tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27499064831758841232024-03-14T07:44:42.785-07:00Teaching SmartsMatthew Kissel's ED261 blog project...and possibly beyond!Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-68943207408510175362012-08-10T14:02:00.003-07:002012-08-10T14:21:49.313-07:00Who I Write LikeIn addition to this blog I also keep a blog that discussion matters of theology and Biblical studies (<a href="http://digestofworms.blogspot.com/">Digest of Worms</a>) in which I copied and pasted several posts to a text analyzing program available online that tells you what famous author you write like. The answers varied by post and the names Dan Brown, Isaac Asimov and George Orwell came up. I have reach much of Isaac Asimov's work and some Orwell so it is conceivable that they have influenced my writing style. I have never read Dan Brown so I found it interesting that most of my posts were written in a style similar to his. Maybe Dan Brown reads Asimov and Orwell and we both acquired our style from them!<br />
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I recently started running some of my posts from this blog through the program and got different results (my style seems to have changed significantly since I did this with my other blog). Below is a list of the authors with some comments on my experience reading their work.<br />
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The posts on <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/12/khan-academy-and-internet-issues.html">Khan Academy</a>, my <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/07/course-reflection-for-language-and.html">reflection</a> on my language and culture class, <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/07/cultural-noise.html">Cultural Noise</a>, teachers <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-about-behaviors.html">teaching their morality to students</a>, my <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/07/discussing-class.html">first post on <i>The Class</i></a>, the <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/07/rsa-animate-ken-robinson-on-shifting.html">Ken Robinson speech</a>, and <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/07/discussing-h-g-wells-country-of-blind.html">discussing an H. G. Wells story</a>:<br />
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I write like<br />
<a href="http://iwl.me/w/147eabd8" style="color: #698b22; font-size: 30px; text-decoration: none;">H. P. Lovecraft</a></div>
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<em>I Write Like</em> by Mémoires, <a href="http://www.codingrobots.com/memoires/" style="color: #888888;">journal software</a>. <a href="http://iwl.me/" style="background: #FFFFE0; color: #333333;"><b>Analyze your writing!</b></a></div>
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The only Lovecraft I have read <i>The Call of Cthulu</i> and I found it somewhat disappointing. I enjoy authors that have been influenced by him more than the original like Mike Mignola's <i>Hellboy</i> series.<br />
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My post on what it means to be <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/12/good-at-history.html">good at history</a>, <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/08/teacher-anxiety.html">teacher anxiety</a>, <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/08/do-we-really-want-teachers-who-are.html">narcissism and leadership</a>, the <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/08/rsa-animate-do-grades-motivate.html">motivational value of grades</a>, and <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/08/healthy-teachers.html">working out</a>:<br />
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I write like<br />
<a href="http://iwl.me/w/d7939cdb" style="color: #698b22; font-size: 30px; text-decoration: none;">David Foster Wallace</a></div>
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<em>I Write Like</em> by Mémoires, <a href="http://www.codingrobots.com/memoires/" style="color: #888888;">journal software</a>. <a href="http://iwl.me/" style="background: #FFFFE0; color: #333333;"><b>Analyze your writing!</b></a></div>
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Full disclosure: I have never heard of this man but the fact that I have five posts listed as similar to his style seems significant to me (that is 25% of my blog until this post). From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace">looking him up on Wikipedia</a> I have found out how out of touch I am with postmodern American literature.<br />
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My post on <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/07/helicopters-are-noisy.html">helicopter parenting</a>:<br />
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I write like<br />
<a href="http://iwl.me/w/c3e0655f" style="color: #698b22; font-size: 30px; text-decoration: none;">Vladimir Nabokov</a></div>
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<em>I Write Like</em> by Mémoires, <a href="http://www.codingrobots.com/memoires/" style="color: #888888;">journal software</a>. <a href="http://iwl.me/" style="background: #FFFFE0; color: #333333;"><b>Analyze your writing!</b></a></div>
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I have only seen the movie Lolita and never actually read words written by Nabokov. I know just enough about him to understand Sting's reference to him in his "Don't Stand So Close to Me" but I appreciate the comparison given the amount of respect people have for this author.<br />
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My post on <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/07/your-own-worst-enemy-knowing-both-sides.html">knowing both sides</a> of an issue:<br />
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I write like<br />
<a href="http://iwl.me/w/a19b4b4" style="color: #698b22; font-size: 30px; text-decoration: none;">Arthur Clarke</a></div>
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<em>I Write Like</em> by Mémoires, <a href="http://www.codingrobots.com/memoires/" style="color: #888888;">journal software</a>. <a href="http://iwl.me/" style="background: #FFFFE0; color: #333333;"><b>Analyze your writing!</b></a></div>
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I actually read and saw the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. My only other experience with Clarke are with his smart and insightful quotes that people tend to share online such as "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."<br />
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Finally, my post on <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-i-want-my-child-to-choose-friends.html">how I want my child to make friends</a>:<br />
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I write like<br />
<a href="http://iwl.me/w/31398c21" style="color: #698b22; font-size: 30px; text-decoration: none;">Cory Doctorow</a></div>
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<em>I Write Like</em> by Mémoires, <a href="http://www.codingrobots.com/memoires/" style="color: #888888;">journal software</a>. <a href="http://iwl.me/" style="background: #FFFFE0; color: #333333;"><b>Analyze your writing!</b></a></div>
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This is another author I have never heard of but based on what I <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corey_Doctorow">read about him</a> on Wikipedia I think we would get along pretty well.<br />
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UPDATE:<br />
This post was analyzed and the results are its style is similar to Cory Doctorow.<br />
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UPDATE 2:<br />
I broke my thesis up by section, entered each section and here are the results:<br />
Framing the Inquiry - H. P. Lovecraft<br />
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Abstract - Margaret Atwood (I heard of <i>The Handmaiden's Tale</i> and that is all I know of her)<br />
Chapter 1 - Dan Brown<br />
Chapter 2 - H. P. Lovecraft<br />
Review of the Literature - H. P. Lovecraft<br />
Chapter 3 - Arthur Clarke<br />
Concluding Thoughts - H. P. Lovecraft<br />
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Lovecraft came up three times. I certainly hope none of my readers had any nightmares because of my chilling, terror-inducing thesis.Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-3531875070189601112012-06-14T12:20:00.002-07:002012-06-14T14:39:35.398-07:00MEd Final Draft (Pending Revisions)Here it is!<br />
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<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/97139348/Kissel-MEd-2012" style="-x-system-font: none; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 12px auto 6px auto; text-decoration: underline;" title="View Kissel MEd 2012 on Scribd">Kissel MEd 2012</a><iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" data-aspect-ratio="0.772727272727273" data-auto-height="true" frameborder="0" height="600" id="doc_38566" scrolling="no" src="http://www.scribd.com/embeds/97139348/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-1m9pys3xtjfd2tg89d3p" width="100%"></iframe>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-18288717757989467932012-04-20T22:57:00.000-07:002012-04-20T22:57:00.925-07:00M.Ed. Second Chapter Rough Draft<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now you know what I have been doing all this time! This is my second chapter rough draft.</span><div>
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<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/90463801/Kissel-Chapter-2-Artifact-Analysis" style="-x-system-font: none; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 12px auto 6px auto; text-decoration: underline;" title="View Kissel Chapter 2 Artifact Analysis on Scribd">Kissel Chapter 2 Artifact Analysis</a><iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" data-aspect-ratio="0.772727272727273" data-auto-height="true" frameborder="0" height="600" id="doc_46913" scrolling="no" src="http://www.scribd.com/embeds/90463801/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-kxrmbiix3jfgw2lqu8c" width="100%"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now to breathe a heavy sigh of relief!</span></div>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-34599152863531438412011-12-21T14:08:00.000-08:002011-12-21T14:16:22.413-08:00M.Ed First Chapter Rough DraftI have completed a rough draft of the first chapter of my Master's Thesis. Below the embedded pdf file I will mention some of the big changes (not the little ones) that I intend to make. The goal of this chapter was to thoroughly analyze artifacts we collected in our observations and come up with a question that will drive our M.Ed inquiry.<br />
