Welcome To Holland

In my EPSY night class tonight, my prof read us a poem written by a woman who has a child with an exceptionality. It is such a great metaphor! She compares preparing for a trip to Italy, and then ending up in Holland to having a child born with an exceptionality. Click on this link to watch it. The slideshow of pictures can get slightly random, and the pictures with the sock monkeys relates to the creator of the video. But pay close attention to the narration. I think it puts things into perspective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tehcysu03EI

Freedom Writers

Friday night I went to see the new movie Freedom Writers. I absolutely loved it!! I think that all teachers should go and see it! It is a perfect example of making content relevant to the students lives. Hilary Swank plays a first time teacher in a freshman English class full of "low achieving" students. The administration doesn't even want the students there, and feel that as soon as they hit their junior year, they will just drop out. So they are sort of biding their time until that day. The one administrator berates Swanks character for any new method she comes up with. I believe that administrator is the voice of many teachers who have been teaching for 30 or 40. She just thinks that the best and only way to teach is to get as many through the process as possible. It is worth the $10 to see it!! I give it 5 gold stars out of 5!!!!

Just Can't Live Without It!!

Yesterday I got my bills for the past month. My jaw dropped when I saw how much they were. I started thinking of ways to save money. I started with my Sasktel bill. But I realized that I wasn't willing to give up any of the services. I want my tv! I sit and rot my brain after reading a textbook or working on an assignment. I need my phone, otherwise I'm completely disconnected from the outside world. I thought about maybe getting rid of internet. Then I realized that I really needed that too. Maybe almost more than my phone!! I realized that most of my life revolves around internet. Not just talking to friends and checking email, but university. Like right now, blogging is part of my mark for a university class. Without my own personal internet I would probably be sitting at the university. But would I really want to be there alone at 10pm at night? Probably not!! The things that we used to think of as a luxery, are now becoming more and more a necessity. It's kind of scary!!

The Teaching Gene

Today a group of my friends and I went out for lunch. I was telling them about my new job at a day care. One of the guys asked me how severly I could discipline children. They all started joking around about how they would handle children misbehaving. A lot of their ideas would make any teachers jaw drop. My friends are not bad people. They would do anything for anyone. But I could just see the difference between us. It really made me realize the kind of person it takes to be responsible for a room of 25 children. Any one of them could take the classes I have and are taking. Any one of them could pass those classes. But I can almost guarentee that not one of them could ever survive pre-internship, let alone internship!! They don't have that special something; the teaching gene.

My Technological Blah Blah Blah...

I really don't know what to write about. I' m sure lots of new bloggers say that, but I really truly don't know!! Maybe something about technology. The fact that even though I grew up with technology I am even beginning to get lost in the shuffle. I can't imagine people older than me trying to figure things out. I guess the only thing to do is embrace it, and learn not only with my students but from them as well!!!