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Home **__ Choice Book Presentation __**

Set in a dark vision of the near future, a terrifying reality TV show is taking place. Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called The Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdee steps forward to take her younger sister's place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature. (Taken from the Hunger games website listed below). []
 * The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins **
 * Hunger Games Website: **

[]
 * Get to know the Author: **

The Hunger Games Classic (Hunger Games Trilogy) Catching Fire Classic (Hunger Games Trilogy) Mockingjay Classic (Hunger Games Trilogy)
 * Other Books by Suzanne Collins: **

At what age/grade level do you think this book is appropriate for?
 * Something to think about: **

**Part 1:**

Imagine that you are writing a book with 5 chapters on education (Look to the course descriptions http://nlumarch2012.wikispaces.com/ for ballpark connections to Term 3 subject matter). Address all four of the questions below:


 * What would the chapter headings be?
 * What is your **big organizing question** for each one? (Refer back to @http://fno.org/nov97/toolkit.html to remember the three essentail questions: Why? How? Which is best?)
 * What are the **subsidiary questions** to these?
 * What **chapters of our core books** would you suggest reading to study these issues in search of enlightenment?
 * What **activities** would you design for a group of co-author teachers to help you explore these issues?


 * __ ** Behavioral: Policies and Procedures for a Productive and Respectful Classroom ** __
 * What are some of the best known tips and tricks from tried and true teachers to lead a well oiled classroom?
 * What are some simple procedures in the classroom that every teacher should have?
 * How can I involve my students with some of these decisions?
 * Where should I go when I am unsure of some policies


 * This chapter would be a great way for teachers to share what they've tried in their classrooms, or seen what's worked for other teachers. Everyone brings a tip, trick, policy, or procedure to the group to share what it is and how it has helped the positive behaviors in the classroom.
 * __ ** Connections: Making Connections with Students, Parents, and Fellow Teachers ** __
 * How do you create a positive and nurturing relationship with the people who are most important for your student's academic life?
 * What connections should I make first?
 * Educational Foundations: Chapter 9: The Banking Concept of Education
 * What kind of relationship can I have with parents?
 * Educational Foundations: Chapter 15: When Learning Matters
 * Lives Across Cultures: Chapter 9: The Family in Cultural Context
 * How important is my relationship with my fellow teachers?
 * What Keeps Teachers Going: Chapter 6: Teaching as Intellectual Work
 * As a team, create a web titled "Fostering Relationship." Start in the middle of the web and decide together, as a teacher, which relationships should be the first to be nurtured. From there, branch off and decide what the next relationship is that needs to be nurtured, and so on . Branch off of those relationship bubbles with ways of fostering those relationships. What do you do to make sure you have a good relationship with these people, what have you seen other teachers try?


 * __ ** Reflections: Learning from your Mistakes and Triumphs ** __
 * What is the best way to learn from where you've been and relating it to where you are going?
 * Do teachers make mistakes?
 * Educational Foundations: Chapter 11: Psst...It Ain't About the Tests
 * How do I reflect back on my mistakes and triumphs and make them better?
 * Educational Foundations: Chapter 12: So What Do You Do Now?


 * __ ** Balance: Trying to Balance your Teaching ** __
 * What is the best way to balance everything that a teacher has on his/her plate?
 * Do all teachers really have everything put together?
 * Educational Foundations: Chapter 10: On Stir-and-Serve Recipes for Teaching
 * How do I try to balance what's on my teaching plate?
 * Where do I go if I am loosing my balance?


 * __ ** Leadership: Takling Leadership Roles ** __
 * How do I go about takling a leadership role?
 * When should I start to take on some leadership roles?
 * What types of leadership roles are right for me?
 * How much is too much?

**Interview Two People: **

When given the assignment to interview a person from a different educational generation and a person from a different country than myself, I knew exactly who I could interview and learn a lot from.

I first interviewed a person who was educated from a different country than me. I chose to interview my coworker, named Oida who works as a registered nurse at the nursing home where I work during my vacations from school. She was born and raised in the Philippines. Her family of two parents and five children lived four blocks from the elementary school and across the street from the high school. This was the typical way of getting to school; otherwise your parents would’ve had to take you to school. Elementary school consisted of kindergarten through sixth grade. Oida started kindergarten when she was six years old. The school year lasted ten months long. The students had April and May off for a vacation break. The school day started at 7:00 am and lasted until about 4:30/5:00 pm. With this being said, after the students were done with sixth grade in elementary school, they started seventh grade at the high school, which went through tenth grade. Students finished high school at the age of sixteen or seventeen.

