Technology this Week

I never knew there was a program called Inspiration. This program has some neat graphics and such to help teachers create maps and charts to assist in their students' learning. Not only could teachers work with Inspiration, but students could use Inspiration to make a concept map or a flow chart of events/literary elements of a novel they read in class. Concept maps always helped my writing, and I am sure they will greatly help students who are visual learners and have trouble organizing their papers. Technology used to be extremely intimidating to me, but I believe I'm starting to get the hang of it now...

Middle School

For my Teaching Middle School class, we had to read an article about the chaotic situation that is occurring in many middle schools today. The article, "Trying to Find Solutions in Chaotic Middle Schools," explains that some schools in New York have become K-8 and even 6-12 schools just to avoid having a middle school. There are many things in education I feel are pushed to the side, such as literacy and exceptional children, and here is a situation in which middle schools are being tossed to the side because no one will take the time and effort to reach out to these children. Middle school students are difficult, but it is not entirely impossible to teach them; all it takes is a little creativity and patience...

Technology

This week was a breakthrough in technology for me. I created a web page using Expressions... which I never knew existed until I was given the assignment last week. Expressions can seemed difficult at times, but once I got the hang of it, creating my web page went pretty smoothly. I will keep adding things to my web page so that students can view it and get links to various sites we might use in the classroom. Not only did I create a web page this week, but I also worked on several flyers, which were a bit less complicated than the web page. I already knew how to create a flyer using Microsoft Word, but I was new to using Microsoft Publisher. Publisher is great due to its templates which make it user-friendly! I might get my future students to use Publisher to make flyers for book projects. Technology can be incorporated into the classroom in many ways, and I plan to assign my students technological work so that they will become accustomed to using computers before they reach high school.

The Many Images of Middle Schoolers

In Fires in the Middle School Bathroom, Kaleen Cushman and Laura Rogers explain that middle school is a critical time in which students are trying different "images" on. One day, a student might have the ambition to become a rock star,the next day, that student might want to become a scientist. The toughest thing about my middle school years was that I couldn't figure out "my place." I would hop from clique to clique, putting on different images, hoping to fit in. I never have liked cliques... and I plan to attempt to mingle students together in group work and literature circles. Students need to become global citizens... I know that sounds like a huge goal (because it is), but I think the first step is to de-clique the middle school.

The Fear of Teachers

I recently started reading Rafe Esquith's Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire, and have come across many extreme "ah-ha" moments. I can relate each point Esquith makes to myself or to a previous teacher.
One of the first points Esquith explains is that many teachers attempt to scare students, trying to intimidate them so the students will not act out in their classrooms. I never stopped to think of my fear of teachers... but I have started to think about the one teacher I feared the most...
This particular teacher was not friendly and easily became ill at me if I repeated a question another student had previously asked. I was not at all comfortable in this teacher's classroom, and could not learn to my potential because I was afraid of asking this teacher a question. I dreaded coming to this particular class, and often dreaded going to school because I knew I would have to go to that class. I guess I forgot about this teacher for a while, until I started reading this book, but it is utterly obvious to say I DO NOT want to become this teacher...
In addition to the concept of "fear" in a classroom, Esquith explains that teachers must establish a trustful classroom- a classroom in which students trust on a reliable, dependable teacher, and teachers trust the hard-working, diligent students. Esquith explains this trust must be discussed in the first day of class, and I plan on talking about this "trustful classroom" with my future students. I find that Esquith's concepts about trust can not only be applied to teaching, but to life in general. Esquith explains that teachers should stick to their word, and once students lose the teacher's trust, it can never be gained a hundred percent back. This past year, I have gone through situations in which trust (or lack of trust) was the reason why a problem was occurring, and have realized that Esquith's words apply to every part of life. I'm sure everyone has faced hardships of someone breaking trust, and I do not want to put my future students through that disappointment. The foundation of a wonderful teacher is trust, ad I plan to establish that with my future students from the get-go.