Recognizing Diversity on Campus

For my Diverse and Exceptional Learner class, I attended a discussion group facillitated by the diversity center about Asian Americans in today's society and what it means to be Asian. The discussion was a small group of students but every individual had a unique view on this topic which I think is very importan to talk about. Being a teacher, it is crucial to be aware of different students' backgrounds and cultures, since I attended this lecture/discussion, I feel that it helps me on my self reflection process which is important for teachers to think about their role in facilitating discussion on different cultures.

We talked alot about what it means to be Asian and students shared their family background and customs that are important to them. We also further explored to what it means to be Asian at Luther College as well as what it means to be Asian American. I think it is important to recognize that Asia is a continent that is comprised of many different cultures and being Japanese or Indian are completley different however when the term "asian" is used, many people associate people from Asia with certain stereotypes. This discussion was important to reflect on the different cultural backgrounds with in the United States and as a teacher to make sure all cultures are respected within the school.

Educating Esme Group Project

My group read the book Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year by Esme Raji Codell for our I- movie project. This book was very helpful in understanding the struggles and challenges that a first year teacher might experience. Her thoughts about conflict resolution between a variety of people that she works with on an everyday basis is important to recgonize and seeing how she resolved certain conflicts with administration, students and parents was really insightful.

I think that as a student learning about education, the first year of teaching seems really daunting right now just because I'm still in the learning process. This book showed me how important it is for new teachers to be confident about what they are doing in the classroom and while it is important to listen to fellow colleagues, sticking true to your beliefs is essential. There are multiple ways to be an effective teacher and willing to take risks that help the students learn better is a crucial aspect to teaching. Esme's experiences with teaching was very helpful to read about and the movie we created helped me take what I learned in the book and think about it with and Educational Psychology lens.

Lost Generation

At the beginning of this clip, I was very shocked at the statements that were made. I think that the way the different phrases were written grabbed my attention and made me think about my generation. I really liked how once the statements were read backwards, it changed the context and what was said completley. I think that this is so true about attitudes about life. We always rely on what experts say and research that "proves" how society will be in the future, however I truly believe that it is up to us to change the path that we are all on. For example, the clip said that we will continue to destroy the environment, however when read backwards, we can change the environment and care for it so it is not destroyed. I think this is true for the values that we have in society and where we want to be headed. The clip talked about divorce and valuing money over family, and I believe it is how we are raised including our own personal experiences that shape our personal values about these topics.

I don't believe I am in a lost generation, certainly there are times where I am upset at the way my generation thinks about certain things but overall, no I don't think we are a lost generation. For example, I understand the significance that technology has in our society today, however when I see how children are glued to their cell phones or now people are reading books online or with new applications for their phones it honestly disgusts me. I think that people are losing ways of communicating that are much more personal and children especially do not know how to play or interact with each other if it doesn't involve some sort of technology. But despite my frusterations with how dependent we are becoming on technology, I think that our generation is very conscientious of the environment and I hope that the focus on family instead of money continues to be a strong value that we hold on to. This clip was done in a very creative way that pushed people to think about what we want from society, and how my generation is responsible to define our values and the way we want to live.

Adolescent Brain Development

Reflecting on the lecture about the development of the adolescents' brains was very interesting. I thought that the power point and information presented were very effective for the directed audience which were supposed to be parents. However, we were the most represented group at the lecture which I think the presenter tried her best to accomodate, but there were certainly times that I felt that her presentation methods were not the best way to effectively communicate her main points. Also, the presentation was geared towards middle school and high school students which explains her behavior and how Luther College students were probably not as receptive to her as younger students. I thought that even though she did hold my attention, alot of the time I kept thinking "Is she serious?" I think it is important to know your audience when presenting, and I know she didn't expect that many college students but it made me realize how crucial it is when I will be teaching to understand how to relate to my students in a way that they can be engaged but also the lectures can be informative and the students can get a lot out of it.

The material that she presented was really interesting to me. Lately I have been thinking about how I would like to teach middle school and I think that by studying the different stages of brain development will help me alot in terms of understanding the developement stages that they are at. I really liked learning about the information, but I thought it was a really repetitive since I have taken psychology courses in the past. Nevertheless, it was good information to review and think about how I can connect it to my future carrer as a teacher. I enjoy learning about the different brain stages and she presented the information in a way that was easy to understand. For example, I thought it was interesting how she related the brain of young teenager to the brain of a toddler. Once she connected the different behavioral characteristics to each other, I could see the correlation and it was a way in which I never thought about the two different developmental stages. I also thought that what she presented on drugs and concussions was also very interesting. I think that it is important to recognzie that what kids do in their lives at this age greatly affects their future, but I know that most adolescents aren't terribly concerned with this. I think that this presentation was very informative and even though it was geared towards parents, as a student in the teacher education program, I think that this information is very relevant to the age group I want to work with and it makes me want to learn more about adolsencents and how to teach this group in ways that would help them connect to the material and lessons presented in class.

my experience with blogging and the future classroom

My experience with blogging so far has been good but I don't know if I will use this tool very much in my future classroom. I like the concept of having a space to share ideas with other people who are in the same situations, and it could be useful with other teachers because it would provide an opportunity to bounce ideas off of each other about lesson plans and the class materials however I don't know if I would use it beyond that. I know that some classrooms have websites which I think could be useful for parents to know what is going on in their child's class, however the problem that I have been having with blogging is remembering to do it on a consistent basis. It is easy to push blogging to a later time and not always follow through especially when there is a lot of things to do. This would make it hard as a teacher because I will be busy and the blogging will not be on the top of my list of things to do.

One issue I have been thinking about in terms of blogging and websites, is that sometimes parents are over-involved and it does not teach students to learn how to responsible on their own. Using technology to communicate with parents and students will be very helpful, however sometimes it can create problems with parents being too involved and it does not teach students how to handle certain issues on their own. So I am kind of torn with the technology that is availabe because I think teachers can use it in their classrooms to make things more easier, however it brings up new challenges that teachers in the past did not have to face. I was reading an article the other day and it mentioned "helicopter parents", which basically are parents who are over protective and hover which means that a blog or tool similar to blogs, might cause more tension with parents and create more challenges inside the classroom.