Teaching Is Like....

             I think teaching is like being a chef. Every customer is different just as every child is different so you must be able to always cater your meals/lessons to the individual. For example you could compare a picky eater to a child who is a visual learner. The picky eater orders the deluxe burger with no toppings because they don't like those toppings. Chefs must figure out a way to make sure that the burgers are still delicious even without all the extra other stuff. Teachers must do this with students who learn certain ways. A teacher must be able to identify the children who need specific types of learning and make sure they give them this type of learning in a way that they are still getting the same information and lesson material as the non visual learners. Another way that teaching is like being a chef is that chefs are always trying to improve their recipes to make them better just as teachers are always trying to improve their lesson plans and curriculum for the better. At the end of the day the feeling of accomplishment is the same as well. Just as chefs feel accomplished when someone compliments their food or enjoys their food, teachers feel accomplished when they see a student succeed at something. When preparing a big meal chefs must plan to make sure that all the food is ready at the same time despite different foods taking longer or shorter to be ready they must give each food the attention it needs. Teachers must do this for their students. A teacher must know how to make sure that by the end of the school year all the students have learned what they need to in order to succeed in the next grade, despite the fact that some students pick things up less quickly than others. Those individuals that struggle must be given the attention to be ready at the end of the year. Teachers and chefs have alot in common!

             I've learned so much from this education class this year. There are so many things that will stick with me as i continue this journey onto becoming a teacher. The first thing I learned was about culturally responsive classrooms. I think it is so important to create this safe and culturally accepting environment in a classroom and through reading others blogs and pins I have learned a few really awesome ways to do these things. I also learned about the different types of learning beliefs and school systems such as montessori. I think through these assignments i've learned that i can incorporate some of the ideas I like from these schools into my own planning and curriculum. A third thing I learned that will stick with me is the Place - Based Education idea. I think that learning especially science learning should be hands on and relevant to the student. I think as much as I am able to in the future I will try to implement place based science lessons in my classroom. I've learned alot from my classmates and their blogs this semester. It was so interesting getting to see everybody's take on issues and subjects. I learned alot of really cool ideas from people sharing past experiences and I think that It helped me get a better understanding of who I am as a teacher. This class was great.

Gender Bias Is An Educational Social Injustice!

             Social justice is defined in the dictionary as "the distributions of advantages and disadvantages within a society." As a future teacher social justice in the classroom is something extremely important to me. Thinking back on my own school past I would say one major social injustice I witnessed was gender bias in the classroom. In the novel "Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls" by Dr.Myra and Dr.David Sadker one quote sums up gender bias in our schools. "Sitting in the same classroom, reading the same textbook, listening to the same teacher, boys and girls receive very different educations." (Sadker, 1994). Unfortunately this is still true ten years later. In a world that is so progressive it bothers me that this is still happening in classrooms today. Teachers who allow these types of gender bias' a place in their classroom are only creating a generation who will accept and think of these biases as normal which is not what they should be. 
            So what exactly are some of the issues regarding gender bias that are seen in schools? Research has shown that girls tend to receive significantly less attention than boys in elementary school settings. Studies also show that boys are more likely to repeat grades or drop out. Girls are being taught that being quiet and submissive is the best in the classroom but the boys are being taught that completely different behaviors are allowed in the classroom. Teachers definitely need to make sure that they are not encouraging this type of social injustice in their classrooms. Treat each student as an individual not focusing on their gender at all. Equal education isn't just about disabled students vs. non disabled students it should refer to all forms of differences that exist. It's about being fair and teaching these students to be the best they can be, overcoming these gender stereotypes found in all parts of life.

http://family.go.com/parenting/pkg-teen/article-772188-dealing-with-gender-inequality-at-your-child-s-school-t/

My Experience With Environmental Education.

