Sunday, April 29, 2012
PLN update
During the course of this semester I have learned many things that have to do with technology. I never knew that there were so many websites that I could visit that would allow me to retrieve information. Google has become my new best friend. On some of my projects that I worked on during the semester required group work. Skype was a big help for this because we could meet online without actually having to go to class. I have heard that google hangout was pretty cool, but I never tried using it. I guess I will have to do that soon. I used symbaloo to create my own PLN, which is a personal learning network. The one I posted above is what I have so far. I am sure that I will add to it over the years. I use all of these things to help me learn in some way or another. Of course I mentioned skype, but twitter has helped a lot as well and so has facebook. These are both easy ways to communicate with other students or teachers and get advice from them. I hope to be able to update it every year as I learn more about things.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Blog Post 13
When I first read this assignment, I was not happy at all. I didn't think that there was any way that I could get by without using my cell phone, watching television, or using my computer or iPod(especially for facebook) for 24 hours. I didn't like the fact that this was an assignment. I didn't know how long I would make it either. I have a boyfriend who I don't get to communicate much with except by text messaging throughout the day because he has a full time job as well as children that he has with him every day. I also have a 3 year old that my mother keeps for me while I am at school. I didn't like the fact that I wouldn't be able to stay in touch with her throughout the day to see how their day was going. On the first day I made it a few hours before I gave in and returned a text. There is just no way that I could look at my phone and see that I had a text message and not return it. It was hard for me. So I started over. On the second day I did make it a little farther because I was home all day that day, but my son likes to watch television at night, so I gave in and watched a little bit of tv with him before he went to bed. My third and final day was so hard. I had made it so far the second day so I had to struggle through this last day. It really made me realize how dependent I am on technology. I am sad to say that I didn't make it through my final day either. I had to use my computer to check to see if some emails had come through because I had recently filled out some job applications. I was ashamed to find that I was so dependent on technology to get me through my day. I don't know what I would do if something happened to where we didn't have this readily available to us every day. I guess I would find other things to take time off of my hands. I think that when students arrive in my classroom they will sneak to use their cell phones(just like I have done numerous times). I think they will feel like I did these past three days. It's hard to not have the freedom that you want. I was used to using my phone, computer, and iPod on almost an hourly basis, and for me not to be able to do it felt awful. I think that I will be able to identify with my students more so now that I have done this exercise than I would have before.
C4T for 4/29
Ugly Learning by Brian Bennett
This post was about how Mr. Bennett was speaking on behalf of new teachers. He stated that we did not need to judge our teaching on our students grades. He says that we are stuck in a day in age where students want to be "pretty". Messy is bad in other words. Mistakes aren't good. He said that we needed to embrace the fact that learning is caused by mistakes. I agreed with him. We learn by trial and error. If we never make mistakes then we can never learn anything and we need to apply this with our students as well as our teaching. Making mistakes in our teaching can only make us more experienced teachers in the long run.
How to Create an Effective Study Guide by Brian Bennett
This post was about how Mr. Bennet believes that to create an effective study guide we should allow for room for error. He gives a few steps to creating an effective study guide. He doesn't think that a teacher should give a grade for the study guide, but that it should be praised for being completed. He also thought that students shouldn't be given study guides to memorize that had facts, but one that encouraged analytical and critical thinking skills. I agreed with this because there have been numerous times when I have had a test and was given a study guide and I just memorized the whole thing. I never had to actually think about what I was writing, so once I got into college I was blown away at the fact that I wasn't going to be spoon fed anymore. I also love how he encourages mistakes. Mistakes are what help children learn, and when they make mistakes and they aren't totally blasted for it, then it teaches them to learn from their mistakes instead of thinking that the world over because they messed up one time.
