Dreaming

What kind of dreams do you have? What do you dream about? I love to dream. Sometimes I find myself dreaming in the middle of the day, most often in times when I should be paying attention to what is going on around me. (Ex. in class) I feel like writing this to express a feeling.
I don’t have huge aspirations about where I will be in years to come, but I always see myself as successful. I don’t want to be a movie star or a rock star, I don’t want to be the one person to find the cure for cancer, and I don’t want to be the one in the spotlight, but I have always dream about being the best influence to others I can be. I was raised to be a leader, not a follower. I like being in the background, kind of like the man behind the curtain directing. Being in the spotlight sometimes makes me nervous.
Getting back to dreams though, brings me to a certain emotion that I feel when I start to dream. I am always thinking of how I can further any success I may have. I have already had some successes. I had a career for 12 years that I did not enjoy and succeeded in getting myself away from it to pursue a new dream, a dream to be an educator, although I feel that everyone around me is an educator. I like to take something from everyone I come into contact with. Everyone on this earth has a different perspective, experience, and thought or feeling about a particular circumstance. I like looking at this journey of life with open eyes.
I like saying that the possibilities are as endless as the clouds in the sky. In a way dreams are like that too. If you stop dreaming, what is there to look forward to later on? Are you content with what you have, what you have done, your direction in life, etc? A person very dear to me told me a story one time. She is a math teacher and cares much about her students. It went like this:

She says a former student had written her a letter to thank her. The letter stated that the person wanted to thank her for teaching him typing. Keep in mind she is a math teacher. It went onto say how thankful he was that she cared enough to stay after school to teach a handful of students how to type. He acknowledges in the letter her commitment and dedication to helping her students in any way she could have. He stated that he knew that she was doing it on her own time and he was very appreciative of that. To make a long story short, she had this student 27 years ago and they have not spoken since she taught him how to type. She went onto describe how it made her feel that this person was thanking her now, 27 years later.

Gosh, if I could make an impact like that on a student or even someone else, I would not be able to describe how that would feel. I dream about helping students be the best that they can be. I strongly feel that everyone has potential. Some of them just need someone to highlight in them what they can excel in. It is so rewarding when a student says “oh yeah now I get it.” It means that I made some kind of impact on their thoughts, small or large.

More to come...

Our Experience in General

EDFD class...Educational Foundations...I enjoyed the class but not the way it was structured, and it was not due to our instructor. Just like anything else that goes wrong, the scheduling for our observations to visit Arts High School was a disaster. I'm not talking about the other students experiences, rather I will just speak about mine. Why did the administrators in the department drop the ball? Why did they put the burden on our instructors back when it wasn't her responsibilty to begin with. It's typical Montclair State University, implement it and fix it later. Well later, in this case was too late.

I'm kind of a quiet guy, very reserved, but when something doesn't go the way it should, especially when specific instructions are given, I tend to have to open my mouth. I was all ready to yell at our professor until I found out it wasn't her fault. And by the way, If you read this, again, I appreciate your efforts, but DAMN Montclair State!!! If you require visitation during the semester, don't hold off on it until the ending of Oct - beginning of Nov. This all should have taken place in Sept. Students have other obligations outside of class. Ummmm....a job, other classes, another job, in some cases kids, parenting responsibilties, the list is endless....I lost two additional days of work because Montclair dropped the ball.

I hope that they use this as a learning experience and fix it for next semester. I feel a little bit better now, I got that off my chest.

Visit to Arts High School

I went to observe this past Monday at Arts High School. It was an interesting experience. There are few differences from Arts compared to a public school. I like the idea that the class sizes are smaller. The students were more attentive to what they were doing in class, rather than what they did on the weekend. The students really seemed to care a great deal about what they were learning. The teacher had them fully engaged in the material. One of the things i didn't like was block scheduling. I was in a math class observing and the students were well behaved, but i have heard from others that have observed in other classes and it wasn't exactly that way. Arts High School is a very unique school. Some of the most talented students in the city of Newark attend it. I would like to see one day were the students that graduate from Arts become very successful.

Students of Today

The students of today’s generation are something else. I sit back and listen in the classrooms of my local high and wonder if I was like that when I was there age. You can learn alot about who your students are if you take the time to listen. I find that the experience that I am getting from being a substitute teacher three days a week in different classrooms is quite rewarding. From time to time, on a free period, I would go and visit a class where I was a sub and see how the students interact with their regular teacher. In some cases they are completely different and in some there are the same. I have been exposed to some teachers that get their point across in a weird way. I am starting to learn that it is not so much about the content of the course; however, it is keeping the students interested in and disciplined enough to want to pay attention.

I am now in college and attend full-time. I have been attending college for numerous amounts of years and find that college can teach you all there is to know about what to teach, but it can’t teach you how to command the students in the classroom. It doesn’t, and I don’t think it can, teach you how to deal with certain situations or scenarios. College doesn’t teach you what to do if a student is out of line and that student needs to be disciplined in some fashion, where the student doesn’t benefit. There are alot of things that school, college, and your peers can teach you, but there is no other lesson better that is available like first hand experience.

