Happy Halloween Everyone!

Last night a cooking group of mine made candy sushi and watched “Hocus Pocus.”

This is a perfect Halloween movie that isn’t all about blood, guts, gore, suspense. It’s the beautiful movie from 1993 that we can all laugh at because of the “good” special effects and the silly 90s fashion.

‘Tis the holiday season and Halloween has a lot of opportunities we can use as teachers. In my classroom, I would like to have students write scary stories, or do genre projects that involve Halloween. I think the more involved and spirited you are when it comes to holidays, the more fun your students have with it, and hopefully it will create fond memories for them. I know many students have already spent elementary school doing the same arts and crafts since kindergarten, but I’m thinking stuff that is mentally involving.

I know that a lot of teachers who are genuinely involved with their students and who show enthusiasm for assignments and subjects, their students feed off of their energy and add to it.

If you all have ideas, or recall any fun activities you did in class, or even any ideas you would have your students do revolving around Halloween (or holidays in general), share them! Comment away!

 

-Tara

E X E R C I S E

READ THIS!

 

HAPPY HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEEEEEEN 😀 😀 

Making Connections

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Be the Change…

So as we are all very much aware October is Bullying Prevention month so, as I’ve so artfully designed, I’ll be posting on this topic today. On the second to last day of October….Yes this is happening. So I am currently reading a memoir of the actress Portia de Rossi. For those of you who don’t know, Portia has been on shows such as Ally Mcbeal and Arrested Development, and is also the wife of Ellen Degeneres.

Honestly, when I picked up this book I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was intrigued to see things from a different point of view than my own but I was shocked at what I’ve read. Pretty much the biggest focus in the book is about de Rossi’s struggle with extreme eating disorders. She describes every thought, every moment with such self loathing that it’s sometimes rather difficult to read. She very blunt and very real.

Portia de Rossi at roughly 82 pounds

But perhaps what I find most shocking about this book is not her own negative thoughts but the things that other people will say to her. From her descriptions it sounds absolutely awful to be into modeling and Hollywood. People seem to do nothing but put her down.

After reading what I have, I can’t help but feel disgusted with this society that worships the ideal of unrealistically thin female bodies and thinks that it is okay to put others down. So I’d like to take this disgust and channel it into something positive.

Bullying should not be tolerated. Now I know this is sort of a “no duh” moment but honestly how many times do people actually go out of their way to stop it? I’ll admit that there have been times when I’ve seen bullying and didn’t do a thing about it. This makes me just as guilty.

As an educator it is our job to look out for these kids that we teach. School is a rough place. Kids are mean and rumors about people spread quickly. Our biggest mission, aside from teaching the material, should first and foremost be to protect our students. We need to teach them things such as kindness and empathy. And in order to teach this, we must model it. We have to be that example because, without us, there could be a lot of kids who will get hurt or end up with serious self image issues, like Portia de Rossi.

Sorry for the preachy post but I needed to get it out there,

Anna B.

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike

-JK Rowling

Inside and Out

So today was interesting for me. I met with Derek Decker, a extremely good Colorado State faculty member and he helped me on creating a lesson plan on a story I was having a hard time on. Now i know most of you are probably thinking “whats the big deal?” right….well the big deal is that he is not currently my teacher this semester, nor have I had him in any of my classes here at CSU. What I find really remarkable, is that after a friend suggested that I e-mail him to get some help on a lesson plan, (a friend who currently has him in class) he responded, within 10 minutes and said that he would be more than happy to meet with me and help me out. I honestly thought that was the SICKEST THING EVER. First of all, I am trying to make a point on how freaking awesome it is for him to take an hour and a half out of his day to help a student who isn’t even in one of his classes succeed.

We spent about an hour breaking down lesson plans and creating learning objectives and finding standards. He worked extremely hard in helping me do the best I can on an extremely complex and difficult story that this teacher asked me to present to the class. He proceeded to lend me a book that he owns to check out some of the worksheet and learning strategies to utilize and use during my class.