This post was about how Mr. Bennett was speaking on behalf of new teachers. He stated that we did not need to judge our teaching on our students grades. He says that we are stuck in a day in age where students want to be "pretty". Messy is bad in other words. Mistakes aren't good. He said that we needed to embrace the fact that learning is caused by mistakes. I agreed with him. We learn by trial and error. If we never make mistakes then we can never learn anything and we need to apply this with our students as well as our teaching. Making mistakes in our teaching can only make us more experienced teachers in the long run.
How to Create an Effective Study Guide by Brian Bennett
This post was about how Mr. Bennet believes that to create an effective study guide we should allow for room for error. He gives a few steps to creating an effective study guide. He doesn't think that a teacher should give a grade for the study guide, but that it should be praised for being completed. He also thought that students shouldn't be given study guides to memorize that had facts, but one that encouraged analytical and critical thinking skills. I agreed with this because there have been numerous times when I have had a test and was given a study guide and I just memorized the whole thing. I never had to actually think about what I was writing, so once I got into college I was blown away at the fact that I wasn't going to be spoon fed anymore. I also love how he encourages mistakes. Mistakes are what help children learn, and when they make mistakes and they aren't totally blasted for it, then it teaches them to learn from their mistakes instead of thinking that the world over because they messed up one time.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Blog Post #12
One of the assignments that I think we should have been assigned to do this semester is to
1) watch the video "The Importance of Writing Skills: Online Tools to Encourage Success",
2)give your opinion of the video, as well as what you learned about the video.
3)to explain the purpose of this video
4)do you think that this video will be useful to you as a teacher.
The purpose in watching this video is to show students how blogging can increase your writing skills as well as show students how much they actually need to know how to write. As a future English teacher, I think that writing is very important for someone to know how to do. I have proofread numerous papers on college levels for my fellow classmates and I have been surprised at their quality, or lack thereof, of writing. It is sad to me that grown adults don't know how to write. I am in no way trying to sound arrogant, but it is easy for me to write papers, but I try to find sympathy for students who can't write as easily as I can.
In this video he states that blogging can greatly improve your writing skills. Using it in the classroom is a great way to do that. He encourages teachers to give it a try. He also talked about something called student interactives, which is a website(read, write, think) where students can go and it gives them things to use to help them work on their writing skills. One of the examples he used was the bubble tool for writing. This is where you group ideas that are similar in bubbles and this helps you construct each paragraph. He also talked about a note taking skills tutorial.
This helps students take good notes so that they can organize them into a paper at a later date if needed to. It shows them how to outline things, which is helpful while writing a paper. There are many tools that are available on this link. His last example was a "model bank", which was a website with interactive versions of of successful writing in common High School and Middle School formats. I think this is an excellent source of help for students. It gives an example of the paper, and then off to the side it gives examples of what is going on in different areas of the paragraph or essay. This is great, because many students don't know how to put a just a paragraph in chronological order, much less a whole essay.
This video was great. I was very interested in it, of course, because I am a writer. I enjoy writing down information for others to read. Writing papers isn't a big deal to me. I thought that this was a very informative video to show students what the benefits are of blogging, as well as what it means to write well and it gave some successful tools to use for students who aren't good at writing papers.
1) watch the video "The Importance of Writing Skills: Online Tools to Encourage Success",
2)give your opinion of the video, as well as what you learned about the video.
3)to explain the purpose of this video
4)do you think that this video will be useful to you as a teacher.
The purpose in watching this video is to show students how blogging can increase your writing skills as well as show students how much they actually need to know how to write. As a future English teacher, I think that writing is very important for someone to know how to do. I have proofread numerous papers on college levels for my fellow classmates and I have been surprised at their quality, or lack thereof, of writing. It is sad to me that grown adults don't know how to write. I am in no way trying to sound arrogant, but it is easy for me to write papers, but I try to find sympathy for students who can't write as easily as I can.
In this video he states that blogging can greatly improve your writing skills. Using it in the classroom is a great way to do that. He encourages teachers to give it a try. He also talked about something called student interactives, which is a website(read, write, think) where students can go and it gives them things to use to help them work on their writing skills. One of the examples he used was the bubble tool for writing. This is where you group ideas that are similar in bubbles and this helps you construct each paragraph. He also talked about a note taking skills tutorial.
