Chapter 2 of Eucation Nation

As we all know our world is growing and changing everyday. In this chapter, thats what we're going to talk about. How things have changed over time, for instance the fact that the things we are learning in school are not at all what our parents or their parents learned in school. Which is good! With the world evolving, people need to evolve as well and it starts right here in the classrooms. Have you ever wondered "why do I need to know this", I know I have at one or more points in my life, but by not learning those things I would have just been holding myself back from the world and its fast everchanging pace of knowledge. In chapter 2 the author talks about Project Based Learning, a tool used to bring students together for 3 reasons. To collaborate, communicate, and to think critically. In the book it mentions "Students are most successful when they are taught how to learn as well as what to learn" I could'nt agree more, this is a great point! The author also mentioned in chapter 2 how its crucial to teach kids things at the right time. For instance. nstead of throwing a bunch of information at them when they are young, have them work by building things, playing, experimenting, then later on once they've grown put the information in to the cirriculum and connect the two points. So many schools today see that window of oppurtunity and throw so much information at kids they become confused. So, as they say, "Timing is everything". I love that this chapter talked about Foucusing on hearts as well as minds. I think this is extremly important it's what gives our kids their own personality and way of doing things. It's all about social, emotional, and acedemic, they all go hand in hand with eachother. Putting things together from a social standpoint or connecting an emotion to an experince learned through the class room.The fact of the matter is, schools need to keep up and so do their teachers sending those kids these messages. That way our kids, "the future" wont be behind, but a part in our everchanging society with a fighting chance to succeed acedemically.

Family Involvment

From personal experience I know kids strive, when parents are involved, and those students having a hard time are those who parents don't participate in activites with their children at home or in school. The best way to help parents get involved is through busy work. Having an assignment the whole family needs to participate in, not just the student. Also making it known that parents shouild come in a volunteer, maybe read to the class or be a helper on a feild trip. Do specail events to draw parents in, for instance Daddy Doughnut Day or Muffin Mommy Day. If you offer food they will come! Its hard though, these days there are not alot of stay at home parents, alot of kids live in single parents families, or both parents work. Its not easy being able to afford an education for youir child and be able to be there for every event that comes up, its understandable, but most students like when their parents involved. They also do alot better when the parent is engaged with their childs school and their education. With the parent in the picture, it leads to less crime, less drug use, and less poverty. students succeed when they are being pushed, watched, driven to do better, by both parents and teachers. I had to agree with everything they mentioned in their presentation. It's true coming from a family that both parents had to work and couldnt come to alot of events I know it affected me emotionally and acedemically. I also know from that experince that I don't want to raise my kids that way... I think it's a great thing they are doing over there and i could'nt agree more with what the viedo was saying.

The Finland Phenomenon

How is it that these kids start school later, and end earlier? It said in the movie that kids usually start going to school around age seven. According to PISA (An exam made for the assessment of students) and a most difficult one at that, states that Finland is number one among other competitors. Whereas United States is ranked number twenty six. In the video it stated that Finalnd had held this title from 2000 to 2009. It seems odd to me that they did so well, with less class time. They even called their teachers by first name, whereas here thats considered disrespectful. Alot of the students also mentioned that most of them do at least one extra curricular activity and that it didnt seem to take away from their studies. In order to go to college there you had to get extremly good grades, it's like going to medical school in the United States. The subject you get your degree in, is the subject you have to teach in. The teachers and faculty said the school succeeded so well was because the children were actively engaging in their classrooms. whether it was on the white board or raising their hands. They also said they dont like to dwell on the fact that the students made a mistake, they just corrected it and moved on instead  of making a fuss about it. i thought this was great almost made me want to send my kids over there. Where their teachers are the best of the best, tops of their classes.id want to give my child the very best and thats what they would be getting, this being proved by the PISA's.  I'd also like to see more reasearch done on this. Why the late start? Why take the PISA? Do these students graduate and do bigger and better things with their lives?

Hazing, Bullying, CyberBully, Girl Bullies, Cliques....

