Question about School Systems???

I have always wondered this and continue to.....I understand why school systems fingerprint employees before beginning employment, but why don't they do a checkup on the employees after a couple of years?  This makes no sense to me? Its like a free card to those that break the law. Once they are in the school system, they are never fingerprinted again? I do hope there is another method that alerts the school system of teachers that have broken the law....If not this does worry me as a future parent.  My children will be starting school soon and I do not want to think their teacher is some type of criminal (and no one will even know due to lack of taking to test our employees)

Blog # 5

I chose to review the site Hidden Problems of Child Farm workers.  The issue within this site has a great impact with education. Children of migrant workers are feeling the need to “work” for their family;therefore, they are dropping out of school at very young ages.  There is another downside to these children dropping out of school as well.  Since they are performing agriculture work, the current United States Child Labor Law does not apply to them.  So children can actually work as young as 10 years old with parental consent.  

I read a letter of a young boy that dropped out of school to work for his family.  This was heart wrenching.  He explained that his dad had diabetes and could work no longer.  To continue living, he and his siblings had to drop out of school to work on a farm to support their family.  This young boy felt that it was his duty to take care of his family rather than spend his days at school.  Now after the death of his father, this young man is craving an education to break the migrant cycle.  I applaud him for his goals!

My school system has several Hispanic families.  I distinctly remember having a conversation with a young girl one time about this same topic.  She was 12 years old and actually paid to come help our teachers as a translator.  She was a very intelligent young girl.  I could see her succeeding and going so far with her future.  One day when she was with me in my classroom, she confided in me and said she was going to drop out of school.  I asked her why?  She said her parents needed her more at home.  She felt that she needed to assist them.  Of course, I tried to change her mind and tried to show her how many opportunities her future would hold.  These opportunities in turn could help her family.  To this day, I do not know what she did.  I do hope she made the right choice.

Blog #4---Culture Diversity

Culture Diversity is always going to be a part of our world.  Therefore, it will be a part of our education and our schools as well.  Currently, there have debates with multiculturalism as part of the education curriculum.  I agree with the article written by Adam Waxler. He exemplified the significace of keeping the current curriculum along with incorporating various cultures into the lesson.  Instead of having teachers, break a part each culture into single lessons such as Women History Month. He shows how teachers can incorporated many cultures into one lesson.  His example is: World War II Unit and split students into various culture groups.  I loved this author’s idea!  I believe this way of teaching shows students how to form their own point of view.

In the article written by E.D Hirch, he exemplifies the unfairness the curriculum has on student’s in the United States.  Since our country can not agree on the issue of multiculturalism, every school is teaching something different.  Therefore, when a child moves districts or even schools, they may fall behind or miss information due to a lack in each teacher’s curriculum.  

I personally, I  have had a wonderfully experience with diversity in the classroom.  The previous school system that I taught kindergarten in, I usually had half a classroom of non-English speaking children.  Many of my families were Hispanic families.  The children as well as their parent did not speak English. Since I taught kindergarten, this made it a little difficult, but extremely fun! I loved the challenge and absolutely loved my sweet children.  Every year I always made sure I knew certain phrases for my Hispanic students.  By the end of the year, it was amazing to see the turn around my students made.  They would be translating for their parents.  It was so amazing!

My School System was also prepared for this culture diversity.  Every year parent notes, policy procedures, report cards, and etc went home translated in Spanish.  When we had open house, parent/teacher conferences, or any school activities, the school always provided translators.  I believe this was a wonderful resource for the Hispanic families.

In my opinion, people judge too much. After working with Hispanic families, I have found that they care so much for their children and their education.  Sometimes, I had more Hispanic families show up for events or conferences to support their children than did any other type of family.  I wish people would stop judging “books” by their cover...and remember this song

“Red, or green, black,or white, they are precious in his sight....”

Diversity and Multiculturalism

In our society there is always going to be the question of discrimination.  I would not have expected this to ever come into play with our history books, but to my surprise it has.  When I think back to the days when I was learning history in school, I never once considered the books “favoring” a certain side.  I just enjoyed the stories of our ancestors and enjoyed learning about the lives people once lived.  

After reading the article by Samuel Taylor, I find it absurd that schools are changing their history text books to fit their needs.  Such as the almost 92 % black school rewriting their textbooks to be African American perspective.  In my eyes, this is rejecting American culture and babying students.  It is significant that students to learn ALL about American history which includes all cultures..

