Effective Teaching

Today in class we discussed effective teaching. To me it was conveyed that effective teaching cannot be engaging/interesting since we divided them into two different categories. I think that engaging/interesting activities is a sub-category of effective teaching. It is one way to effectively teach when combined with other ways to teach. The main part of effective teaching, to me, is differentiation. One way to differentiate is to use different methods of making the lesson interesting or engaging. I believe it is easier for anyone to learn if they can relate to the topic somehow so they have something to build off of. One could also say the engaging/interesting teaching IS differentiation because you are trying to find ways to engage everyone in your class in the lesson. It may be just an enthusiastic lecture or it may be a hands-on activity. There are many ways to engage your students which is why I feel that in order to be an effective teacher you have to know how to engage and capture your students in the topic.
The example of engaging/interesting teaching in class about "the tea" might have been an extreme or elaborate way of engaging the students. It seemed to get the children's interest in learning about the Victorian Era and they did different projects in each class to relate back to the unit. For some students this is the perfect way to teach them information and for others, they might not see the point. In the situation described it looked like almost every student looked forward to "the tea". If they enjoy learning then they remember more. It's the teachers job to make sure that there are opportunities available for the students to actually learn valuable information that they need to know about the unit.

Discussion with Administrators

The discussion with the Decorah administrators was good insight into the teaching world. It gave perspective and showed that as a teacher NCLB isn't necessarily a bad thing. They really rely on those test scores to help them decide what to do. It was comforting to hear that as long as you do the job you are supposed to and teach everything you are supposed to then NCLB will fall into place. It was also nice to know that teachers know that the tests aren't always reliable and that there are students who do the exact opposite on the test compared to how they do in the classroom. The main thing I took from this discussion was that teaching is always changing and their are never 2 days alike. This makes me even more excited to teach because I know it will always be interesting.

Banned Books

So today I just read the article in the recent Chips issue about Banned Books Week. I didn't know that this was even taking place in our bookstore here at Luther, much less existed at all. I don't really understand why someone would feel that they need to bann the book from everyone in society. I know people say they are trying to protect other people, mostly children, from certain ideas but it seems a little bit ridiculous. I think banning books is taking away people's freedom to express themselves. It's almost like we are trying to hide issues in our society by banning these books. Yes, there is a certain age for certain topics but you can't keep these issues hidden for all of eternity. Some books that talk about homosexuality, or rape and abuse, or depression and suicide, plus many more issues, are the only ways people have to relate to something. They feel like someone else knows how they feel. By banning a book about race it shows that we as a country have not actually come to terms with these issues even though it's said in history books that, everything was solved in the 70's. I think with these books people could learn to be more accepting and it wouldn't seem so taboo to talk about certain issues in society. Hiding the books by authors that actually have the courage to talk about something everyone else is afraid of is not going to hide the actual issue.
As teachers I know we need to carefully think about what we are going to have our students read but I think some of the books that are banned, if read at the right age they can be beneficial to our students. It makes the students think about the issues in the past and if they had changed today. Also, as teachers we can emphasize the fact that this is how certain things were viewed at this time. We don't have to teach our students these views that we don't agree with anymore, they should just at least now that they existed at some time and see how far society has come.
Below is a link to a page from the American Library Association's website. It is about banned books and if you go to the bottom of this site, "under Frequently Challenged Books" you can click on the last word (here) to see the list of most challenged books and other information about banned books.

http://www.lita.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/bannedbooksweek/backgroundb/background.cfm

High Stakes Community School

Before the lecture, I was very confused about what was exactly going to happen during lecture. I didn't know we would actually be standing up and presenting our sides about the issue. Since our class was never assigned a role to play we didn't think we would have to do much with our role. It seemed that it would be an informal debate. I think if we would have actually been assigned a role in class and told more of the layout of what was going to happen in lecture we would have known how to prepare.
Once we got into the lecture/debate though, I found it to be very interesting. It was good to hear how different groups would support or not support the proposal and why. It made me think about NCLB more and what I think actually needs to be changed in it. I'm not really sure that I completely understand everything about NCLB. What level does it specifically require each student to be at? Are there exceptions for students with disabilities or in special education? What happens to teachers if they do everything they can to prepare their students for the tests but they still didn't pass? Are these standarized tests really the best way to see what level students are at? Some students are intimidated by tests and freeze up on them. I think we need to spend a little bit more time learning the guidelines in NCLB before we learn what needs to be changed. It would help us understand why current teachers feel the need to change NCLB. I know that with the upcoming election NCLB could change in the near future but to understand that change we need to know what the current guidelines are.
The role playing helped us form opinons about education methods but as far as NCLB goes we just learned what is wrong with it, not just the general outline of how it works in the actual schools.