Bloging

So these are just my view on this whole blogging deal. If I was going to compare it to something I would say its almost like writing in a journal.
I would say its a good way to collect your thoughts for a second time about what you think about certain topics.
After blogging about a night that I've had I can think about what I learned in different ways and try to think of ways to relate what I learned by relating to my own life.
If if lead a class that had lectures I would suggest to my students to blog about what they just learned so the information will be more clear in their minds.

Brains

So tonight was the first time I've actually been in the middle school in Decorah. My aunt used to live across the street so I've played on the play ground there while I was growing up but the middle school never used to look a lot different back then.
Tonight a lady talked about how the brain develops in stages and there are two key peaks in a life a kid ages 5-20. I have not heard of the second peak from 14-15 so that was really cool to hear about that, in many ways it kind of makes sense thinking back on my life a little.
When learning about what causes disruptions in the brain I thought that all of the examples used tonight were very interesting and I also that it was interesting how they all kind of related to each other in terms of symptoms.
I did like how the speaker was full of energy because really for a group of college students you really need to keep us interested or our minds are else where. I do think that there needed to be more parents at that meeting tonight, there was a lot of good information in this presentation and there wasn't enough parents there in my opinion.

Alum banquet speaker 3

Even though all of the guest speakers so far at this banquet were excellent this last speaker really inspired me more then any of them and has made me feel extremely proud to live in a town like Osage.
Mayer was just your regular student with dreams of doing something with his life. After high school he joined the air force after getting his teaching degree in history from the University of Northern Iowa. Once he joined the air force they moved him up to intelligence and just last week he helped rescue one of the prisoners held by the pirates in Somalia.
Mr. Mayer said he dedicated his success to his community, family, and most of all his teachers. He gave so much credit to his teachers for inspiring him to keep going and strive for more.

Alum banquet speaker 2

The next speaker they had at the banquet was by far the most humble woman I have ever met. Her grand daughter is coming to Luther next year and she is also a Luther grad. She was one of our 2009 honored alum, but in her speech she did not know why she got this award and that she knew she was a good wife,mother, and friend to the community.
Mrs. Ham has visited over 80 different countries around the world. In all of her travels she has learned that even though some people can live thousands of miles away we really are not that different. She has used her understanding of how she views equality to share to with my community back home.
One of her main points of her speech was also about education and how valuable it is. She would have never thought that a small town Iowa girl would end up traveling the world and sharing her stories with her friends.

Alum Banquet speaker 1

I had the honor of singing at Osage's alum banquet last Sunday and the first speaker was on the US board of ag. She was told by the president of the board of education to inspire us to do something in her speech.
This speaker talked about the value of a good education and how her parents and her community brought her up to know the value of a good education and how to use one.
She sounded very concerned for our youth that they are not getting these values as they grow up and that we are going to be no better off in this country if we do nothing to help these kids out.
This speaker used a phrase in her speech that my group based our I movie presentation on. This phrase was "Think globe-ly(sp?) act locally" Her speech tied into our thesis fairly well when she talked about how we all need to start somewhere and do our part, and if nothing is done our education system will continue to fail.

Guest speaker 3/30/09

The guest speaker we had tonight really brought in a culture that most people sitting in our room tonight have never been introduced to. The surveys shown tonight really helped myself shape how the students think. Would I say its so different over there, we both value education and family and those where the two main points of each survey. Obviously the traditions that Vietnam had were slightly different from what we are used to but I think the whole idea of arranged marriage is kind of a scary thought to most people. I honestly think though that the most frightening thing that was said tonight was how the divorce rate has been going up and how fast it has been spiking in the last century.
The question was brought up if we thought it was possible to be like Vietnam. I think all things are possible when brought up in a strong family and if education is one of the top priorities in the family I think most anything can be done. It just has to start from somewhere.
I did also think that it was hard to understand what our guest speaker was saying, I know for a fact that has done a better job talking to us then I could ever to do anyone in his country but I had to really piece together what he was trying to say and sometimes I didn't quite get the point of some of the things he was saying. That was frustrating because it was interesting to hear what he had to say but its just sad I couldn't fully understand him. I myself have been put in a situation when I was in Germany I could not hardly order anything or even ask directions so I understand how hard it is to communicate when there are language conflicts but I thought he did a very good job trying to say things as well as he did.

