The Global Achievement Gap - Chapter 2

1)In chapter two of the Global Achievement Gap, the author, Tony Wagner, visits a few of the top schools in the United States to see what the children are learning and how they are learning. He was looking to see if they possessed the 7 skills that he went over in chapter one. 2) When he goes to the first school he finds out that the kids there do not have the 7 skills, they have just learned how to memorize answers for tests and nothing more. He sees this when he goes into the Science room and som of the kids messed up on their lab and their stuff started to smoke. Insted of seeing what they could have done wrong, they went straight to the teacher to see what had went wrong. 3) Throught out the whole chapter he finds very few teachers are actually teaching the kids how to commuicate, use critical reasoning, and problem solving. 4) One teacher that he did find was really helping the kids with the 7 important life skills was an Algebra teacher. The teacher made the kids learn how to solve problems on their own without help from the teacher and the teacher also had the kids work in groups so they could figure out the problem, which caused the kids to use teamworking skills. Although this was a good classroom the rest of the classrooms in that school were not as well managed. 5) At the en of the chapter he talked about how the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) act was not helping children learn, it was actually making the problem worse. The NCLB act is only teaching kids how to take tests and not how to use critcal reasoning and the other skills they need to make it in this economy today. The global achievement gap is only becoming bigger because of this.

First day of Field Experience

Friday the 18th was my first day of my field experience. I am teaching kindergarten in Zimmerman. I was nervous when I first got there, the teacher, was my kindergarten teacher when I was little. When I got there I found out it was dress up day for the school. All the little kids had on super hero costums on and were really hyper. I helped some of the kids read and got to know a few of them. Throughmy first day I found out that little kids are so exceited to learn new things and it is really easy to get them happy and excited for things. I can see why so many people want to teach little kids rather then older ones. Although I still want to teach highschoolers I can see how much fun it could be to teach the younger kids. By the end of my first day i was no longer nervous and am really looking forward to go back agian.

Obama's Budget Proposes a significant Increase for Schools

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/us/15education.html?_r=1&ref=education
On monday, President Obama proposed a budget increase for the Department of Education in 2012. If this gets passed more federal mony will go to the public school system and will maintian the maximum amount of money for the pell grant, $5,550 per student. It will be hard to get this program passed my the house republicans, who are already proposing to cut $1.1 billion from the Head Start program, by doing this, 200,000 chilldren would be left without services and more than 50,000 jobs will be losed by the employees of the Head Start program. President Obama thinks that in order to remain competitive, this nation must increase the number of college graduates. If the House Republicans proposal passes, over the next 10 years, $56 billion will be cut from the pell grant program and many people worry that cutting the pell grant will cause mny low-income students to not go to college.
After reading this article, I really hope that they do not cut money frm the pell grant and many other educaional systems. Education is no something that we should be cutting down on. Insted of paying about $1 billion on a new vikings stadium we should be puting more money back into schools.

Transforming Africa Through HIgher Education

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/17/world/africa/17iht-educSide17.html?sq=africa%20education&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1297299619-mFsPh0M5utuqX+ntw9fEgQ

             This article is about a man named Patrick Awuah, he is from Ghana. He went studying abroad and when he returned he had wanted to change the higher education system. He founded a liberal arts college, Ashesi University College, in 2002, at the Ghana's capital, Accra. When he first started it there were only 30 kids and now there is 470 students. The students are required to do community service before they can graduate. They are working on building a new campus that can accommodate 600 students.
              I thought that this article was really good news for the people in Ghana . According to the United Nations Development Program Report, only 65% of people in Ghana are literate and only 5% of the population has done any type of post-secondary education. I think with the new opportunities they know have they will be able to make those numbers higher and give those people more opportunities for work. According to the career service director at the Ashesi University, the students that graduate from their college have 99% placement rate within 5 months of graduating.

