A story I read recently on Facebook that affected me was a post where a woman claimed that allowing our children to dress up as the beloved Disney character Moana for Halloween, was disrespecting the Polynesian culture. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Thankfully Auli’i Cravalho, the voice of Moana, couldn't disagree with this opinion more. She is from the Hawaiian Islands and finds no disrespect to her culture when she sees little girls dressing up as Moana for Halloween. I applaud her for that stance.
I think the bigger picture we need to look at is the mom's opinion of this costume. Is her elementary school age child trying to mock the Polynesians, so they dress up as Moana? I think the more likely scenario is that they hold Moana in such high regard, as an icon to look up to, that they want to emulate her on Halloween by dressing like her. Then I think its the mom with the hang up, and by restricting her daughter from wearing this costume, I believe she is teaching her hate and discrimination.
This shows me think that the bigger issue is the hate we teach our children. Our kids don't know hate until we introduce them to it with our own prejudices. In this instance they just wanted to be like the people they look up to, and we have to twist that into something mean and dirty.
I know this isn't applicable to every situation, but I think we need to really look at our opinions and see who is being effected by it. Sometimes kids need to be informed on why certain things they may say or do are offensive, but within reason. Don't take the purity of a child and twist it unless absolutely necessary.
Hate breeds hate. It's a vicious cycle that won't end unless we kill it with love and acceptance.
"Here are the values that I stand for: honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values." -Ellen DeGeneres
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Monday, October 22, 2018
How do I learn?
We as a society are starting to realize that everyone learns in a different way. School systems are now starting to accept and adopt new ways of teaching that will help to cater to all types of learners. This is such a big deal for those learners that can't be placed in a perfect box, and often would get left behind.
I feel my learning style is one of the more common types. I learn by example. If I am asked to complete a task, whether it is a math problem or to create a Google Classroom, I will do a much better job if I first have an example to follow. I guess that would make me more of a visual learner. This comes with its downfalls, mostly when the same example doesn't always get you the same answer. I've had to work very hard to learn and adapt when my example doesn't always succeed. I think that's made me a stronger learner but it definitely wasn't an easy road.
In class, we learned about something called flip learning. Flip learning is basically where the learning happens at home. It might be a video lesson or a text to be read that is done at home. Then when the student returns to school, the teacher tests them or has them practice the knowledge that they had learned at home. I believe I would be capable of learning from this method. To be honest, this is probably how I got through most of my large lecture hall classes in college. You always go to class because it's required, but you don't always get a lot out of class time. I think this is mainly because these 101 lecture classes have almost a 1:50 teacher to student ratio. There isn't time for individualized teaching and learning. I would take my notes from the power point, but then I would do more teaching myself at home before doing the homework than learning in the classroom.
I don't believe this is a particularly good style of teaching for my learning style, but I do believe that it is a feasible one.
"Visual-spatial thinkers need to see to think." -Bette Fetter
I feel my learning style is one of the more common types. I learn by example. If I am asked to complete a task, whether it is a math problem or to create a Google Classroom, I will do a much better job if I first have an example to follow. I guess that would make me more of a visual learner. This comes with its downfalls, mostly when the same example doesn't always get you the same answer. I've had to work very hard to learn and adapt when my example doesn't always succeed. I think that's made me a stronger learner but it definitely wasn't an easy road.
In class, we learned about something called flip learning. Flip learning is basically where the learning happens at home. It might be a video lesson or a text to be read that is done at home. Then when the student returns to school, the teacher tests them or has them practice the knowledge that they had learned at home. I believe I would be capable of learning from this method. To be honest, this is probably how I got through most of my large lecture hall classes in college. You always go to class because it's required, but you don't always get a lot out of class time. I think this is mainly because these 101 lecture classes have almost a 1:50 teacher to student ratio. There isn't time for individualized teaching and learning. I would take my notes from the power point, but then I would do more teaching myself at home before doing the homework than learning in the classroom.
I don't believe this is a particularly good style of teaching for my learning style, but I do believe that it is a feasible one.
"Visual-spatial thinkers need to see to think." -Bette Fetter
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
2+2=4 but how’d you get there?
