Assessing & Parents

Assessment in school is used to check how much the student is "learning." It seems to be a common misconception that how a student performs on a test or assignment is how much they have learned. Really, a student can be learning about a topic and be very knowledgeable about that topic but they may not find the assignment or test meaningful, and therefore they receive a poor grade because they do not see the purpose of the assignment or test. Also, the opposite can be true. A student might only be memorizing the answers or methods to get a good grade on the assignment or test, and then once it is done with, they cast it aside and do not care about the information. It seems like when we focus on performance for assessment we miss the true purpose of the education system: learning. Teachers, parents, administrators and government officials keep telling us that test scores, GPAs, and assignment performance are the proof of learning. I know personally that this isn't true. I have taken classes that I did not perform well on the homework because the assignments didn't promote learning, or I did not like the style of the assignment and how I was graded. I am not very creative, nor am I gifted at art. When teachers include creativity and artistic style in the rubric for an assignment (i.e. posters, PowerPoint presentations, 3D models, hand drawn pictures) I would score very low and it would throw off my overall score. Yet, when it came time to take the test, I would score above 90 percent. My grade would only average out to around 83 percent because of several assignments that incorporated creativity or artistic talent. All the other scores were generally above 90 percent, but because those projects were weighted heavier, they would drop my grade. If I'm doing well on the tests and bookwork assignments/papers but struggling with creative assignments, wouldn't that suggest that I perform better with bookwork and research papers rather than trying to be the next Rembrandt? Why should I be penalized for not being creative when I have the necessary information and grammar in the assignment to receive an A if it didn't include the creativity and/or artistic talent? When I was assigned more creative assignments I started to just do them so I got it done because I wasn't going to get an A and my grades suffered even more because of it. If teachers would look at the individual student's talents and weaknesses and have other options for them based on their strengths students would be able to choose what fits them and receive the grade they should get based on just the information and grammar without the creativity and/or artistic design aspect.

This, of course, assumes that grades are the reasons for assessment. Assessment in the Rochester School District is based on the performance of students in class.
It happens to be the district that I went to school both for my education for my K-12 education and my cooperative teaching assignment. The school district still holds on tightly to performance on tests and assignments. It even stratifies the different levels of how students are performing. If a student is struggling in school they get put into a lower level class. If students are performing at an acceptable level they get placed in the standard level class. If students are performing exceptionally well they are placed in a higher level class at the high school or at the local community college. I see this as a problem for the students that are struggling because they know if they are in the lower level class because either their friends tell them they are in the lower level class, other students pick on them for being in the lower level class, or the student is told they are being put in a lower level class. When they hear this, they become less motivated to do well because they know they are in the lower level class. I saw this in my classroom because many students in CORE History would not try to do well on their assignments because they either thought that they weren't smart enough or they thought since it was a lower level class that they did not need to try as hard to get a passing grade. When there was a discussion about a topic that they were learning about in class they would say the correct answer or give a response that would be acceptable on a critical thinking question on a test or assignment. But, when asked to write it out in paragraph form or even just write the answer they just said verbatim on a piece of paper, they rarely did it. I worked with some students and I know some have learning, physical and/or mental conditions that reduced their ability, but there were some that just flat out did not do the work. I don't know if it was because they thought since the class was a lower level that they did not need to do the work, or if they were just being lazy, but often it took several days to receive the completed work after multiple reminders to work on and finish the assignment.

What this tells me is that we need more than just a paper or rubric style of assessment of learning. Having a personal conference and asking the student what they know about a topic or answer questions verbally may be another method that would work better, especially in the classroom I was in for CORE History. It might not give the best set of numbers for a teacher, but I don't believe in the numbers as much as "do they know how the topic fits in with and/or affects their daily life?" A worksheet or a paper might help show them what the information is, but what good is information if you can't use it? I'm not going to be put in a situation where I need to know when the Constitution and its amendments were created, but I do need to know how they affect my daily life. Can I pray in a public school, can I publish a story about teen pregnancy, do I have to testify against myself? These are things that people are faced with every day. Not only should assessment be about if you know the answers to these, but do you know why these came to be? It is harder to assess this, but I'd rather assess an individual's opinions and beliefs and their reasoning behind them than see if they memorize some information and bubble an answer on a bubble sheet.