I think that this is extremely important. No, not to lend your book to people, or to trust that you are going to get that book back, (especially from a high school or middle school student). But what I am trying to say is that it is important to make sure that we take the extra time out of our day to help all of our students. We need to let them know, over and over again, that we are there to help them succeed. that we chose this profession to help them achieve their goals and set them up to get there. Show students that you are willing to take extra time outside the classroom to help them on an essay, to help them understand figurative language or whatever it is that they need help on. As important as it is to be affective inside the classroom, it is just as important to be affective outside the classroom.

 

Just a thought. [:

Final Paper Frustration… and Also Alliteration

I can’t rally say that i have experienced any reasonable amounts of frustration with the final paper assignment yet, because i haven’t really devoted enough time to the process to experience any real frustration. Once i actually sit down and devote a decent amount of time to thinking about the project, i know that the frustration will come along with it. I’m used to these feelings because any final project or assignment (or any project or assignment really) comes along with these feelings. Once i navigate my way through these feelings of annoyance and confusion I’m usually able to find productivity through the frustration. How many times can i say the word frustration? PLenty of times.

Frustration. I know that this project will be worth while, and i know that in the end i will create something that will b helpful, and also, more importantly, something that i will be proud of. Just finding the motivation to get to this point is where im currently finding my struggle. While i write about these feelings, i can feel my motivation slipping further and further away. It has absolutely nothing to do with this project in particular, so no offense Dr. Garcia, i’m just at the point in the semester where my determination is as fleeting as all of the trends on twitter. This semester is especially lacking because my mind has already begun wandering the cobble stone streets and the gloomy bridges of Prague, where i will be studying next semester!  

Frustration. 

Unreasonable frustration.

Unreasonable and unwarranted frustration.

But Frustration that i know will lead to productivity and a final project that i will be proud of.

So let the actual reasonable frustration begin!

Is Special Ed Integration Really The Answer?

For EDU340 lab, I was helping a student at Wellington with an assignment. She was extremely shy, but seemed like a really sweet girl. I sat down with her, after the teacher said “She needs extra help”, and asked “What are you working on?” In a barely audible whisper, she said “I dunno.” This wasn’t a blow-off answer like most middle schoolers would give. It was an honest answer, filled with confusion and bewilderment. I wanted to figure out what was the cause. I began asking her questions. Here are a few of my questions and her answers:

Me: What’s your favorite subject?

Her: Math. 

Me: Oh? That’s cool. What math class are you in?

Her: Well I’m not very good at math. I’m special Ed. 

Me: What’s your favorite part of school?

Her: We have lockers.

Me: Do you like this class?

Her: *shrug

Me: What do you find challenging about it?

Her: It’s too hard for me.

Me: What do you find hard?

Her: *shrug

So here was this student, staring blankly at her assignment, confused, with a teacher who seemed too distracted to provide her with the help she needed. She was entirely ignored by her classmates, and didn’t seem to be able to absorb any of the information she was supposed to.

What does this say about pull-out programs?

Before this encounter, I thought they were wonderful on paper. They seemed logical. Why shouldn’t special ed and ELL students be allowed in normal classrooms with sheltered instruction? It would hurt their education NOT to include them. But now I see that this is an ignorant approach to this really complicated issue. 

What is a student like the one I helped going to get out of a class that moves way too quickly for her, doesn’t break down info on her level, doesn’t DO anything for her struggles in education, and treats her like a social pariah? Nothing. And it’s ridiculous that she has been in this class for so long without someone realizing this. 

So next time we are all supporting integration, lets remember that it’s not all sunshine and roses, butterflies and gumdrops; It’s a complicated and grey subject that requires delicate and watchful handling. So all you future teachers preaching for the cause, don’t you dare think yourself a martyr for taking on these students, until you actually DO something meaningful for them. 

