Presentation at Decorah Middle School

The presentation given last monday was really interesting. The most interesting thing I learned was that just as your body goes through times of growth, so does your brain. I didn't know that your brian had two major points of growth and that during those times, it can be damaged more easily.

One thing I did not like about the presentation is the way she presented. I felt as though she treated us like young children. I didn't like how she spoke in different voices to try and be funny. This is a lesson learned as a future teacher. I think it is important to know the age of your students and to not teach them at a lower level.

"Mock Meeting"

Tonight in our usual Monday night class, we did some role playing. It was very engaging as a student. I had the role of being a fine arts teacher. I was supposed to defend my department by explaining why the fine arts are important in school. This was somewhat of a task for me because I am "anti-artsy". Anyways, it was really interesting to hear all the different points of view on the main topic, "how to develop a High Stakes Community School."

Many opinions were heard, parents of high achieving students, parents of low achieving students, local businessmen, teachers, students, and more. I am not sure if this "school" would ever be possible. I think this because the entire night was a debate, if that many people disagree on one issue, it will certainly be a challenge to convince parents, teachers, community members, as well as anyone who has some sort of tie with the school to be in favor of such a huge change.

I think class itself was very informative. I learned just as much as any other class but in a more interactive way. I believe there are ways to teach to make students excited and WANT to learn.

Excited About Teaching

Yesterday, there was a Paideia lecture given. Most times the lectures are slow paced, boring lectures about information that happened a long time ago with some really old person that did something important in history for some reason or another. Sounds exciting doesn't it?! Yesterday was different. I walked in and I did my usual routine, found a comfortable chair behind a group of people, slouched down, got my notebook ready, and closed my eyes while I waited for the lecture to be over. I was resting peacefully when this woman at the front of the room started screeching! She was clapping her hands saying how excited she was about the lecture. Then she put her arm in the air holding the "I Love You" sign with her fingers and said, "I just wanna give a shout-out to my home-dogs in section 23! WHOOT-WHOO!! Right then I knew this was not going to be an ordinary lecture. The entire time, I didn't take notes... I didn't have to, I was so engaged watching this woman pace back and forth, use over-excentric body movements, and shout! Even the slides of the power-point made me think this woman was off her rocker! One of the titles of the slides said, "Why Hannah Is A Bad Ass!" I am not making this up!
I walked away from that lecture thinking this woman may be the reason riddalin was invented! The more I thought about how crazy she was, the more I respected her. As a teacher, it is not easy to stand up in front of freshman college students and lecture when you know they don't want to be there! It took real guts to do what she did. She used herself as a prop. She made people pay attention! Even if it wasn't directly aimed at the power-point or what she was saying, she made a group of people stay engaged. This in turn made them absorb at least SOME of the information given. The slide for instance, that I thought was insane, "Why Hannah Is A Bad Ass!", it doesn't matter what I think of the slide, the point is that I remember it. She made that happen.
She proved to me that as a teacher, you are going to face challenges, it is how you tackle those challenges which determines if you are a good teacher or not!