A Financial Reward for Putting Off College?

Getting paid to not go to college? That is what I thought at first when I looked at this article. However really what they are saying is that many institutions are beginning to encourage students to take a year off before they start college and do some sort of public service. Some schools are giving finical benefits to students who do this and others are simply helping to provide the public service opportunities.
Dickinson College, in Carlisle PA, promotes offers $10,000 in credit towards tuition for every year of full-time public service, with a cap at four years, or $40,000. Many universities prefer that you do your work through Americorps. This corporation for national and community service will provide $4,725 for a year of full-time service. Many universities then match that.
Princeton University encourages students to take a year off and apply for their Bridge Year program where they match students up with host families in Ghana, India, Peru, or Serbia. This program had 54 students apply for it and only 20 were accepted. Overall schools are saying that they want students to broaden students’ perspectives before they start working toward their careers.
I think this is a very interesting idea. Many students would gain a lot from this experience and it just might help some students “grow up” a bit before their start trying to figure out what they want to do with their life. With our economy in crisis it is also a good way to save money without having to join a form of military branch. I think if schools want this type of thing to be successful they should advertise it more. I have never heard of it before this article. I think it would have been something fun and would have been a great learning experience for me.

http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/a-financial-reward-for-putting-off-college/

Post-Columbine Programs Help Prevent Rampages

Even though experts agree there is no certain way to prevent another school shooting many schools are taking steps to prevent rampages. Jeff Daniels, a counseling psychologist at West Virginia University studies schools that have dealt with school shootings and observed what types of programs they now have in place to make sure it does not happen again. Some of the things you will see now is a lot of respect for students and for teachers. Before school it is not uncommon to see teachers and students visiting in the cafeteria. School officials have effectively communicated to students the difference between snitching and getting help in a crisis situation. Along with taking rumors seriously, anti-bulling programs, and staff training, these schools feel they are making their schools safer. Colorado has developed a Safe2Tell tip line that covers threats to safety. Some LA schools have developed Safe School Ambassadors programs to help student empower themselves to keep communication open with each other and watch for signs of threatening situations. Even though many educators are feeling they are making the step in the right direction some teachers say that it still only takes one kid. My comment to that is how many of those one kids did these actions stop? School shootings do not have to be something that we have to except and deal with. We need to do everything we can to make our schools safer and why anyone would not want to do that is beyond me. Not only are we teaching our children skills that they can use when they are in the school but also when they are older in the real world. These are life skills. In our school district we stress life skills in elementary school of flexibility, cooperation, and trustworthiness. These skills don’t have to stop when you get to junior high. They just change and become more of things that kids should be educated about. It is better to talk about things upfront then be caught in a situation.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-04-13-columbine-effects-schools_N.htm

Facing Deficits, Some States Cut Summer School

Florida, North Carolina, Delaware, California and Washington are only a few of the states that are struggling with their school budgets this year. These districts are trying to find ways to make things work and one of them is cutting the summer school programs. The federal stimulus law is giving $100 billion dollars to public education and many educational leaders are urging schools to use that money to keep schools open in the summer. Not all school districts are in the “hurt bag.” Some schools are using the stimulus money to fund full-day summer school at the low performing schools. During these days the kids do math and reading but also are exposed to science, gym, and outdoor activities. When school districts are looking to cut programs many districts see summer school as a “frill.” Let’s hope this budget cut does not come to haunt these districts when they see their assessment results in the fall.
After reading this article I was very surprised to see that some districts have to cut programs completely. Currently, I am teaching summer school at a school that has a program that is not necessarily for low achieving students but anyone who is interested in maintaining skills over the summer. In the past, this program has been very fun and hands on as far as learning. Teachers now say they are disgusted because it is getting to be more paper and pencil. This year our school district took some of the federal stimulus money and bought an actual summer school reading curriculum for us to use. It is a very nice program but I also feel that it is a little too intense for summer school. The kids have been really great about it and have not complained. The feeling from our district was that they wanted to see test scores improve and to do that they wanted to see if the kids who were in summer school will improve more than the kids who were not exposed to this reading curriculum. Personally, I think that by cutting programs completely you are opening up a new can of worms. Many students who would normally come to summer school will receive little if any education this summer and regression will take place. I hope I am wrong but I think the answer here is to cut back time or funds instead of cutting completely.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/education/02school.html?_r=1&ref=education

I spy...future gamblers in your kindergarten class?