Now, research shows that parent involvement with their student's school and school community is the number one factor in student success. First, do we know the research is accurate, and second, what is the standard measure of success? Well, I'll assume that the research is accurate and there is a standard measure of success. Still, how do we get parents involved in the school community? Aside from requiring parents to be involved, there isn't much that can be done to get the parents involved. Sure, we can send them information by email, school newsletters, and phone calls, but we cannot make them come unless we require it for their child to be enrolled. But, I believe that when we are forced to do something, we tend to do just the bare minimum we need to get by. If all the parent needs to do is show up for a PTA or PTSA (parent teacher [student] association) meeting once a month, then that is all they are going to do: show up. I really don't see how we can get the parents to be involved besides requiring it. Also, some parents just don't have the time between work and getting their family members to where they need to be, plus cooking and shopping time. I suppose we could lie about their student's performance and say we are concerned and have them come in and make a general statement about how their child is performing (without revealing the actual grades) and suggest to them that if they become more involved with school events and organizations that students tend to perform better, but that is deceiving and manipulating the parents. The Rochester School District sends out newsletters, emails, phone calls, and handouts to the students and tries to inform the student's parents about school events and organizations that they can join or help set up. It isn't required that the parents be involved and it is more o a passive effort than an actively sought effort. I believe the school district realized that the parents that want to be involved will get involved when presented the information, and that parents that don't want to be involved won't be involved. I can agree with their view because that is generally how parental involvement in school organizations and events happen (from what I have observed by my and my friends' parents). We can try to have parents involved with the school, but really I see it just as a glittering generality (sounds good but really ends up being empty or unsuccessful) that we have no control over, even if we tell the parents that if they are involved with the school community that their student will perform better. So, even if the research is accurate and success has a standard measurement, we still have little control in parental involvement.

Teacher Development

During the course of my observations and teaching I have been to several different meetings that are to promote teacher development. Every Monday during first hour, the teacher of Core History, Core Science and Core English meet and talk about what they are doing, offer suggestions about how to improve the course, discuss their curriculum and note any students disrupting class, skipping class, or performing poorly in class. Surprisingly, this has been the most useful teacher development session that I have been to. The teachers help each other build their curriculum to help meet the needs and the diversity of the students currently enrolled in Core. If one teacher notices a certain method of doing an assignment results in better participation and higher scores (had to include that, especially because of NCLB) then that teacher states it and the other teachers try to figure out if they can do anything in a similar way. Sometimes it's hard to find something that works in English, History and Science, but just the fact that trying something new works is a great discovery if it helps the students out. They encourage and support each other when things get tough or if they want to go on field trips that they feel promote what they are doing in class. I will try to promote this at my school because it is good to know what is working and what isn't with the students.

There was an early release day for the students while the teachers went to a speaker. Unfortunately this wasn't the best use of the time. The speaker talked about his battle with physical and mental problems in his life. The goal was to promote the issue of mental disorders and diseases and awareness of them. The problem was that we got more story than information.
We may be more informed about the issue of mental illness and the effects on students because of them, but we didn't learn about what to look for in students. The speaker talked about how he felt and what it was like to have depression, MS and loss of vision over the course of his life. It was informative and told the staff how damaging these diseases are, but it lacked on how to identify and/or prevent the symptoms of mental illness. I talked to my teacher about the presentation briefly and she agreed that the speaker told an interesting story and explained clearly how damaging mental illness can be, but there was a lack of information about how to spot a student that may have a mental illness and how to approach the student, the administration and the student's family about the issue. If I have amazing ideas but lack the ability to communicate them clearly, I might as well know nothing about those ideas. That is what the presentation felt like to me. I felt that we could have spent the 2+ hours differently and either learned more about how to identify mental illness in a student and how to report it so the student receives help, or received information about a new teaching method that was showing promise. I felt like the staff was being paid to listen to a story more than being taught how to identify mental illness in students and how to report it so it is handled properly and the student receives care.

During our lunch hour we went to an empty classroom and watched some informative videos with several other teachers about how to obtain effective control of a student without being controlling. Basically the message of the video was to give the students as many choices as possible and have the result of any of the choices be acceptable to you. The supervising teacher clarified it by giving an example of getting a child prepared for bed. Ask the child if they want a glass of water before bed. If they say yes or no its fine because it still leads to the overall goal of going to bed and you can accept either answer. If they want water, you ask if they want bathroom water or kitchen water. Again, either answer is fine. If the child is small enough, ask if hey want to be carried up the stairs or if they want to walk up. Either answer is acceptable. Does the child want to be read a story? The answer doesn't matter because you don't mind reading them a story but you won't mind not reading one either. Then, if the child asks if they can still stay up, you tell them that he or she has made all the decisions lately and now its time for the parent to make the decision. This was an interesting concept, and I haven't seen an appropriate place for a choice in the classes yet, but we were told that giving the student the control as much as possible when either answer is acceptable and reasonable to you. Asking if the students want tomorrows notes on an overhead or PowerPoint slide show was an example of how this idea could be used in class. While not exactly useful so far, I could see it being used in the future.

