Issues in Education

In this blog post we are to look at an issue in today's education.  In class Chantelle mentioned some examples we could use.  I am gonna talk about one of the issues she said.  It was about having  a curriculum for daycares.  I think that this is taking it a little far.  I think that is great for kids to be learning at such a young age but I also feel that everyone just needs to chill out a little bit.  Kids in daycare should just be concerned about what game to play next.  Not all children go to daycare and I think this will just make a big gap between the kids that do go to daycare and those that don't.  So in kindergarden it would be very hard to teach these two different levels.  Daycare is very exspensive and those who can't afford it would be even more behind.  Which I feel it unfair.  I think that there is no point of trying to speed along the kids learning when learning these skills in kindergarden is soon enough.

westcast 2011

I attended westcst this year.  I thought it was a great learning experience.  It was a very busy week.  I atteneded some good sessions while I was there.  One of my favorites was the SMART board presentation by Devon Caldwell.  She showed as different ways to use a SMART board while was very informative for me because I have not used a SMART board before.  Another good one I went to was on Kindergarten theme units this showed us some great ideas how to use literature for units.  Another good one was one on keeping students engaged.  She gave us some tips on how to do this.  I liked when she told us to "put things into Ziploc bags, kids get excited about this."  I thought this was true.  Our group also presented.  I thought that it went pretty well and I hope that everyone who attended left learning a little something. 

My favorite thing about westcast was the social events that they had.  The best was the bud and spud night they had at the Roadhouse.  The other events were fun to like the wine and cheese and Suds on Friday.  I am looking forward to attending westcast next year in Calgary.   

Governance

Below is a list of the levels of governance and briefly what they do.  Starting with the federal government down to the teachers:

1.  Federal Government-funds and supports the Provincial Government
2.  Provincial Goverenment-is in charge of the education act, curriculum and the school division and school board
3.  School Division and School Board-in charge of the budget, schools image and hires the superintendent.  School board voted in by the public.
4.  Superintendent-Looks after the school that everything is running smoothly and hires the principal.
5.  Principal- Hires and looks over the teachers and staff
6. Teachers and Staff-Teaches the children.

This is a very quick look at the six different levels to governance.  To me its wierd that teachers are located at the very bottom of the list even though we havae such an important job.  After this class I now have a much better idea of how this all works which is important to know.

Finance

In one of our classes a little while back we looked at a budget of a school.  We had to cut the budget, every schools nightmare.  I thought that this was a very difficult job to do.  Everything that was on that sheet was important and is great for the school.  There was nothing to cut that was a easy choice.  When you really thing about it you think about taking away that band class that one kid really loves or someones job that they love like the speech pathologist.  It makes the cutting of the budget even harder to do.  I would not like to be in the situation of having to be in charge of all this.  I would not be good at making these decisions I feel I will leave these decisions to the principal and I will stay as the teacher.

In our class we had a little bit of a heated discussion about what to cut.  I feel that extracurricular activities like gym and band are so important for kids as they are growing up.  In many cases it is the one thing they are good at and get confidence from.  So to cut programs that have such benifits is such a same. 

History of Education

In class we looked at the history of education in Canada.  Schools back then compared to schools today are VERY different.  The biggest difference being that the church played a much bigger role in schools back then.  Today the church is totally seperate from schools.  But back then most of their learning would be based on religion.  Sometimes it wouldn't even be teachers teaching.  In the French tradition priests would teach.  In the english schools widowers and housewives would teach at the poorer schools.  Another thing that was quite different was that in French schools boys and girls would be seperated.  This is not a big surprise that they did this back then because boys and girls were treated so differently back then.  It even said in the French tradition that boys would even get better education.  But it is great to know that today both females and males are given equal opporunities in education. 

In our Canadian history classes we talked a lot about assimilation schools in Manitoba.  There was some sad stories that we talked about.  Kids had to be taken away from their homes at such a young age and could no longer embrace their own culture.  A lot has changed since those days and now we can look back and learn from our history.

Favorite Teacher

Throughout my years as a student I have had some great teachers.  To be a great teacher there are many qualities that you need to have.  Some qualities that I think are important for a teacher to have are:

-enthusiasm
-positive attitude
-cares about each individual
-goes above and beyond
-good sense of humor

I think it is very important for teachers to get to know each one of their students.  A couple of my teachers have made me think that I want to be like them.  I have learned a lot from them on what I want to be like.  I have also learned a lot from the teachers that weren't so good on what I don't want to be like. 

