Opinions

It's my understanding now that many people who preach that freedom of speech and expression should be upheld, and those expressions respected, do not uphold this belief for those who speak the norm, the majority, anything moral (I think you all can grasp that), anything Christian, anything mainstream, etc... It seems that they are open-minded so long as the issues spark controversy, but when someone believes something age-old (perhaps that marriage is between one man and one woman), those speeches and expressions are suppressed and/or cut down.

In turn, people who were previously listening to others who were telling them to be "open-minded" abandon this effort in order to protect themselves. Why be open-minded about others' beliefs if they threaten your own?

Seems like a vicious cycle, doesn't it? Apparently this "respect" and "safe atmosphere" only applies to students, not peers. Peers get the crude jokes, jump-down-your-throat tactics, the woe-is-me attitude, instead of the stretch to understand why someone is believes the way he or she does. The attitude I have received from my peers--not just here and now, but long into my past--will not negatively my respect and value in others' opinions and beliefs. I will try my damnedest to keep my mind open, and though I will not push my beliefs on others, make no mistake that I will hold on fiercely to them and vehemently defend them against hostile attack if needed.

Most of my blogs are learning tools, as you know. So taking what I have noticed about peer-to-peer relations, we need to realize that this can go on in our classrooms as well, especially between students who have been in school/class together for quite a while.

So how do we promote respect and understanding between students? This is not the first time that I have reflected on the LARA method or tools for promoting respect in the classrooms. I can see that I will definitely need to devote even more attention to this in the future.

Have a nice break, everyone.

Reflections on a Semester

Wow, I am so glad Break is here! They weren't kidding when they said that this program is A LOT of work! I feel so accomplished.

So things started off a little rocky. I wasn't sure that I was going to make any friends or really like the program, even though I felt that I was here because God willed it. (But still, don't we all doubt Him sometimes?) When I got here, my nerves were immediately eased by Ashleigh coming and sitting next to me (Thanks!) and the amazing preparation and understanding of the professors. I dived right in with open eyes and managed to get all of my work in before the deadlines.

Sometimes it's hard to figure out the reason behind the lessons we're doing. But I think the past two weeks have been soooo insightful and helpful. Maybe it's because I've subbed before, but I feel completely prepared for next semester in the schools.

Ah, just a short one, but I have to run and go do my presentation today! (First day nerves are back!)

Homelessness and Secondary Education vs. Elementary Education

Just a short one.

I was thinking today about why I chose to be secondary instead of elementary, because I really love the little ones. But I decided that I really can't deal with the emotional aspect of kids, because most of their feelings are irrational and their peers are not a support system for them yet. Sure, they'll go and tell the teacher when one kids pushes their friend, but they will not necessarily be able to tell another kid not to worry about what another kid said to them, like "You have cooties."

But in secondary education, kids have friends who act as semi-consistent support systems. I mean, not every kid does, but many do. I feel like I'm not explaining this well, but I think it helps students stay more grounded than they would otherwise, especially in a public school system where kids seem to be much more volatile, rather than being home schooled or something. Drama factor.

Imagine being a homeless student who moves around a lot and needs support and has trouble making friends for fear that their secret will come out, or that they will be embarrassed, or that they will be forced to move again and lose their friends. I think it's really important for the adults in their lives to stay consistent. We're not going to be their best friends, but they should be able to rely on us for help if they need it.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Quick One

Whew, this week has been BUSY!

I just wanted to touch on some of what we learned from our New York friends last week. I really like what they said about what they wanted from their teachers. Don't play favorites. That's a good one, and sometimes it's really hard to avoid because we tend to like certain people more than others, but I think we definitely need to make a conscious effort to treat our students equally and not point out that we have favorites...even if we do.

Second, they said that they should get rewards when they do well. Ya, definitely. I'm always so worried about discipline in the classroom, but what about the kids who do well consistently? I had a teacher who celebrated the students who always worked hard for good grades, and it was so cool to be recognized for my efforts. And I want to reward the kids for improvement too. And it's not just a piece of candy for the right answer. Rewards come in the form of encouragement and praise for participation in discussion. We could have a day of games and pizza in the classroom. There are lots of ways to do this.

I also loved that they told us not to try to relate to them. We see it all the time, the parents who want to be cool, so they forgo responsibility in order to get their kids to like them. Their kids still think they're dorks though, and they become resentful that they weren't parents and never respect them. This is the same for teachers. Our priorities should be their education and well-being, not getting them to like us. Respect is much more important, and that is achieved through taking care of their needs.

One more clarification

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the great feedback on my last post. I wanted to address something that Caitlin said, because what she brought up is really important. I'm having trouble putting the clarification into words though, so bear with me!

