Resumes...Cover Letters...and Interviews

Tuesday night at the LSEA meeting Clark Goltz came to speak to education students about their resumes and cover letters as well as preform a mock interview. I thought the information he shared was very beneficial. Until his presentation I didn't have a clue as to what to include in my resume, and I thought it was really great that he had some examples to share. I thought it was helpful to be able to visually see how you can set up your resume. With the amount of experience Clark has he was able to share with us what a principal would be looking for. This was also why it was great that he preformed a mock interview with one of the board members, because it gave people the opportunity to see what would be good to say and what would be better to say as well as what to avoid. He made a point to stop in between each question and answer to give and receive input which I felt benefited everyone who was there.

Now What?

I thought this comic is something that relates to the real world. This would have went well with the new teacher panel post. The more I talk to new teachers I feel like I hear that although it's exciting its also frightening. I think that every new teacher wishes there was a person there to tell them what to do, but I think that in the end we will all just have to fight the battle ourselves.

THE BRAIN

Monday night we went to a presentation at the middle school instead of having class. It was interesting because this presentation was geared toward parents and middle school students...not really college students. Karen Williams presented a great presentation with an amazing amount of information, the presentation itself was also really interesting. She talked about how the brain is affected by different things and also the development of it. I thought it was really interesting to find out that the brain is not fully developed until after age 25. I found the information about how alcohol affects the brain at certain ages really different that what I ever expected. I felt it was crazy to find out the effects it has on kids who drink, and the out come of it. It ends up not just being about kids drinking and driving its about the things it does to your brain. The development is slowed down and the rate at which it is affected is surprising. Not just the affects of alcohol but also the affects of being hit in the head such as during football or at high impact. I thought it was really interesting that it is not until days later that the affects are generated in the brain.

Global Concerns

Tuesday night I went to the third annual ONE Campaign Hunger Banquet. The speaker was Natalie Sugira who is a refugee who immigrated to the United States from Rwanda. She addressed many world issues including education. Natalie grew up in Rwanda in a family of multiple children. While growing up she was the only one of her siblings who was able to go to secondary school. Her father sold their cows and goats in order for her to be educated, to this day she does not know why he did this and put he rest of the family in jeopardy. Unfortunately she was never able to find this out and lost her parents in the genocide.

The ONE Campaign raises awareness on many global concerns issues and while experiencing an assimilation of how the world distributes food, I am shocked at our worlds in ability to share. I was thinking about how all around the world we teach our children to share and yet as adults, and as main beings in power it is made far from a fair level of sharing. How is it that we have more than enough to eat 3 meals a day and yet in parts of the world meals are skipped on a regular basis and when the are available they are small portions of rice and maybe beans.

I can only hope that our generation runs with these issues and speaks out against it. The ONE Campaign has some great goal but without people spreading the word, nobody will ever do anything about it. The millennium project will continue until the year 2015 and I can only hope that by then many great things can happen, to follow those that have already happened.

I encourage people to check out www.one.org/us

Educational Assumptions

I found this cartoon and I really needed to post it because I think it goes really well with something I was just discussing with some people in my ed class. I feel like sometimes teachers make the really stupid mistake of assuming that one of their students knows things they may not just because of where they've come from

Last year in Paideia my professor used to ask the international students about certain things we would read and in reality they wouldn't know anything about it...and I think its wrong to just throw them out there like that.

High Stakes Community Schools

Monday in Class Dr. Lanholz had Dr. Knick come to class to join us as we preformed a mock meeting. Earlier in the day during class we were all assigned a role in society. We were all given a mock proposal which outlined what the superintendent planned to implement into the school district. In our groups we had to take a stance on the different scenarios and be able to voice our opinions. When we came to class it was really interesting how different roles spoke up on the issues. I was part of the drop out prevention coordinators and I felt the plan would only hinder the students attitudes on school. I felt like some of my peers didnt really understand their roles because there was much more that could have been said that wasn't, but then again I felt overall it was a great discussion.

I think everyone really got into it, and I was talking with a few people about how funny it was how into it people got. It was then that I realized it's a good thing, if we as future educators were not upset over such situations then that is when there should be worry... We as future educators need to be able to see when something is wrong and know when to speak out and voice our opinion. I think for this reason it was a great situation to have been put into.