Its hard sending your child out the door to school when you know they're getting bullied, but what parents dont realize is they're not safe in thier own homes either, with the latest trend called "cyber bullying". This can be done through text message, email, and social networking sites like facebook or twitter, and its only getting worse as technology is getting more advance. More then 51 perecent of ten year olds have phones making the bullying even worse for younger kids who dont properly use their cell phones. Bullying and hazing of any kind can lead to a life of hurt and heartache. With kids walkign away with symptoms such as: life long anxiety, lonlines and insecurities that may never get fixed... bullying is a place where even your best friend can become your enemy, they all start in, when one child starts in its all down hill from there.  When in reality all that can change... with just one person. All it takes is one person to stand up and say stop. One child to protect the life of another, acting as a soldier sacrificng themselves to war.  We as educators need to teach our children to become warriors against bullying. making kids more aware of the power they have could change the lives of millions, or at least the 4,000 that commit suicide every year... By making children aware of the problem we are preventing it. Its also important letting our kids know that being a bistander is just as bad as being a bullying. We need to interven, we need to eduate our children, and we need to do it early and often. There is power in numbers and with the numbers we have in this world today bullying should have no problem becomming non-exhistant. How great would it be to have a world full of orange!!!! Orange being the color of anti -bullying and anti- hazing once a month having our kids in orange doing and antihazing activty or role playing to protect our kids and teach kids how to handel situation when they get into them.  

Education in the news

EnlargeJohn Paul GallagherPam Voekel is a volunteer teacher at Freedom University in Georgia, an informal school for undocumented youth who are banned from some state schools.

John Paul Gallagher

Pam Voekel is a volunteer teacher at Freedom University in Georgia, an informal school for undocumented youth who are banned from some state schools.

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October 28, 2012

About 35 students meet every Sunday at an undisclosed location in Georgia to study. They are undocumented and banned from attending some of the most prestigious colleges in the state.
Georgia is one of three states to bar undocumented students from attending schools. But a group of professors at the University of Georgia has created a fledgling school to provide a place for students to learn.
They call it Freedom University, named after the schools set up during the civil rights era to teach African-Americans in the Deep South. University of Georgia history professor Pam Voekel is one of the volunteer instructors.
"They really do see this as a civil rights struggle," she says. "They are being excluded from higher education, and so we went with that as part of that kind of tribute to that prior struggle."
A Form Of Protest
The school came about after Georgia legislators passed a bill to ban undocumented students from attending the top five universities in the state. The law also requires these students to pay out-of-state tuition at other public colleges. Students began protesting on campuses and at the state capitol.

Kathy Lohr/NPRMartin Lopez Galicia, 21, takes a Freedom University class in a basement in Athens, Ga.

But Voekel says students wanted to do more than just protest.
"What the undocumented students were saying is, 'We want to be in a classroom. How you could really help us, professors, is to offer courses,'" she says.
On a recent weekend, Voekel engages the class by staging a debate about Porfirio Diaz, a Mexican dictator who ruled for 35 years. The students are gathered in a tiny basement classroom in Athens, Ga. But the kids don't mind. Many want to be part of the discussion, like Martin Lopez Galicia. Martin, 21, has lived in the U.S. since he was 4 years old.
"I don't really have a good memory of that time in my life. They're almost like figments of dreams where you can kind of pick up on your history," he says.
Martin knew as a teen that he was undocumented. He graduated from high school and took a few classes at a junior college. But after enrolling, he was asked to pay an additional $2,000 in out-of-state tuition. So he had to drop out.

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"I said, 'Holy smokes, that's a lot of money.' It becomes a very demoralizing sense when you look at the institutions and how they're treating people," he says.
Deportation, Education Deferred
Martin wants a college degree and, in the meantime, is applying for deferred status under the Obama administration's recent executive action. Last June, the president announced the new process to give a two-year work visa to some undocumented young people.
Latino groups have been holding information sessions across the community. Another Freedom U student, Yovany Diaz, gets help filling out his application.
Yovany says he hopes he'll be among those who get the new visa, but he's skeptical of the policy.
"It could be political. Obama could be trying to reel in the Latino vote, receive the Latino vote, say, 'Hey, I'm doing this. Vote for me,'" he says.
Yovany has taken his activism on the road. He was on the so-called Undocu-Bus that drove across the country and ended up at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., on Sept. 3. Some undocumented activists in that group were arrested at the convention. Yovany was among them.
Freedom University professors like Lorgia Garcia-Pena have cautioned that the deferred action policy does not address education.

