Kate EDU 402

This presentation was really enjoyable and all of the hands on activities really helped my understanding of the topic. Integrated curriculum and collaboration among teachers was something that I had a small understanding of prior to this presentation from previous education classes and my time in the classroom during practicum, and this presentation built on my knowledge and gave me a deeper understanding of what exactly integrated curriculum. My personal favorite activity was the final activity with the chart, it wasn’t quite as exhilarating as the marshmallow and spaghetti activity, but I found that it was really helpful and was exactly the kind of situation that an integrated curriculum would create. I also just think it’s really interesting that certain topics that are more math “based” or more social studies “based” can be broken down and extended into multiple different subject areas. Collaboration is something that can be really tricky if you’re faced with someone who doesn’...

The first entry that really spoke to me was the first entry of this section, entry 136, From Students to Teachers. The reason I really loved this entry is because it was very visible that the teacher was changing their student’s life. One of the reasons this entry really spoke to me is because this is the kind of thing I want to inspire in my students someday when I am a teacher. You can see the change that this teacher made in Luis’ life from him not caring about an assignment to being inspired to be a teacher himself. I just really loved reading about the impact that this teacher had on their students and how inspiring their teaching was for their students. The other entry in this section that really spoke to me was entry, 138 which was called Student Coming Out. These kinds of entries always really hit a chord with me, because it’s one of those things that always makes me think about what I would do in a situation like that. The way this teacher tried to help her student really ...

I really loved team two’s presentation on poverty, for a lot of different reasons. I learned so much from their presentation and thought that it was an extremely informative and insightful look at poverty and how poverty affects students. Through the different activities that we did, we got to know, even if it was only for a couple minutes, what it was like to live on a poverty budget and what kind of sacrifices people who live in poverty make. This was a really fascinating activity and I feel like through that activity alone, I learned more about living in poverty than I ever had before. I also really enjoyed the speed dating activity, while learning about different possible solutions to problems is really interesting, getting to talk with our classmates and get different kind of ideas and insights from others about the topic was really interesting, and gave me even further insight into this issue. One of the major things I took away from this presentation was how much stress students...

Episode four of The Story of Schools focused on the more modern age of education, spanning the time period between 1980 and the early 2000s. This was by far the easiest episode to relate to as, some of the things that they discussed in this episode were in place when we were in school. One of the parts of this episode that I found really fascinating was the part where they talked about funding in schools. I was always under the impression that public schools were funded entirely by the state and federal governments and that school’s success would influence the amount of funding they received, however in this episode I learned that that’s not always true. Before this episode I had no idea that there were some schools that received money from private businesses to help fund things like computer labs. Another part of the episode that I found really really interesting was the voucher bill, which was implemented so that poor families could send their kids to upper level schools and get the...

Episode one of The Story of Schools focused on the early roots of the American school system, and this was incredibly fascinating because I feel like, when we think about the origins of education, we sometimes forget just how far back that history goes. I certainly never venture back to the early 1800s when I think about the history of education, even though it definitely did exist, even though it looked far different than it does today. This period of time (late 1700s-late 1800s) was when education like one room school houses were very popular, while one room school houses continued into the 20th century, they originated in the 19th century and were much more popular. One thing I knew before I watched this episode, but was still interested in learning about was how white boys were really the only ones who received educations during this time, girls were sent to schools to learn to be proper women and African American and other non white students were refused completely from getting an...

When A Nation at Risk was originally published back in 1983, it highlighted some of the major issues that were facing the American education system. Most of these issues were societal issues that the article was intending to highlight to make Americans realize the major issues in our education system. The article also talks about concerns that people have about our system, and the issues in our system. In the follow up article A Nation at Risk: 25 Years Later (or A Nation Accountable), we’re told about all the changes that have been made to the education system in the last 25 years, but despite all those changes, our system is still very far from perfect. Our system is still very much improved from where it was 25 years ago and we have made great strides to our system to improve it, and we will continue on in hopes to continue to improve our system to finally find the balance and create the ideal system for students, teachers and everyone else involved. While we now have systems in pla...

The first journal entry from the section titled Rejuvenation that spoke to me was entry 124, “Empowering Young Women”, the teacher in this entry works full time as a middle school teacher and then works with at risk young girls in a disadvantaged neighborhood so that they can have a positive female figure in their lives. As someone who was lucky enough to have wonderful female role models growing up, I understand the teacher’s need to be a role model for girls who maybe don’t. One of my favorite parts of his entry was when the teacher was explaining why she helps these young girls, “because I [the teacher] was a young girl once”, and I think this statement not only reigns true with this teacher’s mission to help young girls, but also our overall mission as teachers. We were all students once and know what kind of teachers we enjoyed and what we wished we had had from our teachers, and carrying this with us will only help us become better teachers. The second entry that spoke to me ...