                After learning what a place-based or environmental based education was I discovered that I had experienced examples of this throughout my time as a student. I decided to write about this in a blog post because I figured some of the ideas my past teachers had about implementing this idea of place based education into a regular public school classroom could give ideas to other teachers looking to do the same. 
                Place based education is a type of education that "immerses students in local heritage, cultures, landscapes, opportunities and experiences, using these as a foundation for the study of language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and other subjects across the curriculum.(http://www.promiseofplace.org/what_is_pbe)" Though this idea is not common in public education there are ways to incorporate the ideas of this into a classroom. 
           I'll start with the first example in my experience. There are these things called "butterfly kits" that you can order off the internet. `Basically they send you a couple of caterpillars and a place to put the butterfly's ( a netted container ). You get to observe these butterflies through each step of the process of metamorphosis. Once they become butterflies you release them outdoors. We planted flowers in a small garden outside of our school and released the butterflies there when I did this in the third grade. I remember every time I saw a monarch butterfly I wondered if it was one of the ones i'd watched transform from caterpillar to butterfly. It really fostered an interest in learning about nature and butterflies and how they went from caterpillar to butterfly because I got to experience it first hand. 
         Another example of place based education programs that I participated in Nature's classroom a program that takes kids from city schools on a week long trip into the depth of the forest to experience nature and the earth. I attended Nature's classroom in the fifth grade, we packed up our things and headed off into Maine. The whole week was spent living and experiencing and learning about nature and our environment. I remember we did all sorts of activities such as taking water samples from a marsh and finding insects in the woods on long hikes. My group leader was a bird watcher and pointed out all sorts of birds that we saw. This program was a great program to get us students excited about nature and science. It was awesome.
         When I was in ninth grade I took a biology class at my high school. I remember we did an activity that I thought was really cool. There is a pond across the street from the school and one day my teacher told us to get our stuff because we were going outside to learn. I remember thinking "we're going outside for class, in highschool?" I was so confused. I was used to studying things under a microscope in that class but it was always stuff provided on slides for us, we never really had much background on where it came from. My teacher had us go to the pond and take samples of the water so we could look for forms of life that were found in the pond. We took the samples back to the classroom and observed them under a microscope and then used a book to identify what we were seeing. It was so cool to have the topic relevant to our school and our environment it created a really memorable experience.
           Overall you don't need to have a full place based education school to be able to let your students experience nature. There are ways to incorporate lessons into regular public school classrooms. This type of learning is extremely beneficial to students and will foster a love of learning and of nature in the student.

My Educational Philosophy

       Throughout this week i've learned alot about different educational philosophies and how they effect the classroom environment and the teaching styles of individuals. I was really intrigued by this and was curious as to what philosophical style my ideas and thoughts would fall under. After taking a survey I found that I matched up with the humanism philosophy. I decided to research this further and see what it was really all about to figure out what that meant as far as my teaching in the future.
       Humanism, i learned, is an educational perspective that really stresses the importance of the individual learner and their development of self esteem. Humanists believe that "There is a natural tendency for people to learn, which will flourish if nourishing, encouraging, environments are provided." It also believes in the importance of children setting high goals and working hard to reach them. Reading this I realized that the survey completely nailed it as far as determining my philosophy of education. I believe that education should be based on each individual student and that the students interests and feelings should help shape the educational experience they receive.
        As far as my future classroom I think this philosophy will be visible and present in it. I will make sure that each student has what they need to succeed and I will make sure that I adjust my teaching style and techniques to the way my class at that time needs in order to learn. I will encourage my students to explore and learn on their own and to learn that education and learning need to come from them working and discovering the world in a way that relates to them. I believe that this humanistic approach will be a big part of my personal teaching style and philosophy

Inclusion of Special Needs Children and It's Effects On The Non-Disabled Students.

       There is a great of research on the effects of inclusion of special needs students in typical classroom settings. Studies have shown that inclusion, even partial inclusion, can benefit students with special needs in a variety of ways. It has been shown to help improve these students social abilities and help them learn to adjust and cope to the rest of the world. It definitely seems to have its benefits for thee students. But how does inclusion of special needs classrooms effect the non-disabled students in the classroom?
        While not as much research has been done on this topic as compared to its effect on special needs students, inclusion does effect the other students as well. While academically students are not negatively impacted by the presence of disabled students in the classroom there is proof that scores at a few researched schools actually improved after inclusion occurred. According to an article written on classroom inclusion the effects on students without disabilities are very beneficial. One very important effect was that students were able to better understand differences in people and were less afraid of these differences. Bullying is so common in schools these days and kids being able to accept other peoples differences can help them better understand all others. It also encourages great friendships between disabled and non-disabled children. These friendships are extremely beneficial to both people because they learn from each other. Inclusion seems to be beneficial to everybody involved.

