socializing alienated students

In the section about socializig apthetic students brophy talks about motivating student by connecting modeling, persuasion, and scafolding to emtiontional invovlement and commitment. He is quick to note that without the emtional attachment there is a high probablity that the apathtic child will still refuse to learn. There are ideas in this section that i agree with, however there is one huge concept in which i felt alienates the student the same if not more than if you just ignored them.

The parts i did agree on were ones that invloved forcing the child to make the connections along with your guidence. i think it is important for the child to deside why learning and education is important to them. Making connections with the childs outside intrests and what you are doing in the classroom is a great way to indirectly get the child excited about learing. as mentioned in an earlier article learning is not always about fun, while learning is not always about fun it is a good way to get the child excited. Once you get them in the mode of working actual unfun school work will seem more routine and now they have the motivation to learn regardless if this one task is exciting or not.

Throughout the article Brophy comes back to the idea of connecting “learning experiences with their self-concepts.” He claims that in doing this students will then see themselves as active open-minded learners. This idea is extremely important in preparing students for higher education. College bond studnets need to have this ingrained so that its involunary by the time they go off to college or they will crash and burn. I saw a lot of my friends their first year at college fall off the deep end when any of their classes required even the slightest anaylisis because they didn’t have the motiavtion and determination to suceed, school was just a way to get a job, there was no emtion or connection to it.

The part that i had a hard time connecting to myself was comparing what he labled closed minded learners to active or openminded learners. Here he used the example of individuals of talk shows to explain the what may happen to you if you dont take an active role in you learning. Putting others and their lifestyles down in order to motivate your students not to be that person seems like a very hypocritical view at looking at how to be openminded. You shouldn’t scare your students into thinking they might become “white trash” if they don’t straighten up. Mentioned above motivation needs to come from within, it needs to be self actuaized not scared into. Once you start labeling others students will see you as closedminded.

The main idea from this article that i felt was the most important in teacings kids self-actualization and making the shift from alienated to active learner is the idea that school is not about learning fact it is about realizing their human potential. It’s about finding how to balance, work with others, fail, and succeed.

The #1 Intervention That Students Can’t Resist–

My personal reading this week was a great way to keep your students motivted or at least captivated by your class. Its a great way to deal with a whole host of situtation such as; substitutes, unmotivated students, or students whole just dont like the subject you are teaching. I found this idea to be a great concept because i had never thought about the importance or usefulness of this in the classroom. By now, if you are reading this you are most likely curious as to what the concept could be, and are anxiuosly awaiting what it is.

…. Its curiosity in the classroom. However you can incorporate it will be a benefit to you and your students. Some ideas that this article posed were

1. substitute teachers

    the idea was to place envelopes on each desk and instruct the teacher to not let anyone open the envelopes unless they stayed on task all hour. Inside the envelope could be a whole host of prizes such as; candy, extra credit point, a great out of homework free card. The excitement is in not knowing what is in the envelope, the idea is to spark curiousity to keep the students on task.

2. Everyday stuff

  They suggest posting stay tuned notes outside the doors to encourage students to come and find out what all the fuss is about. Or using the in the lesson such as Get on A on the next quiz found out how in 3rd period. They could also be silly the example they used in the article was “find out what joke Mr. miller told in science today.

This litte extra can really go along way in the first step to motivation…. getting their foot in the door and their heads out of the clouds

motivation

Understanding what, where, and how much motivation should be a question on any educators mind. As teachers we all need to work towards how we are going to motivate each student in our classes. However with the addtion of reading this article i know that this is an unacheivable goal 95% of the time.There are a whole host of factors that play into a students motivation. One important factor that many people overlook is the impact a childs outside life plays into their motication. As a child i was blessed to have college educated parents who knew how important every step in my education was going to be important. As a forth grader i struggled with math, and my parents saw a huge shift in my entire motivation for school. They immidiately wanted to fix the problem before it affected my other grades. When children have involved parents that motivate them at home it is easier for the students to be motivated when they are at school. Many students are not afforded the luxury of having parents who are always there motivating and pushing their children to suceed. As teachers we need to spend the extra time in our days to focus on these children and maybe give them the little support that they might not be recieving at home. Brophe points this out when he explains the importance of encouragement as a way to motivate your students. But support is not the only factor in motivation.  The articel talks about the importance of setting personal goals rather that focusing on standarized preformance alone. If a teacher has enough hours in the day to set personal goals for all of his/her students then i can see this as a great motivator however the world is based on standardiation. If you take that out of the school system it creates a huge problem with understaning where a student is at in comparision to their peers, and we all know that america is based around competition so in the end is setting personal goals helping or hendering our students?

grading scale

I completly agree with your blog about the way that grading makes students feel. Many times even i felt like i have a great grasp of the material but recieved an average grade on my standardized tests. You mentioned that this will not change unless the entire school system is changed but i do not see the school system as the main problem. It involves so many more factors. In everything we do we are grouped into categories and levels of performance. This is how we determine what colleges people get into, who gets what job, even small things like sports you are group based on a standardized method. As educators we need to find a way to incorporate grades to work for the students instead of against

Glad i am not alone

While looking through teachers live journals i came across an education student with the same worries and fears that i have. he explained that there is constant turmoil between your own learning and learning to become a teacher. he talks about not really understanding what it is to be a teacher until you are out experiencing it for yourself. In school you will be taught the process of teaching and as he describes it, “ways that teachers make your life a living hell.” You do not see the importance of usefullness of this information until you can go out an apply it for yourself. With this week coming up (tutoring talk begins) i felt it appropriate to vent about this. Whether its an hour once a week or an hour 5 times a week, we as future educators are not going to get the experiece that we need to feel comfortable claiming i can teach. Teaching is a very personal profession, one that i feel you have to work at independently without the aide of other teachers. i know that i will not be comfortable teaching until i have my own class where my rules apply and i can personalize everything i am teaching. how do you teach that in college?

