Special Needs

I really enjoyed the video on the special needs students. I have mixed feeling about inclusion. I believe that it should be up to the special needs student and their parent to decide if they want the child to be with regular classes. Some special needs students may not achieve his/her highest level of success in a full inclusion class while others may achieve great success. I think there is a lot that goes into this topic…money, time, teachers,

I agree with the teacher in the video, I think that I'm not ready to teach special needs students yet. I think all teachers need to have some training. There are so many issues that teachers face, some feel that inclusion is just more than they can handle. If full inclusion happens...support to the teachers needs to be available not only financially but physical help as well.

I feel that we need to start teaching our students to be accepting of each other. This is not to say that all students aren’t accepting. I think that we sometimes clump everyone together, even though we know that there are exceptions. I coach figure skating and my skaters had a competition in Phoenix, Arizona a couple years ago. After their competition was over for one of the days, my skaters stayed in the arena to cheer on the special skaters. They were so sweet, no one asked or told them to stay, and they all wanted to cheer on the skaters! I have never been so proud of my skaters

I Don't Know!

My bias is against people who aren’t willing to say I don’t know. We all know someone who is like this…a know it all! I know several people like this and it doesn’t matter if they are male female young or old…and it drives me insane!

I’ve had a couple interactions just within the last week. I have to be alittle vague just incase they read this phlog (I doubt they do but just to be safe and not hurt feelings) The first example was with a colleague, we were having a discussion and he thought that because he is a male and older than me he knew exactly what should be done and that everyone should do it because he said so…ugh! Next example is of this woman I know…only a few years older than me…who thinks she is qualified for a specific job although she has no credentials and little knowledge of what is truly required. But if you ask her a question, she makes her answer (even if its wrong) sound completely correct. Its aggravating because she never listens, never says I don’t know.

There is noting wrong with saying I don’t know….I’ll find out. There is something wrong when your not willing to find out the answer, that’s almost as bad as being a know it all.

My bias comes from when I was fourteen. My twin sister got injured very badly figure skating, it took her a year to recover. Her coach at the time, acted like he knew what he was doing, told her not to worry about not to see a doctor but to keep skating. It could have saved her a lot of pain if he had just said he didn’t know and sent her to a doctor. Arrogance is beyond disgusting.

Parents Influence

Question: how much influence do parents have with their children?

I am torn between two examples:

1) I have been thinking a lot lately about parents influence on their kids. I saw a post (similar to Facebook, Twitter, etc) done by a teenager and there were more than five errors in the post of fifty words. This teenager makes these mistakes often. At first I thought it was because of the nature of Facebook and Twitter but then emails from this teenager also have errors. I’ve seen this kid’s parental units posts/emails and noticed errors in most of theirs as well.

2) On the other hand, my grandfather only finished 8^th grade, yet he was the smartest man I had ever met. He read a lot and he wrote even more. He talked about writing a book but he passed away from cancer before he had the chance. His son, my father, has earned his Master’s degree.

So which is it? Do parents influence their children or not? How much does outside influence factor in? I think it does but how much and what kind of influences? Does the child in the first example have a chance to pass her parents intellectually? I think I see the constant errors as ignorance and I wonder if she can ever achieve more than them? How as teachers can we help this child? Do we have any or enough sway to help? Did someone encourage my grandfather to pursue his education after he left school?

I think these questions are not easy to answer and I think they are intertwined.

Beliefs...Paper

I spent four days this past week with my sisters, my beautiful younger sister got married in Chicago on Friday. She was so gorgeous and the wedding was flawless. She is a very strong person with an incredible belief system. On my flight back to Albuquerque I was thinking about my personal philosophy of education paper and wondered what teachers influenced my baby sister if any. I remember her being stubborn but flexible in her beliefs through childhood, adolescences, and her adult life. I began thinking about and evaluating my beliefs. I felt that I knew my beliefs, felt strong about them but knowing that I am going to influence students, children, I’m not sure that each of my beliefs is as solid as it should be. I meet with Professor Chenven last week to go over my paper and he drew me a diagram of what I should work on…the why…I have to say I have never gone around so much on one thought as I have with this. I thought it would be an easy thing to figure out “what does this look like in the classroom?” but NO! I’m not disappointed or upset that I have put so much attention to my beliefs…I’ve found it to all be eye opening.