This helps students take good notes so that they can organize them into a paper at a later date if needed to. It shows them how to outline things, which is helpful while writing a paper. There are many tools that are available on this link. His last example was a "model bank", which was a website with interactive versions of of successful writing in common High School and Middle School formats. I think this is an excellent source of help for students. It gives an example of the paper, and then off to the side it gives examples of what is going on in different areas of the paragraph or essay. This is great, because many students don't know how to put a just a paragraph in chronological order, much less a whole essay.
This video was great. I was very interested in it, of course, because I am a writer. I enjoy writing down information for others to read. Writing papers isn't a big deal to me. I thought that this was a very informative video to show students what the benefits are of blogging, as well as what it means to write well and it gave some successful tools to use for students who aren't good at writing papers.
Creativity and Curiosity: My Thoughts-special post 12A
Progress Report on Final Project
Our group has skyped and discussed about our final project once already and we are planning on meeting to discuss the rest of it this next week after we record our project #15. We have had great teamwork and once we got everyone's schedule worked out, it seemed like everyone pretty much wanted to work together to make sure that this is a good project. Our group members are well coordinated and we seem to have a good bit of communication. We either email one another or text each other a few times a week just to touch base and see where we stand. We have had 3 or 4 group meetings so far.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
C4K for April
Natalie's Blog-Global Connections
Natalie's blog post was about how she is trying to get people to translate the Bible into 223 languages that are spoken in The Dominican Republic of the Congo. She seemed very passionate about this and even posted a video that explained what was going on there. There were many women who were raped and their husbands had to leave them because the situation was too dangerous for them to stay with their wives and children. She stated that the Bible can bring healing to so many people, especially those that have experienced warfare. I then told her that I attend a church here in Grand Bay and we take part in mission trips to Guatemala and El Salvador and I had been on 5 mission trips myself. I told her that I understood her passion to bring God's word to people around the world. In the video it stated that the church was being blamed for some of the problems there in the Congo and for some reason someone had said that Christians were killing people there. I asked her if she knew any more details about that part of the video and why they were being blamed.
White Tail Buck
This post was mainly about a white tail buck. He just said that he hunted white tail buck with his family and friends and that it was native to Vermont and New England. I told him that I was a hunter myself and that I had killed a few deer in my lifetime. I asked him how many deer he had ever killed as well as if he had ever killed buck and how big it was if so. I also encouraged him to keep blogging. I told him that this was a great way to learn things about people.
Atown Hard
This post was about a boy named Joe who liked to wakeboard, ride motorcycles and go to a town called Atiamuri. He is from New Zealand. He described this as his favorite place in the world to go. I told him that i had ridden motorcycles before and that it seems like I would really like this place called Atiamuri. He also said that he plays rugby and I asked him if he was interested in any other sports. I told him that we had a group here at our university who played rugby and I would like to watch the sport, but I had never found the time to do it.
Playing with Mom and Dad
This blog post was by a little boy named Tucker. He described in a sentence how he liked playing with his Mom and Dad. They like to play the games Checkers and Connect 4. I told him how when I was little I loved to play those games and that playing games with my parents was a lot of fun for me. I told him that our favorite games were Trouble and Chutes and Ladders. I then asked him if he had ever played those games before and if he hadn't then he should try them because they are a lot of fun. I also encouraged him about his blogging. I told him that it was great that as a first grader that he was already interested in blogging online and told him to keep up the good work. This was a sweet blog post for me. I enjoyed reading it I think because he is so young and there is an innocence about his writing because of that.
