Another Article TELLing You What to Do

This post is in homage, so to speak, to another blog reel I write, which everyone should check out and comment on whenever you are able: Half the Gladdness Thy Brain Should Know.

Now, I say this because on that blog I put articles within paragraphs of my own opinion and it's up to the reader to follow the link and gather more vital information. Because of the controversy from last week, I've decided to put a link to a website that TELLS you what to expect in the first year of teaching... to not scare you away. Now, if you've read the last big story "The Job is the Fight," then you may realize quickly that I don't really take to too many of these quotes. But I think they're fun and worth discussing (especially if you want to argue with some of them as much as I do).

Still, don't fret, Stan and Kevin, I'm working on another post that's sure to get under someone's skin. Keep your gloves up and no hitting below the belt... let's get it on!

One Can Make A Difference

It's funny what one person can start with few paragraphs. If you haven't noticed lately, there has been an uproar on this blog ring that I started. After thirteen comments and three other posts about the original post, I feel that I've done something right. I might not win the battle on my own but I can start something by myself. I can stir the energy with words and let others do the action. This is why I want to teach. I want to stir up the raw energy the students keep tapped from their teachers and have them battle it out in the classroom and eventually the world. Thanks Stan for helping me bring energy to our blog and a battle between the students. My confidence in my stride has improved.

For those who don't know yet, you need to read "The Job is the Fight" and continue the fight until the end of the class. I, for one, would like to know everyone in the classroom's opinion on the issue. Don't stand by and let your fellow students bicker without your input. Make your stand!

The Job is the Fight

After reading the chapter and going through what a lot of you guys posted, I realized that there are a lot of wussies in our class. Sure, the chapter told us a list of what to do and what not to do and it was a no-brainer and, sure, it is a job so it should be viewed as such and nothing more. I understand these points of view completely but they're wrong.

How many jobs have you had where you can inspire or challenge another's complete outlook on life? How many jobs have you had where you really wanted to know the people and the potential of the people you worked with? How often have you hid in your safe shell of a job and were afraid to say or do something different because you might get fired? Stop kissing ass and take charge of what you love!

I know from my own experience that I have never done what I was told to do just because. There had to be a good reason backing it or I would never do it. Every job I've ever had, aside from acting, was one in which I rebelled against my oppressors. Every job I've ever had had hypocritical management and a list of things to do and not to do and I just ignored them. Granted, I read and heard them but I tweaked them to suit my needs. As an educator, you need to tweak the way your school is run based on the student's needs. They're not giving you enough money, work on the weekends as a server or hotel manager. They're telling you how to do your job— shut the door and teach your way. They're telling you "you have to teach for this standard or test," teach how you feel is the best interest for the students... so they can get a job and have a successful life after high school. They're telling you that you'd be fired if you go on strike, have your students go on strike for you! Keep the rules they've shoved down your throat in your forethought but teach those kids and worry less about the stipulations of the term "job."

Teaching is more than a job; it is a way of thinking, a way of idealizing, and a way of setting the standards for the future of the nation. Take the power from the corporate vagabonds and federal government and remake America from the schooling outward. Stop cowering and worrying about your job security, grow some guts and take a stand. You shape the future, not them. When the rest of the leaders of the world lack popularity and the youth stop looking to them for guidance, they look to teachers. We make the difference. Get out there and risk everything. No fear.

Testing Talk with Mr. Wittmer

While the students at Kickapoo high school take the MAP tests, my practicum teacher, Mr. Wittmer, and I discuss the end of the MAP and what should be put in its place instead of another foolish test. I thought the idea Wittmer had was great but probably wouldn't be established without a lot of push. This is the push.

There has been talk of dropping the MAP this year and starting something new next year and I asked what they would put in its place. He just stated that it would probably be another semi-worthwhile test that is more focused on minuet qualities of what you have to know about the main subjects. Wittmer suggested that instead of these types of tests, the schools should use a test that does more good: the ACT.

Think about it. The schools have to pay to have their students take the MAP right now so why not pay to have their students take a more essential test? The students don't get the results for the MAP so they feel like they're preparing for this test all year for nothing. They take it and forget about it. However, with the ACT, a lot more is riding on it. The test could be given with all juniors or seniors at the end of the year and the students would take it more seriously. The ACT is what colleges look for to get into college and we would be preparing them. Plus, if the students want to take it earlier, they can but they'd have to pay for it (the same as if they want to change their score from after high school).

