Blog #10- Age

I enjoyed the presentation on Age this evening. The girls started with the “Penny Activity.” Each person picked a penny out of a bag and found the date. If the date was later than your birth date, you were to think of a memory from that year. I picked the year 2009. This was a very special time for me because this is the year my best friend asked me to marry him. I only had to wait 7 years! I will never forget the year 2009 and of course the year 2010, when we were married.

A topic discussed tonight that I feel very strongly about is Childhood Obesity. This is such a serious topic today with children. I think that education regarding obesity needs to begin at home. Parents are the ones that provide their children with unhealthy food choices and that needs to stop. Parents need to be educated on what they should feed their children to give them the proper nutrition that they need. Also, it's important that children get exercise outside of school because public schools are really cutting back on their outside recess time.

Bullying is a hot topic in schools today and it is something that teachers and administrators must take seriously. Bullying is not only a physical activity but can be done with hurtful words as well. Actually, most of the time, the bullying I've seen has been with little girls and their mean words to one another. The most important thing I was taught was that bullying needs to be stopped before it starts. We teach our kids at our school at a very young age that being mean to others and saying things that aren't nice are not tolerated.

The last topic brought up tonight that I found interesting and controversial is teen pregnancy. The fact that this occurs so much more in Texas is awful. I think parents, teachers, and peers have a huge influence over teens when it comes to having sex. Parents and teachers educate them to be safe and peers can often pressure them to do things they aren't emotionally ready to do.

All of these topics have something in common: EDUCATION! Children must be properly educated on how to make correct choices in life.

Blog #9-Geography

Keeping in mind the geography of a child’s upbringing is so important. This is something I haven’t thought about until reading the chapter in the book and listening to the group presentation. As teachers, we do make assumptions about children based on where they are from and the accent they might have. But, after learning more about geography pertaining to teaching, it reminds me to keep an open mind.

I teach in a private school that is majority middle to upper class families. Almost all of the children in attendance live in the DFW metroplex and have had a suburban upbringing. I wonder how things would be different at the school if we were in a rural area in the middle of nowhere. Would we still have to deal with bullying? Would we see children talking about things that are way advanced for their age? Would five and six year old Kindergartners have electronics such as Iphones, Ipads, and Itouches?

After reading Chapter 8, it made me reflect on where I was raised and what an impact that had on me. I was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma for the first 16 years of my life. My family then moved to San Diego, California, which was a huge culture shock. In Oklahoma, everything was spread out. I played in the neighborhood until dark and my parents never worried. In California, I had a strict curfew and was given specific rules that I had to follow because we lived in such a huge city. I'm lucky to have aspects from two different areas of the United States. This allows me to have a few different views of how people think differently in different parts of the US.

Religion

Beginning to work with my group, preparing our presentation on religion, I thought this was going to be challenging for me. Here's a little history about me. I was brought up in a household where religion did not hold the top priority. My parents were both brought up to go to church every Sunday, when they both couldn’t stand it. So, they decided when they became parents, they would give their child a choice of what they wanted to do. We never went to church. Sundays were for recovering and regrouping. When I was around 7, I asked my parents why we didn’t go to church like the rest of my friends. They explained to me that they thought teaching me to be a good citizen, not lying, not cheating, and not stealing was more important than sitting in a church every Sunday listening to someone talk. But…they also told me that if I wanted to go to church to see what it was about, that they would take me. So for about a month, my Mom took me to church, and sat through what she hated most. But after that month, I got over it and didn’t show interest. I love what my parents instilled in me. Don’t get me wrong, I think religion is important, and I think the idea of believing and looking to something bigger is crucial. But, what is most important to me is that I am a well-rounded person that has good morals and does what’s right. Some believe that you need to go to church to achieve this, but I think it’s all about how you are raised and the influence your parents hold over you.

Preparing our presentation was just a reminder that everyone has their own beliefs and that we have to accept everyone for who they are and what they believe. We tried to stir up some controversy to make the presentation more interesting and I think we achieved that goal. And most importantly, I felt OK with not having a strong religious background, because everyone is different and believes in different things.

Blog #7-Language

I enjoyed both presentations this evening. The language talk made me look at how people communicate in a whole different way. We discussed the issues of Ebonics, body language, incorrect symbols, and dialect. I liked the recommendations that the group made about dealing with kids speaking incorrectly with Ebonics. They suggested to correct the children by saying, “I would like you to speak academically” as opposed to “Stop talking that Ghetto Talk!” Also, most think that it's African Americans that use Ebonics, but a point was made tonight that those that people that struggle economically, also speak Ebonics. Another controversial issue that was brought up was do we let bilingual students take tests in their first language or do we test them in English?

I found this cartoon and thought it related to what we talked about tonight:

Blog #6-Book

I read the book, The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It’s about three ordinary women who risk their lives and gain friendship.

The three main characters in this story are all women, but they do not have much in common. Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. Her mother isn't going to be happy until Skeeter has a ring on her finger, but she has bigger dreams of becoming an author. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise woman raising her seventeenth white child. Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and the sassiest woman in Mississippi. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. As different from one another as can be, these women will come together for a project that will put their lives at risk. They are all struggling with the boundaries of racism and want the lines in their town erased.

Obviously this book deals with issues of race and gender at a very sensitive time in history. But, I think that it shows how progressive women could be even back then. The main character, Skeeter fights for something she believes in, even though she crosses the line of working with African American women. It's in inspiration for all of us to look at the world colorblind.

Blog #5-Exceptionality

I thought the presentation on Exceptional Students was really well thought out and nicely stated. I enjoyed the activities and the questions that we were given for us to discuss. There are two different types of children with Exceptional skills. Those that are gifted and talented and then those who have learning disabilities. We got to debate the issue of being for or against inclusion in the classroom.

Some of the reasons we were against inclusion:
-singling out students
-low self esteem
-a lot of work and time for the teacher
-social problems

Reasons stated for inclusion:
-equality
-not singling out students
-showing children not everyone is perfect

I loved the video of Amy Mullins speaking about "disabilities." She made some great points, especially about the official definition that is in the dictionary. It is a wake up call that we don't even realize it, but we automatically think of those with disabilities as weak, but that isn't the case at all!

Blog Post #4- Gender and Sexual Orientation

I really enjoyed the presentation last night. I thought it was well organized and thoughtfully presented. I especially loved the yummy snacks they provided! I found it interesting when we began talking about the issue of same sex parents and how to approach this with children. Personally, I have been in this situation as a teacher and found that with young children, five and six year olds, a simple explanation will suffice. But, with the older age kids, I feel like the teacher needs to get more in depth about choices when one gets married. All in all, it’s about supporting the child and reinforcing the fact that everyone is different and has different family structures.

The media plays a huge role in how children of different gender view themselves. Girls are expected to play dress up with Barbie’s and boys are expected to build structures with Lego’s. They learn this from commercials, magazines, movies, TV shows, and other marketing tools. Men are displayed as the tough moneymaker and women are the weak homemakers. As educators, what can we do to show children that this is not always the case? On the same topic, we have come so far with women’s equality but men and women are still not paid equally in the work place. Do you think this will ever resolve? Will men and women EVER be EQUAL? And how do you prove to our students that they are equal when their salaries don’t show that?

When the topic of single sex education came up in discussion last night my ears perked up. This has come up a lot for me as a teacher in a school that only goes to fourth grade. Parents always ask my advice about sending their kids to St. Marks, an all boys school or Hockaday, an all girls school. I always tell the parents that what matters most is where the child feels most comfortable. Some personalities are not cut out for single sex schools. It is only a fit for certain kids.