Final Draft Argument Paper

 

Being a teacher is hard work when you are put into a very rough disruptive environment. It is always hard for new teachers especially. You go in with a great mind and ideas and then you see what the class is really like. And most likely it would be very unexpecting how insane the class might end up being. I would try to make my students feel so comfortable and not cause too much stress. I wouldn’t want to just be a teacher who was there to teach. I would want to have them consider as a friend, mentor, role model and so on. I would want them to get attached to feel open to ask any questions they need too, not to be nervous. Because Education is a very important thing in life and you want to be successful throughout grade school because it affects your possible future career. “Grit is one of the characteristics of successful people. Here’s a list to others: self-control, zest, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism, and curiosity.”(Jerry Large Seattle Times Columnist, 2). This not only applies to students. It also applies to myself.  As a teacher I would want to show that I’m compassionate, caring, fun, and would reach down to their level to show that I can understand the tough situations they may go through.

Behavior is such a key factor when being a teacher, yourself as the teacher and then along with the students behavior as well.  I would not so much be as strict with my students, as I would be interesting. I would sink down to their level and really relate and connect with the students. I would provide lessons that they found very interesting.  I would get them interested in learning just like Mr. Escalante did in the film “Stand and Deliver”. Those students were in a very rough environment and he taught in many ways to calm them down and learn. Taught them to be responsible and want to be in school. That is what I would want to do with my students. If there were rude students I would show them that their attitude does not bother me and would handle it in a professional manner.  I wouldn’t ever yell or be strict with them. In the film “Chalk” Mr. Lowry a brand new teacher has difficulties controlling behavior in his classroom he deals with really rude students. He has to develop new ways as he goes a long and that would also be what I do. I would show that I care a lot about them and would definitely try and get them interested in learning. It’s kind of hard to tell if I would be successful at this. You go in thinking one thing and always go out with something else going through your head.

Strategies really tie into your behavior as a teacher. It’s the things you would do to help the students become successful.  Some things I would do to help the students pay attention and get involved would be to tell jokes, tell stories of my past, even make things up that might interest them. I can tell when some people do that just to help you learn. You would provide examples to help them better understand the learning material provided.  Another strategy I would use would that I would provide as much help as possible to the students. I would want to show them how much compassion I have for teaching. If a teacher cares about them like Mr. Escalante did, they would be more likely to calm down and want to learn. Mr. Keating from the film Dead Poet Society cared for his students the same way he even went to one of his students plays and stood by them.  I kind of look at them like role models. I would ask questions to the students during class and provide time after school to help them learn and better understand the lessons.

Materials you would provide in the classroom, blends together with behavior and strategies really well. I would try to provide as much regular everyday materials for the students at the beginning of the school year as I could. I would do this to help the students not feel so stressed about purchasing some things our classroom may need. Such as paper, pencils, pens, binder, journal, folders and so on. I would make the classroom be a really fun environment with decorations and very homey. If the classroom doesn’t look boring the students might not be so bored as well. As a teacher I would try to teach to everyone’s learning abilities. I would want to cover visual, audible, hands on learners etc. I would want to teach some way that everyone can learn. And let them know that they are open to ask questions if they want to be taught a different way. I would ask the students what works best for them. Some lessons I would provide would be films, documentaries, group projects, some readings and so many more. I would mix it up as much as I could so the students never get bored. One of my main things would be I would relate lessons to real life to show how this stuff I was teaching comes into effect in the “real” world. I wouldn’t want to be a teacher that just assigned reading for every homework assignment. I don’t like doing everything over and over again in my classes. It makes me hate doing them and just somewhat fall behind and begin to lose my mind. I know that if I mixed it up with assignments I would get a better turnout of grades and students attention in my classroom.

As a school teacher I would try extremely well to have the best behaved class possible. But sometimes that doesn’t always work. You can try to control a classroom the best ways that you knew how and then you would develop new ways as you went along. It is hard to determine how successful I would be as a teacher in a disruptive classroom environment because you do learn more things as you go along. Just as in any job. I currently work retail and have so as a 2^nd job since June and I still come across different ways to react to rude customers. I would always find new ways to help make my class be successful and well behaved students. Above I have mentioned ways I would try to adapt and handle a very difficult class environment and how I would be a good teacher towards my students. Compassionate, caring, fun and really connecting with my students is overall what I would be to deal with that.

Works Cited

Stand and Deliver. Dir. Ramon Menendez. Perf. Edward James Olmos(Mr. Escalante). Warner Bros. Entertainment, 1988.

Dead Poets Society. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Robin Williams. Touchstone Pictures, 1989.

Chalk. Dir. Mike Akle. Perf. Troy Schremmer, Janelle Schremmer. SomeDaySoon Productions, 2006.

 

Large, Jerry “Gift of Grit, Curiosity Help Kids Succeed” Seattle Times. Seattle Times Company, 2012. Text. 26 September 2012

 

 

 

 

Art is important!