Bullied 02/08/2011

 Today I watched the movie Bullied, as a teacher this movie hs shown me how just how erious as bullying can get for the vicitim. In the movie you see a young boy being bullied by his peers and when he goes to the teachers and they do not help and they do no even punish the bullies for what they had done to the little boy. Because of these kinds of things the little boy gets really depressed and does not feel safe in his school, he tries to kill himself at one point and when that did not work h ran away.As a teacher I would never want any of my students to feel unsafe in school because things like bullying are very serious problems in todays schools and should not be taken lightly because it can have deadly consequences if not taken care of. Later on in that little boys life he decieded that he wanted to punish the people that had done nothing for him earlier on in his life. He won the case and the school that he came from had to pay him  $900,000. Not ony did he get to have the school pay for what they had did to him but he sent a message out to many other kids who were and are being bullied in other schools, and gives them hope and lets them know they are not alone. As a teacher I hope to prevent as many bulling situations as I can, because this is a serious issue and needs to be taken care of.

The Global Achievement Gap - Chapter 1

The first chapter ofthis bok asreall informative ad touched on any aspects of studnt development. At the beginning of the chapter he talked about how people are more worried about how well the teacher is teaching and not how much the kids are actually learning. He talks about how sine teachers are supposed to teach the kid cetain things, just so they can pas the required tests. He talks about how they are just teaching the kids how to take tests and not how to use their heads to come up with their own ideas and figure out probems on their own insted of constantly being told how tt do things.
He goes on to talk about what kids, in this day and age, need to be able to do survive in this industry. There ar 7 of them; critical reasoning ad problem solving, collaboration across networks, initiativ and enterpreurialism, accessing and analyzing infomation, effective oral and written communiction, curiosity and imagination, and finally agility and adaptability. He also talked about how kids today do not know what is going on the world and how this is because of the U.S. educaton system does not put any emphsis on it. This last thing I did not believe at first, because i grew up with the news but just the other day my friend told me she did not know who our Vise Presidet was. This shocked me and I do believe that this is a problem because they need to be informed about these things so they can make their own dicisions on important topics.

In the ‘Glee’ Era, Youth Choruses Pop Up All Over

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/us/04bcchorus.html?_r=1&ref=education

This article is about the rise of members in choirs in the Bay area. The show Glee has inspired many kids around the United States and has caused a rise in the number of people joining the choir.  According to a recent poll by the National Association for Music Education, nearly half of the music teachers surveyed reported that  the TV show Glee had increased interest in their offerings. this new rise in members in school choirs has caused the music cuts to slow down.
I myself like Glee and I find this article a very good thing for the kids. they are feeling more safe to express themselves and at the same time it is minimizing the budget cuts in the music department in schools. It always surprises me how much of an impact little things can have on children.

Skills students need to succeed class 02/03/11

Today in class we watched a video on what students today need to succeed. the first one is, all students need critical thinking and problem solving skills. This one is very important because today we are just taught to memrize answers and not actually learn the reasons why we do things and think for our selves. another skill that was discussed was that we need to be effective and oral communicators. With todays technology we are groing less and less able to communicate verbally. In school we mostly learn how to write and not taught how to verbally commmunicate, even though in working world most job require verbally communication over writing. another big one that was mentioned was we need to be curious and imaginative. Students need not only to know the answers they also need to be able to create their own ideas to grow in their carriers.

Atomic Learning

A few days ago we were introduced to Atomic Learning. I feel like I will be using Atomic Learning a lot because I am not that good with computers. There are a lot of really good resources on the site and intruction videos on how to do things. I plan on using this site all througout my education and maybe even after.

Why I want to be a Special Ed teacher

I have wanted to be a special ed teacher since I was 14 years old. When I was 12 years old we adopted my three cousins, all boys and were the ages 10, 6, and 5 months old. Their mother, my aunt, was a heavy drug user and alcoholic, all three boys were born addicted to herion and were not taken care of when they were babies. The two oldest boys were diagnosed with reactive attatchment disorder, which basically means they are not able to connect with anyone and do not have a conscience. They would, and still do, act out and have a lot of troubles in school. I was always the one to watch them and help them in school work. I have been helping them since I was 12 years old and although it is not easy all the time I like doing it. I like helping people who really need it and I feel like by being a special teacher, I will b able to help people.