Blog 13

A Girl Who Demanded School By: Shakeya Andrews

In A Girl Who Demanded School Kaneya spoke about her life growing up. When she was 5 years old she found out that she was engaged and after that she spent most of her time learning how to become a good wife for her soon to be husband. Kaneya’s mother raised her while her father spent most of his time away working. When her father came around he would abuse her mother and take the money that the family had earned but he never helped his family out. Her mother did not have the opportunity to get an education, which is why she pushed her children to go after their dreams and get an education. Kaneya’s dream was to become a teacher so she worked hard while she was in school to fulfill her dreams, but she didn’t have a chance at continuing her education because she knew that she would be getting married soon. Kaneya teaches us that no matter what obstacle we face, continue to go after what we want because we can do whatever we put our mind to. Even though she did not get the chance to continue school and become a teacher when she wanted to, she still chased her dream . Kaneya asked people to help support her so that she could take a trip to America to finish her education and surprisingly people were willing to help. She persevered because she knew that she had the right to get her education. In spite of challenges kaneya was granted the opportunity to finish her education. I learned that there are four things that we must carry with us when we are trying to reach our goals. In order to reach our goals we must be the best we can be, be confident, be bold, and be fearless. Kaneya says, “If you can change your world, you can change your community” such powerful words and very encouraging.

Shane Koyczan by Emma Boren

Number 8 on Ken Robinson’s top 10 ted talks is Shane Koyczan’s To this day... for the bullied and beautiful. In this video, To this day... for the bullied and beautiful Koyczan talks about his life growing up. He says that he was bullied, and then he became who he did not want to be; a bully himself. Through this whole video, Koyczan tells his story. He tells about his dreams growing up, what he wanted to be. He says that not only was he called names but his dreams were called names too. Stupid, silly, unrealistic, and more. He wanted to be a writer, and when he was told that was unrealistic, he said he wanted to become a wrestler. That was silly they told him. This was his whole life. He lived with his grandmother who would make him porkchops when he felt sad. To Shane, porkchops were the same thing as a karate chop. His grandmother thought it was cute, but it ended up getting them into some trouble. When he fell out of a tree and bruised his whole right side, he and his family life got investigated. When asked Shane told them “my grandmother gives me karate chops when I’m sad.” When the story got out and everyone figured out what really happened, he began to get called porkchop. After telling his story, he goes into his poem. His poem is a story about three different kids who lived their lives being bullied. They are depressed, they get put on pills for their depressed and everyone around them thinks they are pill poppers. They consider suicide. They try to figure out how to be invisible, how to make it stop. This video was so eye opening to me about the issues with bullying. I knew it went on, but I never knew the extremity it went to. Shane Koyczan’s talk can teach people a lot about the way kids feel when they get bullied.

By: Tracy Armstrong #6 on Ken Robinson's top ten ted talks

One of Sir Ken Robinson’s favorite ted talks is of Mae Jemison addressing the need to teach both the arts and science together. It amazes me that eleven years after Ms. Jemison gave that talk that we are still discussing the fact of whether we should teach art along with the sciences or not. Ms. Jemison says and science that art are manifestations of the same thing. They are avatars of human creativity. They spring from the same source. In other words, we must learn that they cannot and should not be separated. The most profound statement that Ms. Jemison said was that,” science provides understanding of a universal experience and the arts provides universal understanding of a personal experience. Both requires visions that must be put into action. They are both equally important because the actions will be builded upon by future generations. We have a responsibility to contribute to the legacy of our country. We cannot afford to fail to act for the future. We can learn from this ted talk by Ms. Mae Jemison that our understanding of the arts and sciences must be expressed and shared in order to further the growth of our nation.

Project 15

Blog Post 12

How Schools Kill Creativity: By: Shakeya Andrews

In Mr. Robinson’s video he explains how students are not being allowed to be creative anymore. Students should have the opportunity to express themselves in the classroom without being ridiculed for failing at what they tried. He also says that creatively in education is as important as it is in literacy. Education is what will lead our children into this uncertain future that we sometimes are unable to grasp. In the video Ken says that “No one has a clue where education will take us in the next 5 years,” which is very true. However, being able to use our creativity can enhance the places we are trying to go. Mr. Robinson believes that kids will take a chance in whatever they do without being afraid of the outcome. Society is causing our students to lose their ability to be creative by placing so much emphasis on how well they succeed at attempting to be creative or do things correctly. One of Ken’s famous quotes is “I believe this passionately that we don’t grow into creativity; we grow out of it.” He firmly believes that students are born with creativity. Ken wants our society to live by Picaso’s quote which states that “All children are born as artist; the problem is to remain an artist when you grow up.” Ken also said something that I found very interesting. He said, if you’re not prepared to be wrong you’ll never come up with anything original. Students lose their excitement for being adventurous and when they reach the adult stage because they are scared to be wrong.
Watch Ken Robinson explain  How Schools Kill Creativity

