I found a fantastic video via Twitter about Social and Emotional learning happening in the classrooms.  This was a topic that has come up in both my classes this summer.  In one class we discussed how some students don't have the cognitive capacity to learn extensive academic material so they should be taught social and technical skills.  This is of course important for all students, but especially for those that will be entering the working world with out higher education.  In my other class we discussed how you can not be a good leader with out first establishing and developing your emotional intelligence.  This includes knowing yourself as a person and how to relate to others.  This whole idea began with Daniel Goleman's book Emotional Intelligence, which my professor highly recommends to all those who desire to become a leader.  I personally have not read the book yet but I would say it should be high on the list of books to read for all educators.

This emotional and social topic is one that often gets lost and overlooked in curriculum in the classroom.  Some traditional educators get lost in the "mandatory" curriculum of academic subjects that are over tested in today's education system.  This video shows a perfect example of how combining social and emotional skills with language can be a wonderfully effective lesson.  The first teacher has students write about their emotions which can combine sentence structure with understanding how their feeling and why.  The second teacher uses role play which combines not only the understanding of emotions but also relaying those emotions to others while building their social skills.  I feel PS 24 has it right with starting at the core of the student to improve learning and test scores.  Instead of trying to drill facts and formulas into our students to raise test scores it is better to improve their confidence and focus.  PS 24 does this by helping students understand what their feeling from day to day which is most often the basis for students who wander off task.

Students have as much going on in their lives as adults and its sometimes something we forget.  As adults we know how events in our lives affect us and can distract us.  Just remember how those events would affect us if we did not know how to process and internalize the effects of those events.  This is something that some people never learn to do which can often lead to anger management issues, aggression and depression.  If we want our students to succeed academically, why not help them process and internalize their emotions so that they can put them aside when it's time to focus on academics.  

The Conscious Tweeter

All in one weekend I became a blogger and a tweeter. I've finally entered the world of communication. I'm still learning Twitter etiquette so if you have tips for me please share.

So through following UrbanEducation I found this great article called "The Conscious Classroom," by Adam Doster (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080225/doster). It starts off with a story about a community on Chicago's West Side coming together in a hunger strike in order to make the plans of building a school happen. It's not very often you hear this kind of story. You may hear about communities getting angry and frustrated, but a hunger strike for a school? That's pretty amazing to me. Once the school was built they wanted the curriculum to focus on social justice and their community struggle. This is a pretty progressive way of thinking.

The article goes on to mention Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator, who said that traditional education is "suffering from narration sickness," where teachers shove facts at students with no explanation of their meaning. In many schools this is probably still true. But in schools like mine, since it's a Catholic school with a focus on teaching the whole child and not just academics, we try to expose our students to curriculum with substance. What I mean by this is, take my science class for instance. We watched the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" and afterwords my girls were concerned about what would happen to our world if global warming became out of control and we went through another extinction. This brought us to how the world began and the evolution of species. We were able to tie this into religion when they wanted to know how evolution could be true when they believe in the creation story and that God made the world in 7 days (this is something I will discuss further in another blog after I read Finding Darwin's God). I feel fortunate to be able to discuss such issues with out my administration having a fit, but instead they embraced this teachable moment. Of course this doesn't happen in every school, especially not traditional public. I guess this is what Freire is trying to say.

This brings me to another point in the article which says how conservatives feel these progressive social justice schools are enforcing leftist views on their students. I feel, and the article does as well, that teachers are just exposing students to what is going on in our world. It's not that they want all the students to take a leftist view, it's that they want them to see that there are real problems occurring everywhere, whether that be in their own neighborhood or the Congo in Africa. The teachers can do this by integrating it into the curriculum like this: "A science teacher can plant an urban garden, allowing students to learn about plant biology, the imbalance in how fresh produce is distributed and how that affects the health of community residents. An English teacher can explore misogyny or materialism in American culture through the lens of hip-hop lyrics. Or as Rico Gutstein, a professor of mathematics education at the University of Illinois, Chicago, suggests, a math teacher can run probability simulations using real data to understand the dynamics behind income inequality or racial profiling."

