About My Kid

About My Kid

This article is about a kid that was never interested in school and always got bad grades and didn't do his homework. However he aces standardized tests and can fix any computer problem that arises. His mom never gave up on him on trying to help him become a better person.  One thing she learned is that she cant make him do anything she wants him to do and not all the answers to her questions can be found.  One thing that surprised me is that the kid was able to ace his standardized tests even though he didn't do well in school. I also wonder if he was able to get a job from the career center. The writer gave details about her life and her sons life.  Also I liked how she wrote questions that she asked herself which helped me stay interested in the article.   

The Littlest Schoolhouse

The Littlest Schoolhouse
This article is about the author that dropped out of school and he tells snap shots of his school life.  He also explores on why he dropped out and if teachers are doing anything to help students like him.  Also how teachers are teaching their students.  I was surprised when I read that he wanted to drop out in the fourth grade.  I didn't think kids would already think about that so early in school.  I also wondered why he wanted to drop out?  I was also surprised that he wanted to drop out so early in his education but made it to college and then decided to drop out. What made him stay in school for so long before he dropped out?  One strategy I noticed was that he would talk about his education life and then he would connect it with other students.  He made snapshots of what he went through in school and he talked about what happened after he dropped out of college.

Memoir Assigment

  My first semester of college was a whole new world to me coming from the High School.  I learned a lot of skills that I always had and didn't realize I had these skills.  English 090 was one class I had trouble with that semester.  In English 090 I wrote very well written papers reflecting my life. “Did I get all A’s and B’s on them? No I didn't because I had trouble with grammar.”  The first paper I got back was a C.  It had notes written all over it saying sentence structure, fragment, run-on, and pro-noun agreement.  I ripped up the paper and gave up on writing.  I thought to myself, “I can’t do this and I will never be a good writer.”  I was upset that I didn't get the help I needed in high school when I had these problems.  Throughout high school I always had sentence structure, fragments, and run-on problems.  All the teachers did were fix the problems for me and didn't explain to me how to correct them.  Fortunately in college I had a supportive teacher that inspired me and helped every individual.  She taught us about sentence structure, run-ons, fragments and lots of other grammar skills. When I wrote one assignment during class she would have conferences with each student individually and go over the editing notes she wrote on our papers.  What encouraged me to write was when she would laugh when she read my papers and tell me that she can picture it in her head what was happening.  She would always encourage me to go to her office whenever I needed help. Therefore I ended up learning a lot and that I can become a better writer with practice.

Furthermore, now that you know about my experience in my English class, my first semester of college I also learned how to manage school and my home life.  Trying to figure out how to manage my home life and school life gave me the biggest headache at first and it took some time to figure out how to do both without having stress in my life.   It’s the first week of college and my English teacher comes in the room.  She comes up to me and says, “You’re playing games on your phone! Shouldn’t you be studying while you’re waiting?”  After that I built a whole new schedule for me.  It’s the second week of classes and I get in the classroom and I look at the clock I have fifteen minutes before class so I get out a piece of paper and drag my pencil across the paper and then the teacher comes in and looks at me with a smile and says, “I am so proud of you, being a productive student.”  When class is over I head to the gym and I have sweat going down my face with my eyes going from left to right on a boring textbook.  After I learned how to use my time wisely I didn’t have to stay up till eleven at night doing my homework. Also I was able to have a life with friends and family. 

Another skill I gained in college was confidence and independence.  Having confidence in myself was the hardest thing for me believe it or not.  Throughout my whole years of school I would always be the girl that would sit at my desk with my lips sealed and not one peep out of me while everyone else participated in the discussion.  I was always afraid of kids laughing at me and making fun of me if I asked a question or said a wrong answer.  And then at the end of class I would walk out without understanding anything.  I had a splitting headache when I tried to do my homework because it was like I was learning a new language and I would always go to my mom with water coming out of my eyes and my hair sticking up. I would always tell her, “I don’t understand this ridiculous homework and I am going to get an F if I don’t do it!”  So she told me, “I will email your teachers and explain what is going on for you.”   In college it was a respectful environment full of grown up and mature adults.  When it came to class discussions I would not keep my mouth shut.  In my reading class I would answer 10 out of the 13 questions my teacher asked.  Everyone else would sit there with their mouths shut.  I even asked questions when I didn’t understand something and was always going to my professors office hours for extra help. 

