The Purpose of Schooling

We are winding down to the very last days of class and have been asked to ponder the purpose of schooling. If I had the opportunity to ask this question to a classroom full of 2Nd graders, I would jump on the chance. The way a 2ND grader thinks is often so awakening to me because I find their ideas often organic and pure. I would ask them "Why are you here today?" If I could work past such possible responses as "Because I have to be," or "I don't know" I would really hope to create a more inspiring setting, one that would encourage them to think more deeply about their presence and overall purpose as a student.

I decided to write about the purpose of schooling because I keep realizing out much standardized testing can influence and affect the overall mood of a classroom if you let it. I am a strong believer that these tests show us very little about our students and what they are fully capable of. Perlstein's decision to write an entire book on this idea is what has been most shocking to me. There are schools out there that believe testing is above all the most important issue worth focusing on because results are the largest reflection of how well a school is functioning according to the State. This is not to say that I agree with the idea that test results do mirror how well a school is doing because while I believe it may be some indicator I do not support a method that limitingly tests.

So I am curious as to how many still believe that the purpose of schooling is to teach children the knowledge they need to know in order to meet state-wide standards. For those of you who may think that yes, this is in fact one of the primary reasons, I find the need to add the thoughts of one of the authors we have been reading in class. Perlsetin argues that students are tested on many areas that often ignore listening ability, reading aloud, the use of creativity and imagination as a means of learning, or even how well students perform comparatively during less-stressful situations when there is no test formality. I'd like to share why I believe testing is so limited. I have always been a poor test taker even from a very young age. Testing always brought upon feelings of anxiety, nervousness, and anger because of the fact that I was required to pass a test made up of completely unknown questions and material. Because I had no idea what was expected of me I would often give up long before the testing time began. I was often unmotivated to study because it always reminded me about how much I don't know and my memory was always never as good as anyone elses. How unfortunate to be tested and graded when just the thought of testing probably brought down my score.

It is for my own personal experiences that I find testing to be an unfair method to use as the primary resource for grading. What about my ability to write well, to read well, to be imaginative, to be socially and mentally adaptive? That would all go ignored the second I began to test. For these reasons I fully intend to take into account all aspects of student ability. Afterall, my purpose of a teacher is to see the strengths in all students in all areas. I realize everyday how much I hope to teach about schooling, how it isn't all about curriculum but how we grow as individuals within a small community.

September Experience

Last week I recieved a email informing me of my September Experience placement! My options were either Maywood Hills or Woodmoor Elementary. Because I had previous experience working closely with Maywood I was secretly hoping that was where I would be placed. I like to believe that things happen for a reason and that if it's meant to be it will happen. With that in mind, I did not get Maywood but I did get Woodmoor!! I am pleased to have this opportunity and I am lucky to have been given placement within my first chosen school district. I feel that by growing up within Northshore school district a part of me owes a lot to it.

We will be spending the end of August until the end of September with our schools.

My meeting/interview with their principal is May 28th at 3:45 and I am fairly nervous and extremely excited. I know my job will not be easy but I can hardly contain the excitement I feel because of all the new things I will be given the chance to learn, practice, and teach! I will post how it all goes in the near future! Wish me luck as I come closer and closer...

Relationships, Community, & Battling Rejection

I've been spending a great deal of time wondering about how well I will be able to cope with everyday situations within my own classroom. More specifically, how will I encourage and foster new relationships to begin and grow within my classroom?

I've been reading multiple articles and books that cross reference this idea of community based classrooms and how they are constructed. Why a community-based classroom you ask? Why not? The most important role of a community-based classroom for me is just one of the building blocks for successful teaching and learning. When I aim to create a setting where each student feels safe and accepted, my motivation for doing so will be the result of many new positive relationships and friendships. Without these positive school relationships, it's easy to feel lost, unwanted, and alone. How awful it feels to be unwanted by a group of students and to be told you cannot play. Because it is impossible to be accepted by everybody every time, this problem of public rejection must not continue. When students feel unwanted their entire self becomes focused on why they aren't good enough and why they have been excluded. Because I never want my students to feel separated or unwanted, I hope to focus much of my attention on the idea of a community based classroom where students are willing to co-exist no matter who may be part of the community.

