Case Study 3: Jane Vincent

I think that if I was in Jane's situation, I would give the student the benefit of the doubt. If she knows he worked hard and tried his best for the grade he got, then he should be given the better grade. Sometimes all students need is a little motivation to put in a little extra effort. I've been placed in that situation before, where less than one-tenth of a point disqualified me from going to the Academic Awards Dinner in my high school. I know I worked hard and had good grades, but knowing that something so minor made such a difference made me feel a little less worthy. Students should be grades subjectively as well as objectively. Jane Vincent should reconsider the rules she set for cases such as this.

Class Discussion 11/26

Today in class we talked a lot about a few topics that interested me. (Teachers using myspace/facebook, and students losing interest in reading being a few)

When it comes to teachers and having online profiles, I think it is ok for teachers to be involved with facebook or myspace, or whatever site, as long as they are appropriate for anyone to see. I personally use these sites to keep in touch with people I otherwise would not have seen or spoken to maybe for for years, and I don't think being a teacher should take that away. I've had teachers who were online and were very professional about it; they did not reveal anything offensive and did not talk about behavior that might be looked down upon. They used it to keep in touch with students after the school year, or if they needed extra help via e-mail. I think it is probably the best and safest idea to simply delete your online sites when you are a teacher, but I think I would do everything I could do to keep it. My myspace, for example, is set to private. I made it so that you can't find me in a search, you can only see my profile if you are my friend, and I disabled most of the links on my page. The pictures I have posted are completely innocent. If teachers keep a clean appearance and don't do anything offensive there shouldn't be a problem.

I thought a lot about students and how less are reading for enjoyment nowadays. I think technology has a lot to do with students not wanting to read recreationally. When i think of reading I think of books, not necessarily spending hours on myspace or IMDB (which I am guilty of doing). I work at Barnes and Noble, where I get a lot of kids coming in with assignments for book reports, and they are always looking for the shortest and easiest stories, and preferably a book that can be found on SparkNotes. The parents always complain that television and video games take up their free time. I notice that more kids are reading because they have to, not because they want to. I was reading on my own at age 3; my parents would always read to me because they knew it was very important, so at a young age I enjoyed reading because it was not yet a "chore." Even though throughout school I hated reading most of the things I was assigned, I still liked reading the things I wanted. I think teachers should try to motivate students to read. They can find out what their studens are interested in and start from there. Parents should do the same thing, whether it is a book store or the school library, I think they should tell their kids to find a book they would like to read based on their interests, while limiting their time on playing video games and watching tv.

November 20th Newark B.O.E. Business Meeting

Tonight I went to the Newark Board of Education Business Meeting. There were 15 board members seated around a table, with a few others as well as spectators seated around the edge of the room. The meeting was pretty boring, I guess because I really did not understand much of what they were talking about. There was a lot of discussion of No Child Left Behind scores and Newark (as opposed to the rest of essex county) being asked to work on its own plan. A code of ethics was discussed, as well as something about one board member being late with it and having a late fine. 2 members dictated the discussion for quite some time until about half an hour into it come members started contributing with questions and comments. One member talked about improvement; and about someone allegedy showing up at a school unannounced but there was no record of that happening. The members started talking about returning districts to local control (I guess going from state to local?). Another member had concerns about written documentation from the meeting of all the rules they were making; he felt like the other members were making things up as they were going along. He said he was sick of hearing "I don't know" and wanted to make sure the "quality of life" in Newark schools was imploding. After some more discussion the public session of the meeting ended. It lasted about an hour.

Shadowing Pt 2

After lunch, a new group of students came in. Our teacher told us beforehand that they were "a very difficult group," so I was expecting them to be loud and misbehaved. However, they were very quiet when they entered and seemed to be paying attention to the lesson. My guess is they used to be hard to control but they have gotten better over time. Some students were not paying attention, but that's to be expected in any classroom, especially in sixth grade. The book the class was reading was called The Watsons Go To Birmingham. After the teacher read some of the book out loud to the class, he told a personal story of his own that related to the story. After some more discussion about the story the students took an open note/book quiz on the book. During the quiz two students were whispering to each other for a few minutes but the teacher didn't notice. He emphasized to the kids a few minutes in that they should not always use personal examples in their answers, and that it was a "reading rest, not a writing test." After the quiz the students were complimented on their ability to understand the "heavy stuff" the book was about. The rest of the school day followed a pretty tight schedule similar to the first half of the day. At 2:30 students were walking the halls in groups, many headed towards the auditorium to get ready for dismissal.

Shadowing Pt 1

Today I went for my shadowing experience, and it was very interesting to say the least. I was about an hour late because my car broke down and I had to get towed before I made it there, but my teacher was very forgiving. When I got there at 10am, students were working on group projects which were venn diagrams based on the story they were reading. It was language arts, but the book was historical fiction (which I think was a good idea because he is a certified social studies teacher). The groups were spread around the room; a few groups were working on the diagrams, while some students did some research related the the project on the computers, and finally it seemed as if the last group was working on reading/sitting and not working on the project.

I made a few observations about the classroom. It was pretty large, the lighting was extremely bright, and the ceiling was very high. So even though there were many posters and students' projects were displayed around the classroom it still looked a little bare. It was clearly a history classroom since many of the posters had quotes about the subject and there were also many Time magazine covers around the room. There were also a few bookshelves that were stacked with books related to what their lessons were about (African American History and Ancient Egypt.)