These types of lessons are the kind that engage students. Students need something to relate to and not just memorizing facts. Think back to when you were in school, didn't you yearn to learn more if you were forced to just memorize and not ask questions? Don't you wish you had an opportunity to participate in lessons like the ones i stated previously? I love this idea of social justice schools and since they seem to be placed in low income areas I feel it's really teaching students to be proactive and change the situation they were born into. Maybe this will help to try to bridge that gap that is ever widening between the rich and the poor.

O’Doyle Rules!

I just finished watching "Billy Madison" and I thought I'd write my analysis since it's about schooling.

In case you've never seen the movie I'll give you a little background. Adam Sandler plays Billy Madison, an unmotivated and seemingly dumb adult who skated through school thanks to his rich father. Due to Billy's lax attitude he can not take over his father's company. He makes a deal to pass grades 1-12, each in 2 weeks, and if he is successful then he will take over the company.

I feel Billy's 1st grade class is not an accurate portrayal of what 1st grade should be. The teacher does do a good job of embracing individuality and ensuring all students feel like "special people" but there is a lack of academic subject matter. The classroom is filled with round tables, colors and decorations which I find potentially distracting for students (especially those with ADD or similar attention issues). The children sit and listen to story time but all fall asleep. I feel that if one student falls asleep it may be acceptable to let them sleep because there is a reason they need the sleep, but when the whole class, there's a problem. The movie also portrays lots of arts and crafts, but no math or science. This grade shows a positive portrayal of how school should instill confidence and individuality, but no academic substance.

In 2nd grade there is a drastic change. First you notice the teacher is older, less free spirited, and quiet. She keeps a traditional classroom with straight rows of desks and not many decorations which is very stereotypical of traditional schooling which some may feel is old and outdated (hence the age of the teacher). There is a spelling bee with the words bath and cheese and a final word of couch. I was surprised at the simplicity (except couch which is understandably confusing with the u making a w sound), but after researching I found that these words are accurate with the 2nd grade spelling level. I guess I overestimated the cognitive level of the majority of 7-8 year olds.

Third grade is where a big leap in curriculum occurs. Billy makes a comment about the fact that there is now social studies and division and how hard it will be. The classroom shows a good combination of traditionalism and cooperative learning through the students desks arranged in rows of pairs with more decorations than 2nd grade. This class, which turns out to be the best for Billy, is obviously taught by an older 20s to young 30s beautiful female teacher (see the trend of stereotypes here?). But there are a few flaws with this teacher's behaviors. First she decides to discipline Billy by pulling his ear and dragging him into the hallway to speak to him about his unacceptable actions in the classroom. This is an action that would have parents in an outrage. Another behavior that is unacceptable on the part of the teacher is when Billy could not write the z's in cursive in the name Ruzzuto she suggested he try writing the word buzz in a very condescending way. Now I understand why they put it in (to develop the plot of the teacher not approving of Billy's opportunity to come to school due to his father's money), but it represents a teacher targeting a student's insecurity and diminishing his confidence and motivation which is an act that can diminish a student's desire to achieve during their school career. A neat little observation is that the class field trip seems to be to the Old Bethpage Village Restoration which is a place that I attended on class trips and volunteered during their fairs. It's fun to see a place you know so well in a movie!

In 9th grade the students take chemistry, which I have never found to be the first science subject students take in high school. Anyway, the teacher is attempting to explain something related to chlorophyll by telling a story using the vocabulary in creative ways. I find this to be a useful technique, but unfortunately the students are uninterested.

There is also a decathlon of high school subjects in which they have events such as solving math problem using a complicated formula, baking a pie, a running race, a chemistry experiment, playing a musical instrument, performing a monologue of a Shakespeare play, and finally questions in the following topics: reflections in society and literature, business ethics, automobile repair, calculus, Shakespeare, needlepoint, architecture, chemistry, astronomy, and the Roman empire. I found these topics interesting to be picked out to represent high school. You often find some of these topics integrated in other curriculums and in some schools automobile repair and home economics are electives. In any event, these topics are important to expose all students to.