Natalie's blog post was about how she is trying to get people to translate the Bible into 223 languages that are spoken in The Dominican Republic of the Congo. She seemed very passionate about this and even posted a video that explained what was going on there. There were many women who were raped and their husbands had to leave them because the situation was too dangerous for them to stay with their wives and children. She stated that the Bible can bring healing to so many people, especially those that have experienced warfare. I then told her that I attend a church here in Grand Bay and we take part in mission trips to Guatemala and El Salvador and I had been on 5 mission trips myself. I told her that I understood her passion to bring God's word to people around the world. In the video it stated that the church was being blamed for some of the problems there in the Congo and for some reason someone had said that Christians were killing people there. I asked her if she knew any more details about that part of the video and why they were being blamed.
White Tail Buck
This post was mainly about a white tail buck. He just said that he hunted white tail buck with his family and friends and that it was native to Vermont and New England. I told him that I was a hunter myself and that I had killed a few deer in my lifetime. I asked him how many deer he had ever killed as well as if he had ever killed buck and how big it was if so. I also encouraged him to keep blogging. I told him that this was a great way to learn things about people.
Atown Hard
This post was about a boy named Joe who liked to wakeboard, ride motorcycles and go to a town called Atiamuri. He is from New Zealand. He described this as his favorite place in the world to go. I told him that i had ridden motorcycles before and that it seems like I would really like this place called Atiamuri. He also said that he plays rugby and I asked him if he was interested in any other sports. I told him that we had a group here at our university who played rugby and I would like to watch the sport, but I had never found the time to do it.
Playing with Mom and Dad
This blog post was by a little boy named Tucker. He described in a sentence how he liked playing with his Mom and Dad. They like to play the games Checkers and Connect 4. I told him how when I was little I loved to play those games and that playing games with my parents was a lot of fun for me. I told him that our favorite games were Trouble and Chutes and Ladders. I then asked him if he had ever played those games before and if he hadn't then he should try them because they are a lot of fun. I also encouraged him about his blogging. I told him that it was great that as a first grader that he was already interested in blogging online and told him to keep up the good work. This was a sweet blog post for me. I enjoyed reading it I think because he is so young and there is an innocence about his writing because of that.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Blog Post #11
Little Kids....Big Potential
This video is amazing. I am having a difficult enough time learning to do blog posts as a 24 year old and these 1st graders are doing it with ease. This video was about how Ms. Cassidy is teaching her students how to skype, blog, use wikis, and using Nintendo DS for learning purposes(just for the record, I thought that DS's were only used for fun!) They all know how to get on their class website and pull up useful information that can help them learn new things. They also skype with other classes as well as experts. The video showed them skyping with a Geologist and she was teaching them about rocks. Who better to teach your children about a certain subject than an expert in that field of study? I think this is great, because there are many students who won't have the means necessary to buy computers or DS's, so they will be able to learn how to use them properly at school. I wish I would have had a teacher to teach me these things when I was in Elementary or High School.
Kathy Cassidy Skype Interview
Ms. Cassidy seems like the teacher that I should model my classroom and teaching methods after. She is so refreshing. She uses many different methods to teach her students and they are all something that I would be fond of using in my own classroom. Her students will be very well prepared for the future and will definitely know how to use technology at a young age. She uses technology to help her students learn and to problem solve, but she also does it in a fun way. This is what makes a good teacher. It was great that she took advantage of the fact that her school allowed computers to be installed there. She really dug in and taught her students how to blog. This shows that anything is possible. Nobody ever thought that 1st graders could blog, but they are doing it.
One of the things that I would like to use in my classroom is skype. I am planning on being a High School English teacher and I think that this would be a wonderful tool to help them learn. Especially with summer reading lists, or reading that we do throughout the year. I would like to try to set up a question and answer session with the author of the book. This would inspire the students to read so they would know what questions to ask the author during the skype interview. It would also be fun to set up a type of game of some sort with spelling words. Using skype to connect with another classroom that is using the same words and compete with them, almost like a spelling bee. I also like how they use the wiki's. I thought this was very interesting. I have never heard of anyone doing this. I know that there are such things as online forums where people can post their own opinion, but this is different. In the video above it showed them learning what a "tradition" was by reading the posts of others about traditions in their own families. What a great way for students to learn about something! Some of the benefits that I would earn would be to allow my students to learn about different people from different areas of the world. It also would make learning fun for the students and this would make my job much easier than just standing up there giving them lesson after lesson(that they will forget by tomorrow). This video excites me and gives me courage to do what I want to do, and that is to educate.
