Rant and Rave

I am frustrated that while my son is in the NICU I get a call from the department head telling me that my teachers think that it would be beneficial for me to switch co-horts because they do not feel that I can handle everything that is going on in my life. How do my teachers now what I can handle. I came to school two days after I had a baby and the next two weeks while he was in intensive care so that I could take a week off and spend some time with him when he came home. Just to get a call when I am home with him telling me that my teachers are worried I am falling behind. I was very honest with all my teachers and open about the situation. Why did they have to go talk to the department head about it. Why could they not come and talk to me. I feel that I was respectful in keeping them informed but they did not give me the same respect. Instead they went to the department head and had him call and talk to me. I was doing everything in my power to juggle everything the best I could. I would come to school every day then go home and spend some time with my other son then spend most of the night up at the hospital. I hardly ever got to see my husband because one of us had to be home with him because I felt guilty leaving him at home to be babysat all the time. But when I was at home I felt guilty that I was not at the hospital with my new baby. It is such a hard thing to have to go through. To see your baby who has been inhabated and to watch them take him away in an ambulance to another hospital because he was to sick to stay there. It is hard to know that you could not go with him because you have to wait for your doctor to release you from the hospital. It is not an easy thing to go through. Not to mention having him taken out of the room before you even get a chance to see him. I had to wait four days to be able to hold my baby. I feel like the teachers had no compassion or understanding. Instead they just want you to switch co-horts because they feel it would be beneficial to me. What would be beneficial to me is to finish school while my children are still young. If i switch then Kayden will be 2 1/2 when I finish. He will be old enough to want to go do things and I will have to tell him no because I have school work to do. I did not plan on getting pregnant but things happen and I just have to deal with them when they come. However it really sucks to know that I can not get an "A" in my classes because I had a baby and he had to be in the NICU for twelve days. Then I come to find out if you are sick the teachers will work with you and give you the opportunity for you to make up the points missed. So if I have the swine flu I can still get an "A" but if I have a baby there is just no way. That's okay though because I don't need an "A" to graduate. I will graduate and have worked hard to get it! It is not easy having a fifteen month old and a two month old. Kids are hard. I love them to death but it is not easy. On top of that Kayden my older son is always sick. When he gets done with the antibiotics he just gets another ear infection two weeks later. He is miserable and it makes me feel so bad. The ear infection he has now is not going away. He has been on two different types of antibiotics that have not worked and is now on his third. He has a double ear infection and gets up about every three hours at night. We are going to take him to a specialist and most likely he will be getting tubes in the next couple of week. I do not get much sleep between the two kids. And on top of that we just found out this week that our landlord is foreclosing on his house so we are moving by November 1. I am not asking for people to feel bad for me or to change my grades. I don't need sympathy. I made my life what it is and I love my kids my husband and where I am at. I just think that it is ridiculous that teachers are so unwilling to work with people sometimes. I knew what I was doing before I missed the classes. So I am okay with the consequences. I just hate that the teachers could not come to me. I was doing everything I could to communicate with them I just wanted the same respect back. I also hate that people think that they can tell me what is best for my situation when they have never met me or even know anything about my situation. I have had a hard time really learning this semester because I have just gotten to the point that I don't feel like the teachers here even care. They just want us to attend their class because it is the most important thing. I am excited for student teaching. I think that it will be a good break from being in the classroom. I feel that the teacher I will be working with will give me lots of good ideas and strategies to use. I am a little worried about leaving my boys all day but I know that they are in good hands and that it is a short time in the big scheme of things. I did not come this far to give up on what I want to do in my life. It will all be worth it in the end. To be able to say that I came through the struggles in my life to accomplish something really big. I can't wait! Weather you think you can or you think you can't you are probably right. I know I can.

Week 8

I really liked the different graphic organizers that were in this section. It is good to know that there are many different ways to use these. I always think of graphic organizers as webs or list so it is good to know that there is more than just that. I think that checklist would work good in the classroom. The only problem I see with them is students being honest and answering how the truly feel or think. I am not sure how I would get students to answer truthfully. Although I am not sure if it truly matters if they answer truthfully or not. I really liked how the book went into detail about the KUD's it was a really good reminder of the first semester in Axle's class where we learned about KUD'S. I also really liked how there were several different sample lesson plans. It was really good for me to see ways that you can differentiate in the classroom and not have it be extremely difficult or have to have extremely different lesson plans for all the students. The book ends with showing several different types of rubrics. I really liked this because it is kind of how you end a lesson. By using a rubric to see if the students met the goals that you had designed for them.

