Education Carnival

For a ton of great education blogs head on over to the Carnival of Education that is being hosted at Bluebird’s Classroom.  Mrs. Bluebird has picked up lunch and the discussion around the table is fabulous!  

What did you think of the luncheon?  Did you find any posts you really liked? 

Bluebird Lunch Special Photo Credit:  Kevin Cole from Flickr, Creative Commons License

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

the-lion-in-love-worksheet.doc

the-lion-in-love.mp3

This Podcast is a reading of The Lark, one of Aesop’s fables.  I love the lessons that Aesop’s fables provide and think they are a great lesson for any age.  You will also find a printable worksheet to go along with the podcast.

The lesson for me is to not lose myself while in love.  It is so easy to change yourself so that you are what your object of desire wants you to be.  Often, however, when you make those changes the other person will not want you anyway.  It is more important to be true to yourself than to change everything that makes you who you are to try and make someone else happy.   Wow!  This one is a hard one.  I generally like to make people I care about happy but if they really care about me they’ll want me to be myself.

Staying true to myself has also been something I have struggled with as a teacher.  It seems like either the administration or parents or even other teachers want you to change what you do or how you look or any number of other things.  Sometimes it is almost like you are supposed to give up your own personality and identity when you become a teacher.  While I don’t think your personal life should be part of your teaching life, I do think you should be allowed a personality and view points that may differ from that of the administration or district. 

What lesson did this fable teach you?  Do you find yourself changing because of someone or something you love?  Were the changes good for you or bad for you? 

As always, please, let me know what you think of the podcast and the worksheet.  If you have a request for a specific fable I will try to use it in an upcoming post.

The Lion in Love Photo Credit:  Smudge 9000 from Flickr, Creative Commons License

Wow.  So this is the first year that the students I watched grow up are going to graduate.  This years high school graduation will have students I taught in the seventh and eighth grades.  I should say, they aren’t the only students I’ve taught that have graduated but this is the first class (as in all of the graduating class) that I’ve taught.  I’m getting a little emotional.  Overall I think they might have been my favorites although the class behind them is so close it is hard to tell.  So graduation is in a few weeks and although I don’t usually go to things like that I think I’m probably going to go with my best friend, who was also their teacher.  I’ve been to Orlando and New York with a lot of these kids and watched them grow up into beautiful young men and women.  It’s almost like watching my own kids grow up I guess because for the last six years they were my kids.  What with me not having children of my own and all.  I can’t even begin to imagine how emotional I will be at my sons high school graduation. 

Since I haven’t been a teacher as long as probably most of the people that will read this I might sound naive. I wonder if more experienced teachers ever stop feeling sappy?  I guess around the time that I stopped feeling like all of the kids were mine was when I probably decided I wouldn’t make it for an entire 30 years in public education.  I guess I get too emotionally vested in the first little rugrats.  Boy would they laugh if they knew I said that.  They all thought I was mean and evil…among the many cute names I heard was ’soul sucker’ ‘the evil one’ ‘general’…teehee.  And those are the ones I feel comfortable typing out ;) 

Time for me to end this post before I go down a line of thought about why I won’t be a career teacher in public education.  Crazy to love something so much that you can’t do it, huh?

Did you have a favorite class of students?  Was your favorite class one of your firsts?  How is their high school graduation affecting you this year?

Graduation Photo Credit:  CarbonNYC from Flickr, Creative Commons License

At the first of the month I did my second post on banned books.  Now it is time for the next installment in the series!  Several of you have given your opinions on the books that I’ve listed and I’m looking forward to more great information from all of you. 

These are books 21-30 from the

ALA’s 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000

• The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
• Haven’t read it.
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• I love this entire series and it is completely beyond me why this would be banned….anyone?
• Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
• Haven’t read it.
• Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
• Haven’t read it.
• In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
• Haven’t read it.
• The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
• Haven’t read it.
• The Witches by Roald Dahl
• Haven’t read it.
• You’ll have to go look if you want to know
• Not putting it in my blog because of one of the key words.  I don’t have a problem with the book but don’t want anyone finding me with that one word.  I’ll give you a hint…it starts with an ’s’.
• Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
• Don’t know it but generally love the books written by Lowry
• The Goats by Brock Cole
• Haven’t read it.

I’m sorry I don’t know more about these but I am determined to go through the list of one hundred banned books.  Once I’ve listed them all along with the ones I have and have not read I intend to go back and….ok big step here…I’m going to… read them all.  Well…maybe not all of them but all of the ones I think might actually be in a school.   So there would be the exception of a few that would obviously, in my mind anyway, not typically be found in a school anyway.   Not that I’m for censorship, think I covered that already.  BUT the librarians I know spend their book money pretty carefully and some of these books would never make it out of a preliminary budget.

