Oh Middle School Students.....

Today, almost all of the delightful students in Ms. Grady's AVID class seemed to need to go to the library today to work on a science project. Apparently each student has to do their project on a certain scientist, and nobody has started it AT ALL.....gotta love middle school students. I took this as an opportunity to teach them good study habits, and as I told my tutee, I am probably the world's worst procrastinator and all that does is bring increasing amounts of stress on the procrastinator, not to mention you usually don't do a proper job when your rushing. I know this probably went through one ear and out the other, but the teacher in me won out and I decided to give the lecture.

Anyway, of course, all the females in the class decided to sit together and immediately got off task. It was such a pain to keep walking over there and tell them to focus. Finally, I decided to walk over there, and ask them a question about their person. If they did not know, their assignment for me was to find out the answer by the next time I walked over. This worked very efficiently and the students stayed on task after that while learning a lot about their assigned person! I felt like such a teacher = ] .

The Socratic Method

So, as Teaching Fellows, we have to learn about educational philosophies, and one of these educational philosophies is known derives form Socrates' view on education. In AVID, tutors are encouraged to utilize the Socratic method, meaning instead of actively instructing the student, as a tutor I attempt to ask questions in order to get the student to help her self. Now, I tried to use this method last week, and it did not work very well at all, BUT, it worked this week! My student basically did not need my help at all, all I did was ask her questions and guide her in the direction she needed to be in. I was so excited that it finally worked!

I think this method is best used with a slightly more deep thinker, not to be mean, but everyone learns different, and I think the girl from the week before was slightly less capable of grasping the concept by herself than this girl was. It takes a certain curiosity and perseverance to be able to find out things for yourself and not everyone can do it.

Private Education?

In Teaching Fellows class, the class had a discussion pertaining to what will happen after No Child Left Behind. One suggestion is converting public schools into private institutions. While there are a few benefits, the cons definately outweigh the pros.

While some private schools have scholarship programs, how will the rest of American children afford to go to private schools? Not everyone can recieve a scholarship or voucher, and mediocre students who are not the brightest and best in their grades still deserve the opputunity to have an education.

Not only that, but extremely poor children on free or reduced lunch, do not have money at home to afford food, and the only meals they get are the meals given by the school. Doing away with public funding for schools takes away all these benefits.

It is our job, as Americans, do make educated and informed citizens of our children in order for them to make America a better place to live in for years and years to come. If you take public education away, you take away many oppurtunitites for students that cannt afford private education. If America wants to survive, they have to take an active and important role in educating the masses.

Administration Gone Wrong

At my old high school in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a situation occured. A student was supended for "instigating a fight" because she had a family friend pick her up from homecoming when another student, accused of sexual molesting her, started to make her feel uncomfortable and began talking about her behind her back. A little while after being picked up, the accused was hit in the face, but not by the family friend. The police showed up and the accused said he did not want to press charges. The next day the accused parents came in, claimed the accused was beaten up on school property by the family friend. Without asking the police, and even the SRO officers who were outside and did not witness the said "beating up," (because it didn't happen), the school administartion suspened the student; an honor student, student body vice president, and member of the school Forensics Team.

This situation just illustrates one of the many problems in our schools today, how can a student learn if she is frightned for her well being and being punished for being the victim of a henious act. This is a completely ridiculous and outrageous situation, and I cannot believe injustices like this occur even within the heirarchy of our public schools.

Awkward Much???

As I got unto the bus today, I saw one of my AVID students on the bus as well. I smiled at her and took my seat. She had obviously missed the regular school bus, and had to ride the city bus instead. I kept thinking about how fortunate she was, although she was going to be late she still had a ride to school. In Fayetteville, if I missed the bus, I would either have to miss school, or walk, and thats a thirty minute bus ride, fifteen mintute car ride, and a LONG walk.

I really did not know how to act towards her on the bus though, or how to act as we were walking side by side into the building. I could tell she had that awkward....I'm seeing someone who is kind of like a teacher outside of school feeling, and I definately did not want to make her feel more awkward! Needless to say, I kept my music turned down on the bus in case a stray "naughty" word came her way.

I wonder what it's going to be like to see my students outside of school. Will I be allowed to go out with my friends for dinner and enjoy a glass of wine, or something like that, without being ridiculed. I guess these are the prices you have to pay when you decide to change the world through teaching....along with crappy pay. = /

Changing Times

This Tuesday, I helped a girl write a thesis statement. It was pretty much pulling teeth with her, she did not trust anything I said! Her prompt was a two part prompt, and she was only answering one of the parts, and she kept thinking that because she had never done her other thesis statements like this one, that I was wrong. So, we pulled out all her other prompts and I had her underline and number each statement she was supposed to answer. Sure enough, all her other prompts only had one statement to be addressed, and this one had two.

As she finally began to trust me, and after she had written a wonderful thesis, we began talking. As tutors in the AVID program, we are supposed to encourage the kids to go to college, so we talked a little about that, and then I asked her if she lived with her mom and dad, just to get a better backgorund on her. She then told me that she had two mommies, and that she was adopted. It took me a minute to realize what she meant by two mommies, and then I realized that her moms were homosexual. I had never encountered something like this, and I was very interested. I asked her how she felt about that, and she said she did not like it sometimes because she did not like being different than her friends. I assured her that being different is always a good thing and that her particurlar situation makes her special and allows her to expierience things that other students would never be able to expierience.

I cannot wait until the day when racial and sexual orientation stigmas disappear and kids can just be themselves and learn in a prejudice free enviroment.

Not enough students = /

Last Tutoring Tuesday, there was not much to help with because the school district had a late open day on Thrusday, meaning they open two hours later, so all the teaching fellows tutors that come on Thrusdays had to come on Tuesdays instead, and we all had to double and triple up on students. Needless to say I did not get much one on one time with my student, my first girl tutee, and she was working with word porblems in math, so I pretty much just let the other tutors take over because I had no idea what I was doing! But I learned an important strategy from the other tutors, to have the student recap what they have learned and attempt to "teach" you what they just learned, this way, you know the student has fully grasped the concept.