Final Blog!

I had taken this course as an EDU elective because it seems pretty important to know the premise of school as a future teacher. I had learned a lot throughout the semester in this course. Like the short clips of Waiting for Superman showed me that the United States needs a lot of work in their education program, no child should have to be deprived of an education. Also, I learned more about how to deal with new students entering the classroom from another country, or even city.

 With the blogs I had learned more about other people’s educational philosophies and other hot topics in education that others had done in their blogs. I had learned about learning theories from theorist that I haven’t heard about before by other people’s blogs along with my own. I highly doubt I will keep blogging just because it’s not my thing, not saying it’s a bad thing just not something that I like to do. Overall I did learn a lot from this course and wish everyone the best of luck!

How can we prevent violence in schools?

School violence can be defined as any type of wrong activity or harm done by students against classmates and teacher. Putting psychological pressure on the students can have them start doing mischievous behavior that lead to school violence. In order to prevent such behavior teachers and parents need to take certain measures and provide proper guidance and support to the children.

There are various reasons can lead students to become violent in school. For instance being in poverty, family breakdown, domestic violence, child abuse, drug culture, immigration from places where education is less valued, violent imagery, high parental expectations and competitiveness to name a few reasons of why they act out in violence. Schools have responded in many different ways to prevent violence from occurring. Some ways they have responded include alternative programs, suspension, expulsion, locker searches, metal detectors, mentoring programs, closed lunches, dress codes, support groups, security guards. With these ways of preventing violence it all depends on the schools budget of course and which solution depends on how severe the type of violence is. I think anyway in preventing violence in the schools is the way to go because no one in their right mind would think it’s okay to have violence in their child’s school. I get some measures are more intense than others, but isn’t it worth it in the end with your children safe from harm?

There are other preventive measures for school violence. Students with a violent attitude can be reduced if certain measures were being used. For students who have this attitude most are from lack of love and affection from parent, teacher or both and tend to become violent. So the parent and teacher need to provide proper affection to that particular student. If the parents of a student are fighting in front of them can lead to the student acting out because of what they see at home. So parents should avoid fighting in front of their children. When a student becomes frustrated because of some sort of difficulty that they can not solve the teachers and/or parents can prevent violence by giving full guidance through their difficulties with the problem. Effective counseling can help with student’s violent behaviors and having parents monitor what their child is playing or watching can help prevent violence in school as well. Parents need to keep an eye on what their child is doing and give them attention because not knowing and neglecting their child can lead to a bad impact on them. Also, by having guards checking bags and lockers as well as taking strict actions with students who are showing violence in the school can help decrease violence. With all these various ways of preventing school violence hopefully one day this will be something of the past and students will not become violent while in school!

http://www.nssc1.org/putting-a-stop-on-school-violence.html

Gregory Cajete

I decided to research Dr. Gregory Cajete. I chose him because he was not done yet and I have never heard of him before. What I had found on him was that he is a Native American educator whose work is committed to honoring the foundations of indigenous knowledge in education. As of now he is working at the University of New Mexico. Cajete has written many books, on of which being Look to the Mountain in 1994. This book has been influential among holistic educators because it contrasts modern “Western” forms of knowledge with indigenous, meaning Native American, epistemology and education. Cajete had described this as nourishing a meaningful, spiritual relationship between the individual, the community, and the natural world. Some other books Cajete wrote include Ignite the Sparkle: An Indigenous Science Curriculum Model, Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence along with others. Cajete is also one of the foremost scholars in the field of sociocultural studies as it relates to Indian education and curriculum and native science. He has been a recognized figure in Indian education. He also has become a popular speaker in the mainstream science and education academy conference circuit. As disciplines such as ecological and environmental studies have broadened to indigenous knowledge and pedagogy, Cajete and his work have gained mainstream attention. Cajete is the principal investigator for many well-known studies relating to native science and education. These are supported by grant funding from institutions such as the National Science Foundation, New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He has also received fellowships from The Newberry Library’s D’Arcy McNickle Center, the U.S. Department of Education and The School of American Research.  I agree with him about honoring the foundations of indigenous knowledge in education, because without the original knowledge in education where would we begin?

http://www.pathsoflearning.net/articles_Holistic_Ed_Philosophy.php

http://diverseeducation.com/article/11850/

http://www.unm.edu/~nasinfo/faculty.html

Social Justice

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social+justice

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1549544,00.html

http://www.pbs.org/now/society/immhistory.html

What are the views on immigration?