The school day consisted of a one recess and an hour for lunch. During the hour for lunch, Oida was able to go home and eat lunch because her house was so close and she could walk. Oida’s school had the same “specials” that we have today such as art and music, however these classes were brought to their classroom (just like “art on a cart”) rather than going to an art room. In fifth and sixth grade they had a rotating science teacher that also came into their classrooms. In high school the students went to their classes in different classrooms, just like we do in the United States. In high school in the Philippines, the popular sports were baseball and basketball. They had the traditional hobbies and clubs like drama and science club. Oida was on the dance team and was a cheerleader. She stated that in school they also had the “clicks” between students like they do here in the United States such as the nerds, bullies, mean girls, etc.

The schools in the Philippines and where Oida went to school, were taught in English. There was a Philippine language class that was taken by the students and it was the main language spoken in their households. When Oida was in first grade, she was part of a class of forty students. There was only one teacher and no teacher’s aides in the classroom. There was a mix of female and male teachers at her schools. The schools in the Philippines were very strict. When Oida was in school it was ok for a teacher to slap the student’s hand with a ruler. The students were to have some fear of their teachers and show respect to them. There were teachers that played favorites. Oida always seemed to be the “teacher’s pet” among her classmates. In each grade level, there were four sections. The students were placed in these sections according to their IQ scores. Section one housed the “bright” students with the highest IQs and section four housed the students with the lowest IQ. Oida was always in section one.

In the Philippine schools they had traditional test taking practices, they would learn and then be assessed on their learning with a test. Grading and reporting was done quarterly with report cards. Oida was Valedictorian for the first, second and third year of high school and her last year of high school she was a second year valedictorian. This was a lot of pressure and expectation placed on her and her family was a little disappointed when she wasn’t top valedictorian all four years.

After high school, students in the Philippines were expected to go to college. All five of the kids in her family went to college. In the Philippines they didn’t have college loans and the students didn’t pay for their college degrees, the parents had to pay their tuition as they went to school. Oida’s parents spaced out their children’s age about two years apart from each other, so that they would be able to afford college when the time came. Oida had always wanted to go to medical school. However medical school took a long time, so she decided to try it and if it was taking too long, after four years of it, she would have a nursing degree and she could stop after that. She went to college and stayed in a dorm. She ended up becoming a nurse after four years in school. She graduated college at the age of nineteen. When she took her nursing boards, she placed 16 out of 1,500 test takers.

Oida stated that school was fun for her. Looking back on her educational life she wishes that her parents didn’t have so many expectations on her. She resents the fact that she was always in the section one group of kids because she was always stuck with the same kids and she constantly had to compete against the same kids as well. Oida stated that she really loved college because there seemed to be less expectations placed on her, mostly because she lived in a dorm away from her parents.

The second person that I interviewed needed to be from a different educational generation than myself. I had the pleasure of interviewing my Grandma Wava (my mom’s mother). She grew up and went to school in Albert Lea, Minnesota (approx. 18,000 population). Students walked to elementary, junior, and senior high school. Some students were bused to the senior high, because they were coming from neighboring areas that didn’t have a high school. She was five years old when she started kindergarten. Her elementary school housed kindergarten through sixth grade. There was one class of each grade and had approximately thirty-five to forty kids in a classroom with a teacher. Seventh grade through ninth grade was at the junior high and tenth through twelfth grade was at the senior high school. The school calendar was the same as it is today, running from September through June and their school days lasted from 9:00 am to about 4:00 pm.

The students during my grandma’s generation were expected to respect the teachers. It wouldn’t be uncommon to have an ear or hair pulled to keep the students in line. If they were really misbehaving, they would have to take a trip to the principal’s office. It was also not uncommon that the principal would have a dual role as a teacher and a principal as well. Grandma Wava never had to go the principal’s office; she said that she knew better than to act that way.

When my grandma was going to school, girls did not wear pants, or “slacks” as grandma called them. They wore pleated skirts, blouses and sweaters and in the winter they had to wear long socks or slacks underneath their skirts. When Grandma Wava was going to the senior high is when girls first starting wearing slacks. In elementary and junior high school, each class had a separate coat room to hang up their clothes to dry during school. In high school, the students had lockers.

In school, Grandma Wava learned the traditional subjects such as English, arithmetic, science, and social studies. In elementary school, the specialists would come to their classrooms to teach art and music. In junior and senior high school the students would go to the different classrooms for their specials. The only time that Grandma Wava had a library in school was when she got up to the high school. At the junior and senior high Grandma enjoyed choir class. The senior high had the traditional clubs and sports (the boys were into football). She had to take Spanish at the senior high because that was a pre-requisite to get into nursing school. She didn’t like Spanish class at all!