To me, it seemed like a really good idea and one that could help schools in the long run. State and Federal school personal could take the results from the test like they do with the MAP but the students get their results back.

I like the idea. What do you think?

The Real Essential Teacher Questions

As I venture into this vast world of philosophical thought and diverse teaching, I find myself running into a lot of difficult questions. How do you teach something that's both worthwhile and educational to the students? How can you teach good morals if you are forced to teach toward tests like the MAP? What are morals?

Teachers and professors alike have been attempting their futile efforts of pouring wisdom and knowledge down the throats of students for a very long time and I wonder which methods are most effective. It seems as if the attempt to shove ideas in front of students and make them think a certain way is the only True way to teach. Kids come into the school environment with only the ideas their parents or close relatives have given them (some come in with their own creative ideas as well) and are pressured to act a certain way and become a certain thinker.

Like this picture I found from above, it appears that the rainbow of creativity and great imaginary ideas are crushed underneath the powers of the teacher hammering their own perspectives into the students head. This falls onto, in my opinion, the art of behaviorism. If someone is disrupting a class, the teacher silences them or makes them seem a fool. The kid's creative ideas are promptly halted and the teacher may never hear a witty remark or brilliant idea from them again. They have been forced to act a certain way.

Why in our society do the most energetic people get put down so much in the classroom and in work environments? Why are those who sit alone and don't interact with other students deemed the weakest link and subject to failure? Why do teachers focus on having the perfect student instead of admiring those who talk out of turn or do something different that may or may not benefit the class? Why does this country, which states that difference is the way to be, attempt to create a society of people who do the same things? How can we help those who are different learn and keep their own identity?

These are the questions going through my head as I think about essential questions. What are your answers?

Teaching the Full Class

On Monday, I presented a lesson plan on Lord of the Flies to my high school teacher and he asked if I would be comfortable doing it on Wednesday. I said sure and he stated that I could try to take the whole block and teach everything if I wanted. Nervously, I again replied with sure. Come Wednesday, I am shaken like a freight train over a tight bridge. Yet, I am prepared. I go in and find out that there's a sub.

Dejected, the sub asks me to make copies and puts on the movie Cast Away. When I return, she goes, "oh, are you supposed to teach today?" I brighten up as the kids go to lunch and prepare to set myself up to teach the remainder of the block and the entire next block.

The kids return and are upset that their movie has been replaced with what some of them saw as busy work. Teaching them when they just wanted to finish the film was about the most difficult thing I've ever experienced. Shame on the sub for making me seem like the bad guy. So, the class muddled through the lesson and, even though they did show signs that they enjoyed it, they were more anxious to watch the film.

The next class was handled a lot better. The kids took a quiz left by their teacher and then we did my lesson. It went a lot smoother than the previous class and the only problem that arose was the noise level (it was a group work project with discussion). Other than that, everything went off without a hitch. The lesson, which really can take up to 45 minutes, if there is a lot of conversation, took almost 52. The last 30 minutes were left to the great acting of Tom Hanks.

For the second class, I was much more relaxed and assured of myself and my lesson. It became very comforting standing in front of a class and running the whole thing. I loved it. Any worries I used to have about teaching have dwindled down to nearly nothing thanks to that day and the teacher I work with. It ended up being a very good day.

Title

Rather than simply copying and pasting a piece of another blog I work on to this blog I seldom work on, I am sharing the blog with you. If you want something that might anger or spark a bit of interest in your thoughts, check out this. Look at the latest post entitled Systematical Shutdown and consider yourselves lucky that I didn't post it on here. Feel free to comment on the other blog but be warned that Dr. Franklin doesn't (I don't think) grade comments on other blogs 'cept this one.

So, if you're after the grade and nothing more: read this and comment back on this entry for it... maybe it'll make others read it too.

Restating My I-Search

I posted a while back on the I-search but we were told to post again and share what we've learned. I did my project on the Mark Twain novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It was an attempt to gain confidence in teaching classic literature because I don't like classic literature too much. It was a challenge for me to find different materials and address them within my paper as I went along. Still, I managed.