This video is amazing. I am having a difficult enough time learning to do blog posts as a 24 year old and these 1st graders are doing it with ease. This video was about how Ms. Cassidy is teaching her students how to skype, blog, use wikis, and using Nintendo DS for learning purposes(just for the record, I thought that DS's were only used for fun!) They all know how to get on their class website and pull up useful information that can help them learn new things. They also skype with other classes as well as experts. The video showed them skyping with a Geologist and she was teaching them about rocks. Who better to teach your children about a certain subject than an expert in that field of study? I think this is great, because there are many students who won't have the means necessary to buy computers or DS's, so they will be able to learn how to use them properly at school. I wish I would have had a teacher to teach me these things when I was in Elementary or High School.
Kathy Cassidy Skype Interview
Ms. Cassidy seems like the teacher that I should model my classroom and teaching methods after. She is so refreshing. She uses many different methods to teach her students and they are all something that I would be fond of using in my own classroom. Her students will be very well prepared for the future and will definitely know how to use technology at a young age. She uses technology to help her students learn and to problem solve, but she also does it in a fun way. This is what makes a good teacher. It was great that she took advantage of the fact that her school allowed computers to be installed there. She really dug in and taught her students how to blog. This shows that anything is possible. Nobody ever thought that 1st graders could blog, but they are doing it.
One of the things that I would like to use in my classroom is skype. I am planning on being a High School English teacher and I think that this would be a wonderful tool to help them learn. Especially with summer reading lists, or reading that we do throughout the year. I would like to try to set up a question and answer session with the author of the book. This would inspire the students to read so they would know what questions to ask the author during the skype interview. It would also be fun to set up a type of game of some sort with spelling words. Using skype to connect with another classroom that is using the same words and compete with them, almost like a spelling bee. I also like how they use the wiki's. I thought this was very interesting. I have never heard of anyone doing this. I know that there are such things as online forums where people can post their own opinion, but this is different. In the video above it showed them learning what a "tradition" was by reading the posts of others about traditions in their own families. What a great way for students to learn about something! Some of the benefits that I would earn would be to allow my students to learn about different people from different areas of the world. It also would make learning fun for the students and this would make my job much easier than just standing up there giving them lesson after lesson(that they will forget by tomorrow). This video excites me and gives me courage to do what I want to do, and that is to educate.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Blog Post #10
Do You Teach or Do You Educate?
To Teach(v): (1)To show or explain how to do something. (2) Encourage someone to accept a fact or principle. (3) To give information about or instruction in. (4) Cause someone to learn or understand something. (5) Induce by example or punishment to do or not to do something. These are all definitions of a teacher in this video. It doesn't seem so bad to be a teacher when you look at these different definitions, until you read what it means to educate someone.
To Educate: illuminate, enlighten, inspire, empower. One who gives intellectual, moral and social instruction. A mentor is an experienced and trusted adviser. A guide is a person who advises and shows. These are all things that an educator would do. If I had to choose, I would much rather be an educator. To teach is to pour information into someone. To educate is to give them the power learn something themselves by encouragement. Children need educators not teachers. They have enough people in their lives that tell them what to do and order them around. It is time that we have become educators and give them the power to do it themselves. Guide them through their schooling. Show them what they should do and let them step out on their own and do it themselves. Inspire them to get out of their comfort zone and reach into places that they wouldn't normally go. These are things that an educator should do. I for one would much rather be an educator than a teacher. The video ends with this quote, "Education is the kindling of a flame, not the killing of a vessel." -Socrates. We should kindle their flames, killing the vessel(the student) will bring nothing but crushed self esteem in the end, and failure as far as academics go.