Even though college was a big transition for me coming from the high school and I had throbbing headaches, I got through it all and learned a lot about me.  I can do anything I put my mind to and I can get through anything and shouldn’t let obstacles get in my way.  Also even though I was frustrated that I didn’t get the support I needed in high school it’s a whole new education for me and I can start off brand new and look at how far I gone in college with all the struggles I had.  

"Killing Chickens"

Three specific details that seem effective

• "She fights me, struggling to be free of my weight, my gloved hands, my need to kill her."
• "I clamp my hand over her beak and give her head a hard twist."
• "My anger and fear center like a tornado on having to kill this hen." 

The main idea of this article is that she shows her anger and fear from the divorce on the chickens.

I noticed how they used the chickens throughout the whole story to describe her anger and fear. They caught my attention by using very descriptive words.  The story shows lots of emotion on how the mother and kids feel.  The story also has dialog of the kids talking. 

What Makes a Great Teacher?

What Makes a Great Teacher?

In this article they are discussing what makes a good teacher and there are many things that factor in being a good teacher.  They also discuss factors that prevent them from being a great teacher.  They tell many observations that they have made.  For example they have an example of a teacher and how they teach and what they believe is effective for teaching and then they have an example of a teacher that could use improvement to become a great teacher. They are doing this to help teachers to become great teachers and what solutions they can use to help them.  One thing that interested me was when they said, "one great way that teachers ensure that kids are learning is to frequently check for understanding: are the kids- all of the kids- following what you are saying? Asking "does anyone have any questions?" does not work."  (What Makes a Great Teacher?)  I am surprised by this because all the teachers I have had always asked does anyone have any questions and I believe in this because I find that a lot of students are embarrassed to ask questions in front of the class. Another fact that surprises me in this article is how Mr.Taylor teaches.  For example, "Mr.Taylor begins to walk around the room reading problems aloud. "How many 5's are in 45?" The kids have to do the math in their head." This makes me think does he ever let the kids use calculators because through Middle school and High school teachers always gave me a calculator to use.  In this article I liked how they wrote examples of observations they saw in classrooms while teachers were teaching.  They went in detail on how teachers taught and they compared to teachers. I think this is a good article because it kept me interested and I could relate it to my education experience. The article also gave lots of good examples and evidence.

Practice with Sensory Detail

My hometown was a wonderful (or choose your own adjective) place to grow up.

I lived in a neighborhood that was on a dead end street so I could go out and play without worrying about to many cars getting in my way.  I also had very friendly neighbors that I was close to. I would always go to my neighbor Karin to hangout and talk and i was able to go swimming in her pool. 

Laci had a rather crazy style.

She had red hair that was always up in a ponytail to the side and she would wear a purple shirt that was to tight for her body and showed her stomach.  Then she wore baggy green pants that went down to her knees and wore bright yellow knee socks. 

Mr. Brown is the worst teacher I’ve ever had.

Mr.brown was always yelling at students that you could hear him all the way down the hall.  One time he yelled at me for getting a math problem wrong. 

The room seemed very productive.

In the room there was students at the tables reading their text books and highlighting text.  There was students at the computers writing their three page paper.  Then there was students talking with one each other and helping to get an assignment done.

Education Advertisement

How do people make a decision on if they want to go to the International Diploma in Montessori and Pre-Primary Teacher Training?  You can decide by asking these few questions.  First do you like working with kids?  What age groups do you like working with? Most importantly research Montessori and find out his teaching methods and his theory on how kids learn.  Do you like the way Montessori teaches and believe in his theory on how kids learn.  If you said yes to all these questions then I think it’s a great training for you.    