It’s one month into the school year and as I look out at my kindergarten class I can tell you the ones that have trouble sitting in their desks and whose attention is sixty percent of the time on anything but me. These are the kids that are in need of some extra attention in the form of direction, discipline, or medication. According to researchers from the Université de Montréal and the Saint-Justine University Research Center these are also the kids that we should be monitoring for a possible gambling addiction. Wait! Did I hear that right? We are monitoring kids for gambling addictions in Kindergarten!
This study presented links between children who showed impulsive behavior in Kindergarten, and then were later checked on in six years later to be found spending time playing cards for money, placing bets on sports, among other things. The study however did not say if the children where participating in any other negative behaviors such as drinking, drugs, sex, or vandalism. The main stressed point was that the five year olds with impulsivity problems had a twenty five percent increased risk of a gambling addiction later in life.
Don’t break down and start panic just yet if your child is making impulsive decisions. You can still save them. The intervention needs to take place before they turn seven when their frontal lobe is growing. The frontal lobe is responsible for cognitive behavior so their future problems need to be fixed now. Researchers suggest teaching your impulsive child the, “Stop, Look, and Listen” routine. This can help your child stop what they are doing, look around their environment, and listen in order to calm themselves into making a more intelligible decision. Also modeling good intelligible decision making will help your child.
Personally, I laughed when I read this article. I envisioned myself calling a parent in for a special meeting and then telling them that I am fearful that their child might develop a possible gambling addiction and that we need to take action now. Yes, I agree that children in Kindergarten are developing and we need to be modeling appropriate behaviors and trying to correct their impulsive behavior now so that it does not become a problem for them in the future but we are not doctors and some kids no matter what we do are going to have attention issues down the road. I don’t believe just because a child can not pay attention and is easily distracted they will be a future gambler. I do believe they might have a more likely chance to dabble in a variety of negative behaviors but not just gambling.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/dailydose/03/03/children.kindergartners.gambling/index.html#cnnSTCText

Economy Forces 2009 Grads to Dump Dream Colleges

Of the nation’s 3.3 million 2009 high school graduates, many parents are pushing their children to go to state universities instead of their “dream college" states USA Today. This does not come as a shock to anyone who was read a paper or listened to the news in the past year but our economy is making an impact on every aspect of our lives. The National Association for College Admission Counseling conducted a survey to see where students would be going to school in the fall in response to our economy. Their findings were not surprising. Many parents are finding that they do not have the money to send their child to the dream college they always wanted to. Parents who had their child’s college education fund in the stock market have seen that money cut in half, if not more. Students are still applying to these “dream schools,” but are waiting to find out what type of financial aid packages they will receive before they make their final decision. One fact that I thought was positive in all of this economic sadness was that of the 658 high schools nationally that responded to this survey, nearly 85 % of the students did not plan to delay college because of the economy. For now students are not forgetting about their dream schools. They are just planning on making them their “graduate dream schools.”
Over the past year it is no lie that it has been hard to watch friends & family lose jobs, make cut backs, and put some of their dreams on hold. It is not always fair but something that we all have to do. Personally I don’t feel that these students are giving up something that is going to drastically impact their lives. I went to Fargo South High School, in Fargo ND, and while I was growing up and many of the students graduating stated they were going to University of Nevada Las Vegas or Texas Christian University. I was going to Valley City State University and I was not upset about it one bit. First of all it was a ton cheaper and my parents were willing to pay for it. I received scholarships and worked my entire college career to help with it but in the end I received a great education and I landed a great job out of college. I think once these graduates step out into the “real world” and see that it is not all about name recondition they will realize they made the right choice for both them and their wallets.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-06-09-college-economy_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Personal Comments on Planning in Reflection from Textbook Teaching Strategies: A Guide to Effective Instruction

