future focus

I've been thinking a lot about the future lately, and it's made me aware of the calendar-centric nature of academia in general, regardless of the level. Because I'm a graduate student working on a degree in elementary education, I'm completely immersed in the world of education at both ends of the spectrum. For my personal work as a student, the focus is on my own growth and my future career. For my students, little kids who are just starting out, it's as if their lives are nothing but future! Preparing them for their lives as participants in our society is the whole point, and we accomplish this bit by bit within the yearly calendar. Sometimes I feel like everything is about tomorrow. But, as a stay-at-home mother for a decade, my focus was on the present so much of the time that it mostly feels refreshing to look up and out and think about the grand scheme of things more.

In other news, though there is the expected whining from those whose standard of living might be affected if they can't adjust and live within their means, Congress has placed stricter than expected caps on executive bonuses. As someone who's hoping to see some of the stimulus package dollars make their way into my local classrooms, I can't help but be a bit pleased by this. I'm cautiously optimistic that our schools could end up benefiting from this bill. And it's pretty hard for me to work up much sympathy for someone who'll be "limited" to only half a million dollars a year income. My school district sure could hire a lot of highly qualified teachers for one of those folks' yearly pay. *sigh*

In other news...

My winter student teaching is going smashinly well. Unfortunately, my brilliant cooperating teacher/ mentor had a rough car accident and will be out for a month or so. Fortunately, she'll be fine and is in good spirits. Unfortunately, this means that I'm taking over every last bit of it right away, starting with the report cards I completed the day after said accident. Fortunately, the long term substitute they hired is fabulous, just retired after teaching for 30 years, and can definitely help guide me, especially on classroom management.

All in all, I'm feeling more fortunate than un- lately. The kids are responding well to my instruction and rules and so on. I've been receiving wonderful support from the administration at the elementary school, all the other teachers there, and my university faculty advisor. All of this is making me feel pretty confident about my chosen profession!

Only vaguely related to education, but still...

Americans have a complex relationship with babies and breasts. Having just last week weaned my third child at the age of 31 months (about the same age her older sisters each stopped nursing), I know that continuing to breastfeed a child when you're apart for some days is difficult, but certainly not impossible. Ultimately, I'm grateful that I was always able to be with them full time when they were very small and only had to spend daytimes away after they had each reached at least two years of age. Leaving my youngest to go off to grad school was not exactly easy, but leaving her with her loving daddy made it just fine for her, even if I did miss her during seminars and so forth. But now she's a big girl and is just fine with hugs and kisses and no nursing. *sigh*.

No, this has little to nothing to do with my standard topic, which is education. Bear in mind,though, that studies have shown a correlation between extended breastfeeding and increased intelligence. I have some mighty fine anecdotal evidence studying cuttlefish in my living room right now to back that up. I'm just saying. Parental involvement probably counts for more than what babies are fed, but let's not discount nutrition. I'm not even saying that the diet has to be ideal. I've rarely been able to afford what I'd consider a perfect diet (totally organic, local, fresh, always balanced...) but I know enough to mix it up with the food groups and avoid the obviously unhealthy prepackaged foods.

Long story short, my youngest is officially no longer a baby, and I'll be keeping a stash of granola bars in my desk at school just in case anyone skipped breakfast. And kudos to all the mommies and daddies and grannies and thoughtful daycare providers who are making the world a better place, one well cared for child at a time!

the taxonomy of my winter "vacation"

It's all or nothing around here. I'm either wrestling with defining and reproducing the necessary elements of the portfolio and the instructional unit I'm preparing for next term, or I'm whizzing away with the designing (backwardly, of course), developing, and creating of what I'm sure will be mind-blowingly fabulous pieces of pedagogy. For real.

what a relief!

good to know...

You Passed High School with an A+

You have the brains of a high school graduate... at least!

Could You Pass High School?

focusing on poverty issues in education

I've been researching the effects of poverty on young children in terms of their experiences in school, academic achievement, and the correlations between low socioeconomic status and low achievement/graduation rates overall. This issue is of great importance to me because my community is not a wealthy one, and my children attend one of the region's highest poverty schools. That said, a warm, inclusive, and intellectually rigorous and stimulating atmosphere exists at that school; that's why we send our girls there.

As a soon-to-be teacher, I'm very interested in finding ways to address the needs of children from low income (and perhaps high stress) homes. There are as many reasons for the lack of intellectual stimulation and overabundance of stress that we commonly see in impoverished populations as there are families living below the poverty line in our country. This is not a blame game; this is about acknowledging difficulties in our own communities and identifying the tools needed to address them.

Recent brain research suggests that best practices in education, including as much family involvement and communication as possible, can stimulate young brains in productive ways to compensate for early years in which children may not have been read to or talked with as much as is needed for optimal neurological growth and development. Dramatic play, plentiful access to books, and ample opportunities for verbal self expression in the classroom can begin to rewire the brain; these are obviously conducive to enhanced further learning. In other words, we as teachers can somewhat make up for some of the deficits with which our neediest students come to us.

