Practicum, Day 1

It should have been my second day at the middle school, but I wasn't informed of that. I took the class this summer and was told that I would need to do a 20-hour practicum during fall semester. I checked in with the education department a couple of times towards the end of the summer to make sure that I was on the list of students to do the practicum. They told me I was and that I'd get an email telling me when and where the informational meeting was to take place and where and when my practicum would be.

Fast forward to Monday. A professor with the department came into one of my classes and told me that I missed the meeting, needed to fill out some insurance paperwork, and that I missed my first day at the middle school. This came as a surprise to me because I never got an email telling me about the meeting or the insurance or my assignment. So I took care of all that after class that day.

So Wednesday I showed up for the practicum, got everything taken care of in the offices, then went to my designated room (resource room, most likely to help kids with reading, because of my English background), only to find out that the teacher wasn't even there -- she was on lunch break or something at the time.
So they put me in the resource room for helping kids with math. And that teacher wasn't there, either, but at least there was a substitute.

So I helped kids with math, working on measurement. I don't even know what grade they were in, but I'm assuming they were 6th or 7th graders. One kept looking at the clock, asking me what time it was and if she could go to lunch. The sub informed me that they were to leave at 12:47 for lunch, but his lunch break started earlier. So he left me there to help them.

Then the multiplication and division problems came and they didn't know how to multiply or divide and I didn't know how to teach them because it's been about thirteen years since I learned how to do that and I don't remember how it was taught. Luckily they didn't get to those problems until a few minutes before their lunch time, so I only had to try to explain to blank stares for a little bit before I let them go.

Then another group came. I taught a girl the difference between odd and even numbers. Then there was more measurement. Then I got to leave.

Maybe it's because I'm sick, or maybe it's because I was expecting to help with English and got thrown into a situation where I was helping with a subject that I don't particularly care for, but helping those kids out today wasn't very fun, and I don't feel a sense of accomplishment.

I don't want to be in the math section all semester. I am not, and never will be, a math teacher.

On summer school

Summer classes are over and I've finished all remaining work for them, except for a practicum at the middle school, which I have to complete during the fall semester.

I was surprised by how much I actually liked the routines that are involved with summer courses. I wasn't sure how I would react to them, but I found that they kept me on task and interested in the subjects more than regular sessions. I didn't have much time to procrastinate with the amount of material that was covered in the short amount of time, so that was good (though I will admit that I did procrastinate quite a bit more than I should have). The short terms made me go to class every day, which is something that I can't say I have done during previous terms. Also, meeting with my classmates and professors everyday made it pretty easy to get to know them.

Though one class that I was looking forward to taking ended up getting canceled, I will say that overall, my experience with courses this summer was very good. However I am a little concerned about how much information I was able to learn well enough to remember for my Praxis II test, which I will have to pass in order to become licensed to teach.

"A learning experience"

I don't even know what to say about this:

Teachers Stage Fake Gun Attacks on Kids

the price of posting photos on social networking sites

Talks of getting one's teaching license taken away because of pictures posted on social networking sites like myspace and facebook have been pretty frequent around my house, lately. This is a pretty exciting topic, I know, but that's what happens when you have four ed. majors living together.

I was told that a school had taken someone's teaching license away because of pictures that she had posted on her facebook account. At first I passed that off as a rumor because that just didn't seem right to me that a school could take away a teacher's license. But then I figured that there probably was some truth to the story, so I did some looking around the internet and found this story. This story must be the origins of our talks over the past couple of weeks. It actually happened last year, but it's in the news now because the student is filing a lawsuit against the school.

Apparently Millersville University denied a 27-year-old student her teaching certificate because of a picture that she had posted on her myspace account. Actually, according to the articles I've read about it, it seems as though it was the photo's caption that really got her in trouble.

According to Lancaster Online:

The picture shows Stacy Snyder of Strasburg wearing a pirate hat while drinking from a plastic "Mr. Goodbar" cup. The photograph taken during a 2005 Halloween party was posted on Snyder's MySpace Web page with the caption "Drunken Pirate."

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You can view the photo here.

So I'm going to go ahead and assume that if she hadn't written "Drunken Pirate" under the photo, there is no way the school could have used it against her, because they couldn't have proven what was in the cup from which she was drinking.

From what the school is saying about the situation, it seems like they were just looking for a reason to deny her from certification.

Buffington [Snyder's advising teacher] also accused Snyder of "incompetence" and "claimed she should have been removed from her student-teaching position months ago."

She [Bray, the dean of the School of Education] accused Snyder of "promoting underage drinking through her 'drunken pirate' photo.

Millersville University provided a statement about the lawsuit on their website.

Since hearing about this situation, one of my roommates has untagged or deleted several pictures from her facebook account because she's doing her student teaching next year.

Right now, I'm not too worried about anything like this happening to me. My MySpace account is set to private and none of my pictures on that site nor on Facebook can prove that I've taken part in or promote underage drinking. I've also changed my settings on facebook so that only people from Bemidji State can see my profile and only my friends can see my photos and photos that others have tagged me in.

