I'm sorry we didn't get to fully discuss the Strike chapter last night. I've talked with Lauren; she will start our next class with her remaining Strike questions, then we will move on to the new stuff. Bring your Strike book!
Also, I ran across The International Portal of Teacher Education today. It's a clearing house for ed research related to teacher education. You can find summaries and abstracts of research articles, but then have to track down the full text articles yourself (but there's often a link). I thought it may be useful as you look for additional articles for class or for other research.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
While we were discussing our experences, last wed night, about punishment and prison,I felt that in some ways our society has paid more concern to punishment than finding out why a person is misbehaving. We hear about tardies , ISS, supension and it seems that admins are documenting bad behavior to leverage students out of school.They want documentation on what they have tried and failed to do. Instead of Iss or supension, why not have students sit down with a school santioned psycoligist for 45 min. Maybe some of these kids that are acting out can express what is going wrong in their lives and work their problems out. Maybe this will be help for some and a deterent for those who want to be supended( talking about their feelings to someone might be punishment to them.Either way this could be benifishal to kids who feel they are misunderstood or lonely.If we continue on the same path we are on currently , we will continue to train people for their lifes in prison. Please share your thoughs. thanks.
i suck at spelling !
GO GEORGE! I like how your mind works. Maybe that psychologist thing will really work. I mean I know the first time the child is not going to sit down and fully talk about all his or her problems but I do after a couple of times they will end up spilling their guts. Like we talk about in the collaboration class, it is about building a trusting and positive relationship with the child. Just by showing that child that you care could make a world of difference. Just think about Meredith's story and the boy being labeled as a "bad kid".
GREAT IDEA GEORGE! I believe if someone, like a school psychologist, would have sat down with the student that I dealt with, then maybe they could have gotten to the bottom of his behavior problems. Instead, they labeled him and never gave him a chance. When I came along, I was the one person who gave him a chance but more importantly, a voice. I listened. He only wanted someone to listen and love him. I believe children these days have to deal with much more than we, as children, did which leads to more behavior problems. They seem to keep everything bottled up inside, and it would benefit everyone if they had an outlet. Just maybe one of those kids could be impacted.
Nicely put George!
I completely agree...I will relate this back to a movie reference (since you did with OfficeSpace). If you have all seen the movie "The Departed" (yes, I know Boston girl quoting a Boston movie)...Leonardo DiCaprio's character is required to see a department psychatrist to talk about what he is dealing with out in the force, under-cover. It is important that he remains connected to who he really is and problems he is facing out in the "real world" dealing with the crime ect. Many of the students that act out come from hard backgrounds where much of what they see, hear, and experience is not positive. After acting out or displaying some possible cries for attention it might be helpful to have students talk to a school psychologist to help them see ways in which they can redirect their anger through sports, or find ways to better use their time through studying or volunteering.
I agree with you all. From my past experiences as an elementary substitute teacher and middle school humanities teacher, I was often discouraged by the way I saw students labeled and the subsequent punishment they received. It is quite discouraging to see the way we as a society treat students (particularly elementary/early middle school years) when they are at such an impressionable age. As Ashley and Meredith mention with Meredith’s example, so many children are labeled the “bad kids” and unfortunately after hearing this so much, they come to believe this. I worked on a middle school team and while in the end we came together to help one particular student, it was divided in many respects along the way. Some labeled this child as “dumb,” “too far behind that the student will never catch up” and the list goes on; it was so sad to hear. I met with the child’s grandmother who recently got custody of him. She told me he had been to a different school each year (often in different states) since PK (talk about no continuity) and his father was not in the picture and his mom was pursuing a career in LA. We (the grandmother and I) cried together and shared our fears and challenges but together we mapped out a plan of strategies. Was it a success? I think so.
For some teachers, the burdens of all the paperwork and other duties distract them from trying to connect with their students. All of our students will have a story – some of them quite sad, but as educators, we have to take the time to listen (even if that’s all we can do sometimes) and learn the reasons behind certain misbehaviors and academic challenges.
Something to share: This was on SCIWAY (South Carolina Information Highway) today (2/9) for their February 2010 newsletter:
http://www.sciway.net/sn/82.html
http://scequalization.schools.officelive.com/default.aspx
In the south on average black public schools were getting approximately 1/6 the funding of white public schools before the equalization act (a SC act), and this act was a tactic to maintain segregation in the schools by resisting the federal government’s decision (through the Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board - 1954). It helped provide more funding to black schools but it was still inherently unequal because it still maintained the status quo in terms of segregation in the public school system. We’re still dealing with these issues today. What does this say about the federal, state, and local decisions regarding education moving forward in our current democracy?
Post a Comment