RE: Targeting Kids

This article is talks about what we all know is happening around us. The thing is, its not that we don’t want to do anything about it, it’s that we cant. I have heard of all the things to do, no shopping day, no buying gas day, anything of the sort don’t work. As long as I have been in university there has been days like these and I have tried to follow along with it, but nothing changes.
The point is that the media is much too strong. They know how to develop things that draw the students in and make them want-to-want things. Half the times these students don’t even know why they have decided to want these new things but they need them.
I think that the only way we are going to help them is to encourage them to be themselves and trust them to be able to make proper decisions in the end. If we inform them of the choices that they have and teach them to look at advertising through different eyes then they should be able to figure things out for themselves.

RE: BLUEBERRIES

This article was about a teacher who thought that he had full interest in his students and thought that he was that teacher who really cared for his students. He ends up realizing that they are all different and he really never noticed that before.

I am saying now that I will be that teacher!!
I grew up in a school where it was so big and the teachers never really got to know their students…almost like the U of L or other universities and we are one of the smaller ones. I hated it. I never felt like I needed to care cause my teacher didn’t. So why should I try if he doesn’t even want to teach me as a person.
Ever since then, I have started caring more, getting better grades and I am sure that it has to do with the classes where the teacher actually cares. I feel as though all students are different in their own way. As a teacher you don’t have to go to the extent of changing all you lessons so that there are 38 different lessons per class, but you can alter each day to relate to different students. I think that this would be the way to go and take time to really get to know them or be able to talk to them about something different than the lessons that they are learning. This would be a great thing because then they know that you re recall care about them and there is nothing better for the student to know then that.

ADO

I remember times like that, where we were introduced to a new Shakespeare play. I also remember every single sight that not only I let out, but that every student around me had to give…quite loudly as I remember.

Really though I also remember a time that we learned from everything around us and things were not always sugar coated or put gently so that no one was offended. If we always went around worrying about others being offended with everything that we did or said then we would never be a loud to actually be an individual. Wouldn’t it be a shame if we were not able to actually be ourselves? Does anyone remember the show Pleasant Ville? Well I remember that everyone was exactly the same and the amount of censorship was so much that there was al loss of colour. Who wants that?

So then here I sit and I have to think about what I would like to be like, as a teacher. I know that I will not censor everything; there will probably be times when I have to and don’t want to. Then there will be others when I should; but if I want the students to learn, I may just go against the judgment and not. Both ways I think that some need to and others not. I believe that as teachers we have to use our judgment and give the students a chance to learn. If that involves learning something that has a guy’s head on a spike and a very detailed version of what he is seeing in his death then that is the way it has to be.

Certain things (like Shakespeare) have made it many centuries without censorship, why should we start now. If we take away the imagination of great writers how can we expect our students to become one, I guess you could say something like this…

“Yes Johnny that’s right, you can write a play about anything you like and your
imagination is your limit, but you can’t do this or this and maybe you shouldn’t
mention this and this too. Oh, and take that out someone will get offended there
too. Other than that you have a good Idea on your hands.”

I think that will go over great!?

RE: Wash Your Glasses First

This was an excellent article. It covered what many students think about school. Not only what we think about when we are in school (Jr. & High) but also what we all think about after we graduate and are trying to decide what we are going to do with our lives.

Why do we learn about things that don’t matter to us in the future…atmospheric pressure?

Now I sit back and think first of about how we all know to wash the glasses before the greasy pans. We have been taught it by an angry parent or have learned the hard way. I really have know idea why there is not a class like this in school where we have the chance to learn about the things that really matter in life. Why is it that we have to have certain courses to gradate? When I graduated we had to have Bio. 30, Phys. 30 or Chem. 30 amongst other core courses. I understand the English, Social and some of the Math, but really Sciences!! I barely made it through them and now ask me if I remember all the parts to a cell. Nope.

I do understand that this is to teach students something that they may be able to use when they graduate and decide what they area going to do, but I think that we could change a bit of the Pythagorean theorem so that we dong have to spend a whole unit trying to figure out the Sin/Cos/Tan of things and get on to the car/house insurance bit. Not to mention it would have been helpful to learn a bit more about the credit card debt or how to start up mutuals in order to be able to retire.

It is understandable that you have to teach the curriculum, but I think that as teachers we have the ability to bend it a bit so that the students find it a bit more relatable to their daily lives. That should be our goals as teachers anyway.