Besides, it doesn't seem like it's the actual photo that can get one into trouble -- it's the caption that goes along with it.

OD on the ND

So the lack of sleep caught up to me Friday night, about thirteen hours after I took my last caffeine pill. Between writing essays, reading books, and taking an exam, those things saved me last week.

Anyway, Friday night I decided that I finally wanted some sleep. So I slept. I slept almost all day Saturday, waking up for just a few hours to watch the Twins game. Then I went back to bed. Basically the same thing happened Sunday. Now here I am, a little after midnight on Monday morning, and I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep again.

I have a feeling that this is the beginning of another week of alertness aids to keep me awake enough to make it through classes and studying and writing.

As the semester winds down

sleep is being replaced by pills, loud music, and cold showers.

No . . .

So I just checked my email and my dad had sent me a link to an article and I just learned that probably my favourite author of all time, Kurt Vonnegut, died yesterday.

More on this later; I've got to go to class now.

Multitasking

With spring comes the beginning of baseball season, the beginning of hockey playoffs, the end of basketball season, and the time for me to catch up on some school work.

In case anyone cares, the Twins beat the Yankees 5-1, the Wolves lost 105-88 to Dallas, but that doesn't even matter anymore, and it's 1-1 between the Wild and Ducks right now, at the end of the second.

Damnit

I would forget to hit the store button after making changes on the class wiki before I closed my browser. It's my fault for trying to hold a few different texting conversations while reading over my work before I publish it. I was just trying to figure out who was texting me and I got caught up in it.

This could have been done last weekend . . . if it didn't storm in Red Wing and if the internet didn't go out. And if I had stayed in Red Wing where I would have at least had access to the internet on Sunday. It could have been done earlier this week . . . if I didn't have so many classes, appointments, and meetings to attend. But it should have been done last Wednesday, when I only had one class. Now I'm going to have to try to recreate what I had on the page. Lessons learned. I hope.

Time to step it up

I've not been a very good student lately. I think my goal was to have at least twelve posts done by Monday. I've only written a few so far. Yeah, so multiply that progress by about seven and you'll get an idea of how all of my classes are going right now. Pretty sweet, isn't it.

So that means that I've really got to get some work done. And not just in weblogs and wikis but in all of my classes. And I need to get this work done quickly. I've got a midterm on Tuesday for a lit. class and I think I've gone to about five class meetings. And it's what, the eighth or ninth week of classes already. So yeah, I've got to get some stuff done now. Well, not exactly now, because it's really early in the morning and I've got to get some sleep. But when I wake up, I really need to start taking all of my classes seriously.

Priorities

I decided to come back to Bemidji on Thursday instead of spending the weekend in Red Wing so that I could get some work done and I knew that it wasn't getting done there. I had every intention of actually reading and writing and getting caught up. I really did.

But like the procrastinator that I am, I haven't even opened my backpack yet. That means I've got to start and finish reading two books by Tuesday. It's a good thing this blogs and wikis class is my only Monday class, and it isn't even meeting right now. I would also like to write at least one essay by Tuesday, but I don't want to set the standards too high for myself. I'm already pretty sure that I'll waste most of the day doing little things that aren't priorities, like reorganizing my book shelf or cd collection.

I usually don't feel this way, but I'm glad the Twins don't have a game today, because that would certainly take three hours of valuable work time out of my day.

Stopping school violence

It's pretty sad that in today's world, when we like to talk about how civilized we are, students still can't feel safe to and from school.

The South Korean governmant is introducing a plan to stop bullying and violence in schools. It seems that bullying is a very severe problem in South Korea, where suicide is too often seen as a way out for victims in bullying.

The plan is to protect students from violence by providing them with bodyguards who would escort them to and from school. Teachers will also receive more training and students will be able to consult counselors about problems that they're dealing with.

This is getting ridiculous

So, I just logged into Facebook because I'm in college and that's what most college students do, and I clicked on someone's profile and I started hearing a voice. It's 7 a.m. and I'm the only one in the house who's still awake, so I know it isn't one of my roommates' televisions. So I check to see if I left windows media player or something else open. No, I didn't. Then I realize that one of those damn sidebar advertisements on Facebook is telling me that I should tune into MTV so that I can watch a show about spoiled, whiny, rich kids on their birthdays. No thanks.

When did Facebook start adding audio to their advertisements? Maybe they've been doing it for a while and I just realized it. I may be out of the loop because I don't check the thing very often. I don't know how some of my rooommates spend hours each day on that site and am tempted to join Mallory in her boycott of Facebook.

British troop withdrawal

Prime Minister Blair is supposed to announce today that by this Christmas, 3,000 British troops will be removed from Iraq, with about 1,500 being pulled within the next few weeks. Good for the Brits! Denmark officials may also make a similar announcement soon.