Reflection 7/30/14

Today had some interesting discussion around the book, some of which I do not know how I feel about, bu was still nice to hear. My own group put the big sentence "reality is relative" on the top of our paper, and to be honest I don't know what is meant by that. Does this mean that everyone perceives an objectively existent reality differently? Or does it mean that objective reality does not exist and nothing is really true for everyone? If the second is meant I must say that this is false. For example, we know as a scientific fact that the human body can replenish its blood, while the Hmong believe that there is limited blood in the body. They are welcome to believe this, and the fact that they do does not make them less intelligent or less worthy of dignity and respect, to the contrary their steadfastness in their beliefs I believe is an admirable quality. They are wrong however, in an objective way they are incorrect. That was a point of some confusion in class, and I do not think that it disturbs the main point of the book, but it is good to consider in class that for the most part western medicine is correct, as well as the fact that, "western medicine saves lives."

Reflection on Health Class 7/29/14

This may have been the single best class period I have experienced this whole quarter. It was engaging and our activities were concrete and it really modelled how we can teach science in our class, through asking questions and promoting discovery. I also liked the bit about thanking the animals for their body parts being used for science, I have run into the problem of students becoming upset at body parts before, and I think this would be a good way to diffuse it. Great class, I hope we have more like it when we have our science methods class.

Reflection for Monday 7/28/14

I feel like our microteaching was not very good. It was overly complicated and reflected a lack of practice and coordination in planning, because there was a lack of practice and coordination in our planning. This criticism was good to learn from and most of it was good. Of special note was the lack of ethnic food on our chart, which we should have paid attention to more, although it would be impossible to put every food under the sun down, we should have been more holistic. I hope to be able to do better next time I present something to the class.

Health Class #2 reflection

[This is Late]

I thought the class on tuesday was great, it was an interesting exercise on how to make our lesson plans incorporate physical activity. I also thought the part on the form about academic language was interesting, it reminded me of an experience I had. In the spring I worked at a school with a large number of spanish speaking immigrants. I was in an 8th grade science class, and they were talking about properties of matter. The teacher mentioned that matter has mass and some ELL students were very confused, I talked to them about them later and they asked me, "how does the scale measure how much church is in an object?" That was a really interesting experience and goes to show the importance of thinking about academic language in the planning of lessons.

Health reflection class #1

Well, today was an interesting day in health class, I'm glad that I'm done with the book so that I can focus on everything else I have to do for the class. I think the log of food and activity is an interesting assignment, it will be hard for me to pay attention to it as I usually do not, but that will be good for me.I hope to learn lots these two weeks and look forward to hearing everyone elses thoughts on the book, which I thought was very interesting.

Moving Classroom Spaces

I thought the discussion we had in class on how to best arrange classrooms was a very interesting one. I got to thinking that one need not necessarily have a singular arrangement for the classroom. With proper training, one could get the children to be able to move the tables or desks around for different situations.

I saw this fifth grade teacher in Bellingham do this once, she was in this tiny little portable of a tiny little school and she had 36 5th grade students (23 of them boys) and she had to be very creative with space. She had this set up though where students would move the desks around for different situations, the system was a little rough but it was near the beginning of the school year so I'm sure with some training they could do it really efficiently.

It reminded me of 18th and 19th century wooden naval vessels like in the movie Master and Commander with Russell Crowe. The sailors would sleep in hammocks on the gun deck, and when an enemy ship came into sight the officers would shout the command "Beat to quarters" and the crew would convert the whole area into a space of battle.

While students should not be asked to combat French privateers, I think the general idea is a sound one that can be applied in the classroom. One can have different table arrangements the children know, like one that's in a horseshoe shape, one that's in a circle, one that's in different table groups so small groups can collaborate, or stack the tables around the edge if the entire floor space is needed.

It would require some refinement but it could create opportunities that a traditional static classroom may not.

Lecture, WEST-E, and Knowledge Oh My!

I've been giving some thought to some of the themes in this class, and I'm beginning to feel a little pushback to some of them. Namely in how we discuss schooling and how it needs to be changed. I think though that maybe not everything should be changed, just because something is old or traditional does not mean that it is bad. So here are some ponderings I have. My main note is to say that this is not meant to be excessively critical, I just think these should be adressed and I prefer to listen when I'm in class.

1. One of the themes of the last class period seemed to be that lecture should be avoided when at all possible. I don't think this is true. There is a place for lecture in delivering content knowledge when the teacher has more expertise than the students. That is not to say that lecture should be the only way that knowledge is communicated, only that it should be be valued and used. Indeed, some people actually do learn best through lecturing, and some people really do enjoy a well done lecture, I would say therefore that including lecturing is a matter of teaching every student. One must also keep in mind that lecturing should only be implemented when the teacher has rich and extensive content knowledge of the subject on which he or she is lecturing, and can do a good job of delivering the lecture in a way that conveys the knowledge, is rhetorically pleasing, and frames the knowledge in a way that the students to turn it into a deeper truth with additional study. But content knowledge is key in all of this, which leads me to my next point.

2. At the last class period it was said that the WEST-Es were of limited value, but I am not so sure about that. I think that some apparatus needs to exist to measure content knowledge, because I think that that is very important. While I agree that teachers should not have to know absolutely everything about what they teach, that would require more than a handful of advanced degrees, I think it is important to have a rich knowledge on what one teaches, and this requires some extra work outside the class. If one does not take the time to learn content knowledge, one runs the risk of being wrong and spreading false information. One example of this is an incident I have seen more than a few times: the teacher is talking about Columbus with the a class and says something to the effect that Christopher Columbus was the only man in Europe who knew the earth was round. This is patently false and gives the wrong impression of the middle ages and the Renaissance. Any educated person of the day knew the earth was round, and therefore every clergyman knew it. It is alongside the term "dark ages" in making the middle ages seem like a time only of ignorance and stagnation, a "world lit only by fire." This is false however, the middle ages were actually a period of great innovation, art, and growth in Europe.

3. Finally, I understand that schooling has a multitude of purposes, and diffusion of knowledge is not the only one, but I certainly think that it is one. It is my belief that deep knowledge is good in and of itself. The intrinsic value of knowledge is devalued when completely outsourced to the internet. Google is a great tool, and it can lead to  great deal of knowledge, but I do not want to completely outsource my ability to know facts to a computer. There is value in developing deep knowledge of a subject  without the aid of a computer.  It builds perseverance and depth of knowledge. Maybe that makes me a luddite, but if it does then I'm a luddite, and proudly so. I'm not saying that we should resort to rote memorization of the capitals and such. And I do believe that teaching skills to get knowledge on the internet is important. What I am saying is that there is a place for diffusing knowledge in the classroom. This is the type of deep knowledge that can be so ingrained that the child can turn it into a truth that is meaningful to them, and thus let the knowledge turn to wisdom and shape them as they grow.

I hope that didn't sound like a tirade, at least not an angry one. I acknowledge that my comments are diffuse and need to be further developed before they are of any use. They are some old fashioned notions I think. But that doesn't make them bad.

Flavius Arrianus