The Kind of Teacher I Hope to Be

Earlier this semester it was assigned to imaine you were receiving a "Teacher of the Year" award. How would you be introduced before receiving the award? What would you have done that made you successful and distinguished you from other teachers? Here is my response:


Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “If a man is called to be a street-sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street-sweeper who did his job well.” We are here tonight to recognize an outstanding choir teacher who has been called to teach what she loves for the past 18 years. Though most people don’t see teachers as the Michelangelo’s or Beethoven’s of this era, I believe that a few teachers do live up to that comparison. We are here to recognize one of these teachers who has not only done what she has been called to do, but has done it extraordinarily and touched the lives of many.

Ms. Hannah Berlin-Burns has always been involved in and passionate about music; from singing in church choirs and playing piano as a child to studying at Luther College. Even today, after teaching here at Memorial High School for 18 years she still comes to school each day with a bright smile on her face, excited for what her students might accomplish that day. She puts so much faith in her choirs, constantly teaching them challenging pieces and always looking for ways they can improve even further. This intense love of music and hope for her choirs’ improvement is one sign of her effectiveness as a teacher.

Hannah is not only a knowledgeable resource for students who have musical questions, but also an inspiration on other subjects. Former student, Sean Jones says when his parents were getting a divorce and when he was struggling to keep his grades up in other classes, Ms. B.B was always encouraging him. Sean shared “One quote she shared with the choir that really stuck with me was ‘Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.’ She always told us no matter what is happening in your life, for one hour a day in choir you get to forget about everything and just be joyful and sing”. At the beginning of choir each day, Hannah shares an inspirational reading, whether it is a poem, forwarded email, or a book (spread out over many days). These readings get the students focused and inspired before even warming up to sing.

Hannah believes that anyone can learn to sing. When asked about this philosophy, she responds, “Everyone has the ability somewhere deep inside them. It’s just how much that individual believes they can learn and how willing they are to work at it that can affect their results”. She has taught countless numbers of students how to sing or how to become a confident singer. She helps students to realize their talents and passions and encourages them to dream big.

Hannah works hard for changes she believes will improve the choral program. When Hannah came here 18 years ago there had not been a choir teacher who stayed more than 3 years. The students could not sight-read and saw choir as an easy A. Those of us who know Hannah well know that this must have been shocking to her as she is such an advocate of choirs being able to sight-read. When asked about this “obsession” as some call it, Hannah will tell you that a choir that can sight-read is a more musical choir. They can learn songs more quickly and the pitches and rhythms are more accurate throughout the whole process of learning and performing the song. Though it was a challenge the first few years she eventually built into the curriculum daily solfege sight-reading and over many more years built the choir program up to what it is today.

One aspect of the program that Hannah also believes makes it so excellent is delegating tasks to student leaders. By having a choir president, vice president, section leaders, music librarian, treasurer, etc… lots of people are able to get involved in the shaping of the choir. By having student so involved in the class they are able to see the progress of the choir as their own and not simply the works of a teacher.

Hannah has not only affected lives here at the high school, but she is also involved in music in the community. She has been leading the worship team at Epiphany Lutheran Church for the past 15 years and also is entering her 6th year directing the Chippewa Valley Youth Choir. She says if she didn’t choose to teach high school choir she would have liked to teach Elementary music so directing the youth choir has fulfilled a dream she’s had of also working with younger kids.

Some of us wonder how she can do it, being so passionately involved teaching at the high school and in the community. I believe we truly have a Michelangelo among us in our community. Please join me with all the hosts of heaven and earth in saying, “here lives a [teacher] who does her job well.”

A Lesson on Cooperative Leraning

Working with my study group on the video presentation was a very real-life lesson on cooperative learning for me. In the beginning we all had to share our ideas and work together in deciding what exactly we wanted our presentation to be. This part went pretty smoothly as we all had good ideas and just had to decide which ones best introduced the book and were the most realistic for the time and resources we had. Making the video was difficult at times; finding times that the majority of the group could get together to plan and film. We also delegated different tasks throughout this process, such as Katie doing the Anita Woolfolk part and Brett writing the intro and conclusion, Hannah and Anna editing to name a few.
I have not done a group project in awhile and I forgot how much cooperation and working together they take. Everyone needs to do their part in order for the project to be done well. Through doing this project I was reminded that in my future classroom I will have to be aware of the dynamics of group work and make sure if I decide to have my students do group projects that everyone does their part and that cooperative learning works in the way that it's supposed to.