I found a lot of cool ideas for teaching the story like putting on a mock trial and discussing what makes a successful lie. It was interesting trying to cram all the information into a small paper but I did. I would have preferred a presentation of the material over the paper because I don't think it really matters what the process was for looking for the articles so long as you had found some neat teaching methods. What matters as future teachers is collecting as much items that we can later use in our classroom from other teachers... we just shared ideas with Dr. Franklin and no one else.

It's a pity because I'm sure other students have found great ideas too and the possibilities of open sharing and stealing would have been a wondrous idea.

Practicum Perils

While I try not to do it when I write my journal over the day during practicum, I keep remembering the practicum I did last year. Last year, the teacher I studied with was very open with her classroom and had group activities daily. The kids were always happy to be there and very animated full of ideas. Her teaching method dealt more with student interaction and growth through each other as they learned.

In the current practicum, I have yet to see much collaboration or joy in the kid's eyes. Some of them always have the spark but it is defiantly different than last year. There is less student interaction and more lecturing combined with questions and answers. It just doesn't have the same feel as last year.

Still, I think about the differences and similarities.

Both took place with the class that went to lunch and the final class of the day, both are English honors classes, both have a dip of minorities within the group, and both have a teacher that can make you laugh and is entertaining.

However, last years classes had one freshman course and one junior--this year, they are both sophomore classes. Last year, the desks were arranged with the desks looking at the middle of the room from either side of the class with a space to walk behind the students as well--this year, all the desks face the head of the class and there is barely an inch space to walk amongst the kids (you can't even reach the back row to stand there in case there is an outburst of bad behavior).

These changes affect the outlook on the student's behavior and, as my teacher stated on Wednesday, he has had to yell at the kids in the last block a few times because he couldn't hear the announcements. Funny thing is, if the desks were arranged differently, I think the outbursts would cease.

Though I'm probably clashing a little with my teacher, I think I can learn a lot. I can learn the things I won't do as a teacher... got to take the bad with the good. My only worry is how to teach my way in a class that has been taught in a way I differ...

Well, at least he's willing to let me teach several times before anyone comes to watch me and *Bonus* since both his classes are sophomore honors, I am going to teach my lesson to both classes in the same day. That will help because every class is different: what works for one may not work for the others.

Ugh, I'm tired.

Good Night.

A Little Bit Outside France

Those videos were very interesting to watch. I had seen the SNL one before but seeing it again on the cusp of actually taking on the profession set a new feel for me. Naturally, there were many stereotypes in the scene but many of them made sense to me. The running gag about France, for instance, reminded me of the line I hear every other week about History in America, "the students know the history of America but little to nothing about other areas in the world." Though I believe this thought is just a myth, people believe it and state it as fact. It's no wonder parents and politicians think teachers aren't doing a good job when they see skits like this or movies like Half Nelson and are too brain-dead to figure out that it's a representation and not the actual reality. If you weren't going to be a teacher and you saw Jerry popping pills as a teacher and giving up on his students, would you think your children were being taught well? Doubt it.

The other video was very interesting in what he was saying (though I wish he wouldn't cuss as much--"GD" offends me). It reminded me of my last practicum where I went into the teacher's bathroom and saw a paper on the wall. It had a conversation between a parent, who I believe was a lawyer or doctor, and a teacher. The lawyer, or doctor, said something foul about teaching and put it down as he asked "what do you make?" The teacher went on for a long time talking about the lifetimes of achievement teaching creates and the love of helping the students learn. It was a beautiful little tidbit and made me realize that money is not as important as changing a person's life.

Issues On Thy Mind

Skimming along the same lines Stan wrote in "Big Bucks...", I think there are more issues involved in our future as teachers than just money. Sure, teachers have to shell out a lot of dough to teach their students without getting reimbursed but there is definitely a bigger picture to foresee. What will the future hold for us as teachers if we keep on the same path we're on presently?

Recently, I've heard talk about teachers pay being a direct result of MAP test scores. This idea is ridiculous! Students work at their own pace and learn in their own style. If one student decides they are going to spend a night on the town boozing it up while their still underage before the MAP test the next day, why should the teacher suffer?

The unions teachers join, like the NEA and others, are useless as well because all they can do is talk about what is wrong with the world of teaching without actually doing anything about it. Let me ask you a question: what is the one thing that shows the power of a union? The answer is that they have the right to go on strike. However, since teachers are part of the Federal government's line of public workers, if they strike, they get canned. The power of a teacher's union is kaput.

