Reflection on the New Teacher Panel

The new teacher panel, for me, was not very helpful.  I appreciate that they took their time to talk to us, but a lot of what was discussed I had already heard (my mom is a teacher) or could assume for myself from the things I have learned in classes.  I did think their view on teaching in a small school was interesting because that might be something I am interested in doing.

I did think it was kind of sad that students these days are not healthy and have low self-esteem.  Things are way different than when I was in elementary, middle, or even high school.  It is so sad that all kids know how to do is use the computer or play a video game.  I was outside getting dirty and getting bruises when I was in elementary school, not going on the internet on my personal laptop.

Paper Clips

I thought the movie "Paper Clips" was very touching and emotional. However, not until the last five or ten minutes did I find out that students actually learned something from the project.

It was nice to see the journey that the students and teachers went through. It certainly was exciting. I think it would be pretty neat to get a letter from the dad in Happy Days. I am definitely jealous of their experience with the Holocaust survivors. I think that that was one of the most emotional parts of the film, when it showed the survivors telling their personal stories.

As far as relating the film to educational psychology...
I do not think that the teachers were very knowledgeable in the subject prior to the start of the project. I do, however, think that they did a good job of motivating and working effectively with the students. I think that the teachers took a constructivist approach in their teaching because the students did a lot of research on their own. I also think that of all the ecucational philosophers, Dewey would do a project like this. I also think that when the teachers started this project they didn't really know where it was going to go. I don't think there was any long-term planning, or any short-term planning. I think there was really really short-term planning.

I think, though, that it was a good thing what these students and teachers did. They started out trying to learn about diversity, and the learned that plus much more. They touched the lives of many people. That was not the aim of the project once it started, but that is what happened.
I like that their memorial is used for other schools to come and have the students teach them about what they learned.

Teaching Abroad Speaker 2/3/09

Teaching abroad is something I am a little interested in so I went to the speaker on 2/3/09.
Something he said caught my attention right away: "Overseas education is one of the best kept secrets in the world".

We watched a video on the Singapore American School. Since I am interested in teaching middle school I thought it was pretty crazy that just their middle school has over 900 students. The video approached the transition from America to teaching abroad at the Singapore American school by saying that you would be treated like royalty your first month. Meaning, people will help you set up your bank account, show you around, discuss the benefits, basicly help you out in the new setting away from home. The housing in Singapore is very modern and is equally as nice as living in the United States.

I was surprised at the perks of teaching abroad:
-it is easy to travel
-competative salaries
-at some schools there is an allowance for housing as well as an anual amount of home leave!
-things are different in other countries: the kids go to school because they actually want to learn!

The things that are not so great about teaching abroad:
-no job security (no union)

Something that I thought was very interesting was that our speaker told us that of his time spent abroad and in the United States, one person was expelled in 15 years while he was abroad but he could see 19 students expelled in one year here in the US.