chapter 22 as

When teaching, we often think of teaching acceptance as only thinking about race and gender. what we sometimes forget, though, is that homosexuals are disciminated against just as badly as people of another race. One thing that I heard from my kids in middle school over and over again was the phrase "that's gay." Everytime I heard one of them say it I would always comment to them that they shouldn't say stuff like that and it usually required a 5 minute explanation afterwards. For some reason, they have a hard time relating discrimination against people of another race to discrimination of homosexuals. When i press them on the issue, it generally always comes down to religious views being behind their feelings. This makes the topic even more difficult because now i am combatting their religion. Though I definately feel like the issue should be raised, I also feel that there is a point where I need to lay off a little bit so as to not belittle their religion. I think the best thing we, as teachers, can do is present real life examples of how homosexuals are discriminated and get them to feel some empathy for them.

testing

Here is my two cents on standarized testing. like posts i've been seeing, i will agree that standardized testing sucks; but heres the thing...I can see the need for them. Every now and then, its important to assess your school to get an idea of how well the students are learning. An easy way to do that, is by giving them a standardized test to see how well they do. There's nothing inherantly wrong with that idea, tests can serve a purpose. My whole thing, though, is how much weight standardized testing holds these days. As people have mentioned, there are a whole lot of flaws with testing; some kids do poor on tests, a kid might not being feeling well that day, they don't assess the arts at all...all kinds of things wrong with the damn things. For a system that is so obviously flawed, i don't understand why people invest so much in them.

problem based learning

I am a big fan of the problem based learning. As a history teacher, it can be difficult to think of ways to get your point accross to kids without having to bore them with lectures and readings. PBL allows a teachers to get the kids to see the practicality of history. So many times we hear from little kids that they don't understand the point of history. A PBL activity can let the kids see how the past effects their present. It might be learning about how a neighborhood became more and more segregated, how a river became more and more polluted or how and why a city ordinance came into effect...the possibilities are endless.
Another quality of PBL that I like is the research aspects that it teaches kids. In most cases, when solving a PBL activity the kids will use the internet to search for some bit of information. So many people use the internet for such mind-numbing stuff that its good to teach kids that there is a lot of valuable informaiton on the internet as well. PBL could also get kids into a library and get them to open up some of those book things they've been hearing so much about.

And i just have to say..there is nothing worse than being at the bar and realizing that you have to read and blog when u get home. its my own problem for procrastinating but damn this deadline sucks.