Dear Matt,
I had the best AP English 11 teacher in the world! His name is Mr.Betsch, he forces his students to step out of their comfort zones and have opinions and beliefs. Once a week we would read an article or a short story and he wouldn't tell us what to look for he just asked us to think about it with an open mind. Also he never made us feel that an idea was wrong or stupid, he encouraged us to make mistakes beacuse you learn to get up from that and try again. This by no means, is saying that he was not hard on us, because he was. Our essays were meticulously looked at and thought about. He wanted to make us into the best writers we could be which included critiquing our work. The best thing about him was that if a student showed that they put forth an effort he would be there to help them in any way he could, including staying after school, giving up his lunch or prep period. He wanted above all to succeed! The sad thing is that most teachers are not like this because they cannot afford to put this much effort into teaching, because half the time they need to have another job just to make ends meet. We need to start valuing the good teachers or we are going to lose them.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Ken Robinson's "Schools Kill Creativity"
This man is brilliant!!!! His insight on the importance of eduaction is so true, this is one issue that nearly everyone has a vested interest in. It effects everyone, no matter who you are. I would also agree that creativity is also very important in our process of learning for our children, but I also think that it needs to be said that teachers have to have the ability to be creative in the class room. This, to me, is almost as important as the creativity of kids, because if the teachers cannot teach creatively, the students will not be able to let their creativity flow.
The issue of being wrong is so relevant to education, because this obsession with getting the "right" answer is ruining kids exploration of the problem itself. I can say that I am pretty much a direct product of this idea. I want to be able to give the answer that my teacher wants and I am terrified of being wrong. I think it has hugely effected my creativity because I cannot do a project or assignment unless I have explicit directions on what I am supposed to be doing I get frustrated, which stems from my fear of being wrong. I have been told ever since I was a little kid that grades were pretty much the most important thing in the world! And so based on our current type of grading system if you are right you get A's and if you are wrong you get F's. This is frightening.
This bit about the arts is something that goes way over my head because I have never embraced that side of me. I used to love drawing but I would judge my pictures against others art and I would think mine is bad, because it did not look like theirs. I was scared to be wrong so I stopped, I said that I wasn't creative, that wasn't me because my art wasn't like the art I had seen. There was no point in me doing it if I wasn't good. Now I am in no way saying that if I had kept with it and did not care that my art wasn't "good", I would be a famous artist. I am simply stating that embracing that side of me could have helped with a lot of things in the future, including this class, and creative writing. I squashed that bit of creativity and now I am really regretting it.
I was homeschooled for 6th and 7th grade and I completely hated it because I had to teach myself there was no one really there telling me what to do or giving me explicit instruction. The thing I realize know is that in those two years I probably learned more, about myself especially then I ever had before. I know that homeschooling is not the solution for everyone (it wasn't for me either because of the lack of socialization, but perhaps something that brings some of those elements into the public education system.
The dancer he spoke of is a prime example of different ways that children learn, you can't shove them in a box and expect them to be the same as everyone else, like Ken Robinson talked about in the other video, this creates conformity and is that what we want? We as future teachers and possibly parents need to undersatand that by assuming that all students learn the same and grading them and creating pressure for them to "succeed" in the way we see fit is DETRIMENTAL to their growth.
Again I say this man is brilliant and he should be our president!!!!
Ken Robinson for President!!!! Save our education system!!
The issue of being wrong is so relevant to education, because this obsession with getting the "right" answer is ruining kids exploration of the problem itself. I can say that I am pretty much a direct product of this idea. I want to be able to give the answer that my teacher wants and I am terrified of being wrong. I think it has hugely effected my creativity because I cannot do a project or assignment unless I have explicit directions on what I am supposed to be doing I get frustrated, which stems from my fear of being wrong. I have been told ever since I was a little kid that grades were pretty much the most important thing in the world! And so based on our current type of grading system if you are right you get A's and if you are wrong you get F's. This is frightening.
This bit about the arts is something that goes way over my head because I have never embraced that side of me. I used to love drawing but I would judge my pictures against others art and I would think mine is bad, because it did not look like theirs. I was scared to be wrong so I stopped, I said that I wasn't creative, that wasn't me because my art wasn't like the art I had seen. There was no point in me doing it if I wasn't good. Now I am in no way saying that if I had kept with it and did not care that my art wasn't "good", I would be a famous artist. I am simply stating that embracing that side of me could have helped with a lot of things in the future, including this class, and creative writing. I squashed that bit of creativity and now I am really regretting it.
I was homeschooled for 6th and 7th grade and I completely hated it because I had to teach myself there was no one really there telling me what to do or giving me explicit instruction. The thing I realize know is that in those two years I probably learned more, about myself especially then I ever had before. I know that homeschooling is not the solution for everyone (it wasn't for me either because of the lack of socialization, but perhaps something that brings some of those elements into the public education system.
The dancer he spoke of is a prime example of different ways that children learn, you can't shove them in a box and expect them to be the same as everyone else, like Ken Robinson talked about in the other video, this creates conformity and is that what we want? We as future teachers and possibly parents need to undersatand that by assuming that all students learn the same and grading them and creating pressure for them to "succeed" in the way we see fit is DETRIMENTAL to their growth.
Again I say this man is brilliant and he should be our president!!!!
Ken Robinson for President!!!! Save our education system!!
Thursday, August 25, 2011
This is my friends and me in Physics last year!! HAHAH SCIENCE!
So I kinda LOVE Glee and this is my favorite song by them!
This is probably like the cutest video I have ever seen it combines some super awesome stuff.
The Beatles and a baby! :)
Probably one of the weirdest bands ever but I gotta love the Cat Empire!!
My favorite Band of all time! Nuff said!
SUPER SUPER COOLIO!!!!
Probably one of the weirdest bands ever but I gotta love the Cat Empire!!
My favorite Band of all time! Nuff said!
SUPER SUPER COOLIO!!!!
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
SCIENCE
Science is the study of how things work together and an explanation of the phenomenon that is life. The study of science seeks to make our world less of a mystery, for example: Why do things fall down? Answer: gravitational pull on the Earth. The main purpose and goal of science is, in essence, to describe the reasons why things happen in the natural world. Science is conducted by observing the world around us and then asking questions. Another example: Why does the weather change according to time of year? Answer: The earths rotations and a specific area's distance from the sun effect the weather. When questions are asked we conduct experiments and procedures to discover the answer. I have had many different experiences with the world of science. An example of an enjoyable experience is doing experiments that solidify what we have learned in class. My physics teacher was very good about letting us do labs that coincide with the lesson so we could discover for our selves what the lesson was talking about. What made it work was a combination of hands-on and lecture of reading our textbook. An awful experience I had in a science class was simply reading and taking notes from the textbook, there was nothing that helped me secure the knowledge. This was extremely frustrating because I could be reading for an hour and not understand the basic concept.
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