I can't do much of anything about a family's financial situation. I can, however,positively impact the mental and emotional resources of my students. I can offer them a positive relationship with a nurturing and productive adult. And I can help them learn the implicit rules, basically middle class values, that too often go unspoken and yet to which students are held accountable: rules about volume and violence and mental focus and taking turns, for example.

I really want to offer a rich environment to the children living in poverty in my community. I want my classroom and my techniques to stimulate their brains while establishing foundations of knowledge and skill upon which they will then build more and more understanding of their worlds. Because the tools exist to do so, and because educators can make up for an understimulating environment at home, I have a duty to use those tools and do that work. And it will be a joy to do so.

I have a nice life. So not perfect, but obviously I have the obvious things to be thankful for. Here is my Less Obvious Gratitude List :

• Youngest child is currently sitting on the potty, singing the memorized words to a picture book. We may be a long way off from no more diapers, but this is still good.
  
• Last night Oldest had to be told to stop with the flute practice already, it's bedtime.
• Middle wants to learn Spanish. She's starting with the happy birthday/ feliz cumpleanos song. In fourth grade she'll be able to study it in school like Oldest does.
  
• Husband has joined a book club. And something online has tickled him: I keep hearing laughter coming from his office. That is good.
• I have a like-minded cooperating teacher for my student teaching assignment, and I've been able to lead art lessons; who says that bachelor's degree is being wasted?
• One day of cleaning should be all it takes to be ready for Thanksgiving. And since my stamina and motivation are low, by "one day" I mean about "one hour, mostly spent nagging the kids". That is good.
• A lighter than usual schedule this week means I can get ahead on coursework! So good!
  
• We're having friends over for Thanksgiving, so Husband can have a turkey and won't have to do the vegetarian type we usually have; it's not worth cooking a bird when he's the only meat eater in the house. And even though I'm not interested in eating the thing, it is kind of appealing to be all traditional and stuff.
  
• Neither we, nor anyone we know, is in danger of foreclosure. At least not this month. And that too is good.
• Even though our furnace is still not working and has boggled the minds of both Husband and three different Repair People, we have plenty of fire wood for the time being. Good.
  

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.

The teaching has begun: I love these kids!

I have now taught an art unit to the sixth graders, and it was a great experience. I was able to employ some principles from my Special Methods in Art course, it was integrated with math and science, and though parts were direct instruction, the nature of the unit (abstract painting) was very student centered. First, for a math problem solving lesson, the students made scale drawings of how their lumber would be cut to construct the stretcher bars (wooden framework); adults cut the wood, and students then hammered their pieces together and stretched the canvas on them. A color wheel lesson followed, stressing that it was design and not art, with a discussion of the difference. The kids did well on the assignment, but my classroom management was mediocre: some kids decided to get really messy, and overall cleanup took so long we couldn't go to the computer lab for our scheduled time! My cooperating teacher gave me some hugely helpful hints on tightening that up, and the next lesson went smoother. For the first painting lesson, I modeled mixing the paint (acrylic) with a gloss medium to create glazes and instructed the students to use at least two colors that day, at least one of which they needed to mix themselves. The results were remarkable! Their behavior was much improved too, and I had a strict plan and schedule for cleanup, so the whole thing was a dream. The second session of painting began with a review of vocabulary (such as abstract and nonrepresentational) and a color theory lesson with examples of analogous and complimentary color schemes, and of how colors change in relation to each other. The kids then continued painting with these ideas in mind. For this second session, my cooperating teacher stepped out and my faculty advisor from the university sat in and did a formal observation. All in all it seemed like things went smoothly, the kids behaved themselves, and I was able to deliver the content in a coherent way while managing the class. Now I can't wait for some math!

Quote of the day: "Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.”-- William Gladstone

thanks to Ms. Cornelius, a favorite of mine in the blogosphere.

What a wonderful morning!

Yesterday morning, my seven year old popped up before the alarm clock and announced from the top of the stairs, "It's election day!". Like it was maybe that much awaited holiday in December or something!

By the time we were all home and able to turn on NPR, it was already being projected that Obama would carry Ohio, which would pretty much seal the deal. I began making dinner with a ridiculous amount of tears of joy interfering with my work. Later on, my husband and I watched Obama's acceptance speech, and I was again awed by his articulate delivery and inclusive, hopeful, organized message. What a refreshing change from the insulting and damaging idiocy and inadequacy of the Bush administration.

So I'm starting off this morning with, frankly, renewed faith in my fellow Americans. 2000 was an offensive coup, but 2004 just made me feel like I was living in some sort of twisted parallel reality where common sense was out the window and the worst available option had actually been chosen by our citizenry. No landslide, at least, but Bush was actually elected '04, not just appointed. But now, we've pulled our heads out of wherever they were lodged, declared that we no longer want to be the ridiculous yet dangerous nation we'd become. Obama has proven he can engage and inspire on the international stage, and at home he's offering us all the dignity and tools for betterment we desperately need.

In addition to economic revitalization, I look forward to changes in education policy under President Obama. Let's stay tuned to see how our nation can fulfill our obligation to our young people with extensive and authentic educations, instead of inch deep, memorized, discrete facts that are inapplicable to students' lives. Let's have vitalized educations for our children that truly prepare them to think critically and to become involved citizens of our United States, a nation that is flawed but full of promise.