Chalk part 2

After watching the 2nd half of Chalk I now see the movie in a slightly different way. During the first half it was very entertaining yet the teachers were placed some tough situations that they weren't handling in the best way possible. As I commented in my last post, I was not impressed with how they handled a situation, but I could not think of how I would handle the issue if I were in that situation. I really appreciated how everything kind of came together in the end. No, things were not perfect for every teacher, but it seems like each of them learned something about themselves. For example I really enjoyed seeing the first year teacher change. He started out with absolutely no control over his classroom and walked out one day when his class was extremely out of control and took his chalk. Then he went to the library to find a book on classroom management. As time went on, He started to loosen up and have some fun with his class. When he became less nervous and rigid his class started to respond. Granted at the very end of the school year he seemed to not really care, letting his class have free time so he didn't have to teach anymore. Besides this ending I think he made the biggest change out of all of the teachers. Following him throughout the movie taught me 2 things: 1) The first year may be tough, but it will continue to get better if you work at it. 2) Although I am very set on being a teacher and don't foresee this happening, if I find out that teaching (or anything else in my life) is not the right fit, it's OK to change your mind.

Chalk- part 1

We staretd watching the video, "Chalk" this past Monday night and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I love the "The Office"-like humor. I found my self not intentionally thinking about the Ed Psych conceptual part of the movie while watching it, but mostly just sitting back and enjoying. Now as I recall what all went on in the first half of the video I have been putting on my future-teacher thinking cap and thinkling about how the teachers in the film handled situations. For example, when the new History teacher just leaves the room when his class is acting up and not giving him his chalk back I am thinking "Did that really just happen?" When i think about it this teacher and the others are really not too far off from how some teachers truly act. When thinking about some of the actions of the teachers in the film, I have a hard time thinking of what I would do differently. Hopefully the 2nd half of "Chalk" will give me some ideas.

To be continued...

A different perspective

I have been learning a lot through the Monday night lectures, hearing the viewpoints of people involved in education in different ways, but I particularly enjoyed this past week's panel of parents. I liked how they said the most important to you (as a parent) is to make sure you kid is getting the best and doing the best that they can. Yes, the past panels of school board members, administrators and new teachers have obviously cared about the children, otherwise why would they have chosen Education, but to see the parent's passion and their "It's all about my individual child being accommodated for and doing their very best" mentality was really powerful. It's interesting to think that there will (hopefully) be a parent (or parents) this passionate about their child's learning for every student in your class. I think this is a challenge to accommodate for each of the different students. Thus accomplishing this is a step towards becoming an expert teacher.

The parents were the first group to not support NCLB and that was refreshing to hear. With myself (and some of my fellow Luther Education students), not having the most positive views of NCLB, I was was starting to wonder if we were completely off in having these feelings because the other panels all seemed to support it pretty strongly. I especially liked hearing from the two mothers who used to be teachers and whose children have been going through the system for awhile. As I hope to be a parent someday too, I have been thinking about how I will have view education from both sides, teacher and parent. I think it is so very important for children to have this support system in thier lives. Hopefully the parent can provide this, but if they are not then the teacher must step in and provide that supportive environment.

"The Last Lecture" blew me away... again

My study group read Randy Pausch's book "The Last lecture" and are preparing a presentation on it. This book was such an inspiration... I could go on, but you'll learn more about the book and our opinions of it in our presentation. I have been rereading parts of the book very carefully and looking for specific details that we can include in our presentation. I have not forgotten (nor do I think I will forget) the impact this book has had on me, but lately I have felt like I'm forgetting that this, all of Pausch's unique stories and reminiscences of big dreams coming true, were accomplished by a real person. In order to make it more real to me I watched his complete lecture on YouTube. Wow! Yes, the book is very well written, but there's something about the emotion enthusiasm of a person that can't quite be captured in the same way in a book. I wouldn't go to the point of saying watch the video over the movie because the book expands on some of the ideas that he briefly touched on in the actual lecture, but I do think seeing Randy and hearing his voice share his message is very powerful. I have included the link to this video on the side bar... "Randy Pausch's Last Lecture." I encourage EVERYONE to watch it! : )

Ed psych topics pertinent to other subjects

I found the topics for class the past week to be absolutely perfect timing. Starting last Wednesday, the concept of creating lesson plans was brought up. This was very helpful as I have not had to write may lesson plans yet. For an independent study project I'm working on this semester I am creating a compilation of French children's songs and correlating lessons that can be used to teach each song to an elementary music class. For the past few weeks I had been trying to come up with precise and easily comprehensible lesson plans, but didn't really know how to accomplish that. Wednesday's class was like a breath of fresh air, gaining the knowledge of what is important to include in a lesson plan.