Changing Education Paradigms by Emma Boren

Ken Robinson starts off this video Changing Education Paradigms by describing education and the process of how it has changed throughout the centuries. He states that everyone, everywhere is trying to reform the public education system. Education is either economic, trying to teach kids in a way that they will find their way in the economy of the 21st century, or education is cultural; education that gives children a sense of cultural identity while encouraging the process of globalization. The problem is that we are trying to meet our future goals while doing exactly what was done in the past. This process alienates children who don’t see the purpose in school. This is becoming more common since it isn’t really necessary to have a college degree to get a good job anymore. Robinson says that the problem with the public education systems is that they are still designed for a different age of time. We need to raise the standards. Children are classified as “smart” or “not smart” based on their academic ability and this causes many brilliant people to believe they are not smart. Mr. Robinson then goes on to explain the chaos of the fictitious epidemic of ADHD. It is the modern plague he states. However, it is not really an epidemic. He states that children are too routinely medicated for ADHD. These children live in the most stimulating century, and they are being punished for their interest in the modern technology such as cell phones, computers, tv, etc, because it is distracting them for the boring aspect of school. The ADHD “epidemic” has been growing parallel with the importance on standardized testing. Robinson also states that it is shown that the further east you go through the country, the more the children are medicated to stay focused. The main victims of this epidemic are the students of the arts. Art requires aesthetic thinking, when the senses peak, but education is becoming more anaesthetic. This shuts off the sense and deadens the self to what is happening. Education is still modeled on the interests of industrialization. The schools are organized factory lines; ringing bells, separate facilities, and divided subjects. They are also dividing the kids into batches based on age. Robinson makes a great point, who is to say that age is the best way to divide these children? What about how the perform based on time of day, small groups or large groups, individually. Education is conformed to standardization, and we need to be going the opposite direction. This is what Robinson means by changing paradigm. The last thing he talks about is divergent thinking. Divergent thinking is essential to creativity. Children learn to see many different answers to the questions, and a lot of different ways to interpret the question. Divergent thinking teaches children to not think laterally. When kindergarteners were tested on their divergent thinking ability, 98% of them tested in the genus level. This number drops as children get older, thanks to the standardized way of teaching and testing. Children are taught their whole school lives that there is one answer to a question, it’s in the back of the book, but it is not okay to look at it, copy it, or talk about it. This is cheating in school. Outside of school, this would be known as collaboration. This is the direction we need to be taking our classrooms. As Robinson lastly states… “Most great learning happens in groups.”

How to Escape Education’s Death Valley: By Tracy Armstrong

After watching Ted Talk by Sir Ken Robinson, I learned that as a future educator that I should be concerned with educating the whole being of the students. The only way for this to be done is to control the climate of our classrooms by engaging the student’s curiosity, individuality and creativity. We should not just sit back and work off of the commands of conformity and predicated academic ability. According to Sir Ken Robinson, Death Valley was a hot and dry place where nothing grew until the climate was controlled. He also said that Death Valley was dormant until someone took the time to cultivate it. I think that Sir Ken was trying to tell us that in order for our students to flourish in all areas of their lives that we as educators need to give them the necessary tools to stimulate their whole being. Sir Ken also demanded us to stop leading students to believe that it is wrong to make a mistake and to instead help them to become original and prepared to make mistakes. The thought intended here is that learning takes place once the mistake is corrected.

C4T #3

For My first C4T I was assigned to read Doug Pete's blog Doug Pete

My Comment: My name is Shakeya Andrews and I am a student in edm 310 at the University of South Alabama. My blog can be found at Shakeya Andrews

I agree the video is very powerful because it lets the younger girls know they have a voice. As a future educator, I found the information in "Why are we looking at data?" to be interesting because it relates to everything that I am learning in my education classes. In fact, students in the class that I observe in the students took a test similar to the EQAO. Also, in EDM 310 we recently created a book trailer on a book of our choice and I see that Lorraine used Hooray for Diffendoofer Day as her book trailer. I used the book Oh,the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. Book trailers are interesting to watch and fun to create I would definitely use it in my classroom. "We need to know the kids we are teaching." Yes, this is true. Every teacher should assess their students interest and needs so that we will know how to create lessons and projects for them and so that the students will stay interested in what they are learning. Interesting Post!

