard of reading and writing ability. Bright Futures is a well thought out initiative that I cannot help but agree with.

Integrated Curriculum Reflection

As I read through the team’s paper, I could recall my own experiences in student teaching. They mentioned an integrating curriculum within other classes. Though I did not do that exactly, with the help of my mentor teacher, we were able to transform the health curriculum to hit each topic multiple times throughout each trimester. We focused on making classes more skills based so that we could mention how each topic relates to it and how it could relate in their other classes as well. Combining subject matter to make lessons more meaningful makes so much sense not only for the students, but for all the teachers as well. From my own experience teaching, when staff members work together on a single project, it can make an amazing difference with the students because they see their teachers working together to make classes more interesting.

This team did a good job talking about what kind of person would like this approach specifically. They used pragmatists because of the focus on real world applications it can have. Not only that but they also mentioned existentialist people. Doing this brought together some of the things we have been using in class and showing how they can apply within an integrated curriculum. Team 5 did a great job mentioning how some subjects are easier than others to have an integrated curriculum but starting small is exactly the thing we need to do to progress and refine what it means to have an integrated curriculum. 

Teaching Hope (Empowerment)

Entry 139 was the first to stand out to me because I honestly thought it was going to be an underdog story about a student that worked hard and against all odds and expectations pulled off something amazing. Unfortunately, the story took a 180 and didn’t end up like that at all. Even though the student put his heart into the work and the teacher did everything they could, he did not pass the eighth grade. Both the student and teacher were devastated about how things had turned out. I was a little annoyed that he did not pass because the story was set up in a way that I thought he was on the road to success finally. It illustrated how sometimes, even if you put a lot of work into a student to help them pass, it may not work out the way you had thought it would. The teacher did not give up and neither did the student and the next year he was able to pass. That was the second lesson to be learned from this entry. Never give up on a student.

Another entry that through me through a loop was 146. To start, the school decided whether students passed sophomore year based on how they did on one final presentation. Sure, they could have multiple tries at it but it still seems like a lot of pressure, especially seeing as how many students are terrified of presenting anything. The student, Mike, did not pass his first time and decided that he wanted to drop out because of it. The students of the sophomore class and some of the teachers grouped up to try and convince him that he should stay in school. This is another thing that I’m not too sure about. I feel like there are better ways to handle the situation. He decided to drop out originally because (it seems to me) the pressure got to him. Now everyone is around him begging him to stay and putting more pressure on him. I honestly feel as though they got lucky with him coming back to school in the end.