Lots of work!

Since my placement was later than the rest of the class this Thanksgiving week has been a push to get all the information needed for the class complete.  As I look back at the 15 hours of classroom experience, I do feel that versus breaking it into 2 hour sessions as suggested by the school, 8 hour sessions are much better.  It is much like 1st date versus 3rd date.  By the end of the day, the students were acting like I had been there always.  The students in the classroom are much more likely to allow you to be involved.  Colleges need to do the placement of all students within a 2 week time frame.  Other college students have had 1 1/2 months to complete the assignment where I have a week.  You could not work ahead since you needed to be in the classroom and what age you were working with needed to be determined.  Aside from these items, this requirement of being in the classroom was very rewarding.

Busy life!  We have been working hard in class to get lesson plans complete and to actually do field experience.  My field experience was awesome!  I worked with 1st graders who were so eager to learn and just a joy to be around.  I actually had the opportunity to teach for 2 1/2 hours for my first time.  The student were sad that I would not be back the next day.  We worked with grinding corn between stones, made head dresses, made a tipi and understood what all the poles in a tipi mean,

15 Tipi Poles Meanings

1)      Obedience

2)      Respect

3)      Humility

4)      Happiness

5)      Love

6)      Faith

7)      Kinship

8)      Cleanliness

9)      Thankfulness

10)   Sharing

11)   Strength

12)   Good Child Rearing

13)   Hope

14)   Ultimate Protection

15)   Control Flaps

We learn by listening to traditional stories; by listening to our parents or guardians, our fellow students and our teachers.

We also got to touch arrowheards and see animal furs.  

We loved watching a POW WOW from our state being performed. 

As a class we ate corn bread and buffalo jerky.  We all really liked the jerky.

This experience was very positive.

One of the things we talked about this week was bullying.  That includes verbal and physical.  I know that this Girls are terrible with this type of action.  They need to be reminded what it would be like for them to be on the outside, so they don't do it.  Verbal bullying can even happen from people in the education system.  I know of a child were the para was constantly bullying them.  This has since stopped because the school system was alerted to this happening.  The bad part of bullying is that silent, quick type that hardly anyone notices but puts a huge impact on the child.

Webquest

This week we are learning in the technology course about webquest.  As I searched the Native American Indian subject on webquest, I found that many of the internet site links are no longer in use.  This makes the site really useless.  It reminds me that you need to maintain these sites if you plan to use them in the future.

This week we are studying inclusion in the classroom.  There are pro's and con's to this.  The pro's being the interaction opportunities for all students.  The con's are the possibility of disruption in the classroom and the teachers not given the proper tools to deal with inclusion.  I think this is very dependent on each situation.  If this is an EBD child it may not benefit anyone where as a minor learning disorder may enhance the child's ability to succeed in life.  This is very touchy and emotional to parents, students and teachers!

Discrimination

This week we learned about discrimination.  The best part of this week has been a video of a conference called "Everybody Wanna be A Nigga but Nobody Wants to be a Nigger".  One interesting fact was the lynching that occurred in Duluth MN.  The book to read about this is "They were just Niggers".  Amazing how we a a supposedly civilized and intelligent creature can be so barbaric.

Philosophy of teaching

This week we continue to study on what makes a good teacher.  One of the basics for all teachers is to have a good philosophy of teaching.  This will help a person to remember the direction they want to take as a teacher.  One critical piece I have encountered is the partnership that needs to exist between students, teachers and parents.  Another important factor is that each student is a unique individual and should be treated with respect, in turn the student will respect the teacher.