Week 10-14 (#8)

In class the other day, Jim set up sykpe conversations with teachers working all over the world. I thought this was a brilliant idea to not only learn about education abroad but to also connect with someone who knows first hand what it is currently like to teach outside of the United States.

My group was paired up with Melissa Richardson, a high school choir teacher working in Seoul, South Korea. We made an instant connection with Melissa not only because she is a 2003 Luther grad who knows the environment we currently find ourselves in. We talked about the Luther tradition of music and how she has seen this tradition carried out in the real world. She discussed the differences between teaching in the States and abroad. I was quite captured by what she had to say. In her experiences, she has found teaching outside the US to be an amazing opportunity that gives her the opportunity to focus on more than repertoire. She spends time teaching world music, with the interesting perspective of having students from multiple cultures present in the classroom. Melissa even showed us a xylophone she bought in her travels in Asia! It was interesting to hear how her philosophy of education has changed since leaving Luther and how it is still changing. She stressed that she is still trying to figure out parts of her philosophy (phew, we do not have to know it all to get a great job!).

Overall, the conversation we had with her was enlightening, interesting, and comforting in a way. Personally, she left an impact on me that she is probably unaware of. Previous to my conversation with Melissa, I had not put much consideration into teaching or student teaching abroad (I just thought it would be too different from what I am learning at Luther). After hearing about her experiences, my thoughts have shifted a bit. I'm not going to commit to going international just yet-for I find it to be very dependent on your personal life situation- but I'm definitely not ruling it out!

week 9

"Who wants to teach middle school?" This question was asked in class today and to my surprise, only two out of about twenty future teachers said they were considering it. The lack of enthusiasm for middle school teaching really got me thinking: why is there less of a desire to teach this age group? Are we, as future teachers, afraid of these students? Are we afraid of reliving our middle school years (which could not have been that bad)? Or is it that we just don't understand them and think we can't help them?

While all of these prompts could be true, I think that future teachers need to be more educated about the middle school years and how to teach students during these years. If we had more knowledge and understanding of middle schoolers, we would feel more able to teach these students. These years are crucial to student development physically, mentally and socially, and this is why it is important to have dedicated and knowledgeable teachers in middle schools to assist them in their growth.

So come on teachers, let's go back to middle school! Except this time we can prepare ourselves by getting to know and better understand middle school students. Having fantastic teachers in middle school can make all the difference in students' lives, so I challenge any future teacher to not only consider teaching in middle school, but to do it! If all else fails, it would be a learning experience :)

week 7/8

Jamie Oliver is trying to save the world-not by finding a cure for AIDS or cancer, but he is fighting a deadly disease: obesity. This all too common physical condition people are finding themselves in is an extremely important thing to address. Oliver has decided to go into communities and schools to educate kids and the public about good eating habits. One of the surprising statistics I have learned from him is the amount of sugar found in milk that kids drink everyday. In his TED lecture, Oliver dumped a large pile of sugar cubes on the stage, symbolizing the amount of sugar from milk alone that kids consume during their elementary career.

Knowing that students consume so much sugar from milk, (regular, chocolate, and strawberry flavored) I was disturbed to find out that Decorah High School participated in and won a chocolate milk drinking contest. The students drank an average of three cartons of chocolate milk a day, exceeding the suggested daily sugar intake by vast amounts... and all for what? $15,ooo for the school. In reality, the students spent $15,000 drinking this milk to win them money to spend on exercise equipment and wellness programs. Does something seem wrong here? YES! Why are schools putting the health of children at risk for monetary reasons? Isn't this morally wrong? YES! Isn't this teaching our kids poor eating habits and thus contributing to their potential obesity? YES! So why are schools doing it?

