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.

Quintuple Threat

     When I am all finished with school, I will be a quintuple threat.  I will have a major in Elementary Education with a focus in english, allowing me to teach kindergarten thru 5th grade, all subjects and 6th grade thru 8th grade, english only.  I will have a minor in special education, allowing me to teach special education classes, kindergarten thru 12th grade; I will also have a minor in psychology.  On top of all that, I am going for my autism certification (ASD), bringing me to the crazy quintuple threat status.  Setting high goals for myself will only pay off in the future.  Having all these qualifications will only make me that much more credible when applying for a job.
     The reason I chose a minor in psychology, is because psych and special education go hand-in-hand. Being able to understand how a child's mind works, will help you to create programs and lessons that will be easier for your students to understand.  Deciding to go further and receive my autism certification will allow me to understand and teach autistic children better than just a regular special education teacher.  Also, autistic children are probably the hardest area of special education to understand and teach.  I babysit an autistic child and they are hard to understand just like non autistic children, but they are on a whole other level of understanding.  Having this special training with autistic children will make it that much easier.

This is What I Want to Do

     I can't wait to have my own classroom.  Teaching students is exactly what I want to do.  I know I'm exactly where I need to be.  On friday, I was placed in a resource room at an urban school in East Lansing.  In this room were students from several different classes, 4th grade to 6th grade.  In this particular school, recent cuts had been made on teachers, leaving the resource room with only one teacher.  I have never had a teacher be so excited to have help come through her door.  Her face lit up when I came to help her and her students.  She immediately got me busy helping a student read and answer comprehension questions.  At first he was shy, but when the class came together and introduced themselves to me, his real personality really came through.  
     The entire time I was working there, I would get questions like, "When are you coming back?" "Will you be here the whole year?" "Can you help teach us every day?"  These questions filled me with happiness and also surprise.  These students need a role model, someone to look up to, and they need stability.  After assuring them that I would be back every friday until the second week of December, they continued with questions of, "Can you stay the whole year?" After quickly thinking about it, I told them it was extremely likely.  Having those students be that excited about learning from me, made me realize that this is what I wanted to do for the entire year and for many, many years to come.

Essential Supplies

     "When I began my journey to become an educator, the first truth I was taught about child development was that language is caught, not taught. Children learn from their environment – what they see, hear, smell, touch, taste and feel. With the proper guidance, who’s to say that they can’t continue learning in this manner? This truth has been taught out of children and parents alike" (Levi-Sanchez). What Levi-Sanchez is saying is exactly right. When children are young, they learn from example. They learn the same in school. A lot of children are hand on learners when they are in kindergarten and first grade. They learn how a bunny feels, by feeling its fur. They learn that boulders are heavy by picking them up. They learn that yellow and green paint mixed together makes blue, by physically mixing them together. Kids need to visually see things because they are going to comprehend it better when they are shown. 

     We need administrators to really look into what a classroom needs based on how children learn the easiest.  Not providing a kindergartner with crayons, or not giving 6th graders graph paper to graph their problems in math is hurting the students.  I have service learning in an urban school in East Lansing.  Teachers have to use money out of their pocket to by supplies that the school hasn't provided them.  Teachers are frustrated that their students don't have flash cards for math learning games.  These supplies are essential to a students learning experience, and something needs to be done.  Administration needs to realize that what teachers are asking for for their students is important and needs to be taken care of.

Source:
Zdanowicz, Christina, and Jareen Imam. "Why They Teach despite It All - CNN.com."CNN. Cable News Network, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 10 Oct. 2012. <http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/14/us/why-teachers-stay-ireport/index.html?iref=allsearch>.

Service Learning

    Last Friday was my first day of Service Learning for my TE 250 class.  Service Learning is a program where I get to go to a local Lansing school and work one on one with students.  I was excited to actually be working in a classroom and not just talking about it like we do in class.  I was placed in a 6th grade classroom at Mt. Hope.  At Mt. Hope, fridays are days when the 6th graders get to do "stations."  In their "stations" they rotate between three different classrooms and teachers.  In the classroom where I was placed, the teacher only taught math, so I got to hear the same lesson 3 different times.  This helped me to really understand what the kids were learning and by the end of my time there, I knew I had the ability to help these kids with that lesson.  Unfortunately, I only get to stay there for 2 hours, so by the time the lesson was taught, there wasn't much time for me to help the students.  This week will hopefully be a time for me to work with individual students who need extra help.  

