Degrees of Separation

It's all in the details isn't it? While one person will not react at all to something someone says, someone else will take offense. I say this because I have been thinking about the girl in New Jersey who committed suicide because of harrassment and it seems that more students here are saying that they are being picked on or being taunted. I can remember (yes, I'm not too old to remember!) in Junior High and High School catching on to the fact that if I reacted negatively to remarks that fellow students would make then they would continue to make them. I think it is something about a power trip with some people. If they can get another student to react then they can feel that they have some power. Isn't that sad? There must be something in their lives that is not too good if they feel that they have to bring another person down to make themselves feel more powerful. It seems to be the nature of the beast. I am not excusing those people at all but I did learn not to give those kinds of people the power over me. I would ignore them or respond back with some type of lowkey response so they would not know that it affected me. It seemed to abate the situation and kept from happening more often.
I tried to teach my own children that, to not let others dictate your actions, or reactions. I find it very distressing that some students are allowed to just stay home from school instead of addressing the problem in some way. What are we teaching our children? I am not saying that there needs to be a big confrontation but there needs to be some type of dialogue between parents, teachers, students, whomever. Don't just quit.
That leads to another problem - absences. I know, I know, you have probably heard enough from me about this, but when did it become ok to blow off school to go skating? to go shopping? to just stay home because the student DIDN'T FEEL LIKE COMING TO SCHOOL? You can't learn if you are not here, there is no degree of seperation on that.

Grandson's input

So I had my daughter and her family in this weekend for our annual Ruffed Grouse Society banquet that my husband co-chaired and my grandson and I had some time to go and look at our students's work. I had shown him their work when he was visiting us before and he asked if he could look at their work again. He is 7, reads very well and loves computer games so I feel that his opinion is valuable. We looked at our students' progress that was posted; he especially liked Team SEE's house with the clickable items. I know that our students are doing a great deal more then is shown, they just aren't posting as frequently as I would like. My grandson and I looked at the games on "Playing to Learn" link. I will have to say that he was shocked when he clicked on the first couple of links because they were 'shooter' games and he is not allowed to play games where the player shoots at PEOPLE. I tried to explain to him why they were on there and what they were about but we went on to others games. We especially liked the one about the Preamble; he read all of the questions, we tried to logically come up with the answeres for the ones we weren't sure of and I was very impressed with his reading skills, his knowledge of the different states and critical thinking skills (ok, I do have to brag a little bit, after all, I am a grandmother!) As for the game, it was great! It had wonderful graphics, sounds and good questions and transitions. Check it out:
http://http://www.texaslre.org/PiratePreamble/pirates_game.html

Art and Science

So David and Andrew came into our classroom to do some filming, getting some interviews and film footage of our Globaloria classroom. One of the topics that was discussed was how this class is a correlation between an Art teacher (me) and a Science teacher (Mrs. Leef). TO me this is not an anomoly because if you really think about it Art is everywhere. It is in all of the surroundings around us each day, from the simple pencils we use to write with to the most complex of machines that make our lives much simpler (??) to the art that is produced for our viewing pleasure. With new technology comes new ways to express our artistic impulses. Art is not just about painting, drawing, and sculpture; it is also about light, motion, color and how we perceive our world and our place in it. Like to hear more? Click on this site to hear a piece on NPR about an artist trained at MIT and how he uses technology in his artistic endeavors: http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=4176103&m=4176104

Spring

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." ~Anne Bradstreet
"No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow." ~Proverb
I know that it has been a long time since I posted, I can only say that Spring had not got to me yet!
Please post your thoughts about the above quotes.

Haiti

We often take for granted what we have, everyone is prone to it, it is the 'nature of the beast', being human or however you want to phrase it. When a disaster takes place we will then think, wow, we have it pretty good. Sometimes we getted bogged with the small things and don't look at the big picture. As a student, I used to think, I can't wait to get out of school and get on with my life. I say to you students: Enjoy your life where you are now! Look for the good, don't dwell on the bad. If you have a roof over your head, enough heat and food to survive, you are better off than a major part of the world. Home life not going the greatest but you have some friends, then you still have some positives in your life. If situations become to hard, look for others to help you. Never think that there isn't a way to improve, even if it is to look at - get the best education you can now and then be able to do what YOU WANT TO DO WITH THAT LIFE. Don't be satisfied with the status quo, make life better, for you and others. Globaloria is about looking at the world with a global view, not just about yourself but about others. One of the games created was about Haiti. It kind of puts into perspective what we have here. Go to this site: http://ayiti.newzcrew.org/ayitiunicef/ (you'll have to copy and paste url) and play this little game to relate to what is going on in Haiti now. If you can, donate to the Red Cross or other relief funds; if you can't, see what you can do in your own part of the world to make it a better place. What do you think? Post on your blogs a reply to this message and tell how you can improve 'our own back yard".

Be a Hooker

Ah, got your attention with that one didn’t I? And that is what we have to do, to find the hook that will make students want to learn because the learning has become the most important thing to them. We snag them with the hook of ‘you get to create video games' but it turns into the students buying into the system of the process of gathering information,assimilating the information and then turning that information into a relevant, viable learning situation via a video game format. It goes back to my last post I think, we have to create the environment where their first priority (at the very least while they are in the classroom) is to work on building the best, most informative game ever designed.
I think that I sometimes I go about it the wrong way, telling the students that there are deadlines that they have to meet. I believe that I will begin appealing to their pride a little more, showing them examples of what has been done and appealing to their competitive spirit. I hope that it will begin as extrinsic motivation that morphs into a more intrinsic style of learning. I do know that different students have different motivators and that we need to find the ‘hook’ for each one.

Priorities

Priorities, priorities, what do we do first? Quite often we neglect what needs to be done, like this blog. As you can see from my previous one, it has been a while since I posted anything. I've noticed that students have a difficult time putting their education at the front of their own priority list. Why is that? Right now, especially for a high school student, their education should be at the top. Some high school students work, some are in sports or other extra-curricular activities and they forget that their Number 1 priority is their education. IF you don't have a good education it will be very difficult to be where you want to be later in life.
Scene 1: Teacher meets former student out in the community a couple of years after the student has graduated from high school. "Hey there 'former student' (names protected), how's it going?" Former student replies "Well Mrs. Neal, not so good, I really wish that I had not missed as much school as I did" or "I wish I had paid more attention in class"; I'm just not able to get a job like I want". Some will say that they just couldn't make it in college or they just don't understand why they can't keep a job or get a higher paying job.
Students need to learn how to process information, apply the knowledge they have gained to real world situations, critical problem solve ON THEIR OWN and to have long term goals and work towards them. Coming to school and wanting to learn as much as possible is the way to achieve their goals.
Scene 2: Teacher meets former student out in the community a couple of years after the student has graduated from high school. "Hey there 'former student' (names protected), how's it going?" "Well, Mrs. Neal, do you remember when I thought about getting a job after school so I could get a car? And we talked about it and I decided that maybe it was too much to do and still keep up with school stuff?" " I remember" "Well, it has paid off, I've made the Dean's list in College and I've earned another scholarship! I've even got a really good job lined up for when I graduate doing what I've always wanted to do!"
Too simplified? Obviously! But you should get the point, we all need to figure out what our top priorities should be FOR THAT MOMENT and act accordingly. We would all get much more accomplished and be more successful.