Vivian Paley's book titled, You Can't Say You Can't Play, allows outsiders like you and I to see how rejection affects children. Both teachers and parents are often the ones who hear about stories of rejection and are sometimes at a loss of words of how to make these situations less painful. For me, it's easy to thumb through my childhood memories and relive a time where I felt rejected. This feeling is so easy to relive because I still associate rejection will feelings of sadness, anger, bitterness, jealousy, and loss of self-worth. An entire community has no hope of successfully developing into it's full potential if limitations are set. When one student is told they can't play because they don't have the "right" kind of shoes on the rejection they feel immediately makes them feel unwanted and disconnected from the group. I find Paley's rule "You Can't Say You Can't Play" to be a great motto. If this rule can work for a group of twenty something students who struggle with creating an ideal community-based learning environment, relationships will begin because those who were previously rejected are now given the opportunity to grow with one another rather than alone.

Even though I was once a student who often dealt with rejection, my new role as teacher brings on a new challenge. Because I am not yet a teacher, I am still unfamiliar with how student relationships begin, grow, and sometimes crumble. If I can keep Paley's rule and adopt it as my own, will I be able to strengthen my ability to foster new relationships and help them grow? I like to think of myself as an optimist and so I will say "yes!" Paley states something rather alarming yet very true, "Rejection in play is the forerunner of all the rejections to come."
(p. 27). It is sad to think that even if teachers exhaust the rule that says no one can't play, life will be a rude awakening for them. There will be times outside of the classroom where this rule is unknown and not followed. It will be my job as their teacher to remind them that rejection is a nasty feeling and that actions have consequences. It takes a lifetime to forget how it feels to be unwanted and that by rejecting someone you are telling them they aren't part of the community that was so long in the making.

Paley's book was difficult for me to get through because it was easy to see her classroom broken up into many small groups of students who were so dissaproving of one another. It wasn't until the end that she felt comfortable enough to enforce the rule. She wasn't sure if the rule was fair or even if it would work so she went to the students, she listened to their personal stories about rejection. I admire her for going to them because she taught me that the best way to understand your student's relationships is to ask. Never be afraid to question what you don't understand. Much of what I have rejected in life is most of what I don't understand. Wow. What a lesson learned!

Dream a Dream

For this week, I hope to continue yet not exhaust my practice of getting to know more about who I am. My plan in doing so requires reminiscing on my childhood. This week's assignment: writing a poem titled, 'Where I'm From.' I thought I'd share.

Where I'm From
I come from hot summer days,
Coca Cola slurpees and six-lets.
I come from backyard pools and trampolines,
daddy-built swing sets and manicured lawns.
I come from make believe adventures,
wheel barrow rides and monkey bar races.
I'm made up of Barbie's clothes and makeup.

I come from Mr. Handyman and Mrs. Suzie homemaker.
I come from popsicles and sprinklers,
Culs-de-sac bike rides and side walk chalk.
I come from smiles and laughter,
dandelion weeds and skip-it.
I'm made up of hair scrunchies and salt water sandals.

I come from roller blade races,
tree houses and homemade forts.
I come from summer camp and soccer games,
soccer fields and tennis courts.
I come from summer parties on the beach,
sunburns and mosquito bites.
I'm made up princess crowns and a Girl Scout uniform.
I'm made up of badges, and dress up.

Now that you've read more about what I've associated with my own childhood, I encourage you to sit and ponder what your childhood days consisted of. I hope that my poem helped to pain a picture of who I was because by writing this poem I found it easy to escape my life today and remember where my life was at back then. When I found out we were to write about our childhood I knew writing something like this would bring a smile to my face. My childhood was grand, almost pure bliss. I know I am lucky because not all children have such an easy childhood and therefor I aim to open my mind for all possible scenarios. On a more happy note, If I was prompted to look back on where my mind was focused at an early age I just might be able to reach my students on a different level. I then began the process of wondering how I have changed if at all over the last fifteen years. Am I still just a kid at heart? I like to think so!

How can we work towards knowing our students without truely knowing ourselves? Have you ever asked yourself what it was in your childhood that helped mold you into the person you are today? I believe that most of our growing up was not only in inches but in our abilites to adapt into society with a wide range of unique individuals. I would like to strongly argue that imagination and make believe played an enormous role in creating who I am today. It was also because of people like Walt Disney who helped root imagination as a positive attribute. Unfortunately, the fire that fuled my imagination as a child has slowly been dying over the years. How can I relate to my students and children if my imagination is anything less than ignited? Finding myself again after what feels like I've being separated from my childhood it is sometimes difficult to remember who I was back then. I can't even count the times I've been told by society that growing up into maturity with a sense of realism and structure is what's most highly valued. I must say that by cutting off my childhood never did me any good because most of who I am is a result of who I was back then and what I believed.