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<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/76259141/MEd-Chapter-1-Rough-Draft" style="-x-system-font: none; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 12px auto 6px auto; text-decoration: underline;" title="View MEd Chapter 1 Rough Draft on Scribd">MEd Chapter 1 Rough Draft</a> <object data="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf" height="600" id="doc_25686" name="doc_25686" style="outline: none;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"> <param name="movie" value="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf"><param name="wmode" value="opaque"><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="FlashVars" value="document_id=76259141&access_key=key-1zmmuupifewsxwjfkw7m&page=1&viewMode=list"><embed id="doc_25686" name="doc_25686" src="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=76259141&access_key=key-1zmmuupifewsxwjfkw7m&page=1&viewMode=list" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="600" width="100%" wmode="opaque" bgcolor="#ffffff"></embed> </object><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After looking over my own work and sharing it with other MEd students I have decided to make the following revisions (other than the odd syntax, spelling or other minor correction):</span><br />
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<ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Add distinct categories of classroom culture.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Separate the influence of the environment from the influence from teacher interaction with students.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Re-word driving question: instead of relationship between management and culture make it about engineering classroom culture (classroom management would be an example of engineering the classroom).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consider how the kinds of activities in a lesson plan influence classroom culture.</span></li>
</ul></div>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-34131898610103833052011-12-21T10:47:00.000-08:002011-12-21T10:50:04.117-08:00Khan Academy and Internet Issues<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.skitch.com/20090109-rpkdghqdr5nn3y8u8fj63r7271.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="153" src="http://img.skitch.com/20090109-rpkdghqdr5nn3y8u8fj63r7271.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You probably won't get this reference, being a cool person.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is an interesting <a href="http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/ff_khan/all/1">article</a> in Wired about Khan Academy as well as the role of individual instruction in increasing student performance. The article mentions a study done in 1984 by Benjamin Bloom that shows great results from it:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What Bloom found is that students given one-on-one attention reliably perform two standard deviations better than their peers who stay in a regular classroom. How much of an improvement is that? Enough that a student in the middle of the pack will vault into the 98th percentile.</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> My own experience with students has confirmed that one-on-one instruction greatly improves student performance. A knowledgeable amateur can do more in a one-on-one setting than a teacher can do in a group setting. This creates a challenge for teachers with large classrooms. How do you give students the one-on-one attention they need to become proficient in your subject when you have 35 students in each class? The Khan video is one solution: use the tutorials to do the lecture so that all of class time can be patrolling and helping students run their drills, problem sets, assignments, or some sort of practice work (this would be most effective for something like math, for humanities subjects I'm not sure how this would work out). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are still a few problems here. For one thing, many students simply will not do any work at home (especially if you assign a video to watch on a Friday for class on Monday) and there is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide">digital divide</a> issue (The Benton Foundation runs a <a href="http://benton.org/topics">site</a> that updates you on issues regarding access to technology and the public interest, you can get lots of info about the digital divide there). So you will inevitably have a significant amount of students who are going to need the lecture repeated to them when they get to class.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of my thoughts that I will hopefully blog about in the future is on the necessity of assigning any homework in the first place. If you can cover both the lecture and the practice in class then why bother with making students do anything when they get home? For this teachers can try the <a href="http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/cooperative/whatis.html">cooperative learning</a> model. While this is not exactly individual instruction it increases the students individual support team to include other students in the class and not just the teacher. This method can have similar results to individual instruction because a struggling student can get individual attention from his team members.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Science Education Research Center at Carleton College in Minnesota lists what they call key elements of cooperative learning. The most interesting to me are the second and third ones:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><ol style="color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 1%; margin-left: 1%; margin-right: 1%; margin-top: 1%; padding-left: 66px;"><li style="margin-bottom: 1%; margin-left: 1%; margin-right: 1%; margin-top: 1%;"><span style="background-color: white;"><strong>Individual Accountability</strong>: The essence of individual accountability in cooperative learning is "students learn together, but perform alone." This ensures that no one can "hitch-hike" on the work of others. A lesson's goals must be clear enough that students are able to measure whether (a) the group is successful in achieving them, and (b) individual members are successful in achieving them as well.</span></li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 1%; margin-left: 1%; margin-right: 1%; margin-top: 1%;"><span style="background-color: white;"><strong>Face-to-Face (Promotive) Interaction</strong>: Important cognitive activities and interpersonal dynamics only occur when students promote each other's learning. This includes oral explanations of how to solve problems, discussing the nature of the concepts being learned, and connecting present learning with past knowledge. It is through face-to-face, promotive interaction that members become personally committed to each other as well as to their mutual goals.</span></li>
</ol></blockquote> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These address concerns teachers may have over students being free riders on the efforts of their teammates and it notes that when students teach other students both the instructing student and the recipient of that instruction benefit. Teachers can take a step back and allow other students to fill in their role in small group situations where one student who understands the material can help a student who does not in a one-on-one situation. While this is happening the teacher can patrol the classroom providing instruction to the groups as needed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This method can be combined with a lecture. The students come to class and start with a quick warm-up exercise or preparatory set, then the teacher can introduce the new topic, give a lecture on it and use the rest of class time for practice. The order of this can change as well. Students can figure out how a mathematical operation works or find a historical cause as part of their group work and then hear a lecture that explains it more fully. This method ought to give students the individual instruction that Khan saw a need for without putting a strong necessity on every student doing their homework and having access to the internet.</span>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-80961193664235750362011-12-11T20:03:00.000-08:002011-12-11T20:05:15.921-08:00Good at History<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is an essay that I wrote for one of my classes about what it means to be good at history (the subject I intend to teach).</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Good at History<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-indent: 17.45pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;"> “What good is this going to do me?” It is a very annoying question to most teachers but the question is a fair one. Perhaps in a perfect world all students have a natural curiosity of history and value its study as an intrinsically good activity, but that cannot be expected. Many students are not going to be naturally interested in the subject. There is an answer, however, and it has to do with mastering the skills involved in history. Someone who is good at history will be able to find a way to make it useful for them. Studying history provides students with a grab-bag of tools they can use from evaluating evidence to tell a good story to a sense of their place in the general flow of human civilization. The qualities of being good at history can be divided into two categories: one has to do with applying cognitive ability to the subject, the other is essential concepts someone must understand. People who are good at history display higher order thinking to historical topics and are aware of challenges specific to history like understanding historical context and being able to evaluate information without having to be judgmental.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> I am sure that most of us would agree that being good at history means more than just memorizing facts about leaders, dates where lots of important people did something or famous speeches. As enjoyable as those things can be for enthusiasts they are insufficient for making one what could be considered good. Ideally, rather than training students to repeat information learned in class teachers could bring students to cognitive domains that are higher up Bloom’s Taxonomy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Consider the following quote from <i>Brave New World </i>by Aldous Huxley:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-indent: 17.45pt;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;"><br />
