Welcome to the Adventure of ED500, section 51. Hang on, here we go!
Personal
My name is Carol D-H (call me Carol--big surprise), a resident of South Euclid, and reachable at cspirit333@roadrunner.com. And, yes, I made my profile picture small on purpose.
I have been a teacher in the South Euclid-Lyndhurst system since finishing undergrad at Notre Dame College. I've taught special education, psychology, journalism, and English. Some years I taught three of those four at the same time. Whoa! Feelings of split personality! On the Mondays that we have department meetings, I didn't know which department I belonged in!
When I started my first M.Ed. in reading, I was teaching special ed. By the time I finished, I was teaching English, so the reading degree kind of bridged them both. My all time favorite though, was teaching psychology because it's so relevant to real life, and I saw the light bulbs go on above kids' heads all the time. I no longer teach psych because of a bureaucratic screw up (i.e., the principal at the time said I couldn't have a schedule split between English and psychology, even though I'd had a split schedule for years. Duh.).
Right now I teach Freshman English and Junior English, though the latest word is that they're adding Sophomore English next year too. Now I'll have three courses to prepare for each night instead of two (sigh*), but I'm one of the fortunate ones because other friends in the department were laid off, thanks to the cut-backs by the State of Ohio.
What makes me special? How do you answer that with any modesty at all??? My dad wasn't supposed to be able to have children because of a fever, but I arrived anyway. I was named after him, and after his father, and his father, and his mother. I'm at least the 5th Carol or Carl in the family. My dad died when I was four. When I married, I hyphenated my name to honor dad, but also to hang onto the chain of being the fifth CD in the family. My husband didn't mind, and it's helpful that his last name is short.
I used to have hobbies before the demands of teaching ate up all my life. The first atypical factor is teaching in all those different departments. But in the English department alone, since 2008, I've had a new class to teach every year but one. A new preparation is hard work every single night, as you're figuring out what to do that will help the kids the most. I can do some drawing and lay-outs, some writing, and acting (totally unprofessionally). I'm pretty good at generating ideas because I've had to do it so often. Mostly I work at school and work on special activities for Church, and try to have some life with my husband.
Miscellaneous. My favorite color forever is green. I can barely swim, but I'm drawn to the water. I remember to send cards for people's birthdays. We have a tall dog and a short dog: a greyhound and a beagle.
Learning Style and More
Class safety. Yeah, there's a biggie. I can be a healthy participant or be stone silent, depending on whether I feel safe in class--or in any sitution for that matter! To feel safe, I need to not be scorned or mocked. A little positive reinforcement for my comments goes a long way. Classroom safety is vital and something I'm dedicated to providing for my own students. If I feel safe, I blossom. If I feel danger, I keep to myself.
That's part of who I am as a student. I have above average intelligence, like all the rest of you, but I'm good at playing the game of school. I'm thorough, I work hard, and I hate to give up. Some people "climb the mountain" because it's there. I don't do mountains, but I strive for excellence to see if I can reach it. And while I can perform, silently, in a class where I'm not accepted, it's much better to be a part of a thriving educational community. I think that covers a through c.
My learning style is hugely VISUAL. You'll see me taking notes on everything. Seeing the words helps me remember. Teachers used to yell at me for taking too many notes, and I wondered why they didn't leave me alone and go fuss over someone who was struggling. Without understanding it, I had happened upon a system that works for me. I can see vague "pictures" in my head, which can sometimes include where notes are at on a page. I have a friend who's not visual at all and learns completely auditorally. She and I have quite a time comparing our learning experiences--nothing alike!
By nature, I tend to be left-brain: logical, linear, language-oriented, but I have cultivated the use of the right brain aspects too: creativity, seeing things differently, seeing the big picture. We have been given both sets of skills, so why not make the most of both?
When I'm frustrated, I go back and re-check the directions. :-) I try again. I ask someone nearby to double check my steps. I often pray. I talk to the teacher. If none of that helps, I get worked up and wound up and upset. I get frustrated that there ought to be a way to make it work!
What else? Why would anyone want to read all this? 100 points of extra credit for plodding through this far. I may be teaching English, but I really like science. I remember a lot from my schooling and can interconnect ideas. I often remember which teacher taught me what; I suppose it's because the teachers mattered.
The only extenuating circumstance to know about my life situation, is that my Mom is disabled and old. She lives alone on the West Side. She's stable, but one never knows when something could happen suddenly and I'd be called away for an emergency.
Education Past and Present
Okay, here's one that's kind of creepy. My dad was left-handed, and in kindergarten, I was making letters and numbers backwards--probably from watching Dad do things with his other hand. The teacher took me across the hall to an empty classroom and made me trace letters and numbers with my finger--letters and numbers made out of sandpaper! Ugh. Talk about feeling like an outcast. Now if the letters had been made out something soft and fun, that would have been different. Or just think. Bubblewrap! Wouldn't that have been cool?!