The control money has in schools is disturbing to me. Administrators and school boards are putting the health and education of students at risk in order to earn "free" money. Nearly all decisions are financially driven, and while this is somewhat understandable because schools run on tight budgets, there is no excuse for it. They need to get creative and raise money in ways that benefit all aspects of students. We can't let businesses who are looking to sell their product (like the Dairy Company in DHS) be the financial support for our schools. They don't really care about the health and education of kids- they just want to make a profit. The bottom line is we need to always work to improve the health and learning and we can't let people who do not care about kids dictate what is present in our schools.

week 6

What does it mean to be academic? A fellow classmate's blog from last Friday raised this question for me. I quote his blog: "But should a dance major or basketball major graduate with the same degree as all of these difficult academic majors?" Previous to this statement, Mr. Blogger included music in the same line as dance and basketball, though he did not specify what "these difficult academic majors" includes. I believe he is saying music and dance are not academic majors. Huh, interesting. Let's analyze this a bit...According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, "academic" is defined as:

Main Entry: ²academic

Variant(s): also ac·a·dem·i·cal \-mi-kəl\

Function: adjective

Date: 1588

1 a : of, relating to, or associated with an academy or school especially of higher learning b : of or relating to performance in academic courses c : very learned but inexperienced in practical matters d : based on formal study especially at an institution of higher learning
2 : of or relating to literary or artistic rather than technical or professional studies
— ac·a·dem·i·cal·ly \-mi-k(ə-)lē\ adverb

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/academic)

Now I will admit that I do not know anything about the dance major at Luther College or anything about basketball (imaginary major), but I personally know what is entailed in a music major at Luther. Therefore, I will consolidate my argument to music as it is what I know. According to the definition above, I do not see how music is not an "academic major."

1) Music is taught at a school of higher learning (1a, 1d). It is an accredited subject and quite frankly, it is a difficult one. Typically what non-music majors think is that music majors just play instruments listen to music all day, learn notes and musical terms, and learn to improve our ability to perform on our instruments. While this is true, this is only the surface level. Music challenges the mind, body, and spirit, and it takes endless hours studying, listening, playing, exploring, practicing, etc to understand and overcome these challenges. (I apologize for beginning to rant, but it helps to have at least a shallow understanding of being a music major)

2) Music majors are constantly performing, both intellectually and physically (1b). Playing on instruments is an everyday event, and must be done everyday if one has hopes to improve. Also, composing and improvising challenges one intellectually as these activities involve much thought and analysis of musical ideas.

3) Learning a subject without practical experience occurs in all majors, including music (1c). This is the point of college right? We learn in order to leave college to apply our knowledge in practical experiences.

4) The second definition speaks for itself when it says relating to the artistic (2). Music is an art form and fits into the realm of the artistic.

So my point in all of this is that music is an academic major, NOT just a major done out of pure interest or as a hobby. My analysis of music through this definition of "academic" can be applied to many other subject areas. We, as future educators, need to be careful in what we label as "academic" or "non-academic" because if we mislabel a subject area, it may not be taught in schools and students would be deprived of an academic experience. Since students have different learning styles and interests, it is important that we provide them with every possible learning opportunity.

My hope with this entry is to dismantle the idea that music is not an academic subject and to challenge everyone to have an understanding of what "academic" means before designating majors as "academic" or "non-academic."

week 5

"We need to understand and frame schools in ways that help us get at the core values, the core beliefs and whether this is the kind of place we want students to assimilate into. " -Jim Langholz

Taken directly from today's lecture notes, this quote holds a mighty objective that I believe has great importance in the lives of teachers and school administrators. The tricky part is to define these core values and decide which values should be included into the assimilation. Now this conversation could easily get into an argument over whether who should be responsible for teaching values- parents? churches? schools? but I am not equipped to begin that argument nor do I want to. All I will say is that morals or values do have a place in school. Children spend a majority of their day, 3/4 of the year in a school classroom and I think ignoring values and morals in the classroom is doing a disservice to them.

A teacher is a role model for children: they look up to this teacher, and trust this teacher to give them a good education (even if they are unaware of this). Therefore, I think teachers need to care about their students and show them that they care. They need to create trusting relationships with all students. Maybe some would see this as going past the expected teacher behavior, but as Jim notes, teachers teach morals whether purposefully or by default, so we may as well endorse and encourage teachers to get to know their students and form relations with them.