Week 7

Chapter seven was a really great way to sum up the book and review some of the important things that we have learned through out. In the beginning of the chapter it talked about many things that effective teachers do. Some of my favorites are:
Effective teachers consistently emphasize that their love for their students is a key element in their success.
Effective teachers spend a great deal of time working and interacting directly with their students.
Effective teachers emphasize hands-on learning, conceptual understanding, and links with the world beyond the classroom.
Effective teachers are more concerned with student understanding of meaning than memorization of facts.
Effective teachers accept responsibility for student outcomes.
I thought that there were many others that were great but these were my favorite. I think that it will be challenging to accomplish these things in my classroom as a beginning teacher but if I can accomplish these things I will be a better person and a teacher. The book says "We simply have to decide the shape we want our teaching careers to take, and begin moving in that direction." I want to be an effective teacher who can differentiate to help my students. I want to be the teacher that every parent wants their child to be in. I want to be the teacher that the children are sad to see leave at the end of the year because they look up to them. I want to be the teacher who makes a difference in people's lives. The last thing in the book that really stood out to me was when it said "Our young, our schools, our country, and our world are better for each teacher who musters up all the courage he or she can find and says to the fox, Can you show me how to tame you?" I want to find all the courage in me and ask every student to show me how I can tame them. How I can help make a difference in their lives to help them grow and learn and be a great contribution to our society.

Week 6

I am really starting to enjoy this book. I love how it is now showing examples of how we can teach differentiation. One of my favorite things in Chapter 5 is building a curriculum that is demanding. In the book it says "Only when we provide consistent opportunity for each student to sharpen his abilities as a thinker will each student develop into a fully thoughtful adult." This made me realize that if we don't challenge every single student we are not allowing them to do the things that they need to do to become a successful adult. I want to help every child become a better person in this world. I want to be able to push every student to their fullest potential. My question is this will I be able to do this for every student for every single subject. Is it okay to not reach them all the time as long as we are reaching them at some point during the day.
I really liked the scenario of Mr. Johnson. One thing I really liked is how it talked about how in his curriculum he wrote what it was he wanted the students to understand, what they should know, and what they would be able to do. This got me thinking about the classes that we have been taking. I realized that this is why we have these exact questions on our lesson plans. I also thought back to having Axle as a teacher. I think that through his class we learned to do backwards design very well. We did this by asking these questions for our whole unit before we even started a lesson plan. I now realize how important that is. I also liked the part where it talked about Aiming High. In the book it says "It is likely that we underestimate what any student can accomplish." I do not want to underestimate what my students are capable of doing. How do I make sure that I push each child to their fullest potential. I am afraid that I will let the children who are behind get off to easy. I might feel that they can't accomplish something when they really could do it if I just gave them a chance. I hope that I don't fall into that trap. I want to push every child to aim high and reach there goals.

Week 5

I really enjoy reading this book. It has so many insightful phrases and things to think about. Chapter three was no exception. I think so far chapter 3 has been my favorite because it says a lot of the things that we all want to accomplish as a teacher but may not know how to do. There were several quotes in chapter three that really stuck out to me but I think that my favorite is "I want to be a leader in creating a place where each of you becomes more keenly aware of the possibilities in yourself, the people around you, and the power of knowledge. In this place, I want us to find together a good way to live." I think that this saying defines what we as teachers should always be striving for. We need to be able to find a way to create an environment that everyone is comfortable and can live up to there fullest potential. Some of the other quotes I really liked were "teachers have no road map for their journey." I liked this because it helped me realize that there is no set way to teach differentiation that it will change year to year just like us and our students. "To know you I must find many ways to listen to you and to learn about you. I must not only learn about you, I must learn from you." I really liked that because as I am learning about differentiation I feel that it is not just for the students but for the teacher as well. We are learning from our students just as much as they are learning from us. It is a two way street. There were several more quotes that I really loved but the last one I want to talk about is when it says "none of us are ever through striving." I really liked this because I feel that it can be applied anywhere in our lives. We are always striving for something. Weather it be more money, to finish school, or for some people to just live another day. I think that everyone in this world is striving for something and always will be.
I had a harder time really getting into chapter 4. I felt that it was really long. I really liked the examples and scenarios but I wish that there were maybe a little bit less of them. When reading about the classroom environment it said that "Sarcasm has no place in positive environments." Although I know that sarcasm is not appropriate for children this really stuck out to me. Some students may not understand that you are just being sarcastic and not trying to offend them. We want to gain the respect and comfort of our students. Using sarcasm is not the way to do that. In scenario 2 of communication in the classroom I had a hard time trying to picture this in the classroom. It talks about how the teacher has her students tell about their strengths and weakness. She then graphs them and has the class talk about the different strengths and weakness that students have and how them can help everyone become better. My question to this is could this be embarrassing to some students. I know for me I would not want the whole class to know my weaknesses. I am more of a shy person and like to keep to my self most of the time. I liked in chapter 4 where it talked about having support systems in our classroom. Could doing morning meeting help set up it's own support system by allowing the students to set up the system. Or do we need to set up one for the students. I know that there are several other things that play into differentiation but i feel like I am finally starting to understand it. It is more than just having a community of learners and trying to adapt our lesson to each student's level. It also has to do with the environment, routines, communication, and allowing students to take some ownership in and of the classroom.

