Motivation

For me, motivation is a very deep concept.  When asked when was the last time I felt really motivated I couldn't think of anything.  I do things because that is just what I do.  I do my homework because that is what I need to do at school.  I go to work because I need an income in order to go to school.  My life is pretty easy going.  I am pretty easy going.  I never really think about things too much.

In soccer this past season, my coach would try to get us fired up or motivate us and ask "Why do you play soccer?" or "What motivates you?".  I didn't really know the answers to those questions either.  I love the sport.  I love competition.  I enjoy the group of girls that I get to spend my time with, they have become a family to me.  But is that what motivates me to go to practice every day?  Is that what motivates me to give all I've got and leave everything on the feild?  

Motivation is too huge of a concept for me to grasp.  I'm not a very deep thinker.  I sometimes feel unintelligent around my peers who have so many smart and deep ideas about so many topics I barely even think about.  I'm fine kickin' the ball around and singing whatever song is in my head or telling a really corny joke.

The only time I guess I really feel motivated is when I am doing something related to sports.  I can feel so motivated I cry.  Why do I play soccer?  I don't know the exact reason but I know that I do.  I bleed blue.  I have so much Norse Pride and so much love for the game I don't know how I can't.  (Which as I take this next season off, I am watching to see if I don't die of a broken heart by not playing.)  My heart is in it.

I can be motivated by things not related to soccer.  Anybody see "The Express"  when it came out in the fall?  I took my dad.  He likes football, but he likes movies more than he likes football.  He's a baseball/hockey man but that is besides the point.  Now I can't say that I will ever be a 6 foot 2 inch tall, 212 pound football player that will beat tons of records and overcome the obstacles of my race and become the first black man to win the Heisman Trophy.  But boy was that movie and his story motivational.  There are a million football movies I could describe that are motivational.  What about hockey.... remember the movie "Miracle"?  It is one of my favorites.  Now that is a pretty motivational movie.

I don't really remember where I was going with this blog.  However, here are a few motivational videos.  The first is a clip from Any Given Sunday (a football movie).  I actually haven't seen this movie but it is a clip that has been used to motivate the soccer team last year.  Please, excuse the profanity.  The second is one that was shown to our Educational Psychology class about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Any Given Sunday

Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things

(I'm also currently in the course Coaching of Soccer and I have learned/already knew that as a coach you need to motivate your athletes- just as a teacher needs to motivate their students.  Maybe I was thinking of the wrong class when writing this blog?  Who knows... maybe it can motivate me to blog about the brain lecture we went to!)

IMOVIE FINISHED!

Our iMovie is finished!  View it here!

Our iMovie is a news broadcast from "LCED220".  It is in response to the movie Last Child In the Woods written by Richard Louv.  In the book, Louv discusses his research of how children today don't have relationships with the environment as they did twenty, even ten years ago.  He interviews different people, some parents, and they all recollect memories from their childhood of playing in a field or building a treehouse.  Something that Louv introduced in his book that I thought was most shocking was that even when kids are in the car they don't look out the window at the scenery and environment.  Motor vehicles today have built in TVs and DVD players.  Not to mention almost every kid throws out their handheld video game for the latest and greatest one every time a new model comes out.  

In the iMovie we try to introduce the idea that children's relationships with the environment are struggling.  The weather section shows what might happen if we continue to ignore how we effect the environment.  The sports section shows how focused children are on video games rather than actual outdoor-fun.  The on-site report showed how we expect so much from our students.

Blog About Blogging

As this experience with blogging is winding down, I have to say that I will probably not continue blogging.  At this point in my life, as long as something is not required by a class or a job I don't think I will do it.  I'm a busy college student. 

However, I do think blogging is a good and easy way of getting information out to people.  I had a teacher in high school who posted assignments, and other things on a blog.  Although I wish he would just give us this information in class, it was a good resource for if I lost my notes or was not able to write everything down.

What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

Today in class we read an article entitled "What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?".  We discussed this article in class but something that caught my attention in the article that was not related to the topic we discussed was a small quote that I think had a huge impact. 

"In most countries, education feels like a car factory.  In Finland, the teachers are the entrepreneurs." 

The first sentence of the quote is shocking but so true.  I have never though of it before but I think it makes a good analogy.  In the US for sure it seams that teachers are "teaching to the test".  They are just teaching what students need to know to pass national standard tests and they continue this way each new year with all new kids... like a factory.  

Strengths and Weaknesses In Content Areas of Teaching

Santrock discusses the different Content Areas of Teaching in Chapter 11.  The content area I plan on teaching is Mathematics.  I plan on teaching math at the middle school or high school age.  At this age I need to make sure that my teaching is effective enough that my students actually understand what I am teaching, and not just memorizing it for assessment.

I know a lot about math and how to prove a lot of the concepts.  However, I might have a weakness in motivating my students to love math like I do and understand it like I do.  I don't know why I like math so much or why it has been so easy for me.  I need to find the reason behind this so I can use it to motivate my students.

Chalk and Wire

I am glad that we have Chalk and Wire here at Luther.  It definitely makes putting together a portfolio easier.  And from conversations that I have had with different people who have gone through the ed department and those who work there, it seams that the person who is handing out the teaching jobs appreciate the online resource as well.  It saves paper being online and shows our technological skills in todays world that is technology is strongly emphasized in.

Doan Van Dieu

Doan Van Dieu visited us from the Ho Chi Minh University of Pedagogy.  I must admit that it was hard to pay attention to his presentation.  However some of the things he discussed were a little interesting.

He introduced the topic of parents' roles in their children's marriage.  This is not a theme that is emphasized much today as it has in the past.  I would strongly disagree if my parents were to introduce me to a stranger and then tell me that I would be marrying that person, but their opinion of the person I decide to spend the rest of my life with is important to me.  

My mother is a teacher and education is important to her.  Her and my father both agree that education is an important aspect of my life.  If not, I doubt they would be helping me attend Luther College.  From a very young age I knew the standards of my parents and what they would have liked me to achieve, and that is what I did.  I worked hard to earn good grades in school and was involved in many different activities.  For me, it was not an option to not do well.

Sadly, for some parents today education is not important.  There are parents out there who don't care if their children pass their classes or even show up to school!  I think that we could learn a lot from other cultures.  I think it would be amazing to teach in a country that students attend school because they want to learn.  As I am on my journey of becoming a teacher I have my questions and concerns.  I'd much rather be in a classroom where students are attentive instead of one where students are distracted and don't really care at all about what I am trying to teach them.