Arts curriculum can help students in so many ways. School systems should never ban art programs.  Students interested in the arts, that is how they show their creativity and express their feelings.  It helps them focus on other subjects when doing something they love. People ever involved in any kind of art program will most likely have a great interest in it. This would be the class that made them look forward to during the day and to help them survive the rest. It also helps students pursue their dreams, they can go off to college to pursue a career in the arts. One of the biggest things I think that helps the students is that art can really express their feelings. They can show a passion for it and enjoy it so much. It is their time to break away from other stressful courses and can even motivate you to accomplish the others. Art programs in schools also help you get better at what you may love to do as a hobby therefore they can pursue it as a career. Which will help them become successful.

Against School

I agree and disagree with a lot of what John Gatto wrote in his essay, “Against school”. Towards the beginning of his essay I don’t agree that all teachers can be boring. It really just depends. Also a lot of their attitudes are so down either. You see about 50/50. Then I do agree with what he thinks a teacher should be like. He had great ideas there but then again didn’t think they were all that possible. “We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness - curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight - simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids to truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then.”That’s what he states on how teachers should be.

Later on in the article he then goes in writing real deep into and about history. Which mainly all that I did NOT agree with. He starts using, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, and Franklin for a references about how they didn’t get a very long education with school and how they were very successful.  He compares that to how we most likely don’t need to be in school K-12. But most people way back in history did not attend school. Education back then wasn’t a very common thing. People just wanted to work for a living. I think now days the education has made several people successful and I believe we need it. I have seen someone who dropped out in the 8^th grade and no offense but they appear to be pretty stupid in many different ways. It kind of shows that they didn’t finish schooling. They don’t really mature after they drop out of school, nore really go anywhere in life. I know their may be come exceptions but I am telling what I have seen.

Johns Gattos essay had me up and down a lot. And I think he rambled way to much about history education.

Cause and Effect and Argument. How it helps.

For our third formal paper it is an argumentative paper. Therefore cause and effect, and argument readings would come in very handy. When you right a persuasive and argument piece it is good to know the cause and effects of things to prove your points. You want to have a list on how something effects something or someone else. The readings also gave you examples of ideas to put in your own paper, how to apply these strategies to your own writing. With cause and effect it tells you how to approach them in several different ways. That would help you stay more organized.  You could even do the exercises to help you practice using these strategies. With the argument reading it provides a sample thesis statement for an argumentative essay. It provides a poor, mediocre and a good thesis to help you be strong in writing your thesis. I think all this will definitely help with writing our third paper on critiquing education.

A real education

I think Greenbergs ideas from the article A real education by Barry boyce, are an incredible way to help children behave and learn better. I agree with so much that he talked about. He really cares and shows compassion for the children. And how compassion is a thing they need to learn as well. “Kindness, caring, empathy, being able to de-center from your own point of view and listen deeply to others—these are values that should be cultivated in our classrooms,” This was said by Mark Greenberg. He is the director of promotion of human development at Penn State. He makes very great points of child development. Yoga is a great way he states to get them ready to learn for the day. It helps calm them down and de stress them. Greenberg wants to promote positive qualities like empathy, citizenship, and strong friendships. That is his goal. Who wouldn’t love these ideas? He states that mindfulness can increase peoples awareness of their emotions and feelings and how to deal with them regularly. He wants to reduce anxiety and depression. I am glad someone is not only trying to make a difference but with the parents as well. Parents should know how to handle their children.  And learn to focus on their feelings and understand them. I think the classes would really help but is kinda abnoxious to have them do this and try to change the kids so much. But I think it could show some real improvement in the children.  

Gift of grit

Jerry Larges ideas were very vague. He didn't explain anything in much detail. Basically his idea of grit is children that are only babied for their first few years and then sent free. I think his ideas need a lot of improvement and more explaing about the Toughs book. "Grit is one of the characteristics of successful people...self control, zest, social, intelligence, gratitude, optimism, and curiosity" All these qaulities doesn't mean these kids weren't babied a lot throughout life. A person can be successful pretty much no matter what. He shows some proof when he talks about the KIPP academy and what it does for the kids. But then again, he really didn’t explain anything about the academy. Everything they mention about what most parents do is wrong, that isn’t necessarily what they do. Every child turns out different. Every child has a chance of being successful. I know someone that was babied through their whole life so far pretty much and they turned out to be successful and know what they want in life. Large mentions in the article that poor families in the KIPP academy show great test scores. Tough believes people that come from low income families wont be babied as much and somewhat distant from their children compared to upper income families. They may have done some tests but I don’t think all this is necessarily true. Every child can be successful.