There was also a student teacher present who pretty much kept to herself but walked around quietly helping students.

I noticed that there was a lot of noise coming from the groups, and when the teacher realized I was taking notes of the students, he came over and said "This is what I like to call organized chaos. The principal came in because there was noise and said he liked to hear the noise of progress." It was clear that most of the students were working on their assignment.

There were about eighteen students in the room; some came and left. The teacher said as advice, "Get a job in a school that doesn't have lockers." He had very good control over his students, but at some points they would take the liberty to leave the room when he wasn't looking or spend too much time at their lockers.

Around 10:30 he had the students clean up their desks to get ready for social studies. They went to their lockers if they needed to. From then until 11:15 they talked about Ancient Egypt and its geography. HOwever, before he started the lesson, he had to talk to the students about discipline, as many of them were not paying attention and were acting out. The lesson was very brief and simple; he wrote some notes on the board while going over a homework assignment. There were few students taking notes, and a few were not paying attention, although I'm not sure the teacher noticed. at 10:45 it was time for students to get back into their groups from before to work on maps they had been labeling and coloring in. Most students were talking but they were getting work done. It seemed as soon as the lesson began it was time for them to pack up their desks and get their books out for SSR (Silent Sustained Reading). I was surprised that in all the time I spent in a social studies class, only about half an hour was dedicated to that subject. So for around half an hour, the students either read their novels or wrote about them. There is a program called Read All About It where students write newspaper-style about their books. There was quiet chatter when the should have been reading and it was about five minutes before the teacher said anything. There were 2 students cleaning up in the back of the room, from the previous lesson, and they did not participate in SSR at all.

At 11:40 the students were told to clean up, and 5 mintues later they were dismissed for lunch.

[part 2 coming soon]

PDF- Noddings; Themes of Care

(copied from class notes)

Incorporating care is aknowledging all students and their needs. Emotional learning drives how people act and care. People respond to things based on how they react to certain situations. Sometimes the only reason teachers and students care in school is "will it be on the test?" Teacher's can't tell students why they should care, they have to experience it. Teachers show care with different forms of attention. If you show them how much you care,they will care how much you know.

We watched a documentary called A Challenging Student.
*case one- Vincent (student) had behavioral problems. He would push students around, cause trouble for the students and the teacher. The teacher brought his parents in for a conference.
*case two- Mike (student) made rude comments to other students, and the teacher made a verbal agreement with the student that he wouldn't act that way again, and send a not home to come back with a parents' signature.


I think the first case with Vincent was more effective because the teacher and parents were all present at once and they all reached an understanding together about his behavior issues. THe second teacher made the effort, but the student probably wasn't taking her seriously, and his teacher did not really follow through to make sure his parents know about the situation.

Issue 14- Is Full Inclusion of Disabled Students Desirable?

I think that for inclusion to work in classrooms, it has to be done in such a way that no student is deterred or destracted from what they are being taught. If a student with disabilities can handle being in a general education classroom without causing a teacher to take away too much from everyone else and not be in danger of failing, they have every right to be in that class. I think the only instance where a student with a disability should be in a classroom that entirely caters to what he/she needs is when inclusion into a general class would be more of a problem for both ends.

Documentary on Newark

It's 1:30am Sunday/Monday but I was just watching an ineresting documentary on Newark. It talked about how suburbs turned unto urban communities, and issues like race and housing districs. One man said "We live in a racialized society. Not a racist society, but racialized." It was pretty thought provoking. The show didn't really go into schooling, but I thought a lot of the same information could be applied to schools. I think it's the show called Point of View, if you ever get a chance to watch it.

On an Article I Read

The other day my friend sent me an article about the school shooting that happened in Finland. There were comments, about 5,000, mostly about teachers. People were talking about how teachers should do a better job in schools and it's their fault that students are resorting to shooting other people. Someone actually suggested that teachers be armed in the classroom, and should be allowed to open fire if there is a danger to the school. When I left my own comment saying that instead of teachers having guns, they should be there for their students as people they can look up to, not someone they fear. The people commenting the article fired back at me saying that if I feel that way, I'm never going to get respect as a teacher. I think teachers can be fair but firm, and be compassionate while still earning respect. They don't need to be feared by their students. At least that's not how I feel. What does everyone else think?

Issue 8- Can Federal Initiatives Rescue Failing Schools?

I think that if done correctly, federal policies can rescue failing schools. If money and effort is going to the right places, it is possible. If lack of resources is the issue, money should be used on books and equipment that will improve test scores. I've heard of failing schools using their money on things like new jerseys for a sports team, or extra vending machines, when the money could be used for more important things. I think if attention is payed to the right areas the federal government could help a lot.

Issue 9- Do High Stakes Assessments Improve Learning?

I have never been a fan of believing that only number scores determine a school's credibility. There are so many methods of learning and test taking, but teachers and administrators don't explore all the options. They need to take into account that not all students are the same, that they learn differently and test differently. While some students may be very good at math and multiple choice tests, others may be good at creative writing and learning visually. If schools are going to be constantly tested (within the schools, and at the state and national levels), tests should be altered in such a way that they allow every student to thrive in the way that they are comfortable. Granted they can't always have it their way, but if a student is good at one method of learning and testing people should not expect them to test well at something they aren't familiar with.