“If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail.” I will always remember this quote that a teacher stated to me in college when we were learning about planning. To me planning is something with teaching that I have not got the hang of yet. In college it seems like we had to do these in-depth lesson plans that stated our objectives, standards, review, lesson, and post lesson questions. It looked great when it was done but in the real world of teaching never did I use this. Sure, I think it was good that I knew what a good lesson should look like even if I shorten it down in the classroom but it is hard to really think about doing that every day for three or four subjects. While reading this week’s chapters in our textbook Teaching Strategies: A Guide to Effective Instruction I started to think about how this material would be used my classroom. Although I don’t think I do a very good job of laying out my lesson on paper everyday I think I have a very good idea of what my goals and objectives are, I try to review and present new material in different ways to reach all types of learners, and I keep a copy of the state standards by my desk and refer to my standardized report card to make sure I am covering all the bases. I do find it difficult when I am looking at my teachers manual to find time to do the activities that they want me to fit into the curriculum while still bringing in some personal material to make my lessons fun and engaging. One comment from our textbook that I really liked was that planning should be looked at as a guide and a requirement.
At a Kindergarten level planning for me was difficult because my lesson depended on so many different things. First of all I would only be able to keep their attention on something for a maximum of twenty minutes and it would have to be during a time of day where they would be willing to listen. As weird as this may sound if the weather pattern was different such as rain, storm, or snow then the kids would be wild so it would not be quality teaching time. I found myself writing down plans in my lesson plan book and never opening it because I would either remember what I wanted to teach or I would have my materials ready and I would just grab them and go into action. At the start of the week I thought of everything I wanted to do but I would not write it down since my principal does not require it. It always felt like a waste of my time to do that when it changed if the students did not understand the material or I could tell they were not ready for something. Our curriculum flows so nicely that once I got the hang of it it was not hard to figure out what would be coming next. The only times I really sat down and wrote nice plans was when I knew that I was going to be observed for an entire lesson. I think as I become a more experienced teacher this will become easier and I will feel more benefits to planning. If anyone has any advice about planning I would love to hear it.

More higher-income families are home schooling their children

While considering different topics to write about I came across a topic that immediately caught my attention. It was posted in the May 28th edition of the USA TODAY newspaper entitled More higher-income families are home schooling their children. The article talks about how home schooling has nearly doubled in the past decade and the majority of the people who are choosing to home school their children come from white, wealthy, and well-educated families. Also the number of girls compared to boys has also increased. What are the reasons that parents are now deciding to home school their children? The U.S. Department of Education was questioning that same topic and they found that, “36% of parents said their most important reason for home schooling was to provide “religious or moral instruction”; 21% cited concerns about school environment, and 17% cited “dissatisfaction with academic instruction.” The article also commented that ten years ago the majority of home school children came from families that earned an average of less than $50,000 a year. Today the trend has reversed stating that the majority are from families who earn more than $50,000 a year.
Personally, I get a little defensive when I hear that people home school their children. As a teacher I take pride in giving children a quality education and when someone does not feel satisfied with our environment or academic instruction it upsets me. I consider myself a Christian and I do attend a church but I don’t feel the need to keep certain children away from other children because they do not come a Christian background. I don’t feel like you can shelter a child their whole life and expect that they are going to have the perfect childhood. I don’t want the perfect childhood for my kids. I want them to be prepared for things that will happen in the “real world” and if that means having your juice box stolen at lunch then so be it. My main point in why I feel this way is because I don’t feel like the child has the opportunity to make lots of new friends and interact with them in an environment that is outside of the home where the child can feel a little independent. Rarely, have I seen a child that has been home schooled be brought into the school system and they are just willing to talk and be a part of school sports and academic teams and just really caught on to the social scene. They are the kids that get good grades but never speak up because they are afraid of what others might think of them. Some home school environments work well and parents have their children involved in many outside activities to help socialize them. I just hope that if a child says to their parents that they want to attend a regular or private school they would allow them to.

Toppo, G. (May 28th, 2009). More higher-income families are home schooling their children. USA TODAY. Retrieved June 4, 2009, from http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-05-28-homeschooling-report_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Greta Delparte