Just by looking at this ad I can see that it breaks down into sections and the colors they picked are inviting and bright which are red, blue, magenta, purple, and green.  I liked how they put the title on a red background because that color is the one that catches my eye the most and you want the title to stick out the most.  They also put the title in big bold letters and have a shadow around the letters.  Then they have smaller words to describe the training.  They have one section that gives the syllabus that’s on the purple background and another section that’s in magenta that describes why you should go to Greenwich College.  Then one the blue section it gives the class duration and in the lighter green it says the resource person.  Lastly and most importantly in the darker green it gives the contact information.  I also really liked that they put pictures in the ad because it shows the experience some of the adults and kids had going through this training at Greenwich College.  There are three pictures showing adults working with the kids and teaching them.  In the first picture there is a college student teaching Preschoolers about the world and showing them the globe.  All the students are sitting nicely on the floor and are listening to the teacher.  In the second picture there is a college student doing puzzles with kids and she is guiding the kids when they need help.  In the last picture there is a college student talking about wild animals to the kids and showing them toys of wild animals.  In all these pictures the preschoolers seem relaxed and interested in what they are doing or learning.

The message for this ad is that Greenwich College wants adults to use their training to earn a diploma in Montessori and Pre-Primary teacher.  The target audience is the adults that want to do training in Montessori and Pre- Primary teaching.  I also, think this ad is effective because it has a lot of colors and pictures.  If I wanted to go for training like this I would think about going there because of the pictures they put in.  The environment they made for this training seems relaxed and it looks like all the kids are engrossed in what they are learning and the college students are getting experience on being an effective teacher by working with the kids.

I think this ad is very effective because it has inviting colors and they are not too dark.  The ad also has pictures of the experience you could have when you go for the training. The ad is also very organized and it’s not too busy because then it would be overwhelming to the person deciding to go to the training.  I think they should take a picture of the environment the training is in because that is one thing I would want to see before I decide if I want to go to the training.        

Attention Whole Foods Shoppers summary

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/26/attention_whole_foods_shoppers?page=full

In the Whole Foods Shoppers Article they discuss many issues with foods and want to make food shopping eco-friendly and solve global deprivation.  One cause is the prices of foods are affecting many countries.  There were 850 million people that were famished before 2008 and it’s even larger now.  Most of the famished people live in Africa or South Asia and are protected from global fee adjustment.  Most people of the country households are also cut from the nearby town markets because of the walking distance.  The low salary in Africa is causing lack of food.  To unravel worldwide starvation we need to be realistic of the view on preindustrial food and farming.  In Asia the Green uprising was good for both farming and public justice.  The use distant support to sustenance agriculture improvements.   In Africa governments in rich countries can choose to care a stable new infusion of economic and procedural aid to help local governments and farmers become more useful.  There will always be problems with foods that either has to do with money or lack of support and will always be coming up with solutions. 

Proposal

Jessica

February 1, 2012

Education is the first topic I would choose for many reasons.   The first reason is I have a lot of personal experience with education from going to school.  I can see myself writing an essay on the struggles I had in school and what made it difficult when I came to college.   I am also majoring in Early Childhood Education and I would like to learn more about it because I don’t know everything and it is interesting to learn about.  The few questions I ask myself is why do teachers in Early Childhood teach math differently now?  How do they teach it to all different grades and is there any other subjects they teach differently now?  I have also observed at the daycare on campus and at Children’s Workshop and St. Elizabeth’s Manor.  Therefore, I have places I can go back to and observe.  I also have an aunt that teaches fifth grade and a close friend that teaches first grade and are willing to help me in any way they can to get the information I need to complete these assignments.  I can observe on the different ways teachers teach and the environment the children are in and how this affects the students.  It is interesting to know that every teacher has a different way of teaching and it makes me wonder which way will be most helpful to the students as they move on in life.  I would also like to learn about what homeschool is like and what factors can affect the child in this kind of environment.  One argumentative topic I would defiantly write about is the lack of support in schools for kids with disabilities.  This is a strong topic for me because I went through this in school and I felt like when I did have support from teachers that I wasn’t getting the help I needed because they didn’t know how to help me in those areas I struggled in.  For example I had trouble with grammar in my writing.  The teachers would just fix the grammar for me and didn’t tell me why that’s not right and how to fix it.  How do I learn from that?  It would also be interesting to learn about the dropout rates.  What is causing students to drop out?  Are the schools doing anything to decrease the dropout rate?   The second topic I would choose is family and relationships and the third topic is food.