EnlargeKathy Lohr/NPRYovany Diaz, a student at Freedom U, is applying for deferred status, though that won't afford him in-state tuition at Georgia universities.

Kathy Lohr/NPR

Yovany Diaz, a student at Freedom U, is applying for deferred status, though that won't afford him in-state tuition at Georgia universities.

"It allows people to apply to not be deported right now. It does not solve the problem for our undocumented dreamers," she says.
Those who fought to pass the restrictions say only legal residents should be allowed to attend public schools. Earlier this year, state Se. Barry Loudermilk lobbied for a measure that would have expanded the current ban from five universities to all public colleges.
"We have to be responsible with taxpayer dollars," he says. "We also have to ensure that these seats that are available in our colleges and universities are there for our citizens, students and legal foreign students that have come into this nation looking for a better education. They've done so legally, and they want to get a seat at the table."
The Georgia Board of Regents says it will follow the law. A spokesman says the government's deferred action program does not mean that undocumented students will now be considered U.S. residents.
'A Given Right'
In Atlanta, Martin returns to his parents' home after class and after working with his father as a day laborer. Posters of Led Zeppelin hang on the wall. So do the honor medals Martin earned in high school.
"Because of the ban and because of all these negative things, something was able to spawn from this, and that was Freedom University," he says. "It should be a given right to be educated, you know?"
Martin and others here know they're not getting credit for classes, but they hope their time at Freedom University will prepare them for courses at a real college. Since last year, six students have received private scholarships at out-of-state schools.

Unequal Education

This video hit close to home for me, i too lived in an area alot like this where ther was condsiered the rich school and the poor school.... This movie was about 2 local New York public schools riverdale, "the rich kids school" and South Fordham, "the poor kids school". the two school only being two miles apart, but it almost feels like two worlds apart because they are so different. in the video it showed how the riverdale school, had multiple instraments in their band and gave kids the oppurtunity to explore options of instraments, whereas the south fordham school only got keyboards and they all learned how to play it together on the white board with one teachers in front of them.  the poor school also didnt have enough money to hire educated teahcers to come to their classrooms most adults who worked there didnt have degrees in teaching or anything at all.. verses the righ school that had all licensed and educated teachers working for them. the fears of the students were alot different as well, kids on the poor side of town were afraid to end up ont he streets, and not graduating highschool, whereas the rish kids were afraid that they wouldnt have their favorite snacks for snack time...  two totally different worlds even though they are only separted by 2 miles...  i also noticed the teachers attitudes at both school were extremly diffrent on one hand you have teachers yelling at students telling them to behave like humans and breaking up fights in the classroom then you have other teachers who talk calmly and leave students to do their work with no problems or interuptions at all. At the end of the video lonnie an elementary aged school goer didnt even want to go to school... wheres as on the other hand kids from the rich school were talking about going to princeton or harvard for continuing education... sad but its all around us. I know how lonnie felt being a child from the poor side of town growing up... its not easy but it is possible. thats what i as a teacher  am going to make known to my students. it doesnt matter how much money you have, what matters is how hard you work and how bad you want it. if you put your mind to it you can do anything even if its out of town or or out of your price range with hard work and devotion you can make it happen.

Special education in Brazil Group 4

600 million children in the world with disabilities, 400 million of those 600 million are from other countries outside of the U.S. And only 2 percent of them are in school. from what i saw in pictures and what they group described was that efforts are being made to better the schools in brazil, but that most of the time those ideas dont reach the classrooms due to money or funding....  trhe classrooms were extremly small and battered, old desks paint chipping off the wall, cement walls and floors looks more like a jail to me... most of these kids who attend these classrooms cant afford to eat or buy school supplies alot of times things are donated to them and that lunch they eat is sometimes the only one they get for the day. I would love to get the oppurtuinty to go teach over there brazil has always been a place i have wanted to visit. however i dont think i could speak the language well enough to go over there ha ... id be like a fish out of water. If anything just to be able to help those kids better there schoold and getting them the supplies and meals they need in order to learn and survive. Maybe then the graduation rate would go up and some of them would have a chance to go on and become something bigger and better so they can provide for their family. they need us and i dont think people understand