I intend to show my students how to do things, but let them make their own decisions about how to do it. There are so many teachers out there, and we need more educators. Children need examples because many don't have an example at home to watch. I want to be more than just an ordinary teacher. An ordinary teacher pours facts into a child's brain, expects them to remember it for a test, and then never remember it again. Once that student is out of their classroom, it isn't their problem anymore. I want to make learning fun, create a fun environment for my students and empower them to learn things for themselves. I want to be the educator that is remembered for making an impact and for showing them that they can do anything that they put their mind to, if they just try.
Tom Johnson's Don't Let Them Take The Pencils Home
In this blog post, Mr. Johnson wrote about a confrontation that he had with his supervisor. He wanted to allow his students to take home pencils and paper. She was not for this idea at all. He had all of his parents sign waivers to allow the children to bring the pencils home with them, and she still was not allowing it. She had come up with so many different reasons as to why they couldn't bring the pencils home, until finally the real reason came out and that was because she was worried about low test scores. Apparently, students who use pencils at home have lower standardized testing scores. She was extremely rude about the subject matter at hand and would not listen to his side of the story. She made the point about how the students would just use the pencils to play hangman, which she referred to as a "sick and twisted game".
My first point is that the students were given "a drill-and-kill bubble test" as Mr. Johnson put it. I took drill-and-kill to mean the students had facts drilled into their heads and then they had to take a standardized bubble-in-the-answer test. Not all students are good at taking standardized tests, and most students who memorize facts forget them by the time the test rolls around. So who is really being short handed here? The students are. The research that she was speaking about was obviously not a relevant point to bring up to support her argument.
The second issue I had with this was something that was brought up in a comment. The commenter said "why not keep them from bringing books home because they could be used as a stopper to fix a wobbly table". I agree with this 100%. If you are worried about hangman being played, then just leave books out totally, because they could be used for something other than reading. For Gertrude, the supervisor, to use the argument that the pencils could be used to play hangman is absurd. Even if they are using them to play hangman, they are using their brains in a creative way. This leads me to my third point.
Is this post really about keeping children from taking pencils home, or is it representative of the fact that so many "educators" tend to worry more about testing scores than the students actually learning something because they want to learn. I can recall countless times of memorizing facts in High School that I couldn't remember today, even if my life was in jeopardy. There is a difference in learning something and memorizing something. This supervisor was more worried about testing scores than actually worrying about whether the students were learning or not. This is the problem with the education system today. Who cares about testing scores? If they are learning new things, then that is great, but a test doesn't prove if they have learned something or not. A test proves if they have memorized something, and most of the time when they have something memorized, it is forgotten about a week later.
My favorite line was "Okay, you keep telling yourself that, but don't blame me when your test scores are lower." I love the use of "your" right here, as if I am the one taking the drill-and-kill tests."' This was so funny to me. This is another main problem that our educational system has. How is it the teachers fault, if the student refuses to learn. Many students expect the teacher to "teach" them the material, but then decides that they will put no effort into it. "Educators"(and I use the term educators very loosely in this sentence) need to stop thinking inside their box and start thinking about their students in a more positive way. Negativity leads to failure. The attitude of this supervisor could have ruined a classroom full of students had not Mr. Johnson stayed strong in his argument.
To Teach(v): (1)To show or explain how to do something. (2) Encourage someone to accept a fact or principle. (3) To give information about or instruction in. (4) Cause someone to learn or understand something. (5) Induce by example or punishment to do or not to do something. These are all definitions of a teacher in this video. It doesn't seem so bad to be a teacher when you look at these different definitions, until you read what it means to educate someone.
