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.