In talking to Jason Rausch, choral director at Decorah High School, the topic of caring about kids and forming relationships with them came up. He said it makes all the difference, especially in a subject that students choose to do (such as music). This conversation along with the lecture this week really drove home the idea that teachers need to invest in students beyond academics. In doing this, teachers teach their students that they value them as people and not just as elements of their job. This can make all of the difference in impacting a student's life.

week 4

JENGA!!! This game challenges us physically and mentally as we decide which pieces to eliminate from the tower while keeping the tower standing. Oh don't forget that pieces can be added on to the top to create even more of a challenge. Hmm... sounds hard doesn't it? Welcome to the world of education and making decisions in U.S. schools.

In lunch the other day, a few education majors and myself were chatting and Brett Epperson (yes, I'm giving him credit and not stealing his idea) jokingly suggested that the school system is a game of Jenga. As we laughed, it dawned on us: he's right. We have this tower, or school system, made up of different elements. Constant revision is being done to this tower and elements (ie: budget cuts, arts programs, science programs, teachers, etc) have to be eliminated. The challenge lies in choosing which block or element to take out of the tower while not letting the tower fall crashing to the ground. Oh and don't forget that blocks are sometimes added on top of everything else, even if the tower is swaying unsteadily. Blocks like standardized testing requirements, tighter teacher requirements, etc. just add to the school system tower, creating a complicated situation. Sound challenging? You bet!

This analogy very much sums up the school system and our efforts to make better decisions for U.S. schools. Some things have to be cut, but what can we afford to loose and still have a solid tower/school system that benefits all students? Some things are added when we least expect them and how do we balance those new things into the system without letting the system fall apart? These are issues that we have been discussing and will continue to discuss in PCAP. I am interested to see where we will find ourselves at the end of the semester. Though we are (thankfully) not responsible for a school system and our discussions will not have immediate affect students, we are setting ourselves up for future situations in which we will be either as teachers, parents, or community members. Based on what we discuss and decided, will our tower still be standing? Will we successfully manage making decisions in our school systems without letting it fall apart and fail our students? I hope so!

So here's the challenge: Go forth and play Jenga, but don't let the tower fall because if you do, you'll be letting down the people who need you most. Good luck!

Week 3

In group discussion last week, my group and I discussed the need for schools to not cast aside a student's culture and home life while only focusing on teaching "Standard English" and other mainstream ideas. It is vital that recognition of both the "home culture" and "school culture" as being equally important occur in a child's (especially one of color) education. We discussed Delpit's example of the teacher in the small town (in Alaska?) with a high population of Natives who wrote two different versions of speaking on the board: the Native and Standard English way. This teacher taught students the value of both languages and that students should not feel ashamed for communicating in their Native language. If students are ashamed, they may struggle to find their cultural identity and be proud of it. Students need to be proud of who they are.

Delpit continues with this idea of valuing both home and school culture when quoting Carter G. Woodson: "teach African-American students not only the language and canon of the European 'mainstream,' but to teach as well the life, history, language, philosophy, and literature of their own people" (Delpit 162-63). Unfortunately, in order for people of color to succeed financially and in obtaining power in America, they have to follow "mainstream" white-male dominant society culture. It is the job of schools to teach their students of color these mainstream techniques, however, they must incorporate cultural aspects of the students to help them maintain and develop their cultural identity.

I fully agree with this notion of including the home life of students in education. The question is how am I, as a white middle-class female, going to do this in an authentic and non-devaluing way? Delpit suggests to:

1. "acknowledge and validate students' home language without using it to limit students' potential"

2. recognize the conflict... between students' home discourses and the discourse of school"

3."by transforming the new discourse so that it contains within it a place for students' selves"

4. "acknowledge the unfair 'discourse-stacking' that our society engages in"

Overall, I think the main things I can do to integrate students' home discourse within school discourse are to get to know my students beyond their results in my classroom and to work hard to familiarize myself with the community I work in and the history of the people in that community. This kind of investment in students and their community will greatly help teachers as they work to benefit their students of cultural backgrounds that differ from their own.