</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-indent: 17.45pt;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">At breakfast the next morning, "Tommy," some one says, "do you know which is the longest river in <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>?" A shaking of the head. "But don't you remember something that begins: The <st1:place w:st="on">Nile</st1:place> is the …"<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-indent: 17.45pt;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">"The - Nile - is - the - longest - river - in - Africa - and - the - second - in - length - of - all - the - rivers - of - the - globe …" The words come rushing out. "Although - falling - short - of …"<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-indent: 17.45pt;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">"Well now, which is the longest river in <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>?"<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-hyphenate: auto; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-indent: 17.3pt;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial;">The eyes are blank. "I don't know."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">In the above quote the child Tommy is simply recalling a fact that was taught him without understanding it. If he understood the meaning of the sentence he had memorized he would have been able to answer the question that was posed to him. Unfortunately he was only trained to recite a fact. He is not good at geography, he is good at memorization. Someone who is good at history should be able draw logical conclusions from the facts they hear and not just recite them. Being good at history means that when you learn that Abraham Lincoln was president in the 1860s you can then come up with his name when asked to say as many government officials of the 19<sup>th</sup> Century you can name.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> While history is generally categorized among the humanities it is partly scientific. Interpretation is often open-ended but it bound by what is made possible by the evidence and what can be rationalized as the best explanation. Abraham Lincoln’s exact thoughts about slavery are open to interpretation among historians but it would be factually incorrect to speculate that he was a Nazi. Because the National Socialist Party did not exist during Abraham Lincoln’s lifetime the evidence does not permit this interpretation. Someone who is good at history understands that there are many ways to interpret an event but those interpretations are limited by the evidence. They can evaluate how well an explanation accounts for the evidence presented.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Those who are good at history have a sense of how things came to be and have a good idea about how things could have been different if different events had happened. Essentially, someone who is good at history can make intelligent counterfactual claims. When making these claims one does not have to pretend to know exactly what would have happened if Truman did not use atomic weapons but they should be able to show their awareness of the effect that event had in history by altering events that are connected to it. What would be interesting about this exercise is how someone justifies the changes they list. Why do they think Julia and Ethel Rosenberg would not have given atomic bomb information to the Russians? Why do they think <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> would have been more willing to use atomic weapons during the Cold War? This step is similar to picking historical interpretation in that there are a wide variety of reasonable possibilities but limits to what the evidence would allow. For instance, someone who is good at history would not argue that a different decision from Truman would have lead to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> taking over Europe because <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> had already surrendered by the time the bombs were dropped on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> In addition to climbing the ranks of cognitive domains there is still the second category of essential historical concepts. One who is good at history understands the need for context in understanding the past. This means that they can put themselves in the mindset of someone who lived in the past based on what facts they know about the time in which they lived. They can imagine themselves as someone who has never been on the internet, seen a movie and does not know what quantum physics is. They can imagine themselves as someone who grew up in a Native American tribe and lives in a wigwam. Then when they learn about the person’s actions or how thoughts they can make sense of them in respect to the mindset they know they had. Understanding context also means you have to suspend severe moral judgments (not to say there are no objective morals, just that applying them to people long dead does you no good in understanding them) because that can inhibit the process of possessing their mindset. Good historians must step out of their favored position of hindsight during this process and think as if they were someone directly involved in the events they are studying.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> One thing that I hope ties all of these features together is that they all have useful applications outside of history class. The student who wonders what studying the past will do for him personally has only to consider the tools he is acquiring in the process. He can consider the views of others, make informed decisions about counterfactuals and in doing that learn from his own past, and he can draw facts from the information he is presented with to better understand it rather than parroting what he has heard. All of these skills are useful for him to manage his social life, work in a professional environment and even come up with routines to handle his personal affairs more efficiently.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></div>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-67254660961329193732011-08-23T15:53:00.000-07:002011-11-10T13:53:58.937-08:00Teacher Anxiety<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Anxiety.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Anxiety.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from Wikimedia Commons by GRPH3B18</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The school year has started and I have been placed for student teaching. In order to absorb the school culture I have been attending the staff meetings along with the other student teachers. The nice thing about attending the meetings, besides getting a chance to meet the teachers, was that I got to see what practical, outside-the-classroom issues teachers were most anxious about. Teacher seemed to be very concerned about issues in the following categories.</span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Rigid standards (I should note that they were overjoyed to see the newer test questions that are going to be implemented in the next few years, so this is not an issue of laziness).</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Budget issues came up several times, teachers feel education is inadequately funded. I have always felt that education was just inefficiently funded. For example, buying every student a netbook and digital resources is cheaper than supplying textbooks, lets them take tests digitally so less paper is consumed and districts have strict regulations on where teachers purchase their supplies so they often cannot purchase things for the best deals they can find.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. "The District." Teachers see this as a powerful entity above them. "Will the district approve?" is a great concern for them. They also seem to fear that they will be in a situation where the district has some bureaucratic rule that will inhibit them from helping their students.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is good to get a preview of the kinds of issues I will be dealing with in education. I was already aware of the classroom and political concerns from my classes and the fact that these concerns are more popular. These other ones that are not written about in news articles but still extremely relevant to the job of teaching are going to be important to know.</span></div>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-79840277272712309602011-08-15T00:11:00.000-07:002011-08-15T00:11:40.402-07:00Do We Really Want Teachers Who Are Leaders?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Michelangelo_Caravaggio_065.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Michelangelo_Caravaggio_065.jpg" width="164" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Narcissists are sought after for leaders and they also make terrible leaders. In general people are attracted to leaders who display confidence, such leaders fear others subverting their status, so they <a href="http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-narcissists-good-leaders-arent.html">choose underlings who are non-threatening</a>. What implications could this have for teaching?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We do want teachers to be good leaders. They have to control 30 students who often times have many other places they would rather be than school. But we do not want narcissistic teachers (the kinds of people others see as leaders) because of the negative affect it could have on students. Essentially the narcissistic teachers who get hired for their leadership potential could be shooting down students when they feel threatened by their potential status. It sounds axiomatic that good teachers are good leaders, but maybe that is not what we want for schools.</span><br />