Another development meeting during our lunch hour was about creative writing projects. We met with an English teacher that was promoting creative writing at all three public high schools in Rochester along with several other teachers from the high school that were learning about new teaching methods as well. The acronym for the creative writing style we learned was RAFT, standing for Role, Audience, Format and Topic. The role is who you are supposed to be; like a slave, a certain celebrity, a friend, etc. The audience is who you are writing for, like congress members, the president, a friend, readers of a newspaper, etc. The format is what the project could be. Possible formats are letters, a ship's log, a diary, a slogan, a commercial/campaign ad ,a top ten list, a newspaper page, etc. The topic is what you want them to write about. This creative writing template is useful because it can help students create their own project for a certain topic in class. If the teacher allows them to create their own creative writing assignment in their own style and from the perspective of their choice it gives the students a greater range of choice while still having a structure they can follow. I like the idea but our classes have not had the time for a writing assignment because finals are this upcoming week and here have been other projects that were due, so we did not want to overwhelm the students. I was allowed to keep a template and I will try this in the future, because I can see this working better than asking them to write a paper about a certain stance about an issue or a topic. If students want to they can choose a format that would closely resemble a "typical" paper, like a letter or editorial in a newspaper if they prefer the standard paper format.

So I have witnessed some beneficial and not so beneficial teacher development. It seems like when teachers interact with other teachers it helps promote development, and when the staff all listen to a speaker they more or less get paid to listen to someone talk. Sure, this was only one instance, but if the others are similar, then the development is more like a two hour break from teaching, grading, and preparation for future class lessons.

Interactions with Diversity

I had a few interesting experiences. For the Core History class a Paraprofessional is in the classroom to help keep students on task and to talk to for help on assignments and notes. One day she was absent and the substitute was very interesting to talk to. He talked about the current and recent politics since one of the discussion topics of the day was the political primaries and caucuses. When one student supposedly hit his head the Para escorted him to the nurse and when they came back he told me that the student was interested in finding out about the Para because they were both the same race and the student was intrigued by the Para and asked about his personal life while they were traveling to and from the nurse's office. I will admit he did not look like a "typical" teacher. He had gold teeth and was rather short. He told me he is a hip-hop DJ in his spare time, and it looked like he would fit the part. I also understood why the student was so interested in talking with the Para and the Para said it happens a lot because he knows he doesn't fit the typical teacher "mold."

During some computer lab time later in the week I was assigned by the Para to help a specific student because he was farther behind on an assignment than the majority of the others. I've noticed during class that he does not take notes very often even though he sits in the front row. The Core History class was assigned to write a paragraph explaining why the Americans won the Revolutionary War. While I was helping him I noticed that he had a difficult time turning audible directions and hints into written words. When I asked him what his reasons were he responded with what he had written down before. But when I helped him explain why those reasons helped the Americans, he would say an adequate answer but would not write down what he said without a prompt. This happened for all the details he was writing for the paragraph. I noticed this and tried something different for the final sentence. I told him that he final sentence should be similar to the topic sentence. He looked at the topic sentence then told me what the topic sentence was, and i told him to write it again but in a slightly different way. Then he mumbled to himself and got into a writing position and had his hand and pencil where he would need to write the final sentence down, but he froze. This was similar to the other sentences that he had written, so I told him not to worry and just write down a sentence stating the main reasons the Americans won the Revolutionary War and then I would look at it. He finally wrote on his own without me helping him focus on the sentence. It was very close, and he stated a reason that he didn't use and left out a reason he did use. I pointed this out to him, and he started to revise his own work instead of me doing the word smithing.

This, along with how the Core History class has been overall has helped me realize how students learn differently. I wouldn't change anything with my interaction with the specific student because I was able to see his difficulty with writing. He loses focus very rapidly, sometimes seconds after hearing a direction or suggestion. Students with this difficulty will be a problem in my content area, because history and government are topics that require a focus on not only the specific issue or topic but how that issue or topic relates to other issues or topics because history and government often build from the past and future events are based on or changed by those past events.

Working with the student I felt slightly frustrated because after the first detail he still needed to be reminded to write down what he had just told me. I didn't let this show and I took it in as a specific difficulty he had and it also helped me understand that other students had difficulties that made class difficult for them. Looking at it now I know I shouldn't feel frustrated with a student. They are trying to learn (or at least remember the answers for the test) the subject and
look to me (or the teacher) for help.

When I look at the Core History classes I am able to teach and observe students that are several reading levels below their current grade level (10th and 11th graders at approximately a 4th grade reading level). Using a discussion lesson is not very effective because they cannot formulate critical thinking responses like the other classes can. This is rather difficult for me because I believe that critical thinking is where true learning is. Who fought in the Revolutionary War and when it was fought isn't as important to me as why the war was fought. Sure, the class knew that the Americans were fighting for freedom from England, but they couldn't create an answer for a question about why freedom was important and what it meant to be free. Compare this to the Sociology and Government classes, the Sociology and Government classes could interpret and analyze the Constitution and generate and defend reasons why certain actions were or were not Constitutional in certain landmark Supreme Court cases. It is interesting to see that all the classes can learn from a lecture format, but Core History needs repetition and guidance to retain the information. I find the teacher I am observing saying information several times and asking students at the end of the class about certain key points that she wants the students to remember. Compared to the Sociology and Government classes, she only says the information once and moves into a discussion or activity that requires critical thinking of the information just presented.