~Nick 

 

My thoughts in a literature class

As English majors I’m pretty sure that this is something that we can all agree on, literature is pretty neat (yeah I used neat, get at me).  It teaches us a lot about ourselves, social interactions, and basic things about human nature.  In addition I think one of the coolest things about it is using literary analysis to search for symbolism and “the deeper meaning” behind a piece of work.  It’s just so intriguing to me to dive into a piece of literature and discover its meaning and purpose (I’m probably one of the few people who actually enjoyed principles of literary criticism).  However earlier today in one of my classes, after a heated forty-five minute discussion about how the “end of the world” novel we are reading portrays how the screwed up human race is driving ourselves into oblivion, I began to think “is this discussion really happening?”  I’m not disagreeing with any part of that theory because the novel portrays things like animal experimentation, excessive drug use, and televised suicides which people watch for fun; but these are major themes in the novel so why do we need to spend a vast majority of our class talking about different ways in which the novel shows this?  It made absolutely no sense to me.

You see the thing about literature is there is no one sure fire way to look at a novel, in fact there are way too many to count, and sense everyone’s mind operates in a different way you get different ideas about what a particular piece of work says.  I’m sure that part is pretty obvious however people spend so much of their time debating about particular ideas and get so complex in their theories that sometimes, to me at least, it seems a little counterproductive.  Maybe it’s just because I’m not a very good literature student but a lot of the time whenever someone says something along the lines of “the author is saying how crappy we are as people through how her ideas in the novel lead the characters to their own destruction, what do you think Andrew?” it takes every ounce of my being to not sarcastically respond with “Or maybe the author just wanted to write a novel about the end of the world.”  Like I said when people read they all read for different reasons and for me, even when it’s for school, I read to enjoy the work as much as possible.  There are so many different purposes and meanings behind works of literature and while I do think that it is fantastic to explore all of them from as many angles as possible, it’s almost foolish to spend 45 minutes of class trying to debate different sides of the same coin especially when the coin has a large value in the piece of work. 

Tired

Link

-Kaitlyn

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish…uh oh Fish

There was a fish emergency in my household this evening. The fish tank in our living room broke open and spilled everywhere, and the poor fish inside were on the carpet flopping for water. My roommates and I turned into the fish Red-Cross and saved every single one–luckily, there were no casualties. So, several hours of cleaning later, and a desperate (and expensive) trip to PetsMart to replace the tank, I’m now sitting down to study, blog, and do homework.

Now, the fish emergency really did’t have much to do with my blog post tonight–it was just funny and a weird way to spend my night, picking up almost-dying fish from the soaked carpet. The only thing interesting about it was that I was reminded of the kid’s book “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” and how much I loved it when I was little. It was one of those books in my childhood that helped me learn words and how to read. That and then the “Bernstein Bears” when I was a little older. My third genre paper is going to be a children’s book–and I want it to be a big metaphor. You know that Dr. Seuss book “The Star Belly Sneetches”…I’m totally inspired by it. Because it’s symbolic for popularity and acceptance in society, and how easily it can turn. I want my book to kind of be like that. Now, I can’t be as good as Dr. Seuss–nobody can, I don’t think–but I have a few ideas stashed away that I could use for this book.

What I’m asking you guys to help me come up with creative names. The story will take place in a galaxy where you can travel from planet to planet, and each planet will have its own “problem” (for example, one planet will have a group of little creatures that live in terror of the “big red monster” that lives in the cave in the center of the woods. And this will all parallel to bullying in schools and how students live in fear of the bully coming out and picking victims). The main characters (I’m picturing twin brother and sister of some sort of creature) will be different from all the places they visit, but figure out a way to help all the creatures on every planet they visit. Ultimately, when they return home, they see the “problem” in their own planet and they figure out a way to save the day!

What should all the creatures be called? I’m not Dr. Seuss–I can’t come up with names like Sneetches or the Lorax. Any ideas? Or names for the main characters? Also, have any ideas to contribute to this project? I’m not planning on this being a group project, but I figured I could incorporate ideas from my classmates and put it all together. I’d love your help, guys!

See you all tomorrow,

-Natalie