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Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-17096479765392227102011-08-11T08:18:00.000-07:002011-08-12T02:53:45.102-07:00RSA Animate: Do Grades Motivate?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have a lot of memories from school of teachers dangling extra credit points as bait to get students to do what they want. Grades are very important to many students. In tenth grade my Algebra 2/Trig teacher offered extra credit points for anyone who could explain how a student in class was cheating (she did not mention a name and told them they did not have to give her a name). Half of the class told her not only how the cheating worked but who was involved. "You guys would step on your own mother's backs for extra credit" she would say. Though she had no place to criticize, she capitalized off of that tendency in college track students. This was in a magnet program designed to get students into as many AP classes as possible and that would every year send some students out to ivy league schools. If class were Foundations of Math would she get the same response? How effective are grades at motivating average students or students whose performance is below average?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another question to ask is about how good grades are at getting the best work out of students. Students may bring in a relevant newspaper article or sell out their friend for extra credit points. But do grades motivate students to really think about the material? Can the incentive of good grades promote first order thinking about the subject matter?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I do not know if there are studies done on grades' abilities in this area. I will have to keep my eyes out for one (if anyone still reads this and you know of any data here feel free to comment). I did, however, find this RSA Animate interesting. This is what got me interested in thinking about grades and if they motivate students the way teachers would want them to.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/u6XAPnuFjJc?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If financial incentives help mechanical tasks but not cognitive tasks what can that tell us about grades' ability to help motivate students to learn? We can use points that contribute to grades to get kids to sell out their friends. We could classify that as a mechanical task. It is different than figuring out who is cheating and how, we assume the students already know that, so the task is analogous to pulling a lever because it is simply a matter of providing the teacher with the requested information. UCSB's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructivism">construcivist</a> philosophy of education is far too sophisticated to see learning as anything but a cognitive task. The first order learning that we especially want to provide middle and high school students with will require more than grades to motivate them. The question becomes this: how do we give students the features than Dan Pink says are motivating to get them to learn the subject matter?</span>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-90045003440781863352011-08-03T14:24:00.000-07:002011-08-03T14:24:25.295-07:00Healthy Teachers<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a single subject: history student I got a letter from my professor telling me the score for the next month or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the letter he recommended building a habit of waking up early and working out to keep your energy levels up (that always seemed counter-intuitive to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wake up early, work out and have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">more </i>energy?) for when I start student teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I already to a fair amount of working out (running, medicine-ball, body weight, stretch chords) but usually at night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Night is a much better time for me because I am much looser then, in the morning my muscles are very tense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The times I have gone running in the morning my legs feel like they have rubber bands attached to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aerobic workouts are hard to do early on because of this tenseness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I decided to build an early morning routine (I had it in high school from 6 am waterpolo and 5:15 swim, but lost it afterwards) around weight-lifting and swimming to take advantage of UCSB’s impressive rec center.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Going to a weight room is a strange social experience, especially if you have not been in one in five years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only am I rusty at the lifting exercises (my squat is too embarrassing to mention!) but I am also rusty at the weight room etiquette.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How close are you allowed to get to people doing free weights?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can you take barbells off of some equipment to use for other lifts if you cannot find one elsewhere?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And apparently no one wipes down their machine (a courtesy that the lifting websites I visited for workout ideas said was a big deal).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another awkward thing about the weight room is the differing levels of weight training ability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not consider myself a serious lifter; I am just putting in some time increasing the maximum force my muscles can generate because I think I am reaching the limit of what my body workouts can get me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the weight room, however, there are a lot of guys who are very into it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They do curls with weights I would have trouble benching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tend to start things out casually and then dive in when I have something to compare myself to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I started running 3 miles a week after college just to get a little sweaty and in two years started marathon training when my friend got into running too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Am I going to end up diving in to this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine being a kid walking into class on the first day and seeing his teacher with biceps as big as his waist.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are you having trouble imagining?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This may help.</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://content7.flixster.com/photo/34/90/32/3490329_gal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://content7.flixster.com/photo/34/90/32/3490329_gal.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's probably a tumor.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also do not like the feeling that I am losing something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People have found that martial arts experts who harden the bones in their hands to punch have softer skulls than non-martial artists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is possible that bone hardness is a zero-sum game and if you build it in one spot you lose it in another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have worked hard to be a flexible, fast-twitch, quick moving sort of athlete, not a power lifter or anything like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is there a zero-sum game involved in agility and strength?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will I have to give up my tree-climbing if I get into weight lifting?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can I bring myself to casually participate in the weight room culture and not get completely sucked in?</span></div>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-30166261564061180892011-07-30T01:42:00.000-07:002011-07-30T01:45:58.379-07:00Helicopters Are Noisy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/hash/4a/2e/4a2ef90c2eff940c4c8d6f18a8f8d200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/hash/4a/2e/4a2ef90c2eff940c4c8d6f18a8f8d200.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lenore Skenazy is a reporter for The New York Sun who gained notoriety among her friends for<span id="goog_1237958336"></span><span id="goog_1237958337"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a> letting her 9 year old son <a href="http://www.creators.com/opinion/lenore-skenazy/why-i-let-my-9-year-old-ride-the-subway-alone.html">ride the subway</a> by himself. She is part of a movement of parents that is reacting to what is perceived as overactive parenting that developed in the 1990s. What people like Lenore are concerned with is that "helicopter" parenting (named because parents, so fearful for their child's safety, hover around them) is convincing children that everything is dangerous. From a teaching perspective (or at least a Jules Henry perspective) the noise of helicopter parenting is creating a society of distrustful wimps. Children see danger everywhere because their parents scare them with warnings. They are taught that every stranger is a kidnapper and everything must be done with adult supervision. This experience also stifles their imagination, their ability to explore and the development of independence.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lenore <a href="http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/about-2/">blogs</a> about the responses she gets to her parenting style:</span><br />
<blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">People who want me arrested for child abuse were sure that my son had dodged drug dealers, bullies, child molesters and psychopaths on that afternoon subway ride home by himself.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Believe me, if I lived in a city like that, I’d evacuate. But crime wise, New York City is actually on par with Provo, Utah — very safe.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #333333; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Not that facts make any difference. Somehow, a whole lot of parents are just convinced that nothing outside the home is safe. At the same time, they’re also convinced that their children are helpless to fend for themselves. While most of these parents walked to school as kids, or hiked the woods — or even took public transportation — they can’t imagine their own offspring doing the same thing.</span></div></blockquote> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lenore believes that there are consequences to being too protective of children. In her own words:</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Children, like chickens, deserve a life outside the cage. The overprotected life is stunting and stifling, not to mention boring for all concerned.</span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If learning is about exploration and independence, helicopter parenting is inhibiting a child's ability to learn. Without the ability to take risks or be away from his parents how is a child going to learn to try things on his own? When teaching Sunday school some students were very independent (unfortunately too independent and they would get in trouble when trying to climb a tree to get a ball down) and others would need me to tell them what to do all the time. Those in a leadership role are tempted to reward the dependents because they make you feel more in control of the group. But the question is, which one of those students is better equipped for exploratory learning?</span>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-15333410573186404992011-07-29T22:18:00.001-07:002011-12-20T12:22:21.921-08:00Course Reflection for Language and Culture Class<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have completed my first round of courses in TEP at UCSB and was asked to write a reflection on my Language and Culture in Education course. Here it is...