To Educate: illuminate, enlighten, inspire, empower. One who gives intellectual, moral and social instruction. A mentor is an experienced and trusted adviser. A guide is a person who advises and shows. These are all things that an educator would do. If I had to choose, I would much rather be an educator. To teach is to pour information into someone. To educate is to give them the power learn something themselves by encouragement. Children need educators not teachers. They have enough people in their lives that tell them what to do and order them around. It is time that we have become educators and give them the power to do it themselves. Guide them through their schooling. Show them what they should do and let them step out on their own and do it themselves. Inspire them to get out of their comfort zone and reach into places that they wouldn't normally go. These are things that an educator should do. I for one would much rather be an educator than a teacher. The video ends with this quote, "Education is the kindling of a flame, not the killing of a vessel." -Socrates. We should kindle their flames, killing the vessel(the student) will bring nothing but crushed self esteem in the end, and failure as far as academics go.
I intend to show my students how to do things, but let them make their own decisions about how to do it. There are so many teachers out there, and we need more educators. Children need examples because many don't have an example at home to watch. I want to be more than just an ordinary teacher. An ordinary teacher pours facts into a child's brain, expects them to remember it for a test, and then never remember it again. Once that student is out of their classroom, it isn't their problem anymore. I want to make learning fun, create a fun environment for my students and empower them to learn things for themselves. I want to be the educator that is remembered for making an impact and for showing them that they can do anything that they put their mind to, if they just try.
Tom Johnson's Don't Let Them Take The Pencils Home
In this blog post, Mr. Johnson wrote about a confrontation that he had with his supervisor. He wanted to allow his students to take home pencils and paper. She was not for this idea at all. He had all of his parents sign waivers to allow the children to bring the pencils home with them, and she still was not allowing it. She had come up with so many different reasons as to why they couldn't bring the pencils home, until finally the real reason came out and that was because she was worried about low test scores. Apparently, students who use pencils at home have lower standardized testing scores. She was extremely rude about the subject matter at hand and would not listen to his side of the story. She made the point about how the students would just use the pencils to play hangman, which she referred to as a "sick and twisted game".
My first point is that the students were given "a drill-and-kill bubble test" as Mr. Johnson put it. I took drill-and-kill to mean the students had facts drilled into their heads and then they had to take a standardized bubble-in-the-answer test. Not all students are good at taking standardized tests, and most students who memorize facts forget them by the time the test rolls around. So who is really being short handed here? The students are. The research that she was speaking about was obviously not a relevant point to bring up to support her argument.
The second issue I had with this was something that was brought up in a comment. The commenter said "why not keep them from bringing books home because they could be used as a stopper to fix a wobbly table". I agree with this 100%. If you are worried about hangman being played, then just leave books out totally, because they could be used for something other than reading. For Gertrude, the supervisor, to use the argument that the pencils could be used to play hangman is absurd. Even if they are using them to play hangman, they are using their brains in a creative way. This leads me to my third point.
Is this post really about keeping children from taking pencils home, or is it representative of the fact that so many "educators" tend to worry more about testing scores than the students actually learning something because they want to learn. I can recall countless times of memorizing facts in High School that I couldn't remember today, even if my life was in jeopardy. There is a difference in learning something and memorizing something. This supervisor was more worried about testing scores than actually worrying about whether the students were learning or not. This is the problem with the education system today. Who cares about testing scores? If they are learning new things, then that is great, but a test doesn't prove if they have learned something or not. A test proves if they have memorized something, and most of the time when they have something memorized, it is forgotten about a week later.
My favorite line was "Okay, you keep telling yourself that, but don't blame me when your test scores are lower." I love the use of "your" right here, as if I am the one taking the drill-and-kill tests."' This was so funny to me. This is another main problem that our educational system has. How is it the teachers fault, if the student refuses to learn. Many students expect the teacher to "teach" them the material, but then decides that they will put no effort into it. "Educators"(and I use the term educators very loosely in this sentence) need to stop thinking inside their box and start thinking about their students in a more positive way. Negativity leads to failure. The attitude of this supervisor could have ruined a classroom full of students had not Mr. Johnson stayed strong in his argument.
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