Chalk 2X

Our class finally finished up the movie Chalk and the end of the movie really brought the craziness down to reality. The question that was brought up the very first time was, "Is this your high school" and in many ways it is. This movie really stresses and focuses in on things that can go wrong or the things that teachers don't want to be involved with. This is not something that will be seen in a normal high school from day to day but eventually there will be days when something will happen that your not ready for.
This movie even though its main purpose is to entertain it really does portray a good message in the end, that this could be you and what would you do in their shoes? This movie did cover some things that will not be so stressed in a text book but is still just as dangerous in the working world. This movie shows that you will be put into situations everyday and you need to make a choice, sometimes the choices made are wrong but you can always bounce back from poor choices.
At the end of the video the first year teacher is having a hard time if he really wants to continue teaching or not. I don't blame him for thinking about it, in the movie he said something about how this job was a lot harder then what he thought. So I can totally see him really thinking this through because he was way over his head when he first started. You don't usually see weakness in teachers but in this video it really showed how this first year teacher reacted to the pressure and how he almost cracked. I thought this movie was well thought out, not quite what i thought it was going to be but still a very good movie and I think it had some very important lessons in it.

Chalk

I watched this movie clip of this movie called Chalk, the "Office" of teachers. Before I even saw any of the movie I was already excited to see how they planned on making a movie on the daily life of a teacher.
Was the movie far fetched?? I don't think so, that school reminded me a correctional facility. I personally think no one that goes to Luther college went to a school like that but I think their out there. I can personally say I've had classmates that are as disruptive as some of the students in that classroom but not all the students in this movie were disruptive.
To the new teacher in the movie, I think that is one of my worst fears is to not have control of my class. What would you do if you had a student or two confront you? It is not something you want, I've seen some pretty ugly stand offs in my day at school and I knew I would not want to be in the teachers shoes that had to stand up to a kid that does not want to do their work and only wants to yell at you.
This movie really does cover a lot of issues I feel about the working day of a teacher but covers up its seriousness with humor. Issues of what people think of you, having a family, fights, lesson plans, and getting out of your comfort zone.

Guest Speaker.

So I thought it was nice that we were able to hear from a teacher that is not starting out. Someone that has been in the teaching field and is still going.
When he talked about how he student taught in the elementary level and then was placed anywhere he was needed I'm sure it was quite frightening. It was also nice that he wasn't just placed in rural Northern Iowa. He got out there and experienced a lot of different things that Northern Iowa doesn't have to offer. Though it was nice that he did admit that anywhere you go there will be a problem and it probably won't be the same as Northeast Iowa but they will have something and you will have to deal with that.
I thought it was frightening to think about how he said to keep from burning out switch your job up. Move from grade to grade and at times subjects. Some schools don't offer you to move around so much. Sometimes your family keeps you at a certain job because your spouse is also working in the same area. It is not that easy to just move your job around like that and he made it seam like it was nothing. I mean there might be the chance that I could switch from high school to middle school but what if I'm already teaching both.......what then?
Just something I thought about, even though this man had great job experience I don't his experience can help me out too much when it comes to music.

Teachers

The other day we had three new teachers come into the classroom and speak to us. All of them were from northeast Iowa and two of them were from the same school and ended up working at the same school. The other thing in common that all three of them had is that they all went to Luther.
It was nice to hear some stories about how their schools are and how they got through the program. Some students talked about how they wanted more of a diverse group of teachers then what we had. I agree with that but at the same time I really enjoyed having all teachers from small schools because that is where I want to teach, and hearing their stories of their small school experience was great.
I dont know if I want to end up in northeast Iowa for teaching but I do really want to get into a smaller school where I can connect to the students as well as those teachers have.

Paper Clips

A few days ago my ed. physc class watched a movie called paper clips. It was about how this small town in Tennessee taught a select group of middle school kids about the holocaust.

I really didn't know what to expect of this movie when it first started. It was really hard to think about how these kids were only in middle school. I think I remember talking about the holocaust when I was younger but I don't really remember anything from that time. I only recall learning anything solid about the holocaust my Junior year of high school.

Also going along with how young the kids were in this movie the videos my class watched in my class were hard for me to watch so I can't even think about how the kids must have felt. They even had speakers from that period come and tell their stories, which I feel was the most valuable part of the class, and I'm sure that was not easy to listen to.

I thought overall the movie was alright, I think they strayed away from the big picture of the movie a few times and it was hard for me to get back into the seriousness of the subject when I see butterflies on sidewalks.