</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.aviewoncities.com/img/washington/kveus6301s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://www.aviewoncities.com/img/washington/kveus6301s.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Course Reflection</span></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> There are times when it is very easy to teach dry facts. If you have motivated, mature adults whose career aspirations depend on them memorizing facts all you have to do is say them and watch as they furiously write down notes on their laptops. Unfortunately teaching facts seems to be inadequate for making successful teachers (and from my foundations of education class it seems like that is true for most learning outside of learning to teach) and a lecture format of educating teachers probably breaks a cardinal rule of teacher education; do not teach your students in a way you do not want them to teach their students. In the early days of taking both the culture and language class and the foundations of education class I was getting frustrated because when I went home at the end of the day I did not feel like I had learned anything new. I like to debrief myself before going to bed and go over events of the day. During the early stages of the class I would get disappointed that I did not have more facts to replay in my mental repertoire. Unlike a lot of children who are in school because they are supposed to or in college because it is a hoop they feel they have to jump through I have no problem sitting through lectures to memorize facts and procedures. It took me a little while to realize that learning was not just about memorization of facts or procedures. The type of learning in these early stages of TEP seems to be to change the way I think. While this type of learning is beneficial to creating successful teachers it is a challenge to find exactly what classroom activities and assignments were the most effective. </span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> One question I had hoped to get answered was how to teach different cultures, as if the class was going to be spent analyzing the different cultures represented in California schools and having us practice teaching them. Perhaps Anissa would have us role-play teaching a class of 25% Samoan, 50% Hispanic, 15% Caucasian and 10% other. We would then get a rubric back from her when we were done that scored us on buzzwords like “cultural compassion” and “inclusiveness.” We would have to make sure our content was properly divided proportionally by percent into items that are intended to reach each different culture. That means that my grade would go down if 25% of my content was not designed to appeal to Samoan students.</span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Perhaps I will change my mind about this after more classes, but right now I doubt anyone knows the best procedure for teaching a multicultural classroom; nor am I convinced that such a procedure exists as nice as it would be if it did. To be a better teacher who understands the role of language and culture in education we must learn to think in a way that takes language and culture into consideration in how we assess our classrooms. We now have practice analyzing our classroom culture and rationales for being sensitive to the cultures our students come from. That way we become teachers who are equipped to develop our own methods of being culturally responsive and responsible educators. </span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> We worked to accomplish this mostly through observation and discussion. By observation I mean we observe examples of classrooms either first hand, on film or through written descriptions. We then discuss these observations with each other in order to get ideas of how to handle situations we may have to that are similar to what we observed. We were not alone in this. Anissa helped push us in certain directions when we needed it, also our readings often included commentary with the observations that suggested their own solutions to the problems recorded. </span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The most useful reading we did was probably “I Won't Learn From You” by Kohl. While doing my pre-professional teaching I had a tutorial period for students who were failing their classes. I remember there was one student who would rather stare at the wall than do homework. Every morning he would just sit and do nothing (I would have found it more entertaining to work on my homework) for one hour during homework tutoring. This was obviously a situation of active non-learning. There was something about giving in to the demands of a teacher or doing assignments that he felt threatened by to the point where he would choose intentional boredom over doing any work on assignments. While our class did not give me a step-by-step procedure for convincing this person to do homework it helped me learn to classify what was going on so that I know what to work on for a solution. Instead of asking myself “what's this kid's problem?” I can ask myself “what has engaged this student in active non-learning and how can I address it?” While the difference between those responses seems slight the outcomes have drastically different potentials. The former response is likely to alienate the student and cause him to dig deeper into his immutable trench. The latter may help me find a way to work around the barrier between the lesson and the student's desire to learn.</span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> In a similar vein, discussing contemporary issues in education helped us learn to think clearly about these issues. Though it did not give us definitive answers it helped us learn the concerns behind the issues and to consider the different responses people would have to them. Probably the most effective way to accomplish this (and with minimal bloodshed) was to assign us a position to debate. While there is a chance that the issue one of us received was one we had done a lot of research and thinking on and the position we received was one we are passionate about in general this forced students to attempt to see things from a point of view that was not their own (even if they had no opinion, they had to argue as if they did have an opinion so it was still a point of view that was not their own).</span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> If I had to choose a tangible artifact that showed my progress in this class I would have to say that the blog I started for the class is it (</span><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-weight: normal;">teachingsmarts.blogspot.com</span></a></u></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">). I had intended to start a teaching blog anyway because it is a hobby I had been meaning to get into. I spent five years between undergrad and TEP and my writing ability had declined significantly and I wanted to start a blog on a topic that I would want to write about a lot. I had tried other blogs (a personal blog and a theology blog) before but would not update them very often. It turns out that the level of writing for a personal blog tends to get too informal for what I was trying to accomplish and I do not have nearly as much to say about theology as I thought I did. The education blog, however, allowed me to continue discussions with fellow students outside of class (and form the comfort of my own home). I also could make posts on my own that helped me work out primitive thoughts I had into something comprehensive, reflect on something I heard or read outside of class and try to apply it to what I was learning or just post an idea I had in class that we did not get around to discussing. I can in to the program with a strong opinion about what education was and how it worked. With my own areas of idealism and cynicism. The blog has helped me work some of those out with the topics we have been discussing in class. I am seriously considering using it (or something like it) when I am a teacher. To be honest, not a lot has changed, but I am more confident that my way of thinking is not misguided and that, while I have not had a paradigm shift, I have had a shift in how I think about education (I mentioned one big example at the beginning where I think that learning to teach does not involve memorizing procedures). Because I have found the blog so useful I intend to keep updating it (I considered this earlier and have been trying not to make my posts look like class assignments).</span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Though I did expand my way of thinking in our class there are still some questions I have. I am not convinced that simply altering historical meta-narratives taught in class is enough to break students out of active non-learning. I would like to discuss other methods of convincing students that participating in class is in their best interest. I would also like to further discuss the consequences of certain features of classroom cultures. While the topic was touched on more time was spent discussing the more serious issues we ended up debating. Still, while it seems outside of the intention of the program to tell us what kind of classroom culture we should foster I would like to hear views on what some results of different classroom culture styles are.</span></div>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-43980582518683314562011-07-27T23:53:00.000-07:002011-07-27T23:53:35.464-07:00Cultural Noise<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://jimenapulse.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/noise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://jimenapulse.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/noise.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reading Jules Henry is an eye-opening experience for those studying to be teachers. You realize that you have to worry about how your classroom setup, demeanor and tone of voice educates your students when you feel like a lesson plan is really enough to worry about. The nice thing about classroom noise is that while it cannot be completely controlled it is within the teacher's circle of influence (see the <a href="http://www.douzo.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Covey-Model.001.jpg">chart</a> on my <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-about-behaviors.html">previous post</a>) because it occurs within the classroom. While studying language and culture we have, as a class, had to confront the notion of cultural noise. What have students been taught by their culture and how does it affect the classroom? There are two differences between the noise in the classroom and the student's cultural noise that make it harder to deal with. It is in the circle of concern, the one that affects the student's learning experience but cannot be controlled or influenced by the teacher. It is also different for each student. All of the teacher's students are in the classroom together and are therefore affected by the same noise. The students are not all taught by the same cultural noise. A teacher can keep up with examining the noise of one classroom, the noise of the dozens of cultures represented by the students is a different matter.