RAIDS

RAIDS
Invention:
In this brochure, the teacher is showing a welcoming attitude towards the parents and students in her kindergarten class to be.  
Arrangement:
Teachers, students, and kindergarteners are all put in the same category.  This shows the reader that this teacher is able to connect with all parts of her kindergartners families.
Revision:
She is changing the attitudes that parents might have about their children going to kindergarten.  She gives them positive reinforcement that their child will be safe and also have fun in kindergarten.
Style:
The style that is most prevalent, is scholarly, but not to the level that no one would understand.  She makes everyone understand exactly what's going on.  The teacher makes the readers feel comfortable and excited for their new teacher.
Delivery:
The way she presents the text, helps the readers get ready for the upcoming year and makes them feel comfortable and welcome.

The audience of this brochure are the students and their parents.  The purpose of this brochure is to get the students and parents excited for the upcoming school year, providing them with information that they will need for the school year.  This brochure is very successful in preparing students and parents  for their new teacher.

Source: 
http://www.jpsonline.org/images/stories/file/bursley/Bursley%20Brochures/K-Larsen.pdf

Proposal 2

     Yesterday Proposal 2 was not passed, causing many teachers to be upset.  Because of this, teacher's already small salaries, will be cut even more.  Their health insurance will also be cut, depending on the district in which they teach.  Basically, their pay will be cut and their benefits will be taken away.  This could affect the interest people have in becoming teachers, affecting students possible futures.  This could also affect the way teachers think about their jobs.  Some teachers are just teaching for money, and if their pay gets cut, they're not going to want to teach anymore, but the teachers who really want to teach will disregard this set back, and continue to teach to brighten their students futures.

     I believe that teachers need to be paid more.  They are teaching the future of America and if those teachers leave to find a better paying job, who's going to teach the children who want to learn?

Source:
Murray, Dave. "Michigan." MLive.com. N.p., 07 Nov. 2012. Web. 07 Nov. 2012. <http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/11/michigan_proposal_2_unions_say.html>.

Better Teachers

     Education is one of the most important things a child could have.  Without education, there is a slim chance that a child will succeed in life.  Getting a degree from college, or even just graduating from high school makes you way more credible than if you didn't.  This will get you a better job, more money, and probably more happiness.  If you're stuck  working at McDonalds for the rest of your life, when you would much rather be a doctor saving people, you're not going to be happy.  This is especially important in poor areas.  If you grew up with no money, why wouldn't you want to et a decent job and get out of that area.  "To me, the lesson is that while there are no silver bullets to chip away at poverty or improve national competitiveness, improving the ranks of teachers is part of the answer."  Teachers are fantastic resources for children and we need to respond to that.  Using teachers as not only teachers, but as role models and someone to look up to, it's going to make that child's experience in school that much better.  

     We need good teachers in classrooms.  "The implication is that we need rigorous teacher evaluations, more pay for good teachers and more training and weeding-out of poor teachers."  By making teachers more credible in their job, we can get rid of teachers that don't really need to be there, teachers that don't really care or have an interest in helping children.  By eliminating these people, kids are going to want to go to school and learn instead or dreading a horrible day with the teachers who are mean and don't even like their job.

Works Cited

Kristof, Nicholas D. "OP-ED COLUMNIST; How Mrs. Grady Transformed Olly Neal."The New York Times. The New York Times, 22 Jan. 2012. Web. 31 Oct. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/opinion/sunday/kristof-how-mrs-grady-transformed-olly-neal.html>.

Words For a Teacher

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."

     Most kids are hands-on learners when they are young.  To know something is soft, they need to touch it;  To know that a rock is heavy, they need to hold it.  Kids learn this way, until they are exposed to new strategies in school, and even sometimes after that, they are still hands-on learners.  I know personally I am a hands-on learner.  If you tell me a fish feels scaly, I want to find that out by touching it.  These hands-on experiences are what is going to help a child grow.  

     From personal experience, if you tell me something, I'm not going to remember it, especially if I don't understand what I'm being told.  If you teach me the concept, I may remember it for a week or two, but that's all.  If we do an activity involving that concept, chances are I'm going to remember what the concept was long after a week or two.  Kids in school need to learn this way.  They'll be able to visually see what they are being taught and have a better chance of remembering things.

Source:
Lisa. "21 Inspirational Teacher Quotes – SimpleK12." I Love EdTech. SimpleK12, 10 Feb. 2012. Web. 30 Oct. 2012. <http://blog.simplek12.com/education/21-inspirational-teacher-quotes/>.

     

The Boys

     I know I've already wrote about my Service Learning, but we experience new things every week and this week was much different than the last.  It is also one of the only hands-on experiences you can do as an education major.
     Just learning about education through written/spoken sources is much different than actually experiencing it.  The books and articles may tell you that you'll be faced with difficulties in your classroom because all children learn differently but you won't fully understand that you experience it in a classroom.  This past week, I taught four boys a math lesson on mean, median and mode.  Every boy new what we were talking bout, but didn't know how to find the answers.  On top of them not knowing how to find the answer, one of the boys didn't know how to add, one needed a huge amount of attention, otherwise we would get upset, and one of the boys didn't want to learn; we just wanted to talk.  Because of all these different elements of obstacles, the math lesson was hard to teach and therefore, we didn't get as far as we were supposed to.  Only getting through 4 problems in 2 hours seemed like I failed, but I was soon reassured by the teacher.  She told me that I had done an excellent job in staying patient, calm, and collected as I dealt with the caos the boys presented.  Getting through 4 problems with each boy was a miracle because they were all on different levels of learning.  Even though they were all in the same grade, there were certain things they struggled at and certain things they excelled in.  
     This isn't something you can read in a book or article and quickly pick up on.  This is an experience you have to come face-to-face with to understand what you are supposed to do.

Teachers.net

http://teachers.net/

I was browsing on the internet and found this really cool website called Teachers.net.  It's full of Lesson Plans for all grades, classroom projects, posts about teaching jobs, teacher chat rooms, and links to buy and sell teacher items.  This is a really cool website full of really great ideas, especially in the Lesson Plans section.  If you're looking for some cool ideas for your class, I would encourage you to take a look at this website!!

American Indian

     American Indians are discriminated against in schools and considered to be "slow."  Because they learn differently when they are younger, they don't always know how to use our tools and resources that we provide in our schools.  On the reservations, they are taught different concepts and different ways of thinking that isn't used in American schools.  They can count, but they can count differently.  They know there are 12 months in a year, but they learn that thru moon cycles.  Being an indian can be challenging for these children.  In the article, the father of a young indian boy voices his concern about his child's learning.  He wants the teacher to embrace his learning abilities and provide him with the accurate information to succeed in school while being careful not to take away his culture.  From the teacher's perspective, it is difficult to embrace these differences when she has many other students she has to teach, therefore, considers him to be "slow" compared to her other students.