The debate over curriculum is a constant concern for most teachers. Teaching for me is another branch of the creative process and teachers by default produce an environment with the tools that are available. In my humble point of view one of those super important tools is of course curriculum and another is instruction and they are both a work in progress and a creation. The ability to create curriculum or at least modify it, use it or discard it, has been an activity that has been associated with teachers in many countries. To take away this freedom affects the instruction element because it is more effective to teach material that is self-designed or at least revised and edited simply because we are able to familiarize more with the subject.
I have worked with scripted programs and I know people that are having to teach scripted curriculum and even when some programs like MCI-making connections or read 180 are ok-designed, there have been many complains by some friends of mine who are teaching remedial math. My experience was not horrible, it was boring, but not horrible. i had to teach MCI for three months and if you are familiar with this program you know that everything that comes out your mouth should be part of the script. I thought it was very weird and then I began to get used to the material... it just made me an effective MCI instructor but I felt like the teaching part was so modified that I did not feel like a "real" teacher.
Maybe some of these programs are necessary. Maybe they could be used in a less standard form. It is difficult to know where things are going with education but I do fear an enormous displacement of teachers by these ready-made-robotic curriculms.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
About Biases
One of the definitions for the word bias is: "Prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair." I got this on a search engine. Could be more than this because a bias is an action; a bias is a thought; a situation that we rehearse in our brain and we perform in society. My biases have grown with and through me. I have fed some while I have decided to starve others. My biases have been uneducated thoughts coming out of fears because I do believe the roots of them are fearsome conjunctures we create. At some point we decide certain things in life are true and for some reason we want to prove ourselves right every time we encounter certain situations.
I feel that I am biased in favor of kids that seem unprotected or underprivileged. I am aware that this is a situation that I need to mature . I am easily triggered by my motherly self and the more I sense neglect in a kid the more I am drawn to jump in and want to protect. In some ways this is a recurrent situation that I have had in the past with family and friends. I easily try to assume the role fo protector of the weak and frail. It has not benefited me at the end or the other person. As I said before, these biases are created at some point and what scares me is that I have no clue where this one is coming from.... Actually I do. When I was in elementary school I had a couple of very difficult situations with my parents divorce. At one point one bad situation led to another and my mom was having a very difficult time surviving economically. In sixth grade we were in such economic mess that led us to food scarcity and it did not seem to get any better. No one knew about our ordeal and I did not feel I could reach out to an adult in school. It would have been of benefit to reach out and vent all the situation which was troubling me but I did not. It is then when I feel that I tend to want to self compensate for these difficult times and be there in case a I can help a student. I know it is a biased attitude because we are all struggling one way or another and the fact that one need seems more evident in a kid than in another does not minimize the difficulties of all.
I feel that I am biased in favor of kids that seem unprotected or underprivileged. I am aware that this is a situation that I need to mature . I am easily triggered by my motherly self and the more I sense neglect in a kid the more I am drawn to jump in and want to protect. In some ways this is a recurrent situation that I have had in the past with family and friends. I easily try to assume the role fo protector of the weak and frail. It has not benefited me at the end or the other person. As I said before, these biases are created at some point and what scares me is that I have no clue where this one is coming from.... Actually I do. When I was in elementary school I had a couple of very difficult situations with my parents divorce. At one point one bad situation led to another and my mom was having a very difficult time surviving economically. In sixth grade we were in such economic mess that led us to food scarcity and it did not seem to get any better. No one knew about our ordeal and I did not feel I could reach out to an adult in school. It would have been of benefit to reach out and vent all the situation which was troubling me but I did not. It is then when I feel that I tend to want to self compensate for these difficult times and be there in case a I can help a student. I know it is a biased attitude because we are all struggling one way or another and the fact that one need seems more evident in a kid than in another does not minimize the difficulties of all.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
About the fundamental purpose of teaching:
This section of the week's blog will be focused on the different ways in which teaching has transformed from an activity that is work geared to a purposeful way of living. I think many of us who have been teaching for a while will agree that being a teacher is a living activity that occurs every hour of our life with so much more intensity when we are in the classroom. At every moment a teacher is held accountable for his or her actions whether that teacher is at the school she or he works in or not. Additionally, we have a social responsibly with our community that does not end when the bell rings and the children leave the room. In my experience, the fundamental purpose for teaching is to put into practice as much as we can of the words that we express, whether spoken or written. Humans learn a great amount of information by absorbing the attitudes of the guides, teachers, parents and instructors. In addition to the information that we get exposed to, one of our main modeling systems is through the absorption and observation of our leaders. Being a teacher entails an acquisition of authority and leadership whether we agree all instructors should have this privilege or not and our behaviors will most likely impact the ways in which our students are interpreting and processing their worlds. In addition to developing good techniques for delivering the information we need to provide it is very important to have an ability to always reach the students at a human level and guide aspects of their lives that are forming them as social actors. I personally believe that the fundamental purpose for teaching is to give life to to the information we are providing and not only that but also to communicate and really try to motivate students into self-inquiry and critical thinking.