I was also very excited about our assignment for Monday which was to come prepared to teach something. I initially was thinking of doing something creative like baton twirling but then I realized this could be the perfect opportunity to test out one of my French children's song lessons. I taught two of my peers "Ah, vous dirai-je mamn" and part of the corresponding lesson (as I didn't have time for the whole thing.) It was really great preparation for when I teach it in an actual classroom next week. It was also helpful to get some feedback from my peers.

Bringing Ed Psych Concepts Home

Over fall break, I went home to see my family, which includes 4 young children (ages 2,3,5, and 6.) After only the first half of the semester of Educational Psychology, I found myself paying very close attention to their different behaviors and where they were developmentally. I also used different teaching strategies in interacting with/taking care of them.

For example, the 2-year old is in the midst of the autonomy versus shame developmental crisis. Most of the time, she mimics her 3-year old sister, doing, saying, and wanting to wear everything her big sister does. However, it was interesting to see when the 3-year old was at preschool, the 2-year old was a completely different person, making her own choices and saying whatever she was thinking. Another thing I noticed was her speech had improved dramatically since I last saw her in August. She used to talk with one word or short phrases, but now she is speaking in full sentences. It was so incredible to see this development in only a few months.

The 3-year old is in her first year of preschool. She is learning a lot about cooperating with others at school, which she has had a hard time doing in the past. As I stated earlier, she loves to be the leader of her younger sister, but she also likes to follower her older sister and brother too. She is very interested in dress-up clothes and playing make-believe. All of these observations tell me that that she is facing (and resolving) initiative versus guilt.

One day all 4 of them helped me make some muffins. It was very fun to implement some of the teaching strategies. I had the older kids get ingredients out of the cupboard and help me with measuring them out. Then when it came time to stir. I told them we would take turns, going in order of how they were seated around the table. I also found helpful (and fun too!) to sing songs through the whole process to keep the younger 2 kids interested when they weren't helping out. These strategies ended up working very well for everyone. This doesn't happen very often that all four kids enjoy each activity, so I was pleased. Overall this was very exciting visit, being able to see their different stages of development.

"Memorize and regurgitate" midterm exam

I found it very difficult to make myself study for the midterm for this class. It was not the content that made it difficult. I found these 5 chpaters interesting and some of it was a repeat of what I learned in General Psych 2 years ago. Also, I am pretty good at memorizing information so it wasn't getting all of the vocab and mulitple choice answers memorized that frustrated me. It was mentally challenging in the way that I kept thinking, "I hope I never test my students like this" and about how ineffective this type of testing can be for students. Yes, there is obviously going to be some memorization (even if it's just basic formulas or concepts,) but students' achievments and improvements shoudl be evaluated in different ways.

As I said earlier, I, myself, am pretty capable of studying for these kinds of tests, but what about people who aren't good at memorizing flash cards and reviewing pages of multiple choice questions muliple times? Should their grade suffer because they are not as good at studying that way? I am looking forward to choosing what type of project/test/report I will do for the final!

"High Stakes Community school" role play

I thought this week's lecture was very engaging and educational for me. I have never been to a board meeting so I was looking forward to getting a little insight of what goes on at them. I appreciated Dr. Knick and Dr. Langholz's seriousness in their role playing. This made the board meeting seem more realistic. Part of me thinks it would have been helpful to have learned a little bit more about No Child Left Behind (NCLB) before the role playing lecture. I would have understood the proposal better. On the other (stronger) hand, I think this role played board meeting was an excitng interactive way of learning about NCLB.
I am glad my group got to represtent the people supporting the Fine Arts who did not support the proposal. I personally would not vote for it. Yes, there are positive effects that would likely come out of it such as the school's standardized test grades inccreasing and its student's excelling in math and reading. These are useful subjects to be good at in their after-high school life, but there are many other important things that can be learned through the Fine arts and Extra Curriculars. Students can improve social skills and be inspired to think creatively and think outside the box. If the proposal were modified I might suppoprt it, but as of now there are much more important things to learn during adolescence standardized test material.

What is this world coming to?