Michigan Merit

From reviewing Michigan merit proposal, one main theme runs through my head. How do these changes affect every single student in the state of Michigan. To me this program serves to benefit students who are college bound. While it is nice to want all kids working towards a college career it is extremely ignorant to think that every student in Michigan is college bound. Not everyone will have a professional career, and they should not be punished for this. At the high school I attended we had two options for students. You could take the college bound curriculum, or you could spend half the day at a vocational school. This school included hair stylist, mechanic, and electrician, and computers. All of these vocational classes went towards high school graduating credits. This system worked great because it avoided implementing the track system.

To me the track system is just another way in keep the rich richer and the poor, poor. Statically students in lower tracks tend to be from minority low income homes. Many times schools give you the impression that it is the parents choice, however many times these parents are pushed by the educators to put students in tracks where they can not exceed. Tracks are put into place because of low funding. In the school I attended we had aides inside the classrooms for students that needed a little extra guidance in their studies. Surprisingly enough the amount of students really needing the extra help decreases the amount of students deemed unreachable. Placing children at a young age in a designated track prevents them from better themselves. The track system furthers the self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are telling a child from a young age you are not college bound than they never have the opportunity to work towards that goal. As mentioned earlier not everyone is going to go to college, but that choice should be left to the student and their parents not the schools. Ultimately is always comes down to money and unless the government is willing to dish out more cash and take education more serious, these inequalities in education will continue.

tozer article

Throughout this article Tozer focused on four contemporary perspectives on literacy; cultural, conventional, functional, and critical. Many theorist were brought into the article to disclaim the other theories leaving the reader to decipher for themselves the importance of each category. Although the author had an increase of complaints against functional literacy I feel that this is the most important faucet of literacy for school-age children. The other forms of literacy are not important to survive in today’s society. With a constant increase of ESL (English as a second language) students into our school system, the need to be critically literate seems light years away. In order for a capitalist society to exist we need to have a stratified system of workers. To assume that al of our society needs to be worldly literate in order to survive is ridiculous. This view may sound cynical in terms of an educated world, but to me it is realistic. These “uncultured” workers are vital to make this country run smoothly. As an educator you need to be focusing on teaching intermediate literacy skills so that a student is educated enough to make one of two choices. Take that information and expand it in college or use the information to make a living for themselves. I do agree that a more educated world is a better world, however this is an unrealistic goal for today’s society

lankshear article

The Lankshear article took at look at the shift in literacy the occurred during the 1970’s. I chose to focus this blog on the idea that started in the 80’s and 90’s in which literacies can me more or less powerful. First idea came from James Gee, he felt that powerful literacy came from “having control, or fluent mastery, or language uses within secondary discourses.” (13) To him in order to be literate one needed to be able to decipherer what form of communication is necessary.  An example for this would be the way you talk and correspond to a friend would be different from how you communicate with a boss or how you conduct yourself in an interview. A second form of discourse is based on our social groups and social surroundings, ultimately individuals belong to one social Discourse. This whole concept was exciting to read about. Throughout both of the readings both authors stressed the importance that culture and society have on literacy. Gee’s theory expands on that idea and breaks it down into components that make sense. To me this theory explains the limitations that educators have in the fight for unified literacy.

In this article is a break down of the types of literacy as it refers to discourse. The small d in discourse refers to the actual spoken words. The big D discourse refers to how you say it , your body language, and the types of words you use.

lankshear article

The Lankshear article took at look at the shift in literacy the occurred during the 1970’s. I chose to focus this blog on the idea that started in the 80’s and 90’s in which literacies can me more or less powerful. First idea came from James Gee, he felt that powerful literacy came from “having control, or fluent mastery, or language uses within secondary discourses.” (13) To him in order to be literate one needed to be able to decipherer what form of communication is necessary.  An example for this would be the way you talk and correspond to a friend would be different from how you communicate with a boss or how you conduct yourself in an interview. A second form of discourse is based on our social groups and social surroundings, ultimately individuals belong to one social Discourse. This whole concept was exciting to read about. Throughout both of the readings both authors stressed the importance that culture and society have on literacy. Gee’s theory expands on that idea and breaks it down into components that make sense. To me this theory explains the limitations that educators have in the fight for unified literacy.

In this article is a break down of the types of literacy as it refers to discourse. The small d in discourse refers to the actual spoken words. The big D discourse refers to how you say it , your body language, and the types of words you use.