Coming from my special education background, I had to ask Grandma Wava what they did with students with special needs, she said that the students with the severe special ed. needs (ie: kids with Downs Syndrome, cognitive disabilities, etc.) were kept at home, because at that time, they didn’t know what else to do with them.

When I asked Grandma Wava about the type of expectations that her parents had for her, she said that her parents had hoped her and her sisters would do well in school, but they didn’t hold super high expectations for them. Grandma said that she mostly held a B average, which kept her on the honor roll. The requirements to graduate from high school were to complete a certain amount of classes and keep your grades up.

Grandma really enjoyed school and looked forward to going all the way from elementary through high school. She said that she had some really great teachers and she can remember many of them. She can also remember one teacher that she didn’t like. She said that she was too old to be teaching and that none of the students liked her. She was a big crab!

Grandma Wava had always known that she wanted to be a nurse. Most students went on to college if their parents could afford it. Nursing was a cheaper degree, because they got a lot of free work out of the students in the different nursing and hospital settings. Nursing is what her family could afford, but it’s also what she really wanted to be, so she went to nursing school. She attended Kahler School of Nursing in Rochester, MN. It was a three year program; however she made it through two years because she then met my grandpa, so she ended up withdrawing from that school and attending a different school to get through the program requirements while she was getting married. It was a common thing back then to drop what you were doing and get married young.

Between Oida’s education, my Grandma Wava’s schooling, and my educational background, there are some major differences and some similarities. We were all taught in English and learned many of the same subjects. We all had teachers that we really liked and a few that we weren’t so fond of. Expectations were a huge difference that stood out to me. My grandma’s parents had lower expectations of her, I had a bit more expectation placed on my learning and Oida had very high expectations placed on her all throughout her educational years. When Oida and Grandma Wava went to school, their teachers were very strict and the students were expected to respect their teachers. When I went to school and now a days, the students aren’t as disciplined and don’t respect their teachers like they used to. Class sizes were huge when Oida and Grandma Wava went to school, but now class sizes are a lot less than they were. Lastly, I think student’s opinions have changed from what they used to be. Both people that I interviewed stated that they enjoyed going to school. Now if you ask the students if they like going to school they would say no. It’s amazing how education has changed in so many ways.

Wow. I just read the article “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” and it was eye-opening to me. I am not a parent yet, however I was a child and student and now I am a teacher, so I am aware of expectations and right and wrong. I agree with a few things that Amy Chua said, of course in moderation and there are definitely things that I disagree with her about.
 * "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" Article Response: **

I agree that parents need to have some level of being “strict” in their households. I came from a (Western) family that was somewhat strict with things, when my parents told me to do something, it was expected that I was going to do it. So often now a days, parents will ask their children to do something and the child will fight or throw a tantrum until they don’t have to do the task anymore and often the child will get away without having to do what their parents asked of them. This soon becomes a learned behavior.

The list of things that Chua’s daughters were allowed to do and not to do was ridiculous. The first on the list was “never allowed to attend a sleepover.” Really? What is a sleepover with friends going to do to your child? Teach them social skills? Allow them to learn how to be a friend? These are skills that are important to everyday life that I think Chua and many other Chinese families overlook or find isn’t very important. That’s just strange to me. Being a friend and being social is part of adult life and frankly there are many people in this world lacking these exact skills. On the other hand if this topic of being strict forces your child into doing something that they aren’t interested in, such as a sport or hobby, I find that this idea is messed up. If my child is not interested in playing baseball for whatever reason, there are plenty of other sports that he/she can try. I don’t think that I should have to stay up night after night forcing my son/daughter into practicing baseball so that they will learn to be good at the sport and learn to love it. Let your children have a childhood, let them discover who they want to be, not who you want them to be. Otherwise, aren’t we just creating robots?