The “Pithissippi Burning” and “ Why Multicultural is Wrong” we see the exemplification of hate and unnecessary categorization.  In our world today, there is to much hate.  For me personally, I do not understand where the hatred come from...is it from an individuals personal life? their family? their home?  This hatred in turn is extended toward others and that is why we see the increase in crimes/murders.

On the other hand, we also see unnecessary categorization of cultures.  For example: if someone has two mexican parents, the child is born mexican, but if the child is born in the United States....the child is an American citizen. People judge very quickly and easily and would assume this person is Mexican before finding out the truth.  

I have seen the effects of diversity within the classroom, even as young as 5 years old.  When I see this happen, it makes me feel that the child sees this from their own parent.  This saddens me because I know their example is not the best in the world.

Senseless Triple Murders in a Small Town

Ok....I know this blog is more for educational purposes, but today I need to use it for personal reflection.  Last week in my small town of Manchester we had a very senseless triple murder of a mother and her two children.  Why???? I can not get over this.  I did not know this family, but her children were the same ages as my boys.  She knew the man that did this and he has children of his own. He is claiming post traumatic stress from the war, but I am not falling for this. why? I guess because of the way he killed them. It is took gruesome to even discuss, but he placed bodies in garabage bags....this is just too much! It breaks my heart. I can't even imagine how this mother felt when this man was hurting her family.  I keep thinking what would I do if this was me and my children...I want to move past this and I know I will. I really don't even know why it bothers me so much since I didn't know them...but I know this man needs the most severe type of punishment. He will have a punishment waiting for him when this world ends.

Debates in School

The first article discusses the aspect of religion and a “moment of silence” in public schools.  Students were required to observe a time of silence, but an Illinois judge ruled against this law already in place. Ok..ever since I have been in school I can always remember the few seconds we observed for a moment of silence, but I have never once had any teacher tell me what I had to do in those few seconds.  Of course, as a christian, yes I have always used the moment of silence as a time a prayer for the beginning of my day.  I just do not understand why some money hungry family had to go to court complaining that the moment of silence was forcing religion his daughter.  It honestly angers me that people are trying to take God out of everything thing that exists.  If it wasn’t for God, You would not be here....

Continuing on through the first article, we find a court case discussing textbook issues concerning evolution and creationism.  Although, at this point there has been no re-write.  My thoughts on this section is if teachers have to teach evolution, then they should be able to teach creationism.  There are many more teachers that believe in creationism then do evolution. Teachers need to keep a conservative view.  It does not matter which one they believe in and no student needs to be ridiculed for their beliefs as well.  Everyone is an individual and deserves to create their own belief.

The second article discusses the aspect of the flag being thought of as another form of idolatry.  According to two Jehovah Witness Children, they refused to salute and say the pledge allegiance to the American flag due to this reason.  This case was taken to court favored on the side of the children. In my personal opinion, I believe people can just take things too far.  As a christian myself, I never once considered the flag as another idol.  I feel it is my duty to my country to show my patriotism.  After all, look at what the men and women do for me without even knowing my name! 

The views in both articles are different in that one case is concerned about prayer and the other case is concerned about idolatry.  The articles compare because they are both about religion in the school system.  It amazes me to see the religion issues started as early as 1935.  Ever since we decided to take God out of our school, we started to see problems.  Now that we are starting to take God out of our government and public standings, we will continue to see a rise in problems. 

Innovators vs Real Makers of Education

The PBS site exhibited various types of innovators that have created an impact on our education system.  Catherine Beecher is one innovator that was exemplified on the PBS site.  I chose her as the one innovator that I feel truly influenced public education today.  She promoted her life to show the significance of education for women and children.  If she never exemplified the importance of education for women, then I may not have the privilege I do this present day to receive the education I do.  Additionally, my children may not receive the type of education they do if Catherine Beecher never took a stand for women and children.  Due to her courage for education, women and children receive great privileges with education today!

The Gatto site exhibited various types of makers in our education field. If I have to choose a maker that influenced education, I will choose Henry Ford.  I chose him because his assembly line grew and emerged such as the education field does.  In my personal reflection though, I do not feel the “makers” had a greater impact on education than did the innovators.

The difference that I see between the innovators and the makers are far and between.  The innovators had more of an impact on the education field.  The makers had more of an impact on the industrial/business field.  Although both did have an impact and change lives of others as we see in the past and today.