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How do teachers deal with the cultural noise that affects their students? Because they cannot change it they can only be aware of it and try to work with it. Students must be aware of the different cultures represented in their classrooms, respectful enough of the cultures to get to know them well and affirming enough of their students' cultures so the noise does not become dissonant. Herbert Kohl noted instances of this where students were refusing to learn because they felt that the teacher was out of touch with their culture and disrespectful of it. They tuned out as part of their defense mode.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This respect for and interest in culture is a practical step in creating a successful learning environment for students but is not necessarily a moral philosophy. Teachers are not required to see everything that every culture does as good. In fact, most people can find things in their own culture and others that they find immoral. Hopefully teachers can see respecting other cultures, even the ones with practices they find immoral, as a greater good because it aids the teaching process. Teachers cannot change their students' cultures, so even if they do not like them it is outside their circle of influence, so the only response, if they are still interested in teaching the students, is to take the steps necessary to learn about their culture and adjust their teaching strategy accordingly.</span>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-60484969554423562012011-07-27T21:52:00.000-07:002012-02-20T01:01:22.522-08:00Can We Make it Just About Behaviors?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.douzo.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Covey-Model.001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.douzo.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Covey-Model.001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There really is not much you can do to force students to get along. They will all have their own opinions about each other regardless of what you want. Your students attitude about each other is outside your circle of influence. While students have always found reasons to pick on others recently the issue has been related to sexuality. Students anxiety over who is or is not gay and over transgender issues can turn into excuses for bullying. In fact, it is possible that homophobia is an <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=natural-homophobes-evolutionary-psy-2011-03-09">adaptive behavior</a> and therefore an ingrained belief system and not a culturally learned value. Furthermore it is challenging for teachers to discuss these issues with students because any meaningful discussion will presuppose value judgments which the students' parents may not share. It seems the popular opinion in education is that it is not a teacher's job to teach students value judgments about homosexuality (though they do about race, fairness and many other things) so teachers do not relish situations where they have to address it on a personal level--especially when disciplinary action against students is involved. When discussing homosexual and transgender issues with students teachers must keep the following in mind: they do not know what parents have taught their kids about these issues including any moral values that they are raising their children with and they do not know much about the students themselves. Just because one student picks on another student and calls him gay does not mean that student is actually gay.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consider one possible scenario. A group of third graders has decided that because their friend has worn a pink shirt to school they are gay and tease them for it. When addressing this issue with their students a teacher has to consider the very likely possibility that the students involved do not actually know what gay means and their parents do not want their teacher telling their children.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have always been confused by the idea that explaining homosexuality to children is a complicated issue. Most children, by the time they are in school, understand that some adults are attracted to each other without parents having to have the awkward "talk" with them. Why is it so hard to explain to kids that some adults are attracted to people of the same sex? It does not make sense even for parents with conservative views of sexuality. Even if they do not like the idea of same sex attraction they still make their kids aware that some people steal and some people are greedy, why is homosexuality something they have to hide from their children? In what other areas do teachers have to worry about what their parents want their children to know? Most people would agree that teachers do not need to avoid talking about blood transfers out of fear of Jehovah's Witness parents. Why should teachers concern themselves over one but not the other?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most teachers would, instead of addressing the issue of sexuality, focus simply on the negative behavior. The issue is that they are bullying a student and bullying, no matter what the word gay means, is not allowed. I wonder if this really creates an environment that is respectful of homosexuals. If teachers refuse to talk to students about what gay means what does that say to students about people who are identified as gay?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another possible scenario involves a student who is only considered possibly gay (the actual sexuality is unknown) that students believe is transgender. Teachers would need to confirm this story, they cannot assume the students are correct, but asking the student in question directly could be a traumatic experience for them. Other students, however, also have a right to feel safe in their school. Is it fair to require boys to share a locker room with someone they consider a girl or girls to share a locker room with someone they consider a boy? Also, teachers silence in weighing on the moral issue of sex-changes may be seen as tacit endorsement of the conservative position. At best teachers can force students to leave victims of this kind of bullying alone but that will not make the student feel respected by their peers, or even the faculty which does not reassure them that their decisions about their sex or sexuality are proper decisions. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a double bind for me because while I do not like the idea of teachers passing on their personal morality to students I know that it will happen inevitably and that neutrality is often interpreted as taking a particular side. I also think of situations where teachers do teach their own morality to students and people do not complain. I remember my teachers explaining concepts like "social justice" to me. If teachers can weigh in morally on issues like racism and fairness, why not issues of sexuality?</span>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-1412856757827844252011-07-22T16:30:00.000-07:002011-07-29T22:19:49.266-07:00Your Own Worst Enemy: Knowing Both Sides of an Issue<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.colettebaronreid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/ownWorstEnemy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.colettebaronreid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/ownWorstEnemy.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I try not to be one of those people with lots of pet peeves, but I do not like hearing people talk about truth as if there are many different truths. If there really are many different truths then there is no point to discussing anything. What is true for someone else is true for them and what is true for me is true for me. No need to discuss anything there, we are both right in our own truth. When people talk about different truths from different people what they are really doing (hopefully, otherwise they just love wasting time) is discussing a challenge of epistemology, for all they know what you believe is true but it is ultimately unknowable; or they are arguing that the topic of discussion has no objective truth, like what ice cream flavor is best. When two people disagree about something other than what rock band is the greatest or <a href="http://improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume7/v7i3/angels-7-3.htm">how many angels can dance on the head of a pin</a> there are two possibilities: one of them is right and the other is wrong or neither of them is right. While thinking about things this way allows you to hold to a belief in objective truth that makes serious discussions meaningful it can have the unfortunate side effect of making you overconfident in your beliefs. To prevent the errors of either the extreme of metaphysical non-realism or the extreme of radical obstinacy we need to agree that there is one real truth but that we often fail at properly accessing it.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Humans are plagued by multiple<span id="goog_1779772202"></span> biases<span id="goog_1779772203"></span> that cause us to believe things without evidence or to only look at evidence that supports our preconceived beliefs. The main reason we should listen to opposing viewpoints is not because everyone has a valid opinion or because we need to develop strong arguments against those who disagree with us. It is because we are our own worst enemy at getting to<i> the</i> truth, the only truth that exists; and that awareness of this fact helps mute its effect on us.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While our genes have given us <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases">cognitive biases</a> to deal with our society has given us cultural bias by providing us with assumptions we have developed over years of interacting with people who tend to look and think the same way. Because of this there are certain ideas we have that we have never questioned, but are unjustified. It is only through interaction with people without our particular cultural bias (though admittedly with a cultural bias of their own) that we can even think to question these things. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Educating students who do not have our cultural assumptions can be a challenge if we do not listen to their viewpoints and consider the assumptions their culture gives them. In a <a href="http://teachingsmarts.blogspot.com/2011/07/discussing-h-g-wells-country-of-blind.html">previous post</a> I said that educating students requires teachers to find some commonality they share with them to build lessons on top of. If a teacher refuses to listen to the viewpoints of his students (or at least someone who can explain the cultural assumptions of his students to him) then it is unlikely he will ever find that commonality. Teachers do not have to agree with their students culturally imprinted assumptions, they do not even have to think they are reasonable. All teachers have to do is be aware of them (and their own) so that they can effectively build additional information on top of the foundation our unconscious minds have laid.</span>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-68470286476858451852011-07-20T23:27:00.000-07:002011-07-20T23:27:58.152-07:00The Class NYT Article<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anissa mentioned <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/movies/26clas.html">this</a> (at least I think this is the one) article in The New York Times by Manohla Dargis in class when we watched <i>The Class</i>. The article has a pretty good take on the p</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">roblems with <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;">François</span><span class="Apple-style-span">'s teaching style.</span></span></div><blockquote><div style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;">...Mr. Bégaudeau is playing a fictionalized version of himself developed through weekly workshops, improvisations and a shoot that lasted a full academic year. Like Mr. Cantet’s shooting style in this movie, he initially comes across as free-flowing, even loose, a guy whose jocular teasing suggests that he wants to be seen more as a friend than as an authority figure, one of us rather than one of them.</div></blockquote><blockquote><div style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;">He isn’t, which proves this classroom’s most difficult, painful lesson.</div></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">François</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> gives the impression of being the cool teacher but at the end of the day he still has to take control of his class at certain points, revealing himself to be more like the other teachers than the students think he is.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The article also tells us what exactly this movie is -a hyper-realistic drama (Dargis compares it to the HBO series <i>The Wire</i>).</span><br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 24px;">...Mr. Cantet, who shares the screenwriting credit with Mr. Bégaudeau and Robin Campillo, tends to keep his ideas more strategically nestled in the unassuming guise of a documentary-inflected realism that plays a lot like life because that’s precisely where it comes from.</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is an overall favorable review and links to audio of an interview with the director Laurent Cantent.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is the trailer in French with English subtitles. Do you think it captures the essence of the movie?</span></span><br />
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</span>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-65382861140393732892011-07-20T00:38:00.000-07:002011-07-29T22:19:49.267-07:00Discussing The Class<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5a/Entrelesmurs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5a/Entrelesmurs.jpg" width="241" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">François does not seem to follow an ordinary curriculum. He teaches French to an ethnically diverse class with several uncooperative students in an inner city middle school in Paris. The lessons shown in the movie are not lectures but are instead a group conversation where students are encouraged to talk about elements of their personal life that most teachers would not find relevant to school. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rather than provide students with formal vocabulary lists </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">François</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> pulls words right out of conversations he has with them, goes over the definitions and then encourages students to use them when appropriate. In these scenes class appears chaotic, but there is definitely learning going on. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">François is introducing words as students are using them. Because the new words come up in conversation students see how the word is used in context and have already provided the definition of the word themselves by expressing its meaning when they were speaking; the teacher is simply filling in a word that explains what they are talking about. He then follows up on the words he has been teaching them in later conversations (asking the class to give him a word to use that is appropriate for the situation at hand).</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">His unconventional method has its drawbacks. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">François skirts dangerously close to being seen as a friend to the students and not a teacher. While the other teachers cultivate a culture of teacher dominance (like forcing students to stand when an adult enters the room) Fran</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">çois</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"> participates in the classroom culture almost as a big brother. Students may fight the role other teachers expect them to fulfill, but at least they know what that role is. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">François's expectations are not clear. In an early scene students are chatting with him in his class without having to raise their hands, and asking </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">François about his sexuality. At one point a student's pen leaks on his hand. One student stands up to offer him a handkerchief to wipe it off but Francois makes him return to his desk and ask for permission to stand up. His expectations are especially confusing in a scene when Francois is asking his student Khoumba why they were not on as friendly terms as they were the year before and immediately after the conversation makes her hand him a book in a way that he considers respectful. From watching the movie I could not figure out what would be expected of me if I were a student in his class.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">The teachers at the school with a more traditional vision of classroom culture complain about students behavior much more than </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">François. They are quicker to apply severe discipline to students who are not interested in participating in the culture that venerates the teacher, and likely encounter these sorts of clashes more often than </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">François</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"> due to their strictness. In these situations students are not just standing up to these adults, they are standing up for their own culture. The humanities teachers seem to focus on a nationalistic curriculum, exposing them to literature from the French enlightenment tradition. The teachers' long-term goals for the students reflects a desire to make them into good French citizens. This poses a challenge for educating students whose roots are not in France but Africa, the Caribbean and China. Alternately </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">François allows the students to express themselves, tries to teach vocabulary that is relevant to their conversations and focuses less on discipline and more on understanding them. While this does help cut across cultural barriers it inhibits his ability to control the class.</span>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-52165741177460424962011-07-17T17:30:00.000-07:002011-07-18T00:08:30.789-07:00RSA Animate: "Would You Like To See My Etchings?"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is an RSA Animate of Steven Pinker "Language as a Window Into Human Nature." He analyzes the nuances of language but cuts through culture and looks at what aspects of being human affect it.</span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like Michael Agar in <i>Language Shock</i> Steven Pinker wants to understand why we pick up on indirect meanings from certain statements. Rather than focusing on instances of confusion, however, Pinker focuses on instances of successful communication. While Agar seems to want to discuss the inadequacy of pure language for communication Pinker wants to understand why our communication is the way it is.</span></div>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-25598007105619797282011-07-16T23:09:00.000-07:002011-07-18T00:08:44.447-07:00RSA Animate: Ken Robinson on Shifting Education Paradigms<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">RSA Animate is like the TED conference -but with cartoons! The Royal Society for Encouragement of the Arts hosts speakers with innovative ideas (this is where it is similar to TED) and sometimes they make them into amusing videos. Here is a video that seem to apply to education I thought I would share for anyone who has the time and inclination to watch them.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The speaker is Ken Robinson and he is talking about how the paradigm of education is based on an outdated model of society and because of this students check out in class because none of it seems relevant to them.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm pretty thankful for The Industrial Revolution. As much as I love the outdoors I enjoy the opportunities I have in this day and age to leave the farm, live in a city and enjoy the benefits of mass production that time period brought about for western civilization. One product of that time was public education (another reason to be grateful). Unfortunately the factor design that was popular at the time for making widgets found its way into making students. Because of that we are handed a educational system that puts kids in a box like they are a product. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To be honest I do not see a problem with considering kids to be products of an educational system. What we really have is a compatibility issue. The problem is that the process of manufacturing intelligent, thoughtful, creative or at least self-motivated adults requires a different sort of factory than a car. For students there are no standard parts and if you return them to the manufacturer then you go to jail for murder. For the student factor the parts that come in are all unique and autonomous and it is not entirely clear what to expect of the performance of the finished model.