I believe knowing one's self requires the ability to rewind the tape of childhood, really narrow in on what made us happy, who and what made us cry, and what inspired us to be imaginative and creative. Childhood to me screams make believe, fairytales, wonderland adventures. Soon we find out that much of what we once believed true is in all actuality only real in our minds. If we never fed our imaginations with the help of books and movies where would our imaginations be? I owe a lot of my upbringing to fairytales I read and the adventures I followed with make believe stories. If it wasn't for imagination, how do we create dreams for ourselves? Without imagination would we be less likely to set goals for ourselves especially when they seem far out of reach? With imagination, I can invision an unlikely even to happen. Without itI find myself aiming towards something already likely to happen. I ask myself "Where would I be without a dream or a goal?"

While the arguement remains on whether or not school should be fun, I would definately say that while it doesn't need to be fun always, it should be engaging. While reading Perlstein's chapter 12 last week I found myself inspired by Sheila McDermott's teaching tactics. She was not amused by nap time or play time but she did believe that school should never dismiss or ignore opportunites that promote learning, creativity and imagination. She found ways to fit a learning lesson into every crevice. She suggests that time is invaluable. What I gathered from her knowledge was if we let time pass us by that is exactly what will happen. If we can use our imaginations and be creative with teaching we can find a lesson to go with almost every activity.

Parts of a Whole

These past few weeks my mind has been geared towards the purpose and roles of school district Board meetings. It was almost a month ago that I participated in Northshore's and it wasn't until this last weekend when I began writing my paper on their agenda that I really began to disect and analyze the meeting in its entirety.

I arrived fairly early to find only a few people preparing for the day's meeting. I sat quietly as I curiously ran over possible scenarios in my mind. I began asking myself in wonderment if all the seats surrounding me would eventually fill up. My biggest concern as the newby was how formal and uncomfortable I would feel sitting in this meeting. My preconcieved notions were fairly accurate when I found myself struggling to understand the agenda and all of the initiatives being discussed. I found our assignment to be highly valuable in the sense that now I am no longer hesitant or curious about what goes on during these meetings. I assume this to not be the last meeting I attend.

To my surprise, the room quickly filled and the meeting began. I began writing notes as quickly as possible to not miss a single important word. I found the guest speakers to be admirable. Teachers, parents, principals, students, and community members were present and I felt as if my own presence was worth something. Is it not important to know what decisions are being made in our schools? Why weren't more families there?

As far as budget goes, I feel the topic has been exhausted over time but that doesn't go to show the topic is ever any less important. Budget affects each and every member of the community and this was evident at the meeting. Passionate members of the district stood to voice their opinnions regarding I-728. While this discussion was depressing for it brought about a pessimistic dark cloud above us all, there was one uplifting presentation that followed. While this next presentation was not closely linked to budget issues it did however touch upon much needed resources for the Spanish speaking families within the district. Iram Aguilar's words were inspiring. Irma shared with us her dedication towards Natural Helpers. With much of the readings we have been sharing in class, multiculturlism has been a bold topic of choice.

As we have discussed from the beginning, it is often extremely difficult to meet the needs of every individual even without language barriers. It was Irma's presenation at the meeting that almost brought light to a situation I knew little about. How are teacher's helping ELL students? Lets be honest, it is not realistic for teachers to learn every native language, this does not mean we stop or give up when we find ourselves struggling to relate or communicate with eachother. If we seek outside help and if the help is willing to be there, then I see a strong communial commitment setting a positive example.

From the movie we watched in class based on the struggle for educational equality, the 1950's was an extremely segregated time for schools. Not only was race a means for separation but so was gender. Teachers were not left out of this equation either. American history is known for separating people into groups and I believe that we aim to de-track but it's always easier said than done. If language barriers create another means for grouping students it is obvious that education is often unequal and many would argue it's often unfair. Linda Perlstein mentions in her book "Tested" that "Vast gaps in abilities exist in any given school" (p. 145) So what is there to be said about unequal fairness? In all reality, there really isn't a whole lot to be said. I am still trying to figure out how to keep a happy medium of helping the individual while still making them feel part of the whole.