Week 2

Where does the problem of poor teaching that does not provoke change lie? Is it in the standards the government has set for teachers to "teach to" or is it in the training of the teachers? This question was raised in lecture last week and we could not come to a general consensus. It is true that the standards provided by the government make it difficult for teachers to having meaningful learning occur in their classrooms that could provide for a "change" in the future. I personally think that teachers teach largely on how they were taught or how their teaching role models teach. In Other People's Children, Delpit identifies that "the majority of teachers tend to model their teaching on methodological orientations taught in teacher education or on other practicing teachers they have encountered" (Delpit 116). I found this interesting and very true. This emphasizes the need to have improvements made in teacher education since it is one of the main sources for knowledge of teaching.

Delpit discusses how universities do not prepare teachers to teach students of color but rather they prepare teachers to teach the white population of their schools. It needs to be taught that more connections need to be made between teachers and students with less focus on the decontextualization that white people generally have in literature. Delpit says there is too much focus on the words and not enough consistency between words and actions. Some cultures communicate more through actions than white people do, so this would be a way to differentiate instruction to benefit students of color. It was very interesting to read her thoughts on this, for I had never made the connection concerning relationships, contextualization, and how this affects how students learn. I am a firm believer that younger generations today lack in face-to-face social skills mostly due to communication through technology increasing. This could be addressed and improved if teachers work to create better and more meaningful relationships and personal connections with their students. These relationships could help students enjoy school as the teacher may be able to use those relationships as a tool for teaching and helping students make connections between material and real life situations.

week 1

"The purpose of education is to show a person how to define oneself authentically and spontaneously in relation to one's world-- not to impose a prefabricated definition of the world, still less an arbitrary definition of oneself." - Thomas Merton, Reader p. 2

"The function of a school is, then, first of all to help the student discover oneself: to recognize oneself, and to identify who it is that chooses" -Thomas Merton, Reader p. 2

In lecture on Friday 2/5, we first discussed education, defining in different ways. I wrote one definition from I think Mya Scarlatto that I particularly liked: "Not only is education practical in that it provides us with useful life skills, but it makes our lives more meaningful as it helps us to analyze and learn from our existence and better our futures." As a class, we basically said education is to prepare us for life's obstacles, jobs, etc. and to prepare us to be able to better our futures either through personal satisfaction of knowledge or having the skills to improve one's career.

This thinking of education was fine and dandy, but then Max threw us for a loop and said, "What is schooling?" Ah... schooling and education are different. This concept was not unfamiliar to me, but I suppose I had not separated the two before. According to our class, in our society school is the means of earning and education while experiencing socialization with a variety of people. This got me thinking: is school more about education or socialization? I'd say it is a mix of both, allowing students to, as Merton says, "discover oneself." So what about homeschooling? The social aspect is lacking in that form of education. Can homeschooled children fully "discover" themselves? Sure they can find what academic field they like or find interesting, but they are certainly at a disadvantage when discovering what kind of person they are in relation to others. Granted, there is usually a beneficial reason for students to be homeschooled, but I believe the homeschooled children need to spend some time in schools, even if it is for "elective" subjects like music, art, or physical education. They need to have the opportunity to learn about themselves while getting to know and observing others.

I placed the quotes at the top of the page to give focus to education and schooling as separate ideas. Even though Merton says they are both about discovering oneself, I think that the level of discovery or the process of discovery is very different in both due to the socialization element.

Practice Makes Perfect

This is more or less my test blog to see if I did this correctly. Practice makes perfect right?

Also, welcome to my readers. I hope you enjoy my thoughts this spring as we contemplate decisions made in US schools.

Sing, Laugh, Dance, Love.... Always.