Discipline
The last presentation grabbed my attention right away and made me want to listen to what was being said. I found the material interesting in many ways and I also wrote down a few notes that I will use later on in my teaching.
I found myself asking questions as I watched the presentation a second time. What types of discipline works best for what age groups? Does it even make a difference? When using extrinsic rewards to help students follow rules, when should they be phased out to help the student move toward intrinsic motivation? I recognized right away when they mentioned that discipline and motivation go hand in hand. It makes perfect sense to use them together in a classroom.
The one thing that I did not know and that blows my mind is that corporal punishment is still legal in schools in just under half of the states. We are constantly trying to keep students from bullying each other, engaging in physical altercations on school grounds and generally treating each other with respect. And we don’t bother to eliminate a little law that says it is o.k. for the teachers to do to the students the very things we tell them not to do to each other. Freaky!
I feel like I will be using many different types of discipline in my classroom. The choice theory based on needs reflects nicely some of the beliefs of the special education system. Assertive discipline may be necessary for a few of my students that have already seen it all and do not respond well to anything else. Discipline with Dignity is great as the students feel a sense of control over their actions and the outcome of those actions that they may not have previously experienced. It can help to build a trust between a student and a teacher. Conflict resolution or peer mediation, I do not see me being able t use this type in my classroom, however it may be a good technique to use school wide.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
Secret Sauce
Ms. G’s Secret Sauce.
I enjoyed reading the excerpts from the Freedom Writers Diary as well as looking at the way they tied in with the ingredients listed in the jar. I think it would be interesting to compare both of these to UMF’s teaching standards. Some of the ingredients on the list closely correlate to the 10 standards, I find this highly intriguing. The one that I wanted to read was #1 Believe in your students. My reasons…
I am going to be teaching at the middle school level and teaching special education. In some cases I will have gifted students that will want to go beyond the “Maine Standards realm” and they will need a strong supporter that will not try and hold them back or tell them that they have already done enough. I will need to believe in that student to be able to challenge them accordingly. In other cases I will have students that have given up on themselves and know that most of the other teachers have given up on them as well. For these students I will not only believe in them but encourage them to believe in themselves. This will be a challenge; however I feel that I am up for it as I believe that everyone has a natural ability that no one else has, and by finding and building on this I can build confidence in my students. Being confident in you is the first step in believing in yourself.
We can all encourage our students to do what we ask but showing them that they already know something and encouraging them to want to know more is very powerful.
I enjoyed reading the excerpts from the Freedom Writers Diary as well as looking at the way they tied in with the ingredients listed in the jar. I think it would be interesting to compare both of these to UMF’s teaching standards. Some of the ingredients on the list closely correlate to the 10 standards, I find this highly intriguing. The one that I wanted to read was #1 Believe in your students. My reasons…
I am going to be teaching at the middle school level and teaching special education. In some cases I will have gifted students that will want to go beyond the “Maine Standards realm” and they will need a strong supporter that will not try and hold them back or tell them that they have already done enough. I will need to believe in that student to be able to challenge them accordingly. In other cases I will have students that have given up on themselves and know that most of the other teachers have given up on them as well. For these students I will not only believe in them but encourage them to believe in themselves. This will be a challenge; however I feel that I am up for it as I believe that everyone has a natural ability that no one else has, and by finding and building on this I can build confidence in my students. Being confident in you is the first step in believing in yourself.
We can all encourage our students to do what we ask but showing them that they already know something and encouraging them to want to know more is very powerful.
Educational Issue
NCLB
My verdict is still out on this topic. The concept is ideal; however there seems to be several problems with the implementation of the ideal. It seems to me that in not leaving a child behind we have left whole schools behind instead.
The one thing that was not brought up in class was the “bar” or level that the Maine school districts have to meet. I have heard that it was set unrealistically high and that it has affected funding as schools often fail to meet it. I have also heard that Maine is behind when compared to other schools across the nation, is this because the other schools did not set their expectations as high or is it because we have truly dropped the ball? I hope we go into some of this more in depth in class.
The presentation was really good. I especially liked the activity we did on the board with the before and after knowledge. I feel however; that no matter how much we know about the subject our experiences that we have had with NCLB or will have with NCLB are going to greatly affect our opinions.
There were some good points brought up in class later on that had to do with accountability; the teachers seem to be held accountable for the performance of the schools instead of the community. By giving the teachers added paperwork and responsibility we have taken away their ability to be effective in the classroom. Any qualified psychologist will tell you not to take the job home with you as it will affect your home life (as we saw in Teach with Your Heart) so why do we constantly believe that it is the TEACHERS responsibility to teach everything from manners to knowledge as well as be accountable to the state for the performance of our schools? Obviously we will be taking work home with us or we will be setting up a cot in the gym.
I guess my conclusion is the more I know the more I don’t know.