I do want my students to feel free to voice their opinions in my classroom. Definitely! I guess I am trying to avoid students just giving an opinion rather randomly, and that detracts from the issue at hand. There is a time and a place for discussion, and opinions should be voiced then, but not during a lecture or something as a way to get focus on that person. I think that the Discipline presentation said it really well--it is a disruption when a student is continually trying to bring attention back to him or herself. I know that's still really not clear, and I want to stick to not naming names, so I can't really lead it back to the point in class that prompted me to write that. So I hope that helps!

-Crash

Mounting Frustration? No, Mountain of Frustration.

What happened in today's class bothers me more and more. I don't like to let things get to me, and this is certainly no different, but I think there are lessons to be learned from it.

Some people may find this post controversial, because I am using the classroom discrepancies from 649 and the Union Reform "discussion" as a learning tool for the future.

Here is exactly what I learned from it:

-When a group is presenting, I am not going to let another student interrupt their plans and drive the rest of the class away from the presentation. It is disrespectful and will not be tolerated in my classroom.

-I will instill a notion in my students that just because they have an opinion does not mean they have to voice it.

-I will push home to my students how to communicate so that they are not always on the defensive. Just because one person is voicing an opinion does NOT mean that he or she is attacking someone with a different opinion.

-LARA: Listen, Affirm, Respond, Add. This is a good method. The method of "Listen until you form your own opinion and get caught up in it and then REACT to someone else" will not be tolerated.

-When the class stops being respectful to each other, I will stop the class and give them a break and/or continue on without further discussion. Some topics do get pretty hot, and kids need time to cool off. Taking a break after a particularly heated debate to re-realize that the people around each of them are all humans too, with their own feelings and emotions, will give them a chance to gather their thoughts and regain composure.

-I will also push home the notion that the only time a real discussion can take place is when every single person lets go of their need to be right.

-When I begin to feel that a person is cutting others off, not out of excitement, but out of their complete disregard for others and their feeling that what they have to say is more important than everyone else, I will give that person a "respectful reminder card" (see below) and ask him or her to take a break in the hallway. (To clarify the excitement statement, I understand that people get really caught up in a thought and get really excited to share it. That's understandable. Most of the time we will say, "Oh, sorry for interrupting!" after the fact. But people who begin their statements with, "Sorry to interrupt," are usually not sorry at all. They really believe that their thoughts are more important to voice. Again, disrespectful.)

-Under no circumstances should a student target another person for their beliefs, opinions, lack of opinion, etc... Nor should a student target the rest of the class. It is unlikely that they will know enough about everyone else in there to make an assumption or generalization or launch an accusation at the whole class. It will not be tolerated for a kid to do that to one or all of his or her classmates. (I felt targeted today. It prompted this post.)

I obviously need to work on a lot of these things too. I often times tune out people who have bothered me with his or her attitudes and/or opinions in the past and do not show him or her the respect that he or she deserves. I promise I will work on this, but I would really appreciate if the rest of the class could work on that too. Honestly, this was the most ridiculously disrespectful class in which I have ever had to sit. If attendance hadn't been required and the group presenting hadn't been so awesome, I would have walked.

*Respectful Reminder Cards are going to be yellow cards I give to students during classroom discussion (or otherwise) when that student is treating others with disrespect. It will have some guidelines to cooling down and also for what respectful behavior should look like. After the student takes five minutes to read this and collect him or herself, he or she may return to class. If the student gets two cards in a day, it results in loss of participation points or an essay stating why his or her behavior was not acceptable and how he or she could adjust in the future. If a student receives three, it results in detention and he or she will be asked to sit in the office or disciplinary room until class is over. All of the rules of respect I have talked about in this post and the others are subject to RRCs if violated.

I'm not trying to target or offend anyone, although I am calling out the problems of the classroom today. I don't know if anyone will even read this, but at least it's off my chest now, and I've been able to document my goals as a result of these problems.

Respect

Hey, so yesterday I wrote a blog on teaching respect. Then today in class, everyone was completely disregarding what everyone else had to say. It was a very disrespectful environment, and I was kind of uncomfortable after a while.

I think my main "on the fence" opinion with unions is that people need to wait until they get into their school systems, then decide. Traverse City has a really weak union, so if I were to move there I would want to strengthen it to provide more protection for the teachers. I'm not familiar with other school systems, but the cases at many others are different. I'll just have to see when I get wherever I am going.