This situation helped to see what a real issue could look like if it were to arise, it just a few short years most of us will be out in the schools and we need support like this to help us see that speaking up is important. Nothing with change if we all just follow other peoples lead.

Chalk and Wire

I have had my chalk and wire account for awhile already because I took 221 and 222 but I feel that for everyone else its a little frightening for them because while in 220 and 222 both gave opportunity to learn how to use the program but only in 222 did I actually learn to write rationales. I have noticed this especially this semester with peers who do not even have the slightest clue as to where to start...without explanation how can anyone know what to write. I feel that I wouldn't have been able to do my rationales in 221 without the prior experience i got with my opportunities in 222. I feel like this is something that should be put into consideration.
Other than that I really think chalk and wire is a great program and I'm glad I have the opportunity to put my portfolio together via online verses a paper file.

National History Day

So I spent a little of my Saturday at Decorah Middle School checking out the regional history day. I thought it was really interesting since my school never did anything like this, I thought maybe it was just an Iowa thing but looking online and through the booklet I got while I was there I found out it's a nationally link event. I thought it was really great that so many middle schoolers work as individuals and also as groups in order to produce such great work. There were so many different sorts of projects these kids did, ranging from huge tri folds to historical papers and websites. Many of these students incorporated technology in their projects which I thought was awesome, they had some really great ideas. The theme this year was 'The Individual In History', many students chose people like Elvis and Henry Ford and others found people a little less glorified that many people may have never heard. No matter who they chose I think everyone did really great at portraying their individual and their accomplishment that made them an individual in history.

Administrator Panel

We had the pleasure of Steve Chambless coming to speak to us and answering questions about his experiences in the education system. Steve has been working in the education system for 41 years and has done everything from teaching in a classroom to being the superintendent of schools. I though hearing his history was really awesome because not only has he been everywhere on the chain of command but he's done so in multiple states. I thought it was really interesting that he did some work in the school district near my home back when it was a nothing town years ago. The schools he was in are nowhere near what they used to be and hearing what it was like while he was there was just so interesting. I can only hope I can have such a great amount to share years down the road.

CHALK

We watched the movie chalk in class and unfortunately I did not get to see the second half of the movie from what I saw in the first hour it was really funny. This movie is suppose to be a fake documentary that in many ways is like the well known TV show The Office. It is a fake documentary which is filmed to show how teachers personal lives are affected by their professional lives and so on. It is also pointing out how new teachers haven't really created their classroom character and sometimes have issues holding the interest of students. I feel like what makes this so amusing is the truth to much of this comedy, obviously it is really overdone and exaggerated but it really proves the points.

New Teacher Panel

February 23 we had a panel of new teachers come to our class and we were able to listen to them about their experiences in their first years of teaching. I thought it was really great to hear them talk to us about their experiences because it gives us something to look forward to and to also remember key things that could help us out in the future.
I think hearing about how their classrooms and schools functioned really gives us all something to look at and really see that everyone will have such a different experience. I'm really glad they were willing to come share it with us.

Paper Clips

I thought that the concept of paper clips was a really nice idea to bring awareness into the community. When living in a smaller community many students do not realize that they are unaware of world events and difference. I feel like if more rural school created ways to teach there students of tolerance and diversity, it was make the world a little bit better.

Letting kids go through life knowing nothing more than their small community is just holding them back. The world is a very concept place and I feel that projects that open it up to them can help them understand. The paper clip project was a great idea giving not only the students but also community members the opportunity to learn of the Holocaust and the hear, see and learn of the intolerance that created such a horrible piece of history. I feel that it was not just good in the historical aspect but as the one guys said in the video it made him more aware of the words he used. It made him more aware of things that he wanted to prevent his children from ever becoming. It was a learning experience for him as well as the students.

I thought that bringing the Holocaust survivors in to speak gave the children and even wider opportunity to hear the stories first hand. Although many people would say they may not be emotional developed enough and they just are not developmentally mature enough. I feel that there is no time in life that you are ready for that kind of thing, its history, its life, its part of what makes life the way you know it today. You cant keep children away from learning these kinds of things, by making them aware, it helping to shape them to be more aware for their own lives. By knowing this is wrong and that it was a horrible event in history it makes them want more to work toward a better future. The past is what teaches how to make tomorrow a better day, I think that it is important for these kind of projects to be supported in order for our students, to make better choices in their life time.