3/9/11 ~ Bronfenbrenner's Theory After learning about Bronfenbrenner’s theory, it didn’t take long for a former student’s face to pop into my mind. A few years ago, I had a kindergartener who had an extreme breakdown of his Microsystem. It started at home with his family. Or should I say, lack of home and lack of family? They had rented an old farm house when they were evicted from it, so instead they left to go live their life in a motel room for a few months. A mother and father with 4 children and a complete lack of family connection, nurturing, or frankly love. It was heartbreaking to see, a kindergartener would was never held, hugged, or even kissed. This was crucial to his development. With this lack of personal touch, he wouldn’t allow any person in his life to hug him or even get close to him. People take these things for granted, I think that I may have over looked it a few times in my life, but this personal contact and nurturing is critical to human development especially at his age, and this little boy unfortunately would never experience this. So not only did he have a breakdown in his family Microsystem, this affected the rest of his Microsystems to function properly. Because this kindergartener was never taught how to appropriately make friends or be a friend, he didn’t really have friends. His peers at school were simply classmates in school and treated him as just a little boy, because of his anti-social behaviors. In school, my student was in the special ed. program for his low intelligence, lack of academic skills, lack of social skills, and for his poor nutrition (which affected many other aspects of his body). School became this student’s home. At school, we tried to nurture not only his soul, but tried to give him as much as we could which he was lacking from his home-life. I think about this boy often. It is unfortunate that this boy and his family live the life that they do with their breakdown of Microsystems. Because of these breakdowns in this system, all of the other systems in their lives are affected.

Conflicts with Technology (February 5, 2011)... When thinking about some of the issues that we face with technology, there are a few personal ones that come to mind. Particularily thinking about my action research, we've recently had issues with efficeintly being able to learn and understand a program that we need to be teaching to our student so that in turn he is able to learn and use to become more independent in the classroom. Within a school district, there are a lot of hold ups when it comes to getting approval to spend money on programs or even training. Now that we have these programs at our disposal, how do we use them? How can teachers teach about them, if they don't even know how to use them themselves? This is our dilemma...how can we make this process easier for teachers???

Teacher Book Wizard Check out this great website for book leveling. If there is a book that you are wondering what reading level it may be, you can simply type in the name of the book and get it's reading level. Being a special ed. teacher, I work with many different kids with varying reading levels, so this website is a great resource that I have on hand when I need to look a book up. Take a look, it may be part of your teacher toolkit!

Wish I were here...

Instead of here...

This "Reading Ladder" is a tool we used with a 2nd grader to work on independence when it came to reading.

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My small corner of the world... media type="googlemap" key="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Ixonia,+WI&sll=43.105652,-88.519807&sspn=0.016418,0.038495&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Ixonia,+Jefferson,+Wisconsin&ll=43.143892,-88.597323&spn=0.032814,0.07699&z=14&iwloc=A&output=embed" width="425" height="350"

<span style="color: #008080; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 130%;">There are a lot of great features in the wikispaces. I really like how I can include a video, file, or even audio with only a few clicks. I found that navigating throughout the wikispaces was fairly easy, however somewhat ssllllooooowwwww. Sometimes a page would freeze up for a short time, but it wasn't too bad. I'm not too fond of how you have to choose the fonts and colors, it seems like somewhat of a pain, but overall, I think the wikispaces are a pretty cool way to share resources, ideas, and other fun things!

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4500ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%; overflow: hidden;">RRT Discussion... <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4500ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%; overflow: hidden;">After attending the RRT I am feeling a mixture of relief and anxiety, does that make sense? The three workshops that I attended were really helpful. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4500ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%; overflow: hidden;">The first session I attended was "In the Beginning...," and it focused on the autobiography. It was neat to learn about all of the different ways that you could make your autobiography out of. I was super excited to be able to see a variety of completed autobiographies as well, so that I know what some of them look like. After seeing some of them, I am leaning toward a scrapbook style. I have started digging through my "big bin" of old school stuff that my mom gathered while I was going to school. The next step is to locate pictures and some old report cards...that should be fun! <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4500ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%; overflow: hidden;">The second session I attended was "Constructing your Action Research Project." This session along with being helpful, was extremely overwhelming. I think it's the thought of the Lit Review, maybe I'm freaked because it seems like a lot of work, either way, I'm still nervous!!! This session also threw a lot of info out at us and I was scrambling down notes...it just makes me nervous! <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4500ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%; overflow: hidden;">The last session that I attended was "Action Research: As Easy as Following a Recipe." The title is a bit deceiving, because it doesn't sound all that easy. They did a great job breaking down what we are supposed to do to get our action research project completed. They also gave some great tips like color coding our notes when we are reading for our lit review (ie: highlight the themes, pink for what it is, blue for effects, etc.) I think that will definitely help. They gave us a APA citation website, which should come in handy when we have to site our sources...... [|Sons of Citation]

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #4500ff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%; overflow: hidden;">I guess I can't wait to get started! ~Audra~

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #127d12; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 130%; overflow: hidden;">Amy: How's it going with your scrapbook? Your mom is way cool to keep all that stuff. Can't wait to see it! Glad you remembered about the color coding. I had forgotten all about that. Remind me again in January when we start reading the research!