Two Weeks Worth

Two weeks of class have gone by already since my last post. We had discussions about controversial blogs and how schools are all different and how they evolved into what they are today. Interesting opinions about the teacher who blogged about her students. Most of the class felt this was awful and you should never talk bad about a kid on the internet. A few supported her rights as an American citizen and her freedom of speech. I was on the fence. While I feel she should have the right to vent her frustrations to whomever she chooses, I also feel that as an educator it is her responsibility to protect her students from negativity. I am sure her students went right on the internet and clicked around until they found her posts. Yes she is able to make mean comments, but as a teacher, she should use her best judgement and not post her innermost feelings on the world wide web. I work at a bank, but I don't write on my blog about the ways customers bother me. That is rude and inconsiderate. Maybe she didn't feel that way when she was rude on her blog, but it sure is a big deal now.
We also talked about community learning in both the Reggio environment and another community for learning in Mexico. It gives the student the opportunity to pick what they learn and focus on instead of an administrator or politician making up the curriculum. We talked about the curriculum in a school and how we constantly add more and more to it, but take nothing away. I found it surprising that private schools and home schools have no regulations or rules to follow except to hold class for 180 days per year and take attendance. Its so odd.
The more we talk each week about the difficulties facing educators, the more the laws and funding for education make less sense. We discussed class size for a long time and its proven that smaller classes in lower grades produce more successful students. Why are we cutting funding and cutting teacher jobs to cram 35+ kids into a first grade classroom? It makes no sense.
One more brain buster. Why are teachers fighting and complaining about their salaries? Teachers have never made the big bucks, so why not fight for something that might benefit the students? Maybe fight for smaller class sizes or more funding for the performing arts. It bothers me every week that there is so much fighting and arguing going on about education. Let's just focus on getting kids to school every day and teaching them something. Kids don't care about funding and salaries, they care about knowing their teacher is going to be there every day as someone they can count on and trust and look to for guidance and answers. I think teaching should focus on the student, not all this other noise going on.

Melissa