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is there any solution to our factory problem? How can we get the volume of students the state requires educated for a reasonable cost? One possible solution is<a href="http://schoolofone.org/"> School of One</a> in New York. The concept behind the school is that every student is different and requires a different method of learning. Students are able to select their method of learning for each subject (computer program, small classroom or tutor -who tutors several students at once remotely). At the end of each session the students are tested and a computer program analyzes what algorithm seems to work best for each student for different subjects. <a href="http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/05/12/freakonomics-radio-how-is-a-bad-radio-station-like-the-public-school-system/">Feakonomics Radio</a> has an episode dedicated to it. They compare it to Pandora.</span></div>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-37573051788354342882011-07-15T16:17:00.000-07:002011-07-29T22:19:49.268-07:00Discussing H. G. Well's "The Country of the Blind"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Kp1HZH3rHx4/Th_BqBuZC-I/AAAAAAAAGDc/Ci7xOm1Xq4M/s640/cyclops_glasses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="141" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Kp1HZH3rHx4/Th_BqBuZC-I/AAAAAAAAGDc/Ci7xOm1Xq4M/s200/cyclops_glasses.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #454545; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 19px;">"In regione caecorum rex est luscus." -</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; color: #454545; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/30584.html">Erasmus</a></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">H. G. Well's <a href="http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/3/">"The Country of the Blind"</a> takes serious issue with Erasmus' quote. It seems like an obvious statement. The most enabled person is the one who naturally becomes king. Yet in examining the practicality of injecting a very enabled person into a society of those less enabled shows that their coronation is not as natural as Erasmus thought. Often times new ideas and the people who bring them are scary, especially to people who do not have a foundation to understand them. This is concept is common in literature. A messiah, sage, or technologically advanced alien arrives, tries to save us from ourselves and we reject (maybe even kill) him. This can be seen in the New Testament, the 1951 science-fiction film <i>The Day the Earth Stood Still</i> or even the Greek myth about Cassandra and is also found in popular historical anecdotes like the Galileo affair. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I first starting volunteering and subbing in classrooms I was surprised at the material that teachers were going over with their students. The information seemed so basic. <i>Of course</i> <i>that's how you multiply fractions! Everyone knows that!</i> The things I learned in primary and early secondary education had become so ingrained in me I forgot about the period in my life when I did not know them. I forgot what it was like not to know how to balance an equation in algebra or that Jefferson Davis was the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War. I had forgotten what it was like to not know what "circumstantial" meant. When I try to teach someone how to play the guitar (an instrument I have played since I was 7) I forget that they don't know that a lower note is one of lower frequency and not a note that is on a string closer to the ground. Experimental physicists and computer programmers have to understand the concept of a fourth spacial dimension well enough to use in calculations. It sounds like insanity to those who are used to perceiving space in three dimensions and those who teach those concepts have to start in familiar territory. Say, explaining how one would conceive of a third spacial dimension if they only existed in two.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In order to teach students something new you have to start out meeting them in familiar territory and then expanding. This is something we discussed in our seminar for teaching math. Often times what teachers think should be familiar territory among their students is actually something only familiar to someone raised in the teacher's culture. Nunez tried to explain the concept of sight to the blind citizens but he only used concepts that make sense to those with sight. The success of the story was that Wells was able to find a cultural difference to which there would be no familiar territory in common to Nunez and the blind citizens. A good classroom teacher should find a concept that both he and his students understand that works as a starting point to get them into new knowledge. I do not know exactly what Nunez should use, but I would recommend starting by explaining how his eyes can "feel" things like their hands and that there is a kind of warmth eyes can feel that is called light. Teaching the blind citizens about seeing in three dimensions would be a major challenge. Imagine what would have happened if he attempted what Carl Sagan did. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOPgu77ADsRv07yHLZ_Z2Pr3hA12uwQ04DZMy22PN4_osgp-o0V4EUlwCs_w4ciM1P2D6QGBy8fOoEmi8fPq9m4SjzO2V_xugIa0jXwspTwzzzuZx_4saKQ9o5xzpXeXdNNkdDaXxSzY-/s1600/Tesseract.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="display: inline !important; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOPgu77ADsRv07yHLZ_Z2Pr3hA12uwQ04DZMy22PN4_osgp-o0V4EUlwCs_w4ciM1P2D6QGBy8fOoEmi8fPq9m4SjzO2V_xugIa0jXwspTwzzzuZx_4saKQ9o5xzpXeXdNNkdDaXxSzY-/s320/Tesseract.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"So this warm thing that touches my eyes has FOUR SPACIAL DIMENSIONS!...Guys?"</td></tr>
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</span>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2749906483175884123.post-39625951141401819932011-07-13T15:35:00.000-07:002011-07-29T22:19:49.268-07:00How I Want My Child to Choose Friends<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we saw in the clip from <i>Mean Girls</i> the high school cafeteria is a place where you make a selection of friends as well as food. Students are often forced to make tough decisions of who they want to sit and identify with. Do they play the Christ role and eat with the sinners and outcasts, or do they play politician and rub elbows with the powerful students who can increase their popularity? Well, hopefully there is a middle ground they can find somewhere. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Y6HUm6fpWmAOimd-sw0gJIjBmeVI04oOad9qppg953zxHTv_hi_ELyKp3L-7CzBgc13r6g8lMLaxsXAaAp08CLPFr2NVCBG5VQT7UDjmFcdRPNqYj0c048g8EVEEspQPAZMLV6SrKJCG/s1600/Gingerbreadkid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6Y6HUm6fpWmAOimd-sw0gJIjBmeVI04oOad9qppg953zxHTv_hi_ELyKp3L-7CzBgc13r6g8lMLaxsXAaAp08CLPFr2NVCBG5VQT7UDjmFcdRPNqYj0c048g8EVEEspQPAZMLV6SrKJCG/s320/Gingerbreadkid.jpg" width="268" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Won't you be my friend?"<br />
A gingerbread depiction of what I hope my child is like.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a parent I would have no control over which group my child chooses to sit with, nor could I really understand exactly what it means for them to be a part of that group. The high school cliques that my child would have to choose from will probably be nothing like what I remember. What I could do, however, is work to instill strong values in my child that will help him as a student and in life and prepare him to seek out students with similar values. If that gets him labeled "nerd" so be it, if he is labeled "jock" -oh well. I would want my child to dig deeper and find the values of a group that exist beyond the label, music selection or clothing styles. That may be unrealistic to expect of a teenager, but that does not make this bad advice, just hard advice.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While working to establish churches in the Middle East early Christian tradition holds that the Apostle Paul started mentoring a young disciple named Timothy. The tradition surrounding this relationship is encapsulated in the two Timothy Epistles found in the New Testament. In II Timothy 1 Paul is recorded as saying, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span class="versecontent">I thank God,<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=2749906483175884123&postID=3962595114140181993" name="7"></a> whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience,<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=2749906483175884123&postID=3962595114140181993" name="8"></a> as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers...</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: 20px;">For God did not give us a spirit of timidity,<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=2749906483175884123&postID=3962595114140181993" name="15"></a> but a spirit of power,<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=2749906483175884123&postID=3962595114140181993" name="16"></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; line-height: 20px;"> of love and of self-discipline." While running a youth program in Ventura I had the opportunity to mentor many young people about whom I would pray would receive a spirit of power, love and most especially self-discipline. It is a prayer I will say for my children should I have any.</span><br />
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</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">On the last session I had with my students I showed them a video of a recreation of Mischel's famous marshmallow experiment (embedded after the paragraph). I explained to the students that the ability to postpone instant gratification for future benefits was one of the most essential, if not <i>the</i> most essential ability that must be developed early on to live a life that most of us would consider successful. When Mischel performed a followup to his study he found that the students who could wait until finishing their marshmallow had higher SAT scores, coped with stress better and were considered more dependable by adults.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bad friends are good kid kryptonite. I would hope that my child finds friends who have positive qualities that rub off on him more than I care what subculture he belongs to. I would want my child to be friends with whichever of these kids passed the marshmallow test.</span></div></div>Matt Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05947081596759328950noreply@blogger.com2