Cyberbullying is one of those things that shows you that you just never know what new issues could arise in the future. Cyberbullying has supplanted bullying in the real world for the most part, and should therefore be treated with the same level of seriousness that bullying face-to-face is. Here are some facts and ideas that I found while browsing cyberbullying.org:
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On the topic of "academic standards," the NBSA's stance that intrigued me most was it's opposition to "federal mandates to impose any single set of standards on states and strongly urges Congress to provide maximum authority and flexibility to the states regarding academic standards." Basically what this means is that the National School Boards Association is against standardization of curriculum or benchmark settings across all fifty states. In the opinion of the NSBA, that power must be in the hands of the state government.
When I read this, I was surprised and pleased to see that the NBSA's belief lined up so well with mine. Going through public school from K-12 gave me the impression that everything was on a fast track to having some standardized test attached to it, and I feared for my individuality in school as a result: I didn't want to become a statistic. Seeing this stated as a belief of the NBSA reassures me that students' educations are not at risk of becoming overly regulated. They still recognize the differences in each student, as well as the differences of populations of students in different places, and want to retain power for the state to create curriculum and benchmarks that best suit the students of that particular state. After all, students in Texas are going to be a lot different than students in Maine. Over the course of my educational career, I've had two experiences that really shaped the way that I viewed my education, and made me pursue it with more vigor. The first was when I had Mr. Schumann as my fifth grade teacher, and the second was when I began to meet with Mr. Solgos, one of the philosophy teachers at my high school, outside of class.
I wasn't the best student in elementary school. I was smart, and I got good grades if I applied myself (keyword: if). That changed, however, when I was put in Mr. Schumann's fifth grade class. Mr. Schumann took a personal interest in each and every student that he had in the class, and made it his personal mission to create a strong class community. For the first time, I found myself wanting to do well in class, because I wanted to make Mr. Schumann proud, or prove to him that I could do something. The effects that Mr. Schumann had on my education weren't just to my mindset, though. He believed in me enough to have me put into the accelerated course in middle school, where I would be sufficiently challenged, and allowed to grow at a rate that matched my abilities. Mr. Solgos had an effect on my high school experience that was very similar to the effect that Mr. Schumann had on my elementary school experience. By the time I reached my senior year of high school, I was extremely disillusioned with how important my education actually was to the school district. I had been put through the AP gauntlet several times before finally deciding to reject it, and was left with the feeling that the district cared more about the students creating positive statistics for them to advertise their schools with, rather than the student actually learning something. This changed when I met Mr. Solgos. I was in a philosophy class my senior year, and I struggled with the teacher who taught it. She was a newer teacher, and she didn't quite know how to engage the class with the subject. I had heard good things about Mr. Solgos, the other philosophy teacher, so I reached out to him to see if he wanted to meet after school to talk about philosophy. He obliged, and I began a relationship with one of the most passionate people I've ever met. Mr. Solgos showed me that even if the curriculum provided doesn't have the student's best interest at its core, it can still be used to help the student when it's in the hands of a truly caring teacher. Mr. Solgos unlocked a desire to pursue knowledge that interested me; he showed me the power of intrinsic motivation. And here I am today, still carrying those lessons with me, and more receptive to new lessons because of those ones. Dear parents and students,
Welcome to my classroom! My name is Drew Ehrler, I'll be your English teacher this year. I'm so excited to get to know each and every one of you, and I know that we'll have a great year together. I'll suppose you want to know a few things about me: I graduated from North Central College in Naperville, IL, right down the street from where I grew up. English was always the obvious choice for me to study; I was raised around books, and always had one with (that way anytime could be reading time). When I'm not teaching, grading, or reading, however, I'm also an avid lover of board games and films. I'm dedicated to creating a positive classroom environment in which everyone feels welcome. I believe that English is one of those subjects that's universal; everyone can love English once they find their niche in it. Here are just a few things to expect from me as a teacher, as well as a few things that I'll expect from the students: Teacher Expectations: GRADING: I'll grade assignments according to the schools grading policy. I'm a believer in the idea that the score of the assignment doesn't matter as much as the progress of the student, so students will have plenty of opportunities to redo assignments to prove that they fully grasp a concept. HOMEWORK: I won't hand out homework very often in class, and when I do it will only be when absolutely necessary. Homework assignments will only be a small percentage of the student's final grade Student Expectations: I expect every student to come in every day open and ready to learn. We can have fun in class, but every student needs to put forth their best effort. As long as a student is trying their best they'll do great in this class! I'm looking forward to a fun and exciting year this year, and I hope you are too. Let's all learn together! Regards, Mr. Drew Ehrler If you run a quick Google Image search of "high school dropout," you'll find a pretty interesting mix of views and opinions on the subject. I was expecting the majority of the images to be of infographics that show the alarming dropout rates in America, as well as stock photos that depict struggling students that you often see at the head of articles about the U.S.A.'s fight to keep their kids in school. I was surprised, however, to see that there were a surprising amount of images that not only didn't speak against dropping out of public school, but actually encouraged it in some cases. There was one image in particular that peaked my interest, and that was this one: It's pretty standard, but it wasn't the cartoon itself that intrigued me most; it was the article attached to it.