Today I’ve been thinking a lot about math in today’s schools. I just finished Math 109 (math for elementary school teachers 1) and next week I will begin (math for elementary school teachers 2). I’ve been out of school for a while now and was blown away when I saw common core in action, and not in a good way. Until I took the above mentioned class.
One of my younger sisters was completing a math sheet and I was flabbergasted at how she was doing it. What are we teaching our children? This is the most round about way to get to the right answer that I have ever seen. To be honest, I saw it as this over complicated method that had absolutely no practical application to the real world. I thought if this is what we are showing our kids, how will they be successful in the career world because numbers there don’t work like this.
Then I took my math class. It was a bit of an eye opening experience. For starters, I learned that this isn’t the only way being taught. It as an alternative way of thinking that might help kids get to the right answer. Not everyone can see a math problem and work through it the traditional way to get to an answer. I’ve learned many different methods now on how to get kids to understand a math problem. I feel like I have gained a powerful tool for my tool belt to teach someday.
The funny part is that in my head, I’ve always used a non traditional way of doing math. If I see a problem that is 65+25, I’ll take 5 from the 25 and add it to 65 giving me 70. Then I know that 70+20=90. That’s how my brain has always understood math, and I didn’t even realize it.
I hope for the future I can remain open to new teaching methods without bias, because you never know how helpful they could be.
“Without mathematics, there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you is numbers.” –Shakuntala Devi
One of my younger sisters was completing a math sheet and I was flabbergasted at how she was doing it. What are we teaching our children? This is the most round about way to get to the right answer that I have ever seen. To be honest, I saw it as this over complicated method that had absolutely no practical application to the real world. I thought if this is what we are showing our kids, how will they be successful in the career world because numbers there don’t work like this.
Then I took my math class. It was a bit of an eye opening experience. For starters, I learned that this isn’t the only way being taught. It as an alternative way of thinking that might help kids get to the right answer. Not everyone can see a math problem and work through it the traditional way to get to an answer. I’ve learned many different methods now on how to get kids to understand a math problem. I feel like I have gained a powerful tool for my tool belt to teach someday.
The funny part is that in my head, I’ve always used a non traditional way of doing math. If I see a problem that is 65+25, I’ll take 5 from the 25 and add it to 65 giving me 70. Then I know that 70+20=90. That’s how my brain has always understood math, and I didn’t even realize it.
I hope for the future I can remain open to new teaching methods without bias, because you never know how helpful they could be.
“Without mathematics, there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you is numbers.” –Shakuntala Devi
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
My opinion on the the pros and cons of technology in the classroom.
Technology in general has become such an important part of our lives. So much so that the American Academy of Pediatrics doesn’t even state a specific limit of screen time for kids ages 6 and older. They just state that it is important to have consistent time limits for them. I believe they do this because they understand how “normal” it has become for kids to encounter some type of screen in their everyday lives. My husband and I have decided that my daughter is only allowed an hour and a half of screen time on school days, but we realize that this doesn’t include the screen time she has at school. Chrome books have become the norm for kids in elementary schools.
I think technology is fantastic. I can’t imagine having to grow up in a time where I couldn’t contact my husband immediately with a text or a call. What does this mean for our young children though, who are much more vulnerable and impressionable? I think it has to be very closely monitored. My daughter used to play a game called Roblox, which I thought was a cute harmless game (as long as the parental controls were at their highest) until I heard of some awful things hackers were doing to other kid’s avatars in the game. Now I know teachers aren’t using Roblox in the classroom, but that doesn’t mean kids are wandering off to other sites during class time. I’d like to think that if a classroom has chrome books, then the website restrictions need to be high.
I remember my younger sister once was on YouTube, and she told me to watch a video of SpongeBob speaking another language. Well he wasn’t speaking another language, a voice had dubbed over and was just constantly swearing and using other vulgar language that she had never heard so to her, it was foreign. They have a kids YouTube that I let my daughter use, because the evaluation of these videos is rigorous to make sure they are child appropriate. In general I would have to say my only con is the fact that inappropriate content can always slip through the cracks unless we as teachers are vigilant in watching what our students do.