Here's a better memory. I remember in kindergarten or first grade having kids come up to me to help them draw something in their picture that they couldn't draw themselves. Sometimes they asked me if I would be an artist when I grew up. (I said yes because I was clueless about the future.) But helping fellow students didn't stop and moved on from pictures to other subjects. It made me feel good to be able to help kids and to be able to explain something in a different way than the teacher had--in case the different explanation helped the kid "get it." When it was time to choose a career, the teaching field was overcrowded, but I took a chance on education because I felt like it was what I was meant to do, what I'd been called to do.
Significant issues facing education.
Well, since kids' well-being is at stake, there's no end to the list of significant issues.
Here's a list for starters.
Bullying in school
Illiteracy
Achievement gap for Black males
Achievement gap for Latinos
Achievement gap for females in math and/or science
Effects of poverty
Effects of single parent homes or parents missing/distant/negligent
Effects of "Screen Addiction" (computers, TV, video games)
Safety/violence/shootings
Diverstiy
Effects of childhood malnutrition
Poor students falling behind without sufficient access to technology
Substance abuse and addiction
Child abuse
Sufficient help/access for special ed students
Gifted programs & other enrichment/ arts being cut
Wise use of medication for behaviorally challenged students
The middle-achieving students falling through the cracks
Teaching impoverished parents about the value of education
Help for parents of students with behavioral and learning problems
State cutbacks affecting students
Merit pay vs. other forms of payment
Validity of state-sponsored standardized testing
And more...
Best class ever: #10
Part of what I'd hope for in this class is what Dr. Shutkin announced for the beginning teachers: to help them examine themselves and their lives and figure out how that affects them as teachers. The trendy word is metacognition, to think about what they're thinking and bring more to their efforts to help kids. Socrates said, an "unexamined life is not worth living."
For those of us who are not beginning teachers, I see this class as an opportunity to pause and reflect. When you've been changed from one department or course to another the way I have, it feels like years of running on the hamster wheel without a chance to stop and reflect. I see this class as a chance to stop and take a time out and think about what I wrote about in my Philosophy of Education class in undergrad and see where I've been, where I'm going, and how I want to get there. I can begin to do that by reading the commentary of professionals and listening to the experiences of my peers in class.
Class activities would include just that: readings by respected authors, discussion with fellow students/teachers, and forced time to sit and reflect. It woulld be helpful to trace the roots of education in our country, project what is likely to happen in the future with the "hot issues," and think about what that means to me as an individual teacher.
In a perfect world with no time constraints, we might watch some of the famous teacher movies like Mr. Holland's Opus or To Sir with Love or Stand and Deliver or Dead Poets Society, and talk about the reality and the fantasy they portray, as well as the feelings that are evoked and the behaviors we'd like to apply to our teaching.
In this perfect time-free world, we might take a unit or a lesson for one of our courses and brainstorm a new way to teach it, a new approach (perhaps with ideas and collaboration from other classmates) and walk away with a thinking-out-of-the-box, dynamite lesson that proves to us that we can teach in ways we may not ever have thought of. The drawback is that not all the students know where they'll be teaching or what they'll be teaching. Something to consider is whether an activity like that is moving away from the course's purpose of covering Foundations. Or rather, has innovative teaching that responds to student needs been one of the most important foundations of teaching all along?
Another fruitful activity might be to encourage students to reflect on the teachers who made the biggest impact on them and why. They could consider mostly the positive influences, but also a couple of the negative (the kind of teacher they'd never want to be). I know I have thought back many times to Mr. Frame, whom I had for sophomore science for just one quarter, but his dynamic teaching style has stuck with me for years.
If the class were all teachers with several years experience, I might encourage them to reflect back and make a Top 10 list of the best and worst moments of their careers. To capitalize on the positive however, I might have them go back and make a scrapbook about those best Top 10 and anything else they want to include. I know I've saved little notes and cards students or parents have given me.
I think that in addition to reading about what the Bigwigs think about education and the national history of the various eras, it might be helpful to trace back the timeline of what life was like for the students throughout the history of American education. Even better would be to compare the national timeline with a timeline of the general trends for students in that same era. At one point, students were leaving for summer vacation to work in the fields. There were eras where kids left for war, or eras with fear of violence like the Civil Rights era or post-Columbine. That project would end with an evaluation of where students are now. (I'm thinking about this because the authorities say that kids' heads are "wired" differently than adults, that they process things differently. The old fashioned kind of classroom teaching doesn't reach some of them the way it used to. Alternative types of education are especially needed now for so many kids who can't sit still in a classroom like most of them used to. The trouble is that alternatives translate to money, and times are tight right now.)
What would I want to avoid? While teaching is very personal, I'd want to avoid going overboard with the subjective experiences and make sure that the objective subject matter is still a large focus and a launching point. I'd want to avoid being too cerebral or too hands-on. I'd try to hit a happy medium between lots of thinking about ideology, but also application to the person's situation.
#11 Questions for Dr. Shutkin about himself or the class
What's the name of your boat? :-)
How did you come up with the idea of making this class not merely a recounting of historical events, but instead a blend of the historical foundations with a very personal application?
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