The article (here's a link) is about Donald E. Heller, the dean of the college of education at Michigan State University, and the support that he had for his daughter's decision to drop out of high school. I was stunned to hear someone so involved in the public education system acknowledge that it wasn't the best place for his own daughter. The article quotes Heller in saying that he and his wife "wish that public schools could provide a better learning environment for children who are square pegs and who do not fit into the round hole of a traditional, test-centric educational environment." Now, I would never be own to say that everyone should drop out of high school. However, the images that we associate with those who do drop out (the unmotivated, misguided youth) is a dangerous stereotype. Heller's daughter was a high performer in a very good school district; the curriculum simply wasn't engaging her on a level that matched her own aspirations and interests. Public schools have become so closely entwined with standards and benchmarks that it may overlook the individual curiosity of the students, a resource that could be tapped but is instead left to eventually deteriorate. You can't convince a crew to not abandon ship when the ship is sinking. We should be working to make public schools a system that the students wouldn't want to drop out from, rather than trying to convince them that they should stay when they aren't gaining value from it. In my years in school, I discovered a pattern that has from then on been a guiding force in the way that I think about teaching; the pattern is that I did best in a class when the teacher resonated with me in some way.
In school I wanted to have a teacher's respect. I didn't want to just be seen as another student to them; I wanted to be seen as a person who had potential, and I wanted the teacher to make that potential known to me. If I got that kind of respect, I would do everything in my ability to show that teacher that they were right about me; and on the other hand, if I didn't get that respect, the teacher didn't have mine, and I would often end up resenting the class. For me, that feeling transcended all other factors. It didn't matter what subject the class taught, or who my classmates were, or who my teacher was; as long as I got that individual attention, I was hooked. Now, that's just my own personal learning style. In a classroom, you can expect every student to have a learning style that's just as detailed and seemingly erratic. One student may need individual attention while another doesn't want any students getting individual attention; another student may prefer hands-on learning, while yet another learns best aurally. This is why a teacher's job is so hard: it's your responsibility to balance every student's personal preferences in a way that will make the classroom a positive learning environment for everyone. These preferences originate from Howard Gardner's idea of Multiple Intelligences (MI). MI refers to the different balances of intelligence types that every person has (someone can, for example, have very strong logical thinking and mathematics intelligence, but very little linguistic knowledge. When I took an MI questionnaire, my balance placed my highest intelligences as inter- and intra-personal, visual spatial, and linguistic. This made a lot of things clearer for me: it explained why I love english class, why I learn more from videos than anything else, and why I needed a personal dialogue with my teacher in order to maximize my learning in a class. The main takeaway from this idea of MI is that there is no objectively "unintelligent" student. Sure, some students may not thrive in a certain classroom setting; but in most cases, they will thrive if you simply move them to a classroom that's more tailored to their intelligences. Unfortunately this can't always be done, so it's the job of a teacher to do everything in their ability to make their classroom a space that feels tailor made to every students multiple intelligences. In today's teaching environment, learning how to use diversity as a tool to enhance the classroom environment is an invaluable tool. As a teacher, you want to create a culture of acceptance in your classroom, where all students will feel safe. And by teaching tolerance in our schools we've been trying to achieve that. Because, after all, tolerance is the best way to dispel the tension that diversity may create, right?
Not necessarily. Sure, teaching tolerance is one way to attack this issue. To tolerate something is to allow it to happen, even if you don't agree with it; so when we teach tolerance, we're basically telling our students "hey, there are people in this classroom that are different than you, and you should accept that." Teaching tolerance to students is by no means a bad method, but it feels like the bare minimum of what we could do. What if instead of teaching students to be neutral about the different cultures and ways of life that exist in the classroom, we presented it as something that adds to the classroom? What if instead of what we're saying when we teach tolerance, we say "hey, you have classmates that are different than you, and that's amazing!" Instead of taking diversity and neutralizing it with tolerance, let's turn it into something that makes the classroom a hotbed for expanding students' circles of awareness. Because in today's globalized world, diversity is a beautiful thing. "Those who can't do, teach."
-Someone who doesn't know what a teacher is My dad is a teacher at Mooseheart Child City in Illinois. Every weekday he is teaching kids from all backgrounds about the value of history. And it's a struggle, he says. I remember one night he came home a huge stack of essays to grade. I watched him as he sat at the dining room table, red felt tip pen in hand, marking each essay with correction after correction. It made me upset to hear my dad's deep sigh with each paper that he pulled from the stack; I was sympathetic to the frustration he must be feeling while reading student essays that don't reflect the work that he put into them. I walked into the dining room to tell him this, and I was surprised to see that he didn't look upset at all; he actually looked happy. And when I asked him if something was wrong, he said no. These essays tell me that I'm exactly where I need to be, he said. Early on my dad instilled in me a love for reading, which I never let go of. I'm thankful every day that appreciation for art and writing is in my life, because I simply can't see life without it. The expression of the written word, the manifestation of thought, is essential to the world we live in; it's what gives us the tools to think for ourselves, the tools to put into practice the humanity that makes us who we are. That's why I want to become a teacher. My dad set an incredibly positive example for me, and I can find no more valuable way to give my time to my community than to give guidance, care, and knowledge to those who will come after us, those who need it most, just like my dad does. Similar to him, I want to teach at a high school where having these tools will bring the most value to the community. There are school districts out there that desperately need passionate teachers, and they don't get them because they don't have the same resources that other more attractive districts have; that's where I want to go. Most of all, though, I want to contribute something of worth. We'd be nowhere without teachers, and we're going to need good ones in the future. That's why I want to teach. |
AuthorDrew Ehrler is a student at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. ArchivesCategories |