The pros are just the vast amount of knowledge that is opened to our kids. I remember when I was in elementary school and I had a project to do, I’d consult my parents encyclopedias. They had the whole alphabet. So between those and the books I’d check out at the library, that’s where my research would come from. Now when I sit at home working on a research project, I can find any and all information at the tips of my fingers. Even published scholarly journals from my library I can read at home on my computer.
I once once subbed for a 4th grade classroom for two days in a row. Every morning after the announcements, their teacher would play CNN 10 which is a 10 minute video that has current events on it and is different everyday. They students would watch this, write down some notes of what they were seeing, and then we would have a class discussion. I loved this. I thought this was such a good way to get the students involved in what is going on in the world around them and then start a conversation about. These kids have opinions, voices, and questions that want to be heard, we just need to give them the opportunity to express that.
Technology is only going to continue to expand from this point on. It does not appear that it will become stagnant at any point in time. If we are not keeping our kids abreast of these changes they’ll be behind in the working world. In my skills sections on my résumé, I always put down what computer programs I’m efficient in because they are our norm. A lot of the older generations such as the baby boomers and generation x-ers were not growing with technology like the xennials, millennials, and our current generation of children are. So with our economy down like it is a lot of older generations are being forced back into the work force. This is problematic for them because they don’t have the knowledge of technology necessary to obtain a well paying job and a lot are forced to get jobs that might only be at minimum wage.
We need to keep our kids current on the changes in technology. Not only to help them throughout their educational career, but to help them become successful and accomplished adults.
“The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.” -Steve Ballmer
I think technology is fantastic. I can’t imagine having to grow up in a time where I couldn’t contact my husband immediately with a text or a call. What does this mean for our young children though, who are much more vulnerable and impressionable? I think it has to be very closely monitored. My daughter used to play a game called Roblox, which I thought was a cute harmless game (as long as the parental controls were at their highest) until I heard of some awful things hackers were doing to other kid’s avatars in the game. Now I know teachers aren’t using Roblox in the classroom, but that doesn’t mean kids are wandering off to other sites during class time. I’d like to think that if a classroom has chrome books, then the website restrictions need to be high.
I remember my younger sister once was on YouTube, and she told me to watch a video of SpongeBob speaking another language. Well he wasn’t speaking another language, a voice had dubbed over and was just constantly swearing and using other vulgar language that she had never heard so to her, it was foreign. They have a kids YouTube that I let my daughter use, because the evaluation of these videos is rigorous to make sure they are child appropriate. In general I would have to say my only con is the fact that inappropriate content can always slip through the cracks unless we as teachers are vigilant in watching what our students do.
The pros are just the vast amount of knowledge that is opened to our kids. I remember when I was in elementary school and I had a project to do, I’d consult my parents encyclopedias. They had the whole alphabet. So between those and the books I’d check out at the library, that’s where my research would come from. Now when I sit at home working on a research project, I can find any and all information at the tips of my fingers. Even published scholarly journals from my library I can read at home on my computer.
I once once subbed for a 4th grade classroom for two days in a row. Every morning after the announcements, their teacher would play CNN 10 which is a 10 minute video that has current events on it and is different everyday. They students would watch this, write down some notes of what they were seeing, and then we would have a class discussion. I loved this. I thought this was such a good way to get the students involved in what is going on in the world around them and then start a conversation about. These kids have opinions, voices, and questions that want to be heard, we just need to give them the opportunity to express that.
Technology is only going to continue to expand from this point on. It does not appear that it will become stagnant at any point in time. If we are not keeping our kids abreast of these changes they’ll be behind in the working world. In my skills sections on my résumé, I always put down what computer programs I’m efficient in because they are our norm. A lot of the older generations such as the baby boomers and generation x-ers were not growing with technology like the xennials, millennials, and our current generation of children are. So with our economy down like it is a lot of older generations are being forced back into the work force. This is problematic for them because they don’t have the knowledge of technology necessary to obtain a well paying job and a lot are forced to get jobs that might only be at minimum wage.
We need to keep our kids current on the changes in technology. Not only to help them throughout their educational career, but to help them become successful and accomplished adults.
“The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.” -Steve Ballmer
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