choices that apeal to me

what really appealed to me in the reading was the way that the teacher sees all the different students in the mock third grade classroom. I loved the choice to teach responsively ato all the parts, the who, what, where, and how we teach. she teaches different students of different cultures and backgrounds, and that each one has an individual need, that she needs to look beyond the state or district curriculum, and have each student make an improvement. The choice to make the classroom an environment of safety and learning. I know that these are the choices I would like to make in my classroom, but it also scares me. Im afraid that I will get into the classroom and be overwhelmed, and not be able to do all that, or that I won't recognize the needs of all the students. I know that it will probably be easy to just get in there and go by the book however, if I make these choices in advance I feel like I will have an easier time practicing differentiation in my classroom.

reflection 12/8

I thought that the four different moral responsibilities were very interesting. it is hard sometimes to be able define what moral responsibilities are to be taught in class. I believe that of the four different types that the most important is the nurturing, because it can encompase all of the other for moral responsibilities. If we teach the moral ideas in our lessons than we wont have to encroach on personal and religious beliefs.

Reflection 10/26

I thought the topic of the atricles, violence, and how we can prevent it in the school was a good topic. I think that there is a lot that we can do to prevent violence, but I think the problem with some of the articles that we read, is that they give and unrealistic view of what we can do, rather than a few really helpful points that we as individual teachers can do. I believe that, no we should not just expel students when they have done something bad, but that we should support them in getting into programs that will help them, even if it is an after school or saturday program. I believe that we can't wait for everything to change, or for the school to get funding to do anything in the classroom. We have to do what we can in our own classroom, becasue if everyone waits for everyone else to change, then nothing will get done.

Reflection 10/18

I thought that the idea of reforming the ideas from education to make it better from the Resnick article were very good ideas, but for most of the ideas that were mentioned that it would take a long time to be able to implement them into the schools and have it be the recognized regular.
My favorite of her ideas were that we should recognize the idea that effort created ability, and clear expectations. I think it is the main idea of school that the effort the students give is helping them gain more ability in whatever they are working towards. I also like the idea that students need to be able to know what they are working towards, they need to know the expectations so that they can focus what they are doing and accomplish more.
Her Idea that time and results in school need to be reversed is a good one, but I don't think it would be logical to implement it the way she is suggesting, but given more thought it could do a lot of good.

Reflection #6

This week I thought the readings were interesting. I think that the OCW's would be useful to really help those who either don't have the means to get and education, and also to those who are already in the field of work, but want to get a little more information on one subject or another. I had a hard time at first thinking of how this would really be useful to me as an elementary school teacher, but really I have realized that I have to be the expert on everything, so it will be a good resource to me, and through me to my studendts, instead of directly to my students.
I also think that distance education is really important because we never know with technology going the way its going, when we as teachers are going to be responsible for doing a distance education course for students.

Reflection #3

I liked the two readings for class this week. I found it interesting that even though both were not written recently, they both had really good points about teaching. I really liked how Rousseau talks about how a child needs to be a child, and we should not try to reason with them. A child can't reason like and adult can, and we are not teaching them if we are doing that, because they will not be able to understand. I also really liked that at the end he says that his 'Emile' may not be great at one thing, but he will be better at another. I believe that it is important to focus on the strengths students have, so they know that they are good at something, and we could use their strengths to improve their weaknesses. The thing I liked the most about St Augustine was the way he said to teach. if you notice a student is bored or already knows the subject just touch on it, or do something to make them interested. I also like that he talked about how if we don't teach in the same peaceful environment that we learn in, we really can't expect the students to pick it up as easily.

Reflection 9/28

I learned a lot more this week after having the discussion in class. Archetypes are really important to have for examples for the boys especially, but also for the girls. Reading about the different types was really a good learning experience, but when we had to actually decide which archetype the picture book we were looking at, it was a bit harder. That made me think and I believe teachers should be careful to make sure that they really look into a book and that it is the archetype that they are looking to introduce to the child, and that the child won't get something different out of it. It would also be really helpful to have discussions with the child after reading the book.