Just to Clarify

I am not against tenure. I am for tenure, but not for every teacher that works in the system for a few years. This is something that needs to be earned, and the teachers should be required to keep up standards in order to keep their job protection. That is kind of contradictory, but I think it's fair to say, "We will protect your job as long as you're doing your job well." Perhaps they need to undergo reviews periodically--every five years or so.

School's Social Importance

As a substitute teacher in Traverse City, I came across a lot of issues where I thought that students were seriously lacking in their social education. I'm going to give an example and then explain its significance.

I had two students in an English class one afternoon--let's call them R and T. The directions were for pre-assigned pairs of students to work together to do a very simplistic assignment that would take no longer than one class period, if that. I was the regular substitute in this classroom, so I knew all of the students well, and I know that the teacher had paired R and T for a reason. Both of these students vehemently refused to work with each other. R claimed that he would rather jump out the window than work with T. T said that he would kill R if he had to work with them. Both students opted to face detention and possible suspension, rather than work together.

I think one of the social skills we have to teach is RESPECT.

"You don't have to like each other. You don't have to want to work together. You don't have to be friends. You DO have to learn to respect each other because you DO have to work together."

I didn't get this education until I reached college. Sometimes I struggle with my attitude toward people. I can get pretty haughty and believe that I am right, and if I don't particularly like someone, it is hard to open my ears and listen to them, regardless of what they are saying. But, it is really important to understanding each other and functioning in the real world, as well as our very small microcosm right now. So I do listen, and I do try to gain understanding of others. I think that if I don't like someone, instead of shutting them out, I do try to find something about them that I do like. But this is not something we can impress upon kids if they are so adamant about hating someone.

What we can do for our students is to constantly demand respectful relationships in our classrooms. We've probably all been in that classroom in which the teacher did not stand up for respect, and a student got carried away in a discussion or decides to start picking on another kid, and the teacher didn't want to go out of their own comfort level to stop the problem. Well, I never trusted those teachers. They were chumps. The teachers who demanded that every student be treated with respect by every other student during every second of the class were the ones who had productive, insightful, lasting discussions. They were the ones whom I trusted. And my behavior toward other students in these classes exemplified the respect being demanded of me, even if I didn't like a kid, even if I didn't agree with him or her.

And these are real-world skills that kids need. What job allows you to be crass and disrespectful to other employees? To be sure, the only examples I can think of involve being part of MTV 2 programming.

Another reason we need to be teaching this is because, to be honest, parents are teaching their kids garbage as far as social skills go. Here's another example. My mother is a librarian, and her library has computers that people can use for whatever. A girl came in and demanded to use the computer one day. She was about 14, and her parents were not there. Her mom had dropped her off and driven away. She was very disrespectful to my mother, although my mother was perfectly polite to her. After enduring rude comments from the girl (I can't remember what she said now.), my mom finally said, "This is my place of work, and you need to treat the librarians in here with respect." The girl replied, "Well, my mother taught me that respect is something to be earned."

So apparently this girl had been taught that respect level starts at 0. There is no reason to respect anyone who hasn't proven to you that they are respectable. Basically, this girl will not function in the world and is likely to be beaten up if she crosses the wrong person. Can you imagine her acting rudely and saying that to one of her volatile peers who is also going through hormonal changes and doesn't quite have control of their anger? Just sayin'.

We have to counteract these asinine lessons that they are learning at home.

OK. Enough for now.

Twitter

I'm kind of frustrated with Twitter, because it won't let me follow certain people, and it won't let me un-follow others. Grrr. So I'm blogging about it instead.

Nothing to do with teaching.

This is the best ad I've ever seen. It came from my SKI magazine, and it's from Vail, Colorado:

The rarest and most precious luxury in the world today is...

a blank canvas.

The pure, undiluted moment.

No LCDs, no FYIs, no PTAs.
No deadlines or treadmills
or laugh tracks.

One beating heart
and five hungry senses,
a child before the world.

Isn't that the feeling we long for?
Work so hard for?
Travel so far for?

To see,
to touch,
to taste,
to breathe,
to hear
yourself be.

A mountain wall 7 miles long
Behind it, 7 china white bowls, famous from here to Timbuktu.
More groomed snow than anywhere on this planet.
An average of 30 feet of virgin powder each year.
And 300 days of blue, blue sky.

VAIL. Like nthing on earth.

....

Ya, that was sweet. I freakin' love powder skiing.

Homework: finished!

Mmmm, I finished the literacy journal about 30 hrs ahead of schedule. Usually I am a last-minute kind of girl, but working with my classmates on the assignment really helped me stay focused on the assignment. APA format is not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. I think it's much less involved than MLA, so that was cool. I'm just glad that it's done and turned in. :-D