I've learned that not just student to student, but even in general class to class the students can learn and complete different tasks differently. The Core History classes need more guidance and repetition of information to retain information and create answers to questions while the Sociology and Government classes can receive information and critically think about it in a matter of seconds. This will be very valuable to know in the future.

Managing Space

As I observe the classroom I have been assigned to, I have noticed a few positive and negative aspects of this particular classroom. The desk layout is a line of desks in 6 rows consisting of approximately 6 desks each.

Front White Boards
|
| _ _ _ _ _ _ |<--- teacher's desk
| _ _ _ _ _ _
| _ _ _ _ _ _
| _ _ _ _ _ _
| _ _ _ _ _ _
| _ _ _ _ _ _
Back

This minimizes the tendency to copy other students' work but increases the possibility of students in the back talking during lecture and not giving their attention to the teacher. This also decreases the amount of space available for activities that require movement around the classroom. There has not been any activities so far that require this, but there could always be an idea that would in the future.

The back wall of the room and around the top of the walls all around the room are covered in Time Magazine covers. I have found this to be distracting because during prep and professional time in the room I have a desire to look at the covers and read them. Also, the ceiling is covered with lawn signs for candidates that have run for elected office currently and in the recent past. This adds to the distraction because it is visual noise. The teacher's desk is off to the side so she is not the focus of the students, the white boards are. The front podium is off to the side as well so when she is lecturing or giving notes on the overhead she is still not the focus, the notes are.

There are windows on the left side of the room with adequate curtains to prevent or allow light in. There is not much to look at out the windows, another building and a chain link fence is all you can see from looking out the window from the desks.

Overall this setup is a common setup (besides the Time Magazine covers and election lawn signs) and the students are familiar and comfortable with it, which I believe helps them be able to focus more on the teacher instead of their friends and the layout of the desks.

What Educators Do

Being an educator is one of the most important things anyone can do today. Not because humans need to learn to survive, (because survival instinct comes naturally) but because humans need to correct their past mistakes and influence the future of mankind. Teaching students well is the goal of an educator, and it does not happen often.

Today, educators and legislators are more focused on test scores and grades more than the actual benefit of information and what it could be used for. Educators that focus on grades and test scores are only teaching students that they should do what they are asked to the best of their possibilities, and, if their work isn't good enough, they will not succeed. This is teaching. Teaching well takes information from the subject and challenges the students to think about what they believe or what they aspire to do with the information and then apply it in their own lives outside of school assignments and tests. An educator shouldn't just give a student information and have them regurgitate it later. An educator should challenge a student's thoughts and beliefs about certain information and allow the student to develop their beliefs based on information and questioning. Then the student will not only know the information, but the information actually affects their decisions later on in life. Here is an example: Is the Revolutionary War important? Some argue it is because it was the war that allowed the United States of America to exist. But is that really what we should know about the war? No. It isn't the fact that we won the war, but the ideals behind the reason of the war. We fought for what we wanted, what we desired, what we demanded. The war showed us that humans can band together and fight for their future even if they aren't experienced in war, and outnumbered, and create a country where the people value having a choice of who leads their country and be able to change who leads them. That is what we need to know, and base our political process on that fundamental. But we should not just blindly follow it either, we should question it to every scrutiny. Does the process work, what are the potential problems, what if someone does not relinquish their position, what if our leader dies? It is how we interpret the past and answer them in the present that shapes our future. Not just for politics, but for every subject and topic known and unknown to mankind. Teaching like that is teaching well. Don't focus on grades. Ancient Greece developed many theories and improvements to living, and most of the teaching and educating came from philosophers lecturing and questioning current ideas and theories in public. We have developed from ancient Greece and have modern technology, but we have also grown away from this style of learning. We were able to advance in science, language, and politics from these philosophers lecturing and questioning others in the streets. If we were able to advance then, who says that we cannot advance from it today?

YouTube reviews

As I watched the YouTube videos I started to think about our concept of teaching, educating, and learning. I disagree almost entirely with two of the videos, and agree almost entirely with only one. Teachers are not necessarily mirrors. In my experience growing up in school and being in class doing some teaching, observing, and grading, teachers do not have as much influence as the video wants us to believe. Even with the most upbeat, caring, energetic teachers I have seen students be lethargic, apathetic, and negative within the classroom. This is evident in my current assignment with my teacher. She has a group of students that are in a slower curriculum called "CORE" that lumps together students that are not on par with the majority of students in the high school. She teaches the history section of CORE, and there are two other teachers: one for science and one for English. These students know that they are in the slower curriculum, and knowing so, they are less likely to "put forth the effort" like other students in my teacher's other classes do, even if they are on the border of failing. The teacher I am observing tries to generate interest by incorporating newspaper articles that the students read at the beginning of class into a discussion and she tries to instill some positive response from the class, but the students still do not respond like the mirror the video suggests.