Now for a little analysis of some characters. The principal is portrayed as incompetent. He only gains control of an out of control classroom by asking and not his mere presence in the room. A principal should establish a demeanor of authority which is respected. The principal was also revealed as a former wrestler who killed a man. This should have been cleared before he even stepped foot in the building for an interview. The O'Doyles are a group of brothers that appear in every grade Billy is a part of. They are the typical bullies. The movie shows them chanting "O'Doyle's rule!" while falling off a cliff. It represents how in the end bullies lose and don't gain anything by preying off others. Billy realizes he was also a bully when he was originally in high school and he obviously didn't succeed the first time around.

What's the end result of Billy's experience? He decides to go to college to be a teacher, the typical irony.

Yes I know I completely overanalyzed a comical movie featuring Adam Sandler who is notorious for being stupidly funny. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy Adam and his parading like an idiot and I still give the movie a thumbs up for entertaining me on a night where nothing else worthwhile was on tv. Thanks Starz!

To B satisfied or not to B satisfied, that is the question

On my last official day of class one of my professors ended by telling us this: "You may receive a B+ for the class and do nothing, or you may write a 3-4 page review for each of the 3 books we've read and possibly improve your grade." Now I, being a student who always kind of took the easy road and was satisfied with a B+, had to stop and think about this option. Some in the class were a little annoyed and determined to get an A, but I had to weigh the options. Do I stick with a B+ (a fairly decent grade for just reading and participating occasionally), or do I work my brain and write a paper. He did give us 2 weeks to complete this assignment, which is pretty generous.

This got me to thinking about what I would do in high school and even undergrad. I definitely would have taken the B+ no questions asked. I mean hey, it means I don't have to do jack...right? There are many students out there that think just like I did. Their motivation is lacking and they would always rather do what takes the least amount of effort. Of course there are exceptions to this, but I'm pretty sure a majority think this way.

So how do we correct this lack of motivation? In my spring semester course we discussed how motivation is not created by the teacher, it is inborn. Motivation is the condition within a person that affects their readiness to do an activity. I believe most students have a motivation but just don't let it kick in all the time. This is where differentiation would come into play, but I'll leave that for another post. A teacher has to make sure they do not stifle that glimmer of motivation, but instead they must feed it.

So what is my answer to my B satisfied question? I'm not going to sit back and take the B+. I've decided that I've reached a point in my life and career where I have to be more proactive in my learning and start setting the example that I want my students to follow. I also figured I should show my professor I'm not just some young blond student named "Chris" who he would pick on. Even though I didn't have much to say about the political, economic and social issues in the curriculum class (yes the class took a complete tangent away from what it should have been), I will show him that I have an understanding of what we read and that I am a great student. How's that for motivation?

Diving Into Technology

So here begins my new adventure into the blogging community. My inspiration for starting this came from my summer grad classes. In one class we've been discussing class differences and all the elements that cause the gaps between the rich and the poor. One topic of discussion was that when our students leave school and return home they are inundated with so much negativity from the media. This made me think that if I want to try to do something about this then I have to explore more avenues of technology and media. Then in my next class the idea of blogs came up in discussion as a form of professional and personal development. What a great parallel! So here I am exploring technology while networking.

Speaking of media, I would just like to share a commercial that cracks me up and makes me smile. I have mentioned this commercial to some of my friends but they just haven't really caught on to the humor. I'd like you to take note at :16 (that is by far my favorite part) as well as the cow at :18.



On a more serious and productive note, one solution my professor gave to the dilemma of students receiving negativity from the media, he gave me a fantastic idea that my colleagues and I will be implementing in our curriculum next year. He said that if he were still teaching he would make every Friday a movie day where he would show a classic like "Schindler's List" or "To Kill a Mockingbird" and then have a discussion about the moral implications of the movie. As a middle school teacher this may be difficult to find appropriate movies content and age wise. I do feel that when this comes together we will be able to valuable discussions that not only teach morality but also will teach proper use and appreciation of media. If a curriculum is formally drawn up I would be happy to share it with others. I welcome suggestions for topics and movies, so please share if you have thoughts.