Kaleidoscope 4

Kaleidoscope 4

I am a white male who comes from a medium income household.  The education I would have received back then would have been more than what many other children would have received.  Middle class white males were entitled to have an education and succeed in life.  Usually it was the males who had the opportunity to get an education and even then you had to be from a middle class family to be given that right.  Females were supposed to stay at home and learn about cooking, cleaning, and sewing; things that women were supposed to do. They were considered inferior to men.  The mean were given the opportunity to get an education and participate in local political matters.  They were the only ones that were allowed to vote for a very long time. Now days both males and females of any economic status or race can get an education. The females are not considered inferior to males.  They have jobs in political positions and they graduate from prestigious universities that only men could go to. Even though everyone can get an education, there are still some issues that students from a different race still face to this day. I wish I could say that we are no longer segregated, but unfortunately this is not the case.  There is still some segregation taking place in some parts of the country.  People do not want the whites to mix with the African Americans in schools.  They are giving them the same education, but in separate schools.  This is not right because it took several people so many years to make a difference on segregation.  There are people in congress still fighting to completely eliminate this situation.  I am truly lucky to have been given the opportunity to succeed in life and not have been discriminated against.  I was able to get a good education and was given the right to vote. I believe that we need to keep fighting for that same right given to me for others.

Kaleidoscope 3

Kaleidoscope 3

I grew up in a small town in North Texas.  The town only has one school district with one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school.  The school district is considered low-income and unfortunately this is very evident. There weren’t that many people who graduated from high school, and of those, less than half actually ended up going to college. I was fortunate enough to have grown up having amazing teachers who inspired me to do well and whom I still keep in touch with to this day. They would encourage me to do well and were there for me inside and outside of the classroom. Sadly, I did realize when I came to college that the education received throughout my years in school was not up to par with that of other college students from other parts of the state. 

 

Education is a vital key to success in life. Without education, the world would fall apart.  Education is happening everywhere and it does not necessarily have to be in a classroom setting.  It has been around even before we had established school systems. For example, the Native Americans used to teach their young how to hunt and survive and how to deal with life situations through songs or paintings. 

The role of a teacher is a very complex one. They have to be positive role models for students and hopefully inspire them to better themselves and succeed. They have to be there for their students in and out of the classroom without crossing the boundaries that a student/teacher should have.  Teachers also have to make sure that their students have a positive learning environment and that they are able to master the subject’s content according to state standards. 

I want to apply mainly the executive approach to teaching but I would also like to incorporate the humanistic approach.  I want to have everything structured and have worksheets and make sure  that students are on task , but I also want to let the interact with their classmates in small groups and let them have an input in what the lessons are going to be based on their interests.

I plan to make my teaching as fun as possible while still maintaining a learning mentality.  I want to make sure that there is a positive environment where the students are not afraid to ask questions.  I will have lessons planned ahead of time, along with the daily routines and assignments.  My students will have worksheets that I can grade to keep track of their progress.  I will also have tests and a final at the end to measure what they have learned throughout the course. 

I decided to become a teacher because I want to be able to help students achieve their goals. I consider myself very fortunate because I grew up with parents and family that encouraged me to continue my education and pursue my dreams.  I look forward to working with special needs students in the near future.

Kaleidoscope 2

Kaleidoscope 2

Technology in schools is increasing greatly.  More and more students are being exposed and taught to use very advanced technology every day. I heard on the radio about a week ago that the McAllen school district is slowly implementing that all students have iPads in the near future.  They are starting by giving a certain amount of students iPads this coming year and increasing that amount every year after that until all have the iPads.  This to me was crazy.  I could not believe that they were doing this.  Those devices are very expensive and they cannot be trusting students with them, but I understand their vision behind the idea.  They want all students to become familiar with the technology that is increasing now days.  I believe that in the future more and more districts will start to do this.  In this day in age students are becoming exposed to technology at a very young age.  I was in college when I got my first cell phone, but now my cousins who are 8 and 9 already have iPhones and their personal computers.  They are starting to understand technology at a much younger age.  I’ve had them teach my how to work a couple of things on my computer.  I went to my wife’s school and I interviewed the keyboarding teacher, and she told me that she is very impressed at how quickly the students are picking up how to do some of the tasks she assigns them during class.  She is teaching them programs that they originally had set up to be at the high school level.  The middle school students can know make entire presentations on PowerPoint with special effects and graphics and can also make intricate formulas on Excel.  I still have problems doing some of these things myself.

Journal 5

Did you experience any of the strategies of differentiated instruction listed in the text? If so, indicate which ones (such as stations, problem-based learning) you experienced and your reaction to this kind of learning. If not then discuss the benefits it holds for students in our schools today.

Journal 5

I have observed a teacher that uses stations in his classroom. He had five stations set up around his classroom. The stations included fun activities that were still focused on the material that needed to be covered.  He divided the students in those five groups and had them work at the stations for twenty minutes and then they switched.  The students seemed to enjoy this very much, they were not bored and they were actually doing the tasks that were asked of them. Another thing that I observed that the teacher did later on in the year, was project based learning.  He gave the students different topics to choose from and they had to come up with a project on the topic. The students were encouraged to use creative ways of presenting their projects. The projects that the students came up with were incredible.  There were several students who presented their information in a video with amazing graphics.  Other used very elaborate models, and others used power points.  The students were able to expand their creativity when they were given the option to pick from different topics and the way it would be presented.  The students that wanted to be creative could and those that couldn’t or didn’t want to didn’t have to. 

Journal 9

Predict what will have changed about today's schools by the year 2020. This is your opportunity to forecast.

Journal 9

Things will definitely be different in the year 2020.  Technology is rapidly changing and it will keep changing by the time we reach 2020, which is in less than 9 years.  It is mindboggling for me to think of all of the technological advances I’ve lived through.  I was in elementary when the internet became mainstream and people still had house phones.  Nowadays, very few households have a landline.  People use cell phones to communicate.  I remember I was a senior in high school when I got my first cell phone.  It was still very big and bulky but I was still considered cool because I had one.  I know kids who are nine and their parents have already given them a phone.  I predict that in the year 2020 the students will have iPads or personal computers for every class. The grading will also be done entirely online and the teachers won’t have to grade anymore papers by hand.  I also think that the students will no longer have paper and pencil tasks because all will be done using their personal computers.