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.