Local News Article: St. Cloud Times: St. Cloud Schools see mixture of spoken languages

http://www.sctimes.com/article/20110129/NEWS01/101290019/St-Cloud-schools-see-mixture-of-spoken-languages

In St. Cloud, the school district has had to add new teachers because the number of students who do not speak English has grown so rapidly. St. Cloud students speak 38 different languages at home. English is still
the most common language, but the diversity in languages is growing rapidly. This article really made me realize that St. Cloud State students need to learn about culture and diversity. Future teachers need to be prepared to teach all students, regardless of race, religion or culture. Teachers need training to be able to offer culturally informed curriculum, and be able to give students a multicultural viewpoint and history.

Class Update: 1/18/11

On January 18, 2011 in SPED 200 class, we had a guest speaker named Carol Thoma.  Carol is the field experience coordinator for the St. Cloud State Education Department. She was an enthusiastic, energetic speaker, who gave us quite a bit of information about what we had to get ready for our field experience. SPED 200 requires twenty hours of field experience. We had to fill out an online application by January 21, have our paperwork filled out with a check for twenty dollars for the criminal background check. The background check is mandatory for everyone who is going to work for the St. Cloud district. 

I have decided to do my field experience in the St.Cloud district.  I have experience working in the Elk River School District with special needs children, but I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to explore another school district.  I will be working with regular elementary students. My role will be very different from my experiences in the Elk River district because I will be a student teacher. How exciting is that?!  This is going to be a very different learning experience for me.  I am really looking forward it!

Book Review: The Global Achievement Gap - Chapter One

I am reading the book entitled, The Global Achievement Gap, written by Tony Wagner as part of the requirements for SPED 200 class. So far, and I have only read chapter one, I find the book very interesting.  I am going to go over the five main points that I found to be important in this first chapter.

The first chapter brought to my attention the degree to how insufficient our education system really is in today’s modern world. The one fact that really caught my attention was that only about a third of high school graduates today are ready for college. Really? I was stunned by that. Wagner points out that the school systems have not changed, but the world around us has. Our education system had not kept up with the changing and global economy we now face. What needs to change? It seems to me that our country has been concerned with the gap between the quality of schools for poor and minority children and most middle class students. Our education system has been focusing on teachers being held accountable, so therefore increased testing. Our children are not learning the skills that matter in the twenty-first century.

Wagner interviewed many employers, even from high tech companies, to find out what they look for when they hire young people. They all pointed to the same direction; look for someone who can ask good questions. We can teach new employees technical skills, but we cannot teach them the ability to problem solve.
The other important skills they wanted was the ability to communicate effectively with other people, and they have to know how to work and get along with other people.

I have heard for several years now that our children are not as well educated as children from other countries. I really think that is sad and scary for our children and the future of this country. I am learning from this book that we need to change as teachers to make sure that children graduate with the skills they need for today's working world. One major thing it seems we need to focus on is critical thinking and problem solving.
Wagner calls this his first of seven survival skills that children need for the twenty-first century. The ability to ask a good question, and know how to talk to people to find out what they need to know. Schools need to focus more on teaching children how to think critically, and you cannot learn that overnight. As teachers, we need to start teaching children how to think critically as soon as they are old enough to grasp the concept.

The second survival skill children need is knowing how to collaborate across networks and leading by influence. It makes sense when you think about how today's business are run.  Technology has advanced to the point that there are now virtual teams that engineers work on, and projects that are all over the world, thanks to the high tech computer age. You might be working with people from all different parts of the world to solve a problem. In today's world, people are not even in the same building. They are using things such as net meetings, and web casts to communicate.

The rest of the skills are important and I have already touched on most of them so I will just list what the skills are according Tony Wagner. The third skill is agility and adaptability, the fourth skill is Initiative and Entrepreneurialism, the fifth skill is effective oral and written communication, the sixth skill is accessing and analyzing information, and the last skill is curiosity and imagination.

One last important thought from chapter one that I wanted to talk about is that our future students are going to have to know how to work with people from different places with different cultures when they get out in the working world of today. Our children need to be taught about diverse cultures and global awareness. They need to be able to use critical thinking and problem solving to understand global issues. They need to be able to collaborate with people from other countries, different religions and lifestyles. They also need to understand other nations and cultures, including people who do not speak English.

Class Update: 1/27/11

We met in the computer lab on the first floor for class today.  We had a guest speaker, Mary, from the Curriculum Technology Center (CTC). Mary was very informative and went over many wonderful resources that are at our disposal as students attending St. Cloud State and future teachers.  The first thing she showed us was how to use the Atomic Learning. This is a very useful resource if you have any questions on a computer program such as Word, Excel and many more. You can also look up topics such as APA formatting, which is under the training and projects tab.

Mary showed us the ISTE.org website for teachers. International Society for Technology in Education.  She showed us the digital-age teaching standards that teachers need to acquire to move their students into the 21st century of learning.

Mary also went over a couple of useful sites such as Purdue Owl and Edutopia.org. What works in Education.

Mary brought us to the CTC Center and showed us all of the useful resources available to us. We can go there to help us plan lessons, check out a children's book, use the smart board, check out an iPad or simply work at the computers.

When we were done with our tour, we worked on responding to our classmate’s blog's.

Overall, I thought it was a very informative day in our SPED 200 class.

Class Update: 1/25/11

I met with my small group members in the library today, instead of class as usual.  We did some brainstorming and came up with our selected topic from chapter nine for our group presentation.  We narrowed our topic to; Emerging Issues in School Government and Finance. Andrew is going to talk about equality in funding, Kirsten is going to cover school choice, and I am going to talk about the new concept of local control in education. We are excited about our topics and hope everyone enjoys learning more about them!