    This program is very rewarding.  Mt. Hope is an urban school, so it's very diverse and not in the best part of town.  My goal is to make these kids more excited about learning and more excited about school.  I believe this program will also make me a better teacher down the road.  Having these experiences in actual schools and not just learning about it in reading we discuss in class, will make me more credible down the road.

Diversity

     The statement from the state of Michigan's Code of ethics that I chose to talk about is diversity: "Professional educators promote cross-cultural awareness by honoring and valuing individual differences and supporting the strengths of all individuals to ensure that instruction reflects the realities and diversity of the world."  I believe this is important when becoming a teacher.  You are going to be placed in a classroom with all types of children.  Knowing where they come from can help you out wen teaching them.  
     I believe that all children should get a chance to be in a diverse setting.  Whether it be in a classroom, the lunchroom, or the play ground, all children should get that experience.  The real world is not all white, or african american, or asian, so why should schools be?  Children need to experience it while their young because that's how it's going to be for the rest of their lives.  
     Doing Service Learning in an urban school is one thing I am doing at MSU to prepare me for my future work field.  Being in an urban school setting is much different than what I experienced as a child.  Having these children being around these different races is helping them in the long run, and I wish I would've had that opportunity as a child.  Being involved in the UECP is also preparing me for my future work field.  Through this program, I'll be able to see what urban schools are all about and how I, as a future teacher, will be able to learn from these teachers and students.  Also, being a student at MSU and being involved in the Evans Scholar Program is also helping me prepare for my future work field.  Living in a house with 58 other people, it is a diverse setting.  Learning from these people who have different backgrounds and ethnicities is going to make me a better teacher.  Being able to understand how they do things differently and learn differently will also help me. 

Source:

"Michigan Professional Educator's Code of Ethics." Michigan Department of Education. N.p., 03 Dec. 2003. Web. 2 Oct. 2012. <http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Code_of_Ethics_Layout_128009_7.pdf>.

Lindsey's Writing Process

     For this blog post, I interviewed Lindsey Jackson, a kindergarten teacher in South Lyon.  Her students writing process is much different from the writing process we use as freshman in college, as you would expect.  Lindsey shares how she gets her students ready for a writing assignment, "We start with the students meeting me at the carpet for a mini-lesson. I will teach a particular topic and then I will send them back to their seats with their writing journals where they will work for 10-15 minutes independently. Then the students will either meet with their writing partners to share what they worked on or they would meet at the carpet to share as a whole class."  Lindsey also has a different writing process.  "I like to write about the exciting things that are going on in my classroom! Sometimes the day or week goes by so fast you do not realize what you just did, but if you sit down and reflect about it in a newsletter, then you realize all the great things that are happening in the classroom!" Unlike her students, where they just write about what they just learned, Lindsey likes to reflect on her week and be reminded of all the things that were accomplished.  
     I then asked Lindsey what kind of writing is expected of a kindergarten teacher.  She replied saying, "I write lesson plans, plans for a substitute teacher to look over, emails to staff & parents, newsletters and letters to parents of my students, and reflections on my students academic growth."  These are all things that require a writing process, just like each project in WRA requires a writing process.  
     Reflecting on personal experiences is a good way to start your writing process for any project.  When brainstorming ideas, you reflect on past experiences for inspiration.  Lindsey's way of sitting down and thinking about all the things that had happened that week, or month is a good way to think about what you can improve, or change about your writing process.  Being able to learn from others is also a good way.  Being given a subject or topic like her kindergartners is a simple way to brainstorm ideas and that's also what we get in class.  We get a prompt, or something to go off of and that makes it easier to starta project.

Source:
Lindsey Jackson, Kindergarten teacher in South Lyon