The other video I disagree with is the "Do You Teach or Do You Educate?" video. My philosophy sees both as being the same. Teaching and educating both involve a teacher, mentor, or other leading figure to improve knowledge in a certain area, in my philosophy. There are many ways to go about this, and no single way is inherently more successful than another. The video argues that teaching is just filling information into someone's mind, and that educating is directing someone down a path to something, it does not say what, but I estimate that it is an answer or knowledge. I don't believe that is really any different than the video's definition of teaching because leading or guiding someone is still placing a philosophy of one person on another, the one thing my entire life philosophy, not just educational philosophy, tries to totally avoid. We should not be telling others what to believe or trying to guide them to an answer. We should do what one quote (the only part of the video I agree with) states: "Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel." Guiding and leading someone is filling a vessel with a biased opinion. Sparking someones interest in a subject and asking questions about their interest and beliefs, that is what I believe is the objective of a teacher or mentor. Not leading someone in a direction or guiding them down a path, but opening new options and discoveries for them and letting them take in what they want and how they are going to use it in life. That is what I believe education should be.

The montage of clips from movies almost embodies my educational philosophy down to the letter. I have seen a majority of the movies that were used, and it shows the many different aspects of what a classroom can be like. Sometimes you have an unruly classroom that doesn't listen to the teacher, or even any school authority, sometimes you have students that don't want to be in school, and you even have students that aren't being challenged enough. You have the administrators that are out to get particular students, you have teachers that aren't sure about themselves, teachers that slack when it comes to grading, unorganized teachers, controlling teachers, and teachers that dare to defy curriculum and popular theories that don't work and inspire the students to look beyond what is in front of them and expand the views of their students. The second half of the video displays these teachers that inspire students to break free from what is in a book and learning it just for the sake of learning it and taking the information and finding their own way to use and interpret their new knowledge. This affects the future lives of our students and other people in the world. Whether it is calculating the physics of a rocket's trajectory, breaking free of the mold that society accepts without thinking, even inspiring and motivating a class to improve their schoolwork (because everyone knows grades are the most important, instead of shaping a new and better future by opening the doors to undiscovered results, ideas, and philosophies) or challenging the minds of students that could not pass basic math addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to shoot for passing AP Calculus and proving to them that the students themselves control how and what they do with the information that is given to them, teachers need to give their students the chance to explore new idea and concepts, not confine them to what a book says and what people consider "essential information" that everyone needs to know.

Grades Aren't Everything

What were your priorities in school? Were you focused on learning for the sake of learning, or just trying to be able to regurgitate information to get a passing grade? Were you concerned more about knowing information because it was useful in life? Or were you concerned with your GPA so you could get into the college you wanted? I know I was more concerned in passing my classes instead of learning. I wanted to get into Luther, and I knew that my GPA would influence not only the chance of getting accepted but also the chance for scholarships. I never really though about the skills and abilities I was being taught, I was just so focused on getting into Luther.

In high school everything that I did involved a grade. Participate in class, earn points. Present a PowerPoint Slideshow about a Supreme Court Justice, earn points. Take a test about certain cabinets and leadership positions in the government, earn points. We are teaching students that school is just about getting points that give us a letter grade indicating our performance. Students complete homework because their grade depends on it and they don't take the time to analyze what or how the homework impacts their life. We aren't teaching skills, we are teaching labor.

In college so much more attention is put towards how daily life is impacted by what we are learning. Take Physics for example. There are properties of individual parts of particles that act differently when viewed on a microscopic scale than when they are viewed at the total particle level. If we can understand how ideas like this can work like this then we can figure out why certain things happen in life that we didn't understand before. This discovery is learning.

Because this is drastically different from what we do in elementary, middle, and high schools, students have to change their thought process and sometimes work ethic to match what a college expects. Sure, college is harder than high school. But this difference in application of knowledge is what can make a "perfectly capable high school student" fail and drop out of college.

Another thing to consider is that grades are not standardized. To reach an A in a math class may take more rigorous work to complete daily assignments and weekly tests with enough problems answered correctly, while in a psychology class a student might just need to conduct a few surveys and state their results to receive an A. Obviously the math students are working harder but receiving the same grade as psychology students that aren't working as hard.

Hard work is another problem with grades. How do you tell if someone needs to work hard to complete an assignment. I was strong in math, so I could complete a math assignment in ten minutes and receive an A while other students would work for hours and only receive a C. Is that something that should just be accepted, or do we need to change how we evaluate learning? Do we even need to evaluate learning?

I believe teachers believe to strongly in evaluating the amount a student has learned by ways of homework and tests. Think about it. If a student is just able to take a certain amount of information and regurgitate it back on homework or a test and forget about it because the class has moved on from that, did they actually learn anything? No. They are just working hard enough to get the grade they want and be as lazy as possible. We promote this more as we increase the amount of homework and testing done in class.