From Frozen Ice to Teacher of the Year

Albuquerque, NM – If you had asked Megan Edwards five years ago if she thought she would win the Teacher of the Year award the answer would be, No.  Growing up as a competitive figure skater, she only had aspirations of being in the skating world the rest of her life.  Thankfully, her fourth grade students at 7 Bar Elementary made her realize that life had a plan of its own.

In 2008, Megan experienced life-threatening blood clots that forced her to reevaluate her life.  She decided that teaching off the ice was a passion for her as well as coaching on the ice.  She received her teachers license from Central New Mexico Community College and began teaching right away.  Fellow teacher, Kelly-Renae Huber, told us that she “always knew Megan would be a fantastic teacher…Megan excels at connecting with children at every age.”  Student Paige Mascarenas agreed, adding, “Ms. Edwards listens to me and teaches in a way that helps me understand the subject”.  Jennifer O’bama, parent at 7 Bar Elementary, finished by saying “my son comes home every night with a new story from Ms. Edwards’ class.  She makes him believe in his abilities and pushes him to be his very best.  We are blessed to have Ms. Edwards in our son’s life.”

What makes Ms. Edwards’ class so unique?  It is her ability to use the community to help make her class out of the ordinary.  She spent her undergraduate education researching grants offered by New Mexico’s non-profit organizations that improve teachers in the classroom.  Her first grant was from the PNM Foundation, where she received $3,000 to teach Growing Plants and Minds; a hands on gardening class.  She also received a touch screen projector from Intel for students to learn math and science in an interactive way.  Principal from 7 Bar Elementary, Darcy Candelaria, says she “has never seen students so excited to learn.  Since Megan Edwards started, her students’ test grades have improved over 40 percent.”

Pulled in Several Directions

I have had a difficult time trying to decide what to phlog about.

Do I phlog about the book I’m reading Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman, which has me completely intimidated about teaching. But its also a little comforting, since I have experienced some things that are in the book.

Do I phlog about my Independent Learning Requirements? Philosophy Paper? Some of the interesting things I’ve been told by teachers and students? I have been asking everyone what they think makes a good teacher, what their philosophy of teaching is, and What is good teaching?

So I am sitting her on Friday night trying to decide what to write about…perhaps I’ll write about the one thing that I would change about school/education/teaching/students/etc. Unfortunately I don’t think I am far enough along studying and classroom experience to be able to make an educated answer at this point.

So instead I will blog about one of the things we worked on in class on Tuesday. We had an exercise where we worked in groups and answered some questions about democracy. One of the questions was, how do we define the term democracy? My group’s answers were similar in some respects and different in others. One thing that was similar was that we, one way or another felt that democracy means that everyone has a say as to where our country goes…since we elect our representatives and then vote for them. One of the things we came across that wasn’t completely agreed upon was even though we elect our representatives there are limitations to those elected officials. To be able to run for office you have to have money. The gal who just won the gop in Delaware said that she knew how it was to struggle and that she would be there for the people of America. Next she said if you want to donate to her campaign you can go online, etc, she only needs one million plus dollars for the next month and a half. I am still appalled by the two contractions. Another thing that we talked about was that even though we elect the representatives they are sometimes influenced by others and/or their own agenda. I find myself feeling helpless with the situation sometimes but I know that there are good people out there who want to do what’s right.

Ok enough ranting or whatever phlogging this was tonight…have a great weekend and see you all on Tuesday :o)

to much

What should education provide students in Modern America?

This could be a simple question with a simple answer. Education should provide students in Modern America with the ability to earn a living after they leave school.  Students should be able to provide for themselves and be a productive member of society.

Fortunately I don’t believe that this is an easy question to answer.

Yes, I believe that education should provide students with the ability to earn a living or go to college or travel the world, or, or, or…  I also believe that students need to be educated as critical thinkers, learn to read, have a set of values, as well as, students should be taught to be respectful, to be proactive, to know that mistakes are good and acceptable, etc.

Now the next question is…how do we regulate/standardize education?  Is the same standard taught in Hawaii as they are in Alaska?  Who is in charge of deciding what standards are to be? Funding? Is this a state-by-state issue or do the peeps in DC decide? The list could go on and on.  This question is for another time…one because I’m not sure I have the answer (actually I know I don’t) and two it would take me all night just to write down that I don’t have an answer.

On a side note…something that comes to mind because of my families involvement in the Roadrunner Food Bank is that 1 in 5 people in a food line is a child.  A child cannot learn nor would they want to learn if they are hungry.  Their only focus is going to be on food.  I feel that there is so much that goes into educating students…more than I am even touching on in today’s blog.