Compare and Contrast final

     There are so many things that make up a good teacher, being compassionate, genuine, organized, helpful, patient, knowledgeable and so much more. Good teachers are those who can really make people learn, and cover everyone’s learning abilities. Everyone learns in different ways. A good teacher is a teacher that really helps you understand what you are trying to learn. The way they teach can affect if you pass the class or not, even graduate.  If they aren’t a good teacher it can affect you all threw your schooling and even throughout life. Henry Brooks Adams states “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” I will be comparing two teachers that I was not very fond of along with other students. They were not a “good” teacher. Teachers make up our everyday lives as students; they are role models that represent how it affects our education for the rest of our life, a role that my past English and Marketing teachers did not achieve. My past English and marketing teacher did not achieve that role.    

     I had an interesting English teacher last year in college. Our first impression of her was “wow is this women really a teacher?” She did not put off a professional vibe at all. And she kept that image all quarter. She was pretty laid back and we never accomplished anything during the two hours of that class. We would have bullshit discussions that never related to English what so ever. For example we talked about things that were going on in the world, really controversial topics, such as video nasties, sex images with Brittney spears & video game characters, racism, kony 2012 etc. The class would always get in a debate about something. A big thing that struck and irritated the class was that she was pretty rude to students. She acted really immature and in no way acted like a professional teacher. According to Dan Brown in his article, What makes a great teacher? He states, “It’s crucial that teachers form professional learning communities to share and incorporate best practices” This would be something that my teacher needed to do. She would call things out to students and kind of make fun of them in front of everyone. Also she would give them feedback on their work in front of everyone, even announce their grades on things in front of the class. Teachers aren’t supposed to do that. There is a thing called privacy and a thing called “some things are better left unsaid”. “There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for,” John Keating states from the film Dead Poets Society. We were a college class and she treated us sometimes and told us we acted like we were in high school. Everyone agreed that that was extremely wrong of her to say. Considering many of us had been in college for a while. She said that we shouldn’t be late too class and that we weren’t in high school anymore. Well everyone can be late to a college class, we pay to be there. Rachel our English teacher would also have high expectations for our papers and give us feedback that never made any sense. No one would ever understand her instructions. You never did anything perfect, there was always something she would go on about within our papers we had to write. She would criticize every little thing she could. “Students will rise to the level of expectations,” Mr. Escalante states in the film Stand and Deliver. She had expectations but didn’t enforce them, so we only rose so far. A teacher is there to make you feel good about yourself, not pick you apart and change you. You don’t want a teacher that would piss you off. Overall, she was not professional and that is opposite of what a teacher should be.

      As a teacher you need to be really knowledgeable and be able to explain your assignments in detail to where any student can understand. My marketing teacher seemed to be so sweet. It was my second time taking a class of hers I thought it would be super easy like the first class with her…but I was wrong. We had to create a marketing plan in her class for our future or current business and we broke it up into pieces for each assignment. Well everyone had trouble understanding the assignments. She never taught us much about them. We were taught stuff about marketing but not each thing included within our plan. So according to the teacher, every student was doing it wrong. She would always send them back to us and have us redo them. A teacher should either explain them to the full extent or not assign them. I came to the assumption that she just didn’t know much about the assignment. I could definitely tell that she didn’t create the assignment herself or do much research on it. Her expectations were so high it was unbelievable. She wasn’t ever willing to work with you. Also you would think if the whole class was doing it wrong, something was wrong there and you probably went overboard and shouldn’t have such high expectations. She tended to pull the dumb blonde card a lot. A good teacher would figure out a solution for the whole class or work with us more and provide examples. Paolo Freire states, “Education thus becomes an act of depositing in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor.” This quote makes a lot of sense and has relation to my marketing teacher. She would need to communicate with us and let us fully understand everything. Another issue was that she didn’t appear to be very organized and that was a big concern of mine because she had lost a printed version of my plan I had turned in. She thought I hadn’t turned it in on time but I had my plan done for a while already. Thankfully she took my word for it and I gave her another printed copy and it all got worked out. Being knowledgeable and organized is a key factor when teaching a business management class. She didn’t seem to fit a lot of the qualities needed for that position. She was a nice person, just didn’t necessarily get the greatest teacher vibe from her. It was hard to do well when no one can understand quite what to do for the assignments.

      Here I compared two teachers that I particularly found that were not good teachers. It is so important to be a good teacher and be outstanding in these qualities because it does affect your schooling overall. Dan Brown states, “Many people possess the dispositions needed to be a great teacher.” Both of them had the abilities just needed some work. If teachers don’t teach well, meaning they aren’t knowledgeable, organized and professional, that will affect your school performance, from learning, low grades and frustration with school. Bob Talbert states, “Good teachers are costly, but bad teachers cost more.” You might not want to do school if you have problems with your teachers. You want to like them, and have them be great in all those categories because it helps you achieve as a student. Therefore teachers do play a very important role in our lives as students that will affect us throughout our life in education. They have to do well to have you do well.