Discipline

What happened to discipline? Discipline within the student, within the content, within life. Where did it go? Will it come back? I am now a full time college student at the age of 29. I have been attending college for the last 7 years and I continue to see today’s generation change and it’s quite alarming.

As I mentioned before I am a long time college that was once a child. Hard to believe, but yes it’s true, we all are at some point in our lives. I can remember times when I hated my parents for how and when they disciplined me because I guess I was too young to really know what was right from wrong. Looking back at it all I can say I love them for it because it molded me into one fine young gentleman. When I misbehaved they let me know, when I was out of line they told me so, when I didn’t meet their expectations they made me aware, but from what I observe in today’s high schools, that kind of discipline is falling by the wayside. The students do not respect the teacher any longer. When there is a substitute, the students are worse than when their regular teacher is present. It was the opposite during my earlier years of school. When we had a substitute, we were made aware that we were to be better than when the regular teacher was there because if the substitute notified our regular teacher that we misbehaved, our class would pay. Sometimes we would have to write until our hand fell off, sometimes we would have to run almost until we were ready to throw up, and sometimes certain privileges were taken away, such as the rights to the computer use in class. It sure is different now, but I hope that something is done to change the view of today’s students. If nothing is done, I don’t see anything but heartache in the future, but I do believe it starts with students parents, and trying to change their views is going to take a miracle. God Bless America!

Wondering

Did you ever just sit by the window and stare into the sky? What did you see? How did it make you feel? Is anybody else doing the same thing you are at the same time? What did you think about?

I sometimes find myself starring into “space.” It helps clear my thoughts. It also reminds me that we shouldn’t take the things we have for granted. The air we breather, the water we drink, earths natural pleasures. How about the simplest things, a good example would be the leaves on the trees. Here it is, almost the end of November and there are still leaves on the trees, but look at the weather we had last week. Did “mother nature” have anything to do with it? What kinds of instincts does “she” have? The amount of wind and rain that we accumulated makes me wonder. In one night all of the trees lost there leaves near my house. Does the environment control itself? It almost looks that way. These are just some of the questions I sometimes ask myself.

What about the students in school? What do they think about? I guess we can all come up with some good one’s seeing that we were all there at one point. We remember what we thought about, but what about the students of today. I am a substitute teacher in a high school when I'm not in class at college. Some of the things that these students are talking about today, I would have never even considered when I was there age. Its funny how I can sit in the front of the room as their teacher for the day, but they will carry on conversations like they were sitting at home with there friends, like I am not even there. All you have to do is just listen, listen to their conversations. If we take the time to listen we can find out a lot about what they are thinking. We can figure out whether or not they need help, need someone to listen to them, need a challenge, need influence, and most need discipline.

Teaching Against Idiocy (Revision)

What role should schools and schooling play in the US? In a Democracy?

According to Walter C. Parker in Teaching against Idiocy (Revision)

According to Mr. Parker, an idiot is one that is not exposed to public life and problems, and is someone that cannot mature because they can’t evaluate the diversity of social situations correctly. “An idiot is one whose self-centeredness undermines his or her citizen identity, causing it to wither or never to take root in the first place. Private gain is the goal, and the community had better not get in the way. An idiot is suicidal in a certain way, definitely self-defeating, for the idiot does not know that privacy and individual autonomy are entirely dependent on the community. As Aristotle wrote, Individuals are so many parts all equally depending on the whole which alone can bring self-sufficiency. Idiots do not take part in public life; they do not have a public life. In this sense, idiots are immature in the most fundamental way. Their lives are out of balance, disoriented, untethered, and unrealized. Tragically, idiots have not yet met the challenge of “puberty”, which is the transition to public life,” (Parker, 2005, pg1) writes Walter C. Parker. It is interesting how Mr. Parker compares schools to “village squares, cities, crossroads, meeting places, community centers, marketplaces,” because some of the larger schools are becoming more and more like little cities. Some high schools in the area in which I live are like miniature college campuses. Mr. Parker thinks that the schooling that children receive should teach them all about life. He thinks that the school is the place where the children are lead through puberty and into citizenship. Mr. Parker makes reference to the school as having the two most important resources for children: diversity and problems. Is Mr. Parker leaving something out in this whole equation? Where do the parents of these children come into the equation?

Growing up in a well grounded, family orientated home, has taught me the value of listening, understanding, and rationalizing all of the problems that a child or just a simple person may have. Mr. Parker seems to think that the schools nurture the child into “puberty.” I believe that schools do play a very important part of engaging children into different issues, but I don’t believe that they are the most important resource needed to develop a child’s natural ability to “grow up and think for themselves.” For a child to develop into a well rounded individual that can be “Democratic” in situations the child needs to be taught right from wrong. The child needs to be guided from, what should be the most important mentors in their life, namely the child's parents.

There are many situations that a child can be put into where he/she needs to make a decision based on what they have been taught. Who should teach them this you might ask? The answer is simple, the child's parents and relatives, teachers at schools, their community, and their peers. A child can mature and prosper from everyone’s input and rationalizations. The school should not be the “center of attention.” It is what the child is taught from a collective unit that will help the child to be more “Democratic” so that he /she can avoid having any indication of idiocy.

“Teaching Against Idiocy” by Walter C. Parker from Phi Delta Kappan,

January, 2005: pp. 344-351.

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