Read This Week in Ontario

Summary:

In International Day of the Girl there is a video with younger girls explaining why it is important for them to get an education. The girls give statistics and quotes on why education is important to them. Doug included this video in his blog because he said it was powerful and inspiring.Doug Pete also wrote about the EQAO data that Lorraine Boulos talks about in Why Are We Looking at This. Doug enjoyed reading about how Lorraine describes, in the first person, life with the testing and the realities of Ontario teachers dealing with test and trying to do their best with teaching,the link to Lorraine's blog leads to all types of data gathered from students who took the EQAO.

My Comment: My name is Shakeya Andrews and I am a student in edm 310 at the University of South Alabama. My blog can be found at Shakeya Andrews

Hi Doug! loved the fact that you included the united guitar video in your blog it was very moving. The video added to your post about one or two people making a difference. Also, your post had me curious to know what was said in the breakout group sessions. What were some of the things the presenter said to make their speech powerful?

Summary: Doug talked about his experience at a conference he went to. At the conference he learned that one or two presenters can make a difference in others lives. In the messages that Doug recorded from the conference he stated that there were 1300 people present at the conference with two or three people leading the breakout group. In the groups the leaders talked about their passions, expertise, knowledge, and their skills. After attending the conference Doug found the quote by Martha Mead “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has” because it related to what he had seen at his past conference. Read more about Doug's conference Power of One or Two or Three

 My Comment: My name is Shakeya Andrews and I am a student in edm 310 at the University of South Alabama. My blog can be found at Shakeya Andrews

"I believe that it is essential if you are to grow and mature as an educator. I also believe that it’s never over." This is a powerful statement because if we are growing as educators that means we are learning as well. Many classrooms are starting to become technology based and I could tell by reading your blog that you are a technology based teacher. Do you use technology like Ipads, Smartboard, or blogs in your classroom? Also I found it interesting that you do not use presentation slides during presentations because many are use to having this as their back up.

Summary: I read ECOO13 Session Doug talked about how he presented his at the conference. He also shared some of the the websites he used during his presentation to show the difference between his presentation and others presentation. In his blog he stated that he is a firm believer of levering technology whenever possible. Doug created a graphic to highlight his main points in his presentation, with things such as facebook, feedly, zite, twitter, diigo, etc. During his presentation he makes contact with his audience and he does not use notes or slides to go guide him through his presentation.

Blog Post 11

The students in Mrs.Cassidy's classroom use blogs just like many other classrooms around the world. The students are instructed not to say bad things when they leave comments because it could hurt someone's feelings and they must write a blog on a week by week basis. What I found interesting about the way Mrs. Cassidy use blogging in her classroom is who gets to comment on the students blog. The students in Mrs.Cassidy's class can receive comments from their family members on their blog, which I believe is a great learning opportunity for students. Allowing parents and friends the opportunity to comment on the student's blog will motivate each student to do better because they know important people are always looking at their work. After watching Mrs. Cassidy's video on the way she uses blogging in her classroom I think my perspective on blogging has changed. In my future classroom, I could incorporate blogging into our writing time and give parents the link to review what their child wrote for the week. This will not only help the student but, it will help the parent know how to guide their child's writing skills. The students in Mrs. Cassidy's class says their writing gets better every time they write on their blog.

Not only does each student in Mrs. Cassidy's classroom use a blog, but they also use their classroom webpage, which helps them find things on the internet. The classroom webpage is available for students to access from home. Mrs. Cassidy also allows her students to use Wiki as a resource in her classroom. Students wanted to know more about traditions of other so they created a wiki page to ask people help them learn more about traditions. Wiki seems to be a good resource to use in the classroom because you can receive feedback from people all over the world. Students can also post videos and watch them on their wiki page. Also, I like Mrs.Cassidy's approach to teaching in the classroom. She gears what she teaches around things that will keep her students interested. The students use skype to talk with people from all over the world and people in familiar classrooms but live in different states. Students are also allowed to use their Nintendo DS games in the classroom. A Nintendo DS is a hand held game that comes in many different colors. Students can access the internet on their DS and they can also play games with other classmates. It is said that playing the DS helps students to become better problem solvers and learn how to share.

Watch some of Mrs.Cassidy's videos Mrs.Cassidy, Mrs.Cassidy, Mrs.Cassidy, Little Kids Big Potential

Project 12

Project 10