Middle School Learner 1st Blog

1. Are middle school learners different than they were 15 years ago?
YES, what isn't different? The only things that aren't different are those we refuse to believe need changing due to our own stubbornness. Children today are introduced to technology before they are out of diapers, this change creates a global student that is able to multi task and employ technology for them in ways we can't even imagine.

2. Basic skills taught still needed?
I believe a lot that is taught in the elementary level is still needed for good foundation in education. While calculators can produce an answer to any mathematical problem it is given, if a student doesn't learn the operations that the calculator is performing they become reliant on that machine and lose the problem solving skills mathematics assist children in learning.

3. Society changing faster than schools?
Yes, society will always be changing and trends will come and go, while schools have to prepare students for their futures, some say that the jobs they may be doing are not even thought of yet. Therefore, there is value in teaching students the basic well, which then they can build off that information later in life to better fit their career choice. We must also remember that education is not only about fitting one to a career, yet educating our youth to be well rounded, enlightened individuals.

Barack

I went to see Barack Obama speak in Dubuque, IA. I listened as several questions were brought up about education and if he was elected what changes would we might see as the general public. This is one quote I found very relevant to ed psych: "Our public education system is the key to opportunity for millions of children and families. It needs to be the best in the world. Of particular concern is the growing achievement gap between middle and low-income students, which has continued to expand despite some overall national achievement gains." Throughout the semester we have discussed this growing gap in our nation and by not addressing it on a national level we are greatly hurting our nation. While the Busch administration has tried to answer this with No Child Left Behind. I found Obama to have more realistic answers that start on small scales and work towards the larger goal to continue to be the best, while Busch has everything happening right now. I am a supporter of Obama and with an change in office, changes will take place. I conclude with hope that Obama will be successful in his attempts to become president and then more successful in his attempts to clean up our education system for our future generations.

Gustar

I attended the April 10 Gustar concert. This was a soft-rock group that attacked hundreds of Luther students, friends, and roadies. I thought how this event might connect to school. First, it creates a culture of students who follow bands, driving hours on school night and not meeting their beds until the morning hours. Thus, creating an even tired student body. Next, I thought about the time and money some parents put into these concerts. Yes, parents were standing in the crowd dancing right along with 14 and 15 year old, attempting to be the "cool" mom or dad. Would it be possible that students would be more excited about school if parents took off work to be at academic events? Or get just as excited about their child's good grades? Our society needs to re-exam family structures and ask ourselves if pushing education to the back burner for a chance to jump around intoxicated college students and then drive home staying up until possibly three am and then being tired the rest of the school week, if the parents even makes the student go to school the next day.

Ethnic Arts Festival

The Ethnic Arts Festival had a variety of booths with "experts" at each, explain about the country. This was a useful experience because it not only educated me about unfamiliar countries, but it also gave me the awareness of all the diversity in our world and made me think how I could possibly bring that to a school. Listening to foreign exchange students, or Luther students who have studied abroad to these countries, I realized this first hand experience it truly creates a sense of appreciation of the respected cultures. These students eyes lit up when talking about their experience or home. While I will try my best to bring my own passion and excitement for different cultures into my classroom, I will always look for those who have more experience then I do, so my students can hopefully get a taste of how, when, and where others live.

Hair

Luther College's production of Hair was phenomenal. Hair brought up issues that have to deal with giving into societal norms and conforming or in this case resisting it. After watching Hair, my thoughts of connecting it to Ed psych were based around two general ideas. First, Hair had me thinking about students and the pressures of teachers, other students, and the whole entire system that are put on them. This creates groups like the main group in Hair, that are pressuring students to fight it, "damning" the man. This attitude can cause students to fail in the system, and while the system is obviously not perfect, failing in it causes a person's life to be a lot harder in getting ahead at all, because our society is run by those people who run the school systems. Secondly, I thought about teacher's contributions to education. With so many guidelines set up by the national government, the state government, the local government, and then local administrators; teachers often feel they have no room for individual classroom pace. Teaching off of what the students need, is a concept that is so simple, but can hardly be done because teachers are told what they have to teach and when they have to do it. Taking individual steps and being strong enough to stand up for students' rights and needs to learn, is what the passion in every teacher needs to produce to create a successful learning environment.

Freedom Writers

This movie did not not relate to Educational Psychology in anyway. Everything the teacher did was inspiring to pre-service teachers. In the movie the main character pushes every envelop with the school to provide a better education for her students. While doing this she is faced with personal challenges of trying to figure out how to connect to the students given her completely different background. Attending college in Decorah and growing up in a small town, if I am to teach in an intercity school I believe I would have these same challenges. This movie especially connects to ed psych by showing an example for a teacher to go above and beyond to get the material to relate to the students. That's what I believe, as teachers, we are called to do.

Inconvenient Truth

Tonight, I watched Al Gore's documentary The Inconvenient Truth. This movie was an eye opener to me. While, I have always believed in global warming and knew it was a large scale problem that needed to be address long ago and still is worsening while few people do anything; I did not know the scale or the effects this problem is having each and everyday. After watching the explanations of the large scale natural disasters and how global warming is having the effect of making them worse and more frequent by warming the temperature of the ocean; this problem struck closer to home. It is no longer something that is happening to the other side of the world, global warming is happening to the world. We are not just affected by the problem, yet a major cause. Being responsible for the problem it is now our turn to answer this problem. At the end of the documentary Al Gore came back with a view of hope. He presented ways in which we can use technology that we already have to lessen the amount of carbon dioxide that we are putting into the atmosphere to the point that earth will be back to having "normal" levels of carbon dioxide in the air. If we can do it, what is stopping us? This is a large scale problem that can be controlled and fixed if people start acting as a world community instead of individuals. For now though, as individuals we need to make choices that benefit the environment and spread the word of action.