For more information on academic inclusion and it's effects check out these links.
http://thesocialexpress.com/how-inclusion-can-benefit-special-needs-children-socially/
http://bsnpta.org/user/Impact_of_Inclusion_in_Middle_School.pdf

Culture In The Classroom

      The world we live in is a super diverse place. There are so many different cultures represented. How can a multicultural classroom function successfully? I think teaching students about the different cultures is extremely important especially in todays time when so much communication occurs between different countries and areas of the world. As educators we need to make a point to teach out students about the different cultures in the world. There are many ways we can do this.

            I remember as a child I belonged to a girl scout troop. One really interesting event we participated in was called "The International Dinner." Each troop was given a country and they were required to put together a spread of food from that culture and also to dress up like members of the culture. It was really cool getting to try all the different foods. Each group also put together a little presentation on the culture and presented it in front of everyone. I think putting together something like this for the students would be really cool. Who needs science fairs when you could have a culture fair? busyteacher.org published a list of the top 10 ways to teach culture in a classroom. Some of these top 10 ideas include teaching by using food, clothing and music so I'd probably have my students do that for their projects. I think these aspects really bring a culture to life. 

          There are also great online programs for classroom use when it comes to multicultural education. One program that exists that's really neat is a program called epals. Epals is a program in which teachers can go online and find a class of the same age group on the other side of the world. Then the students in both classes can communicate with each other through letters and other online communication. I participated in a program similar to this in elementary school but we wrote letters and the school in Italy we were communicating with ended up not being able to participate but I remember as a student I thought the program was exciting and fun and really got me interested in Italy. I remember learning a bunch of stuff about Italy so I had something to talk with my pen pal about. There is also a skype program for classrooms to skype one another form across the world. This program allows classrooms from different parts of the world to skype and also allows you to communicate with guest speakers from other places. These two programs are really awesome ways to help bring culture to life in your classroom.

Sources

http://busyteacher.org/7080-top-10-ways-to-teach-culture.html

http://www.epals.com/find-classroom.php#age_range=0&collaboration=0&country=&language=0&num_students=0&p=1&region=&search_text=

Are Art & Music Programs In Schools Important?

         With the lack of money available to schools these days many are having to say farewell to any and all art programs their schools had previously offered. For some reason it seems that when cuts need to be made the arts are the first thing to go. 
          Surprisingly many people are all for the arts being cut out of our schools. In an article written for the Sun Sentennial a college student named Nadia Abramson goes on about all the reasons she thinks the arts should be cut from all schools. She believes that the arts are just a huge meaningless distraction from the educational process going as far as to say "Students get too passionate about their art classes and completely neglect their core classes." She uses the analogy of a boring academic lecture saying that the artists and the musicians are quick to doodle or think about other things and as a result are learning nothing in the actual lesson. I will admit that there have been many a times when I've zoned out of class thinking about the dance combination I learned in class last week or doodling some crazy little design on a page in my notebook. I wouldn't go as far as to say that it is the art programs fault. I think if I wasn't thinking about the arts i'd be thinking about something else. 
              As a dancer I feel that the benefits of art and music programs outweigh any possible negatives. I found that dance not only taught me to work hard and be dedicated but it gave me a way to express myself and also an outlet for my stress. Let's face it, sitting in a classroom for hours a day and then going home and doing homework can get a little overwhelming and it can suck the life right out of you, I love school, but it's the truth. What dance did for me was refueled me and helped me handle stress better. 
              There are so many benefits to art and music programs. In an article supporting the arts in schools written in the Washington Post. The writer stresses the importance of these programs especially for kids in low-income neighborhoods. The arts have been proven to not only increase academic performance (rather than hinder it as Nadia argued), but it also has shown that it improves the way children feel about school and education. On a website supporting children participation in the arts it says that because students are being taught to the test and are taught that there is one right answer and a million wrong ones they are becoming hesitant in their creative processes and not being able to let themselves go and just create. A quote in the post says " Once children see that it’s okay to try and even make mistakes, it builds their confidence.  This feeling can spill over in to other aspects of their school experience and lives." This is so important especially for children who struggle in academics because it makes school better and makes them not feel like failures. It is also important to realize that if you look at history it is filled with art. Paintings, drawings, music and dance are things that really define a culture. If we are deaming these as not important than what will our culture be. Will it just be check marks on a scan tron sheet? I sure hope not. 

Sources

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2009-02-19/features/0902180109_1_art-classes-electoral-college-students

http://art4kids.weebly.com/why-does-art-matter.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/will-less-art-and-music-in-the-classroom-really-help-students-soar-academically/2012/12/28/e18a2da0-4e02-11e2-839d-d54cc6e49b63_blog.html