This section of the week's blog will be focused on the different ways in which teaching has transformed from an activity that is work geared to a purposeful way of living. I think many of us who have been teaching for a while will agree that being a teacher is a living activity that occurs every hour of our life with so much more intensity when we are in the classroom. At every moment a teacher is held accountable for his or her actions whether that teacher is at the school she or he works in or not. Additionally, we have a social responsibly with our community that does not end when the bell rings and the children leave the room. In my experience, the fundamental purpose for teaching is to put into practice as much as we can of the words that we express, whether spoken or written. Humans learn a great amount of information by absorbing the attitudes of the guides, teachers, parents and instructors. In addition to the information that we get exposed to, one of our main modeling systems is through the absorption and observation of our leaders. Being a teacher entails an acquisition of authority and leadership whether we agree all instructors should have this privilege or not and our behaviors will most likely impact the ways in which our students are interpreting and processing their worlds. In addition to developing good techniques for delivering the information we need to provide it is very important to have an ability to always reach the students at a human level and guide aspects of their lives that are forming them as social actors. I personally believe that the fundamental purpose for teaching is to give life to to the information we are providing and not only that but also to communicate and really try to motivate students into self-inquiry and critical thinking.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
About other blogs ...... on SPED!!
Hello to all phloggers! so sorry for posting this late in the week. My technological life was interrupted by computer-modem-technical-difficulties. I want to thank you all for the wonderful time you took to research some of the blogs on education. As I started this assignment, I wanted to find blogs specific to two subject areas; art history and special education. As a student, for the last 10 years, while doing my masters and Ph.D. coursework in Art History, I would have benefited from looking at blogs on the subject. I think I only came across one or two that truly helped me. I noticed from your posts that more material has been added and the quality has increased as well. Now as a teacher for APS and as a student in this great program I find it very refreshing and a true privilege to be able to use this technology for research and development of class assignments. I still feel that I am not very familiar with navigating the blog universe and I may not be searching
The first blog that I came across is a little confusing because the blog is within a webpage. In a way, the blog supplements the content of this site that is devoted to various aspects of gifted teaching. I found it more conducive for the purposes of the work that I am doing now to focus my search on special education blogs that were specific to gifted education. I have a strong interest in pursuing a specialization in SPED, specific to a category that is defined as twice gifted.
http://resources.prufrock.com/GiftedEducationBlog/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/483/Default.aspx.
This is another site that I found. It is a blog that provides articles and different points of view concerning teaching styles and different teaching environments.
http://giftedexchange.blogspot.com/
Last, this is a blog that is very fun and useful for organization ideas in the classroom.
http://www.teachingblogaddict.com/search/label/classroom%20organization
The first blog that I came across is a little confusing because the blog is within a webpage. In a way, the blog supplements the content of this site that is devoted to various aspects of gifted teaching. I found it more conducive for the purposes of the work that I am doing now to focus my search on special education blogs that were specific to gifted education. I have a strong interest in pursuing a specialization in SPED, specific to a category that is defined as twice gifted.
http://resources.prufrock.com/GiftedEducationBlog/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/483/Default.aspx.
This is another site that I found. It is a blog that provides articles and different points of view concerning teaching styles and different teaching environments.
http://giftedexchange.blogspot.com/
Last, this is a blog that is very fun and useful for organization ideas in the classroom.
http://www.teachingblogaddict.com/search/label/classroom%20organization
Thursday, January 19, 2012
First Post- About the fundamental purpose of education
Hello everyone on the forum! what a great experience to be able to share thoughts and ideas concerning this contested field that is continuously evolving, changing and adapting to us humans. I pondered about the first question posted on the handout we received Tuesday. So as for education... well...my response mechanisms were telling me that education is in a sense a structure and a backbone of an individual and a collective. Its main purpose, in my very biased and personal experience, is to soften and light a journey through life. Always or most of the time, education seems to be a well intended concept. Whether a provider of good results or bad ones, educational guidelines want to share a canon of conduct and groups of behaviors that will result in the betterment of a greater social project. In this sense, sometimes education will fail to serve the individual while it enhances a group's purpose. The process of socialization seems integral to the process and application of principles in any given education philosophy. By its very nature, education is part of a social construction and thus, I find it very difficult to take away the interactive quality of human participation in the creation of the very many forms of educational philosophies.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
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