Week 4

The inventories on blackboard hold great potential for me in my student teaching classroom as well as any classroom. I especially liked the reading inventories. I think this would be a great way to determine a student's reading ability and where I can help them in their learning. I liked that the inventory had pictures so that if students could not read the words they could at least know the idea from looking at the picture. I liked that on the reading and writing interest inventory you could give this inventory as a class. You as a teacher could read the questions out loud and give the students time to fill in their answers. I really like this because one of my questions on doing this many inventories is how would you be able to do this for each student all of the time. My student teaching classroom is first grade so I am not sure if I would be able to conduct multiple inventories. I do see inventories as a very useful tool in differentiation because it allows me to see what each student needs and how I can help them. I am just not sure if during my student teaching I would have enough time to do this for each student. Another inventory that I really like is the Anecdotal Notes. I think that this would be very beneficial in establishing a differentiated classroom. This would allow me to get deeper into the child's learning and see where they are developmentally. I also like this method because students don't know that you are trying to see what they know. Where in the reading inventory I think some students would not want to tell you they didn't like reading or writing. I also liked the writing sample instructions. I think that it would be very beneficial to have a writing sample from each student. This would allow me to see where they are in there writing skills. I think that is very beneficial to a teacher.
The student profile survey in Fulfilling the Promise would be very useful to me in the classroom as a teacher. By giving this inventory to my students I would be able to learn ways that they like to learn as well as ways that they do not. This would be beneficial in differentiating the classroom because it would allow me to know each individuals learning style. This would help me to reach out to each student and teach them in ways that they learn best.
I feel that the student interest survey in Fulfilling the Promise is a great way to differentiate your classroom. It allows you to start to get to know your students on a personal level. I love how it combines asking questions about their favorite things as well as asking questions about how they learn. I think every single question is important. I love how it ask what makes you feel proud of yourself. I think that this is a great question for students. Sometimes I think students need to think about what makes them feel proud of themselves. I think so often students are thinking of what makes them feel bad or students who have picked on them. It is great for a teacher to know what makes them proud of themselves. This way you can try to teach them in ways that they can accomplish their goals and feel proud of themselves.

Fullfilling the Promise Chapters 1&2

I really enjoyed reading this book so far. I felt that there were many things that I could learn from this book that can help me be a better teacher. One saying that I really connected with was "the one size fits-all teacher may very well discover that the "size" fits almost no one." This is so true. We may think that by teaching one lesson we will reach all most all of the students but instead we reach hardly any students. The question I have is how do we as teachers prepare a lesson to reach all of the children. I think that this is going to be the biggest challenge that we as teachers face. When designing a lesson can I think of everything that I need to so that I can be sure to reach every student.
Another thing that really stuck out to me in this reading is when it said "The two will be joined forever by the small memories they made together -- times they shared together." I want to be that teacher that students remember forever. They one that they tell there children I remember such and such teachers because she made such a big difference in my life. I want to be the one who will make a difference that children will remember forever. The question is how do I be that perfect teacher for everyone. How do I make it so that I stand out in their minds and truly make a difference in their lives? I think that one way we may start to be able to do this is to connect with the children. The second chapter of the book talks about connecting with the children so that they are willing to learn what you are teaching them. I liked where it says "Come play with me says the teacher. Come do what I ask you to do. I can't says the student, at least not until you connect with me. Oh, I'll go through the motions, of course. But give myself to this adult thing called school? Not unless you connect with me." This is such a true statement. There have been many classes that I have taken in the past that I do the things I need to do but I never really connect with the class or learn a whole lot. I want to be a teacher that does the little things to connect with each student. It is worth the time that it will take because it will make a difference to those children.