Then, there is the old faithful of has-been school problems: NCLB. Every time I hear that phrase, I have to laugh because I think of President Bush's last State of the Union where he addressed the only accomplishment his eight years have made: the NCLB. Schools are shutting down in New York because of the greatness of the NCLB. Kids from those "bad" schools have to go to another "bad" school and wait for it to get shutdown too! The worse thing is that the most illiterate person in the free world assumes that 100 % of children will read and work at the same level by 2012. The president can't even speak properly to the Queen of England, let alone eat a pretzel, and yet we're following his rule like Pavlov's dogs.

I concur with a Professor I currently have that states we are going the wrong way with education. I believe that if no one makes a stand, the quotable freedom teachers now have in their classroom will be no more. I can see a future where there are two teachers in every class who watch the other for signs of failure. I can see a future where every school across the nation teaches the same book at the same time every year. I see a horrible future for us as teachers if we stay on this path.

Right now, teachers are stuck writing mundane paperwork and lesson plans for administrators who have no right to expect the same results from every teacher/student. Right now, politicians are writing bills that take a little sliver of the teacher's freedom to "teach" in their own fashion because they think it's the right thing to do (though they have never been a teacher or, some, to college). Right now, Lisa, a seventh grader, is upset because her teachers are not taking care of her the way she needs them too. Her teachers are too engrossed in teaching certain things in a timeline and not veering off at any stop. Right now, Lisa is falling behind. Now she's failing... and the government thinks it's your fault.

I believe we need to get rid of Federal funding for schools altogether and provide more supplies locally. Education should be a local ambition. Parents and anyone else who makes a vocal concern about the school system should not rely on the schools to do all the work while they throw out the excuse that they are too busy to help. Everyone needs to be involved. If we can get the government to mind their own business and let each school fend for itself with helpers in the community who understand what it means to be a teacher, then our tomorrow as teachers will be quite promising indeed.

Fact: there is no way to judge the amount of actual teaching someone has been given in order to decide appropriate pay. Some students will never want to learn... period. Some students are handicapped in a form of learning; perhaps they cannot write.

Fact: a union's only power is a strike. If teachers can't go on strike, see if the students will strike for you. Say, "Class, the MAP is tomorrow but you don't have to take it. Don't show up." Of course, do not say it in those words. What will happen? The MAP will be irregular but is it really so significant? No.

Fact: the goal of 100 % from the NCLB is never going to happen. Some students are blind or are affected by ADHD. They may not care that the government wants them all to be identical in a society that vocally favors difference.

Fact: if we new teachers don't step up and say something to change this, the future I have prescribed will come. It takes many people to change things for the better but only one to change things for the worse. Don't be that one person. Do not be like the president. Stand up and change the system. Save Lisa.

I like my freedom because, without it, I would not have been able to write this.

I want to keep my freedom when I teach... don't you?

My i-search Paper: Huck Finn

Part I:

I chose to undertake one of the great works of Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in my i-search paper. I’ve had to read this book twice during my school years at high school and again at college but my confidence in teaching it is quite low. This story has so many elements involved and controversy that makes it a very challenging book to teach. I want to be able to come to grasps with the main meat of the story by re-reading it a third time and determining exactly how to go through making this story interesting without getting caught up in the racism and hard-to-read language. The hopes I have for this paper is that, when I’m finished, I’ll have a better understanding of the wide breath of the text and how to better illustrate how Huck is feeling without my students doing nearly as much research. I want my students to relate more with Huck and Jim the way I did the second time I read it. I want to find a way to make them appreciate the many different meanings the story contains.

Part II:

To be honest, I have never really had a love of quoted classic works. A Tale of Two Cities is horrible and Little Women drove me insane. I love reading really old works from the Romantic Era and writers like Shakespeare, Milton, Moliere, and other such authors. I also love reading works written today and am a quiet fan of Nicholas Sparks and Mitch Albom. However, in-between these two Eras stand the air of classic literature and it is so hard for me to get interested in them. Therefore, I chose Huckleberry Finn because I need to become more complete as an English teacher. If I can get to a point where I love, or at least like, the stories I will undoubtedly have to teach someday, I know I can get my students to feel the same way. If I dislike a story I’m teaching, they’ll know and they won’t want to learn it either. Thus, writing this i-search paper is twofold, my students will better appreciate classic literature and I will gain a new level of comprehension.