National News Article from the International Education: Why a College Student is Selling Oprah's Diamond Watch on eBay

http://education.change.org/blog/category/international_education

With all of the negative things we hear in our daily lives, I thought it would be refreshing to talk about something heartwarming and light.  This article was a breath of fresh air for me. When I first read the title of the article, I thought that this college student needed the money from the watch to pay for tuition.  I was very surprised to read that this young college student was going to donate all the proceeds from the watch, to help displaced Haitian college students continue their education in the United States. How self less is that?
I applaud that young man for his generosity.

Class Update: 1/20/11

Today in SPED 200, we broke into our small groups for our small group research project.  I am in group 6 with two other wonderful people, Andrew and Kirsten.  We will be doing our presentation on a subject yet to be determined from chapter 9 of our text, Introduction to teaching. Chapter 9 is about Government and Finance: Regulating and Funding Schools.  I am excited to collaborate with my new group to see what topic we will choose to study in-depth. We will be presenting Tuesday April 5.

We also watched a You-Tube video called RSA Animate: Changing Education Paradigms. This video asks the question, "How do we educate our children in the 21st Century?"  I thought it brought up many interesting points to think about relating to our current education system, and what changes need to occur to educate our children in the 21st century.

We also went over the syllabus again to make sure everyone was aware of what is expected of us for the duration of this SPED 200 Introduction to Education class.

Local News Article: New York Times: Schools Embrace the i-Pad

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/education/05tablets.html?ref=education

I think that technology is a wonderful tool, and I think students could benefit in some ways from using i-Pads at school.  I-Pad’s are touch screen, and I think younger students and special education students would benefit from that feature. Older students would not have to carry around a heavy backpack full of books, when all their books can fit into one portable device. Little by little, more and more businesses are going paperless. Could schools eventually go paperless? If everyone had access to an i-Pad, children could learn how to correspond with teachers, turn in homework assignments, and have a digital log of their work. I would be very interested in the opinions of schools that tried the i-Pad in their classrooms. Could it be an innovative teaching tool of the future? The one big problem with the concept is that they are $750.00 each. How many districts have the money for i-Pads?

Movie Review: The Freedom Writers

I found The Freedom Writers to be a very inspirational movie for someone who is thinking about being a teacher.  Watching this movie gave me hope and encouragement that teaching children can make a difference in a child’s life, even children who are at a disadvantage.

Erin was a new teacher, full of high hopes and dreams about how her first teaching experience should be. She was optimistic in her teaching and her students, and she wanted her teaching to impact their lives in positive ways.

In the beginning of the school year, many of her students were racially divided, foul-mouthed, gang involved, violent, and a very disrespectful group of teenagers. Many of Erin’s students were forced to come to school by their probation officers. The choice was go to school or go to juvenal detention. Some of her students were homeless and living on the streets. Many did not come at all.

Erin Gruwell took a group of teens who were racially divided, and found a way to reach them, and bring them together. The line game was one strategy that Erin came up with to break through the racial barriers that separated her students. I think the line game made each student realize that they were not that different from each other, and that they were all facing the same challenges in life. I also thought the line game was where Erin earned their respect. She did not condemn or comment; she watched and gave them her respects for a lost friend or loved one. This game also made them realize that they had all lost friends to gang violence.

Erin faced a lot of adversity from the school administration and from the teachers.  Her students had low grades and were labeled as non-teachable, and a waste of the schools time and money.  They would not give her books to teach her students because they would not get them back.

I loved the way Erin took matters into her own hands. She got a second and third job so she could buy the books herself. She came up with her own innovative teaching ideas to reach her students, through literature and journaling. She bought them literature books that she thought they would relate to in their own lives, and would interest them, so they would want to learn. Through journaling, she let each student tell his or her story, and made him or her realize that they did matter. Her teaching methods let them be their selves, and gave them hope for the future.

Erin's teaching strategies worked. Her students grades improved, and they actually came to school. They started to realize that she really cared about them and their education.  Erin went way beyond the call of duty for her students. She took them on field trips, to museums, and out to dinner.

Erin’s expectations for her students were very high.  She taught them that they could learn, they will learn, they will graduate from high school, and can even go onto college.  She was not excepting anything less.  I think that this had a tremendous effect on their learning.  They started to believe in themselves because she believed in them.

 Erin Gruwell never gave up on her students, and I am going to take that lesson forward with me.  Someday when I am facing my first classroom of special children, I hope to be that kind of teacher. 

Local News Article: Alternative Teaching

Alternative Teaching
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=900178

I do not know a lot about alternative teaching, it is a new concept for me, but my first reaction is that I am skeptical. The young people of today need quality teachers.  These fresh new minds are going to be the future of this country, and I am worried that if people are allowed to take shortcuts to obtain their licenses, the quality of our education system could be compromised. Alternative teaching might be a good idea for a person who wants to change professions in mid life, but I think the article was too vague for me to make an informed decision on the subject.

My Reflection on why I want to become a Special Education Teacher.

When I was right out of high school, I always wanted to go to college.  My parents opened up a graphic arts business, about the time I was going to graduate from high school, and they needed help with their business.  I did not have any money, and my parents were not college advocates, so I decided to help them in their business.  I was in the graphic arts field for 17 years until the industry was taken over by computers.  Newly divorced, I needed a job, so I started subbing at the Elk River School District as a para.  I found that I love working with special needs children, and I wanted to learn more about them. My new fiancé, knowing how much I had always wanted to attend college, suggested I give it a try.  I decided to pursue a career in teaching to become a Special Education teacher. I knew from my experiences working as a para, how rewarding and fulfilling I find working with special needs children. These special children have inspired me to go to college, and move my life in a completely new direction.

Welcome to my Blog!

My name is Alease Loitz and I am a non-traditional sophmore at St. Cloud State University. I am a  Special Education major.