Why Teach?

When asked the question, why teach?  The first thing that came to mind was that I liked working with children.  Working at my job teaching swimming lessons I have worked lots with kids and really enjoy this.  I think that kids are so entertaining and fun to work with.  You never know quite what is going to happen when working with children, they keep you on your toes.  I think that working as a teacher is a very rewarding job to have.  I want to have a job that I feel I am making a difference and I think that teaching is a great job to do just that.  It is a very respectful job to have and something that I can be proud of.  Altough teaching will have some challenges I am looking forward to being a teacher.

Subject Knowledge vs. Professional Knowledge

In class we had a debate on which is more important for a teacher to have subject knowledge or professional knowledge.  I feel that professional knowledge is the most importat.  Although I do feel that subject knowledge is still importat.  I think that everyone would agree with me that if we could have chosen two of the sides we would have.  I think that it is easier for someone to learn new material on a suject then to learn how to teach.  I think that teaching is something that can't really be taught it is something that comes naturally in a person's personality. 

We have all had that university professer who is super knowledgable on a subject but can't get to information across to the students.  Just because someone knows a lot about a subject doesn't mean that they can get that information across for someone else to understand.  I don't think that just because someone got all A's in school that this makes them a bettet teacher.  It is great though to have both!

FISH!!!!!!!

We learnt about the FISH philosophy in class.  When Jackie first told us that we would be learning about FISH I have no idea what to expect.  I loved this philosophy instantly it was such a great idea.  It was such simple ideas and when put all together it works fantastic!  The four simlple steps are:

• Be there
• Play
• Make their day
• Choose your attitude

The video that we watched was entertaining and funny.  While watching the video it makes you want to go and get a job with them.  They just have so much fun at their job.  I think that you should be having fun and enjoying your job because you job takes up a lot of your life so you should really enjoy what you are doing.  If you enjoy what you are doing it will show to the kids in your class.  I think that this video should be presented to lots of different work places.  It could work for pretty much anywhere.  I  even noticed that after we watched the video our class even had a better atmosphere. 

Sergiovanni's Professional Blog

So Jackie asked us to write down what we thought the defination to professionalism was.  The only two words I wrote down was act appropriately.  Which is very true this is what you need to do.  But it is so much more than that.  Some things that come to mind are responsiblity, level of excellence, taking pride in what you do, good role models, etc.  According to Sergiovanni he has four commitments to follow:

1.  Commitment to caring
2.  Commitment to practice and exemplary ways
3.  Commitment to one's own practice, but also to the practice itself
4.  Commitment to valued social ends

What I like most about Sergiovanni is how he uses the word commitment because I think that by entering this profession you are making a huge commitment.  So I liked how he used it.  I really liked the first point, commitment to caring.  When you really care for something I think that you are likely to try your very best. 

For a teacher at 3:30 when the bell rings being a professional doesn't stop here.  They need to still be seen as a professional around the community, especially if it was a small town. 

I think as the class continues and when we start working as a teacher we will learn even more on what it means to be a professional.

MTS Code of Conuct

MTS (which stands for Manitoba Teaching Society) Code of Conduct is what we looked at in class last week.  We looked through this code of conduct which is a list of thirteen different codes.  I think that most of the points made sense.  A couple of them I did circle but Jackie cleared those right up for us in a lot more clearer explanations. 

Number 7 was a point that we discussed in class. This was if you have a problem with a colleague you are to talk to that colleague or MTS and you are not allowed to talk to anyone else about this problem.   I feel that this rule is a pretty good rule.  Where I work if someone has done something wrong instead of  talking about it they tend to like to discuss it with everyone at work.  This making it a lot bigger deal about it when you would have liked it better if you had just been appoached about this situation.  But I think that this rule is not followed well at all.  Of couse you would talk to your friend/colleague if you had a situation with another colleague.  What I think is you should try talking to someone else about it that doesn't work within the school that way you can get some advice but not get more people involved within the shool.  I just think if this rule was followed a little better there would be less drama.

By looking through the Code of Conduct it gets a little more real and exciting that soon we will be real teachers.