My verdict is still out on this topic. The concept is ideal; however there seems to be several problems with the implementation of the ideal. It seems to me that in not leaving a child behind we have left whole schools behind instead.
The one thing that was not brought up in class was the “bar” or level that the Maine school districts have to meet. I have heard that it was set unrealistically high and that it has affected funding as schools often fail to meet it. I have also heard that Maine is behind when compared to other schools across the nation, is this because the other schools did not set their expectations as high or is it because we have truly dropped the ball? I hope we go into some of this more in depth in class.
The presentation was really good. I especially liked the activity we did on the board with the before and after knowledge. I feel however; that no matter how much we know about the subject our experiences that we have had with NCLB or will have with NCLB are going to greatly affect our opinions.
There were some good points brought up in class later on that had to do with accountability; the teachers seem to be held accountable for the performance of the schools instead of the community. By giving the teachers added paperwork and responsibility we have taken away their ability to be effective in the classroom. Any qualified psychologist will tell you not to take the job home with you as it will affect your home life (as we saw in Teach with Your Heart) so why do we constantly believe that it is the TEACHERS responsibility to teach everything from manners to knowledge as well as be accountable to the state for the performance of our schools? Obviously we will be taking work home with us or we will be setting up a cot in the gym.
I guess my conclusion is the more I know the more I don’t know.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Philosophy
Educational Theories
I leaned toward the Constructivism philosophy in that the students would be active learners who would construct their own frame of thought. Being a special education major my classes have often focused on how the brain works and the fact that not every student thinks the same way. This makes the constructivist philosophy more relevant for me than some of the others.
When my first group looked at Humanism, it was stated that the aspect of rejecting a group was not readily agreed with. I however was able to share some thoughts on that with a classmate and I felt that the word was not meant to mean small intimate groups of learners or even classrooms but to mean a large generic way of educating a larger population. Taken this way the humanism philosophy would be my close second as it focuses on the individual as special education does.
Every one of us has many facets to our personality, and when asked certain questions and given a multiple choice of answers to chose from we determine what educational theory best suits us. Or do we? I think that a lot more goes into our thought processes each time we answer a question. We may have different answers at different times of the day, our answers could very depending on our mood or even on what kind of day we are having.
Getting to know who we are as people is an ever developing and changing process. That being said…
I fell into the student centered theories. I do believe that I am more “student centered” than “teacher centered” as I feel that as a teacher and as an adult one should be able to handle themselves and their classroom without thinking about it. It should be one of those things that comes naturally, keeping a safe and effective, nurturing environment is a given in my mind. The student is the biggest variable in the equation. My career focuses more on the variable than on the whole equation, therefore my outcome was somewhat expected. Was my outcome determined by my education background or by my personal choices? I would like to think that my personal choices determined my educational path so that they both had an effect on the questions that I answered and the overall outcome.
In class we also discussed that it is necessary to shift from the student centered philosophies to the teacher centered when safety becomes an issue. I can see this happening frequently in the Gen. Ed. Classroom with a multiple of students and personalities in one room. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have two different teaching styles in one room. Co-teaching with a special educator and a General Education teacher would be the ideal for me and my personal philosophy and teaching style.
I leaned toward the Constructivism philosophy in that the students would be active learners who would construct their own frame of thought. Being a special education major my classes have often focused on how the brain works and the fact that not every student thinks the same way. This makes the constructivist philosophy more relevant for me than some of the others.
When my first group looked at Humanism, it was stated that the aspect of rejecting a group was not readily agreed with. I however was able to share some thoughts on that with a classmate and I felt that the word was not meant to mean small intimate groups of learners or even classrooms but to mean a large generic way of educating a larger population. Taken this way the humanism philosophy would be my close second as it focuses on the individual as special education does.
Every one of us has many facets to our personality, and when asked certain questions and given a multiple choice of answers to chose from we determine what educational theory best suits us. Or do we? I think that a lot more goes into our thought processes each time we answer a question. We may have different answers at different times of the day, our answers could very depending on our mood or even on what kind of day we are having.
Getting to know who we are as people is an ever developing and changing process. That being said…
I fell into the student centered theories. I do believe that I am more “student centered” than “teacher centered” as I feel that as a teacher and as an adult one should be able to handle themselves and their classroom without thinking about it. It should be one of those things that comes naturally, keeping a safe and effective, nurturing environment is a given in my mind. The student is the biggest variable in the equation. My career focuses more on the variable than on the whole equation, therefore my outcome was somewhat expected. Was my outcome determined by my education background or by my personal choices? I would like to think that my personal choices determined my educational path so that they both had an effect on the questions that I answered and the overall outcome.
In class we also discussed that it is necessary to shift from the student centered philosophies to the teacher centered when safety becomes an issue. I can see this happening frequently in the Gen. Ed. Classroom with a multiple of students and personalities in one room. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have two different teaching styles in one room. Co-teaching with a special educator and a General Education teacher would be the ideal for me and my personal philosophy and teaching style.
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