Chalk

I really liked the first half of the movie Chalk. I enjoyed the sarcastic tone throughout the movie. It helped emphasize how ridiculous the things the teachers were saying and doing actually were. I teacher never tells a student to not say so much in class because they are smarter than the teacher or just walks out on a class because they are frustrated. The movie really showed that not just anyone can be a teacher which I was really glad to see because I get crap all the time about "those who can't do teach". Someone who was a computer engineer can't just be put in a history classroom and expect to be able to teach the class. They need people skills (which the teacher in the movie didn't have at all!) and they need to be an expert in the content area that they teach. Just because you are smart doesn't mean you can actually teach and get through to students. Yes, anyone can go up in front of a class and ramble on while the students are falling asleep and daydreaming, but NOT just anyone can go up in front of the class and engage the students for the whole class period. That takes education, talent, and HEART. I can't wait to finish up Chalk next week to see what else they make fun of in the teaching world to get the point about teaching across!

Youtube link

I was searching youtube for something related to motivation since we seem to focus on that a lot in class even if we don't really realize it. Motivation is a part of everyone's life but as teachers we have to realize that students all learn differently from each other and even differently than how we learned in school. Here's a video about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_6GUx1Zx0w&feature=related

Parents at Lecture

I thought it was very interesting to hear the parents perspective now that I am a little bit more informed about the logistics of Education since I've taken some Education classes. I kind of figured that parents really wouldn't understand what the point of all the testing is but it was interesting that the 2 parents involved in Education in some way were not as harsh towards NCLB and the testing but the Dad who is a lawyer was very openly against standardized testing. I also found it interesting how each parent was involved in their children's education to varying amounts. The dad said that he let his kids deal with problems at school until they come to him for advice or he can tell for sure that something isn't going well and his child is always upset. The 2 moms have kids with disabilities so they had to be involved in the education process a little bit more which causes them to advocate for their child more instead of the child advocating for themself. Parents all have different opinions about education but, in the end, they just want their children to be happy, enjoy school, be somewhat motivated and successful. This is all that matters to a parent, not the state test scores or any graphs, just are they happy and doing at least moderately well.

Lecture by Dr. Charles Ahmjad-Ali

Dr. Charles Ahmjad-Ali gave a lecture about how Christianity and Islam are connected to each other. This lecture was kind of hard to follow but one thing I got out of it was when he said "the separation of church and state never meant the separation of religion and politics." I see this in schools because of what influences the decisions we make for the schools and policies. People making decisions in schools try to leave their personal ideas out of the decisions and just use the facts. But we all know that everyone's emotions come into decision making at some point in the process. Our morals and beliefs come into play even if we don't want them to. Just because we say that the church and state are separated doesn't mean we actually do that. Subconsciously our beliefs influence what decision we make. Our religion or belief in no religion influences what we believe in the first place, therefore affecting what our morals are and what decisions we make. I think it is good that some of our morals influence the decisions we make for schools because there are students involved. In a way it puts what people believe are the students' best interests first. If all decisions were made based on logistics then the schools wouldn't be as personal for students. There is a line of when letting your morals take over too much but I'm not sure where that line is. We are all human so we can't completely block our feelings and morals.

New Teachers

It was really nice to hear from teachers that graduated somewhat recently. They were easier to realte to than the school board and administrators that came to talk to us. I liked how they were honest about teaching. Saying that, yes, there might be days where you just want to stay in bed but as soon as you get to school you feel better because of the students. I also liked that they said you can't expect to be able to change things and implement new ways of doing things because the teachers that have been there for a while have ways of doing things that have worked for them in the past. It might work to try it in your class on your own and then if it does work, tell the other teachers and they might listen to you more since you have evidence of it working. It is also important to take time on your lunch break or something to talk with your colleagues. It's okay to step away from teaching for that little bit and talk about other things in the world. As a teacher you will most likely have to take your work home with you but also take time for yourself because it will make you a much happier person. As a teacher, you also need to relate to your students. I liked how the one teacher played Hannah Montana or Jonas Brothers music for her students in the morning to get them energized for the day. Just the little things help your students see that you actually have a life and you aren't just a teacher. I think these teachers were the most useful ones to hear from in our night lectures.