The Delicate Brain

In our trip to Decorah Middle School, I had no idea what to expect from the speaker we were about to listen to for an hour long.  Now, that I am use to some of my lectures at Luther College I was afraid that it might be a long hour.  To my surprise it was quite the opposite.  The lecturer was very enthusiastic and was very interested in her topic.  Some students said that it was too childish, or too exciting.  But can someone be too enthusiastic?

I don't think so.  When I look back to the classes that I enjoyed the most in school.  They were the classes that I tried the hardest at.  But what made these classes fun to participate in, well the teachers were excited to teach.  As teachers we must show our excitement for the subject because teaching should not feel like a job, but a privilege for the chance to effect lives of many young people.

Class Videos

These past few weeks, we have been working on videos that take books that we read and turned them into informational videos for educators.  In our video, our goal was to simply show 4 points to educators to make there classrooms more effective and efficient.  I do believe that our video was very well organized and easy to follow, and teachers who watched the video would be able to see what areas they may need to improve.

Overall this assignment was a great learning project.  It taught us to work together as a group by collaborating each of our ideas together.  Just like in the teaching environment, we as educators are going to have to work alongside fellow colleagues.

Getting in Touch

As a teacher, getting students in the classroom to have motivation and good conduct can be a very difficult task.  Classrooms can possibly be on two sides of the spectrum, either well behaved or rowdy.  As I look back to my school days the conduct of the classroom was usually based on the teachers interaction with the "class clown."  This individual had the potential to disrupt almost any lesson but also had the power to motivate the class to participate in any activity.  From what I have expericed, teacher who attempted to motivate or respect me improved the classroom conduct in a positive way.

As a teacher I will make the attempt to locate the "class clown" and motivate him to enjoy and participate in class, in hope that his influence on the rest of the class will follow in his footsteps.  "Class clowns" have the potential to make a classroom exciting and a fun learning enviroment, but also can turn a room into chaos.  Educators need to approach these kids in a positive manor from the get go. 

Paper Clips

The other day I watched a program that investigated a small Tennessee middle school that were doing an interesting activity to get the students to learn about the Holocaust.  The teachers really got in depth with this activity and really made the learning very graphic for the students.  The question is, Was this age appropriate for middle school students?  I believe the answer to this is, yes.  

 Middle school students are starting to get to the age where they are understanding what the word death really means.  Many students at this age has most likely experienced some sort of loss in their life.  Though it might hurt to speak of death to student, it is most definitely a part of life.  The goal of a teacher is to make students good contributers to the community and humanity.  And learning about the Holocaust will hopefully keep us from repeating history.  We must learn from our mistakes as a human race so that we may evolve into a peaceful race.