Social Justice is the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within a society. Immigration is the topic I chose to do for this week’s blog. There are various views about immigration in the United States. I myself am for legal immigration because they came here the right way and just want to live in a country with freedom because there are so many countries where anyone would love to just leave and have a much better life for themselves and their families. But of course many people are against immigration because it is taking away jobs from non-immigrant people, the room for the immigrants will eventually run out and many of the immigrants are not coming here legally. Many people look down on immigrants coming into this country for those reasons. I feel as though immigration has a bad reputation mostly due to the people coming here illegally, making the people who came here legally look bad.

Otis Graham had stated that “we today have 300 million and ought to be asking how many Americans is best for America, and, if immigration is driving it, we better get an immigration policy that gives us the numbers we want. He goes on to say that we've always been of mixed minds about immigrants, and that's because immigrants bring both bads and goods. It's a strong theme in American life to be ambivalent about immigration because there are benefits that we see and there have always been costs paid by the locals.” According to PBS “a majority of the public, 54 percent, believes that most recent immigrants are in the country illegally and nearly three-fifths of non-immigrants say illegal immigrants have hurt the national economy.”

With all the pros and cons of immigration we need to realize that we, the future teachers, are supposed to show children not to judge people, but with society that’s just what is happening. People are judging others even if they came here legally. Becoming a teacher you need to open the students’ minds and teach the children about immigration, because in the end we all came from immigrants, unless you are Native American of course!

Education is like a bicycle

Education is like a bicycle. In order to ride a bicycle you need it to have training wheels. This is like the beginning of school. You have so many people helping you out with your education, your teacher and parents/guardian, especially in elementary school, and they are your “training wheels.”  Once you feel okay riding the bicycle you take off the training wheels, but you’re still a little shaky while riding the bicycle. This is like going into Middle School.  You now are not depending on your parents or teachers for as much help as you needed in elementary school with the “training wheels” but you still seek them out at times for help. Then you feel stable and are a lot better at riding the bicycle, which would be like entering High School. You are now more independent, you don’t need you parents or teachers reminding you to do homework or school work because it’s your responsibility and no one else’s to get it done.  Three things I have learned more about are the various types of curriculum, various philosophies and the teachers roles.

What is Pragmatism and how is it used in education?

What is Pragmatism?

Pragmatism is a school of philosophy, which was leading in the United States in the first quarter of the 20th century.

Pragmatism is a philosophical movement that gave a first systematic expression by Charles Sanders Peirce and William James and later taken up and transformed by John Dewey.

Pragmatism is based on the principle that the usefulness, workability, and practicality of ideas, policies, and proposals are the criteria of their value. It stresses the main concern of action over principle, of experience over fixed principles, and it holds that ideas borrow their meanings from their consequences and their truths from their verification. Therefore the ideas are essentially instruments and plans of action.

How is Pragmatism used in education?

The American educational system is founded on the foundation of pragmatism. The outcome based education is an ever present saying that’s connected with modern schools. The Goals 2000 program had described some very good goals or outcomes for education. This definitely ensured that all children are ready for school, had a higher rates for the high school graduation, and  had expecting competency in challenging subject matter are excellent goals. This makes it clear that the philosophy of pragmatism, devoid of objective moral standards, is a major philosophy guiding much of our nation. 

I think pragmatism being used in the classroom is useful. It's a hand's on curricula, group work and experimentation which gives many ways for the student to understand what is being taught to them. It was what the educational system was founded on therefore it's important to have in the classroom.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/473717/pragmatism

INCLUSION

Are their cons in having inclusion in the classroom?

I always thought inclusion is a great idea in the classroom because students with disabilities will feel more of a part of the school community and  they feel like they belong among their peers. What I found out was that inclusion isn't always the best for a child with disabilities. Putting these students into a mainstream classroom can make the student frustrated because they might feel as though they are competing with the other students. Also the classrooms are bigger than what they are used to and their isn't enough time spent on a subject for the student who needs repetition and review and they might feel intimidated to ask the teacher questions because they might think that they will be judged by their peers. Having inclusion can make the students with the disabilities rush through their work, where they usually would not, because they can see that everyone around them is finished. 

Another setback of having inclusion is that the teacher can lack the training, resources and necessary supplies to adequately teach these students with disabilities in their classroom. Learning disabled students can also not feel like they fit in with the other students in their classroom. Teacher time is taken away from other students and the teacher has to take even more time while making their lessons so that the lesson will include the student with learning disability. The classroom management can also be harder for the teacher because of having more students in their classroom. Overall, having inclusion of course has its pros, however there are cons with having an inclusion classroom.

http://www.slideshare.net/DeeARoss/cons-of-inclusion-education
 http://xruffrydr9.tripod.com/inclusiontherightanswer/id18.html