What we need to do is look back to the way the ancient Greeks taught. A scholar would talk about a subject, and if it was a debatable subject present different arguments for different sides, and the students would ask questions and take notes. There were no tests, no homework, just an open forum. The students learned, those students in turn taught the next generation of students, and civilization progressed forward. If it worked back then, who says that it cant work now? Cancel your homework assignments and postpone your tests indefinitely. Give interactive lectures and demonstrations, and let the students interact or create their own demo about the next subject you teach. They will be more interested and will actually learn something and remember it for years to come.

We Are Losing the Arts

Do you remember your high school music and arts programs? What were they like? Did they have a strong representation within the student body? How were they treated by the administration? I remember mine quite well. My high school had some of the strongest music and arts programs in our district. Yet, the student body and the administration did not like the music and arts programs.

Our choirs, bands, and orchestra always performed well. Entrance into the top choir, band, and the orchestra was competitive, and many people who tried out did not make it into the highest group, but they usually made it into a group. Concerts were always sold out and the community enjoyed the performances. The top choir would even perform at churches in the community and was always well accepted. The top band and orchestra would perform at local district performances with other bands and orchestras as well as individual performances. We also had many art classes, from drawing to painting to sculpting to woodworking and metalworking. Students enjoyed those classes and their creations would be displayed in publications within the school. There were no problems between students other classes and the students in music and arts classes.

Still, the student body looked down upon the music and arts programs. They never liked the directors or teachers and they didn't want anything to do with them. If there was a rehearsal going on and it interrupted certain things that happened everyday, like taking over space that could be used during students' free time, they would complain and became more vocal about it over time, even though it was only a few times per year. Students would complain in other classes that the music and arts classes were interrupting with where they could spend their open hour or that they had to go to class while the music students had a rehearsal the day of their concert and missed class. The other students didn't realize what needs to be put into a music class to make a performance a success. I would say that they have little experience performing in front of an audience in a non-physical way or have not performed in front

What is worse is how the administration treated the music and arts programs. If a sports team became a little too rowdy at a game or caused damage in the locker rooms they would just have the coaches talk to the sports team and that was that. But if anything happened in the music or arts areas, even leaving a little trash on the floor or a scratch in the wall, the principle would come in and talk to the class and take away certain "privileges" that the class had, like coming in during an open hour or during lunch to work on a music piece or their artwork.

What is happening to cause this? Are parents pushing that sports are more important than music and art and that people who participate in sports are doing something more worthwhile? Somewhere we are losing the desire for creativity and increasing the desire for physical competition. Without creativity we will lose new music artists and songs, new instrumental compositions, and new television cartoons in the future. Is this what we want for the future? We need to encourage music and art more. Don't lose sports, but increase the amount of focus on music and art.

Special Education?

I will warn you ahead of time that I am not against persons with disabilities, but rather look at society as a whole and determine the use of resources on those who will produce more efficiently as a better use of resources.

There are many debilitating diseases and disorders that affect many people around the world. Some just shorten the life span, some deform the looks, and some affect the mental development of humans. Every case is tragic, and I would like cures and preventions for all of them.

One thing about these cases that affect the mental development of a person that concern me as a future educator is how effective teaching them really is.

I know everyone is entitled to an education in the US, and I believe that should be true for everyone no matter what. But, depending on the severity of the mental disability, is there a point where it becomes more expensive to try to educate them and try to let them lead a life as close to normal as they possibly can? Or should we always strive to reach out to the full extent and spend freely trying to educate everyone to the best of our abilities?

Is it fair to the other students in the school if the school spends more money to teach a student requiring a constant aide, special transportation, free meals, and special classes, tutors, and other professional help than it does spending the same amount of money teaching five students who are not mentally disabled? (I picked an arbitrary number, just for the sake of argument)

Now again, I do believe that everyone is entitled to an education, but it does seem strange that we could be spending more money on one person who finds it more difficult to learn than on the five others when they could be provided with even more opportunities like extra-curricula activities, music, art, and after-school classes that they would be interested in if the money was spent on the other students.

Special education students need this money spent on them though. I would not like to deprive them of the education they are entitled to. Everyone deserves the opportunity to learn, and who am I to take it away? In my opinion it would be interesting to see what could be done if the money spent on special education was spent towards the schools in general. The possible extra class choices could benefit the students and lead them on to things they wouldn't normally have chosen. But the same could be said about educating special education students as well. Still, if the money was put towards extra classes and extra-curricular activities, students might also be more interested in school because of it.

Another issue with special education is how much will a special education student be able to give back to the community? I know several who do, but I also know some who do not. Again it depends on the severity of the mental disability, but are we spending the money in a way that benefits every special education student, ways that benefit special education students that will be able to give back to the community, or ways that just benefit the majority? They are difficult to determine because I don't believe in sacrificing one person's education for someone else's belief, and would not be fair to the special education students.