I've always thought it was ridiculous how much influence media has on people (children and adolescents in particular.) Wednesday's class discussion and comparing of values in 1980s and now got me thinking even further about the extent of its influence and the effects media is having on our society.

Growing up with 4 siblings, my parents were very strict about what we watched, listened to, and played with. No video games or weapons (guns, swords, etc.) were aloud in the house. Now I have 4 more younger siblings (all under the age of 6) and they are aloud to have toy guns and swords (though can not point them at be violent towards anyone.) We also have a game system for them, though most the games are either Disney or Racing. It seems to me like my parents are still grounded in their beliefs, but after Wednesday's discussion I now wonder, "What changed?" Are they really just trying to keep up with the times?

About the 16 year olds running a prostitution ring in MOA... Do they really have NO moral issue with doing this? I think this comes back to parents wanting their kids to be happy and kids wanting to fit in. The media is creating this monster of an image that young girls see as their ideal look/ attitude. It needs to stop. Parents need to teach their kids morals and not worry about their day-to- day happiness, but rather their life-long happiness and well being.

The article about the school shootings in Finland was very disturbing ,yet at the same time it wasn't too shocking. I mean, what do we expect kids (and people in general) to learn from playing "Kindergarten Killer" and similar games? I do not understand why and how people can play these sorts of games. It makes me sick just thinking about the fact that they exist. I don't think that the problem is simply regulating what kids can and can't rent, play, view on the Internet. The bigger issue is that people of all ages have come to believe that it's ok to play extremely violent and realistic video games. Someone might argue "it's just a game/ entertainment," but it's NOT. Though they might not realize it by playing these games for hours and hours their brain starts to think, "Wow, this is kind of fun!" I don't know what the solution is, but something needs to change in our society as a whole.

As teachers, we will be a big part of the future generations' moral development. We need to come up with ideas asap that will help to get the media and morality of our society headed back in the right direction

Chalk and Wire/ Liscensure

This week's lecture really got me thinking about all the little details of the Education department I need to be thinking about. For example, right now I have no idea which state I want to get liscensed in... What differences between states do I need to look at to help me decide? I am thinking either Minnesota or Wisconsin, but I really have no idea. Maybe international!

Last spring I learned about chalk and wire in Ed 217 and may have submitted 1 or 2 artifacts. Until this week's lecture I did not realize how useful chalk and wire could be; uploading assignments just to have them there but not submiting them, including assignments from non-education courses, etc. I am hoping to use it a lot more from now on. I would like to build up a large collection of quality artifacts.

Any Advice?
I have been debating lately whether I want to change French into another teaching area for my major (technically would be adding on French major + Secondary Ed minor.) I want to continue with my freench and I think it could be helpful to be able to teach another subject in addition to Music. It would however take me longer to get through all of the music, french, music ed, and secondary ed courses. I'm just trying to look at the pros and cons. Let me know if you have any thoughts on my dilemna.

"Write and Wrong" reaction

I thought this article was very interesting and I still cannot get over the fact that the teacher, Connie Heermann, lost her job over this book. Yes, "The Freedom Writers Diary" may contain some profanity, racial slurs, and other "inappropriate"material, but this is the kind of books that kids should be reading in high schools. In our society today, profanity and other inappropriate topics are becoming more and more common. I don't think anything they'd read in this book is anything they haven't read about on the Internet or seen on TV. Also, it is these kinds of book that engage high school students. Reading one boring book after another won't make them any more excited or knowledgeable about living in our societies today. By giving students these challenging, controversial reading assignments, they are forced to reexamine their beliefs and standards and think more on their own instead of the norms their parents, communities or society in general have laid out. As I already said, I can't believe a teacher would lose her job for this! I only hope that someday teacher will have more freedom in chosing books for their classes to read.

Lecture: "Better Grades in Less TIme"

This Monday I went to Gary Tuerack's Lecture, "Better Grades in Less Time." It was very interactive and informative, and it kept my attention very well. The most interesting thing I did at this lecture was a speed-reading exercise. By the end of the lecture, through the use of this exercise, I was reading 70 more words per minute than at the first trial at the start of the lecture. He showed a few video clips that were both funny and informative of how to do better at school. He shared some tips about eating, including what types of foods are really good and really bad to eat before studying. He also talked about the statistics of how much we forget (ex. People forget 50% of what they hear/ learn in a day.) and what we can do in improve our memories (ex. visual aids increase retention by 40%.) I found this program to be very helpful in teaching how one can really be the best they can be by following some simple rules.