Thinking about teaching while being a student

Here I sit, 12:30 AM the day of class. I waited till the last minute to get this blog updated, and now I don't know what to put on this. I can't put a class reaction, because so much time has elapsed since the last class that I can't honestly put a reaction on here. All last class is to me now is an essay and the notes. I could say that if I was the teacher of this class, I would be dissapointed in me right now. I guess it's good that I realize that, because that is the first step towards making an improvement. My major is Music Education, and my major instrument is the classical guitar. The main reason I decided to come to Montclair was my potential guitar teacher, Dennis Cinelli. At the audition, he explained to me how he teaches his students. He teaches his students how to teach themselves, and how to play the guitar with the least amount of force possible. He is big in tai chi, and he uses similar principles in his teaching. All of his teaching is centered around focusing on every little aspect of what you are doing. It is an enlightening experience to be taught by him, and all of these principles that he is teaching me for the guitar applies to everyday life. For example, I'm thinking about how it is now 12:40 AM the day of class, and I am still not done with this Blog entry. I'm suppose to be learning how to teach myself. Focus is key, and there are too many distractions around me, too many classes mainly. But I suppose I wouldn't be signed up for the schedule that I have if it wasn't possible to do good in the classes. I can do better then I'm doing. I need to start being more aware of what I am doing every day, and manage my time better with my class work.

Haiku

I rely on teachers
They get my mind working good
I stink at haikus


It may not seem like it, but I put about 15 minutes of thought into that last line. Though this may seem like a juvenile haiku written by a fifth grader, it is in fact very very deep! We all rely on teachers to get our mind working, because if I never had someone teach me anything I would still be trying to fit a square into a hole shaped like a triangle. Though you can infer by the last line that my teachers weren't all that good at teaching me, I wouldn't because I can be one lazy student (except in courses called 'Public Purposes of Education', I love that class!), and I think I just fell asleep on the day I was taught that. Oh how my addiction to late night programming haunts me!

Foundation

I enjoyed this reading. It gave a historical account of the start of the education system, and shows that the education system is a very important foundation of our American society. The people who started the school system thought educating citizens be the way to preserving the government and nation that was freshly formed. Education has been strongly encouraged to all citizens since the beggining, and I doubt without a strong education system the advancements that we have made to this day would be as bold as they are. The most interesting quote from this reading is from Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in a charter to the University of Virgina that it "will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind." I find this interesting because someone as prominent as Thomas Jefferson has the foresight not to base the education system around religion, but rather a human mind. It holds true to today, but it may be because of him. Civic education was such a genius idea, it could only come from the founding fathers time. I read this article and I am amazed that religious groups let the schools system be free of religion (for the most part *cough*pledge of allegiance*cough*). This article also highlights the importance of our education system, and how much weight a teacher has on their shoulders. It may not be as weighty as it was back in the day (I suppose someone could be socialized by wandering around the internet), but a teacher is the one profession where the primary goal is to prepare other people, just like yourself, for life and all of its uncertainties.

Demographics

This reading was very interesting. When I thought about demographics before, I didn't really put much weight into it. I figured, you either teach in a poor minority area or a middle class suburban area. I never took into consideration that even in the good suburban areas, there are still people of different cultures to take into consideration. I do owe some of that naiveness to my hometown. 88% of Freehold is white, with the next largest demographic being Asians with 5%. Pretty much everyone is in the same income bracket (most of my fellow Freeholdians fall between 50,000 to 150,000 dollars per year). These readings definitely give me a better perspective of what the education system looks like as a whole, and also makes me think about what kind of school setting I want to work in.

Dear Martian Teachers,

Question Number One,

Schools are seperated into local school districts, which there are over 14,000 in the US. They are funded by mostly state and local institutions, and get little money from the national level. Some schools are underfunded, depending on how well a district is funded by their local institutions. What a school is like varies depending on what school district you look at, because depending on how much money they have. Some schools are severely underfunded and don’t even have enough money for new textbooks, while others have enough money to buy whatever they want.

Question Number Two,

America as a nation is also known as, "the melting pot" of the world. Since the birth of our nation individuals from other countries have fled to this land in search opportunity. Because of this we have a created a nation full of diversity. One cannot classify a typical American under physical characteristics. Because of this, the students who fill our classrooms come from all parts of the world. They range in age, knowledge, language, and ethnicity. 53% of students are white, 24% are Latino, 15% African American, 6% multiracial, and 5% Asian. But all have one intended goal. America's students are a diverse population working towards an academic degree in the field of their choice.

Question Number Three,

most of our teachers are highly educated in their field, and are looking to be further educated. 9 out of 10 are white, and 8 out of 10 are female. The percentage of teachers who are African American is ever declining since the 1970’s. Teaching is a very important but highly stressful job, and 46% of new teaches leave within the first 5 years.

I hope this information is useful to you Martians. Please don't attack us.

Love,
Earth Teachers

Reaction to the first reading

I liked the first reading for the class. It gave a lot of useful information that teachers should know about the education system. It explained that the education system is not perfect, and there are many issues that teachers will have to deal with. The section about the amount of funding a school gets I thought was interesting.

I found a few things surprising in this reading:

The US has a decentralized education system, which is odd because the education system is an important foundation of our way of living

Policies are often made at a local level, not a national level

Fundamental aspects of eduction vary from state to state

Most the money is coming from the state or local level, even though it is getting more expensive to put kids through the school system, but the amount given to school systems hasn't changed.

A lot of education districts are severely underfunded, and is causing a problem for those districts

It is surprising that when we get older, statistically we would be less efficient in applying what we learned at school compared to other countries