So, special education is necessary, but what could be the possibilities if the extra money was spent elsewhere? It could be good, or it might not make a difference, but it would be interesting to know.

Controversial Issues

Why do we bother with censorship? When you watch television and you hear a bleep or see a blur, most people know what is going on. Do we feel that our children are going to be corrupted if they are ever exposed to anything that they wouldn't see or hear at a church? At a school students are going to interact with other students that will introduce these things to other students whether it is intentional or not. I know, from my personal experience, many students that both learned new things from other students and told things to other students. Some students were interested and curious about these things that they had been "shielded" from, and some wanted nothing to do with these things that they had been "shielded" from.

So knowing that, in some form or another, the students are going to learn things that their parents do not want them to learn, why are we not talking about "controversial issues" in class? There are many current events that students are interested in that we as educators are not talking about. We have something that students are interested in and completely ignore it. We could be developing the skills of reasoning and empathy by looking at the issues and each viewpoint.

I believe that we are losing these skills of reasoning and empathy as a nation. People in the United States tend to care about themselves before even considering others. This does not bode well because we are only a part of the world, and our standing in the world is decreasing when viewed from other nations. Large SUV's, a lack of an efficient public transportation system, being aggressive and starting wars without a solid, definite reason, and having an arrogant and ignorant population that only cares about themselves creates an image that most cultures would scoff at.

Of course, there is an appropriate age for this, and I would not recommend this for anyone that was not in high school. Teaching and talking about these issues can be delicate and I believe that in high school the students would be able to make their own decision about the issue and defend their view in class. The teacher would need to moderate to make sure the discussion wouldn't get too heated and prevent any religious beliefs from entering the discussion, because once they do, everything turns south. I'm not saying that they can't use their religious beliefs to form their opinion, but to start quoting from the Bible and saying that God does this to people that do that is beyond what would be acceptable in a classroom discussion.

Gay marriage, abortion, the death penalty, stem cell research, and euthanasia should be talked about in high school because there is more control over the argument so that students won't get pressured into believing what their parents believe or what the radio, television, and billboard ads tell them. The student would be able to make his or her own decision from the information talked about in class and therefore have a more informed opinion and also know why the other viewpoints have their opinion as well.

Stay on top of the discussion and the topic will see some interesting viewpoints and reasonings.

Homework or Busywork?

It is a sunny day out with a gentle breeze, just strong enough to keep the bugs away. The jungle gym is shimmering when looked at from a distance, its colors spanning all those found in a rainbow. The swing set creaks softly; The rustling of the chains is barely audible. The massive blacktop, marked with chalk and paint set the boundaries of the kickball fields and four-square courts. A gleaming, grassy field is just beyond the sea of asphalt, seems to beckon to passersby to come take a rest and lie down or play an impromptu game of football or soccer. A bell chimes out. Students rush out of a brick citadel and out to the playground, every group marking their domain. But, their time is cut short as their parents come to pick them up, knowing that there is a mound of homework that must be done before the student can enjoy the vast land of the playground.

Does this seem familiar to you? It does to me. As a student in elementary school, the playground seemed much more intriguing than it does to me today. Is it because I am twenty years old and find these things childish? No, I would love to play a game of kickball or four-square and be like a kid again. So what makes us lose our interest in these childhood past-times? Homework. Every student's third most hated phrase, falling just short of "pop quiz" and "test." When I was in kindergarten and first grade, we had plenty of play time along with some learning time. Numbers, letters, and eventually words, spelling, and memorizing our contact information were all that we were concerned about learning. We didn't have to worry about filling out times tables or reading required novels or writing research papers. We just learned something new and worked with that new information during the rest of the day and maybe into the next day or two. We didn't bring anything home besides a spelling list because that was our ticket to learning the language. All we were concerned about were playing and learning new things that seemed strange and unconventional to us at the time.

Then, from second grade on, we were taught a new word: homework. Why was I given a sheet (or multiple sheets as I became older) to complete at home when I spend five to six hours of my day in a classroom? Why can't we work on these new ideas and concepts in class like I did back in kindergarten and first grade? Why can't I just go play on that wonderful playground after school? Why do I need to do this homework?

Teachers tell themselves that homework is a way to check that their students are learning new concepts an ideas, and rarely think twice before assigning homework every day, even in elementary schools. If a student is struggling then the teacher will tell himself or herself that he or she can spend a little more time with tat student on the subject. If a large number of students are struggling with the information, then the teacher will go over the information again, and assign even more homework.

I have heard some of my teachers complain about all the grading they do and wish that they didn't have to do it. And they are also the ones assigning twenty math problems every day or requiring many tests, quizzes, and classwork regularly. It seems they don't realize that in the end they are only making themselves work harder. But, not just because they need to grade more work.

As the amount of homework increases, students tend to resent the teacher that gives them homework every day. Because of this, the students lose interest and motivation in class, and the teacher must work harder to make the class interesting and to motivate the students. What used to be a simple lesson plan of teaching a few concepts with a demonstration or hands-on experiment an giving out homework could spiral into teaching one concept and creating ways to keep students motivated and interested, including multiple demonstrations, hands-on experiments, interactive class discussions, etc. Not only does this increase the amount of work a teacher must exert in teaching, but the effort also goes into creating a lesson plan. And to top it off, the daily homework assignments must be graded as well!

Why do we insist that homework will improve students' understanding of the concepts? If a student struggles with an assignment, they may lose confidence in their abilities, and then begin a downward spiral to a failing grade. Not only would you have a decimated student that is failing in your class, but you also have angry parents to deal with, on top of all the other work that you are doing. We as educators need to re-evaluate how often, how much, and what style of homework we give to our students.

Also, a daily assignment tends to become busywork in the eyes of a student. This is even more apparent when there are similar concepts with just one or two other factors that are different. If you were teaching addition and assigned a full page of addition problems and recommended that the student use buttons, coins, jellybeans, or other small items to solidify the concept, doing the same with subtraction the next day would be slightly different but still a similar process. Students will tire of doing similar tasks over and over again and view the daily homework as boring and monotonous.

Sure, the appeal of the playground will be lost sometime after the transition into middle school, and homework can be more frequent, but it should be relevant and useful to the student, not just something to have the student do because they are a student and you are a teacher. And the transition into high school and post-secondary will give the student even more homework, but then there is no more playground outside the school, beckoning to the students, distracting them from the lesson being presented to them.

I would agree that you can't entirely eliminate homework from any grade level, but I also argue against having more than one or two homework assignments per week before middle school, because then there is no more playground for the student to have fun at. The distraction would be gone. But if we admit this, then why are we making the elementary students do homework instead of playing on the playground after school? Cut back the amount of homework given before middle school, and then we have students who are still interested in learning and have had time to be a kid.

No Child Left Behind?

So President George W. Bush encouraged the No Child Left Behind act and signed it readily when it came to him. He claimed that it would help determine which schools in the US are not meeting the standards that were set for that school by either their district or state and create a new focus of education in America.

Now we know which schools are not meeting the standards. And what would you expect a bill that is supposed to help improve education across America do for these school that are struggling to meet their standards? Give them a financial boost to help them improve or re-energize their schools. But wait, what does the bill actually do? It cuts federal funding from the schools that are not meeting their set standard.

Does this make sense? I do not believe so. When you come across a person in the desert begging for water, you don't force a glass of sand down their throat, you give them the water that they ask for. Cutting federal funding from a school that is failing to meet their standards is only going to make matters worse. Sure, you can cut extra-curricular activities, art, and music from the school to save money and focus on the standards, but then where will children get to experiment with various extra-curricular activities, where will they get to experiment with art and music? What happens to creativity and the desire to perform if we force children to dive into textbooks and chalkboards all day without something else to channel their creative, artistic, and energetic impulses?

Now, besides curriculum, there are two other factors that also should be questioned. The more glaring problem is the fact that the state or district can set their standards to a point that is so low that their students will easily meet those standards and not really "prove" what they know. If I was the super-intendant of a school board I would demand lower standards so that I could have the students meeting those standards without spending the money on just what the government believes is important content. Math, reading, writing, and science are the most important, leaving physical education, art, and music out of the picture, even though we want out children to be able to experience and choose art, music, and PE classes that interest them. With the federal money I would not neglect teaching the students the "important" subjects, but rather use that money to help keep and/or improve the music and arts classes so our children can continue to become the next Michelangelo or Bach.

The other issue that needs to be brought up is how the standards are assessed. I remember taking a NCLB standardized test that I was informed would have no impact on my grade in high school. After being told that, why should I bother taking it if there is no impact on my grade? I took the test and I gave an effort, but nothing near what I gave on the SAT or ACT. If i knew something I put it down, and if I didn't know it I just put down an answer and continued on. I didn't see any reason for me to care about the test if it didn't affect my grade, so I may not have scored as meeting the standard, although on all the other standardized tests I performed at a post high school level since I was in 7th Grade, so even at a partial attempt I more than likely met the standard. What about students who don't want to be in school, or those students that have special needs? Do we hold them to the same standards even though they dislike school or struggle with concepts that students without special needs know easily? We do, but we shouldn't. Otherwise we are allowing a bias before even passing out the test because there are students that have special needs or won't care about how they do in school. Another part of the issue of standardized tests are the tests themselves. Are they truly standardized? Are there no biases? Is the test reliable? Is the test valid? Not only do we worry about the test questions, but we also worry about the answers. Is it better to have true and false questions, multiple choice questions, short answer questions, essay questions, or matching? How do they affect the results? We never know because each class and each student is different, so can we really have a standardized test?

It sounds great, but can we really expect that we will not leave a child behind?