Have you read any of these books?  What did you think of them?  Good for a school library or not something you’d want your child to read?

Memorial day is traditionally observed on the last Monday of May.  Usually by this time schools are out or they are closed in observance of the holiday.  This year, for the first time in recent memory, Florida schools are not going to be out for the summer on Memorial Day.  However, schools, in my county at least, are closed for the day.  A great lesson for the day after the holiday for any civics, social studies, or history class would be one on Memorial Day.

A Brief History of Memorial Day

Long before it was an officially recognized holiday, women were leaving memorial flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers.  The first official proclamation of Memorial Day was on May 5,  1968.  It was then observed on May 30th with the placing of flowers on the graves on Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington.  The holiday was only observed in the Northern states until after World War I.  Up until then the Southern states observed their remembrance of fallen Civil War soldiers on a separate day.  With the National Holiday Act of 1971 the last Monday in May became the national day to celebrate soldiers who gave their lives for our country.

How to Observe Memorial Day

• Visit Cemeteries
• Visit Memorials
• Place flowers and flags on the graves of veterans.
• Help the widows and children of veterans

Online Memorial Day Activities - Most of these you can print out and use in the classroom.

• Easy Memorial Day Crossword Puzzle
• Harder Memorial Day Crossword Puzzle
• Memorial Day Logic Puzzle
• Memorial Day Word Search
• Memorial Day Worksheets and Lesson Plans

Please spend a few moments this Memorial Day to remember the brave soldiers that have fought to keep our country free.  If any of you are in the military now or have a loved one in the military, thank you for all you do.

How are you going to spend Memorial Day?  Do you have an activity or lesson you like to use on Memorial Day?

Memorial Day Photo Credit:  Randy Son of Robert from Flickr, Creative Commons License

The 2008 FCAT reading scores for third graders have just recently been released.  FCAT  is the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test that all Florida students must eventually take.  It is how the development of the child and ultimately school the child attends is measured in Florida. 

"In 2008, 72 percent of all students in Grade 3 were performing at or above Achievement Level 3 (on grade level and above) on FCAT Reading. This represents an increase from 57 percent in 2001, 60 percent in 2002, 63 percent in 2003, 66 percent in 2004, 67 percent in 2005, a decrease from 75 percent in 2006, and an increase from 69 percent in 2007 for a total increase of 15 percentage points since 2001. In 2008, 16 percent of all students in Grade 3 were performing at Achievement Level 1 on FCAT Reading. This represents a decrease from 29 percent in 2001, 27 percent in 2002, 23 percent in 2003, 22 percent in 2004, 20 percent in 2005, an increase from 14 percent in 2006, and a decrease from 19 percent in 2007 for a total decrease of 13 percentage points since 2001."

There is a handy graphical representation you can check out here.

So what does this mean?  Well…it means that we reached a high and then started dropping again for the level 3s.  That’s not such a good thing.  In 2006 we had 75% of all students scoring at or above level 3 and this year we only have 72%.  Of course the officials are excited because we are up from last years 69% but to my mind it isn’t good enough if we aren’t surpassing previous results.  At least that’s the way the numbers look, right?

Here’s the thing about those scores that I never see anyone talking about.  It’s like comparing apples to oranges.  The scores from 2006 are from entirely different children than the scores from 2008.  For all we know about the students in 2006 there was a large number of gifted students and maybe in 2008 there was a larger number of students who were…not as gifted. 

That is one of the problems with FCAT.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a way to check individual progress but that isn’t the stuff you hear about in the news usually.  Just a mass "third grade scores up/down this year".  I guess that’s one of the problems I have with standardized tests.  Another problem I have with FCAT as well as the national No Child Left Behind program is that it assumes that all children are capable of being ‘on grade level’.  This is simply not the case.  I know there are some allowances made for students who have a learning disability but there are none for students who are just below average.

While I don’t personally see anything wrong with being ‘below average’ apparently a lot of parents do and so does the government.  It seems as though in an effort to show everyone can achieve, standards are and have been lowered over the years to make it easier for students to be ‘average’.  Unfortunately this means those students who are ‘above average’ are often not getting the type of stimulation they need. 

After teaching in Florida for the past seven years I still can’t decide if I hate FCAT or if I merely dislike it.   If you are in Florida what do you think of FCAT?  If you are in another state how do you like the standardized test given there? 

Cat with Books Photo Credit:  Petteri Sulonen from Flickr, Creative Commons License

the-lark.mp3

the-lark-worksheet.doc

  This Podcast is a reading of The Lark one of Aesop’s fables.  I love the lessons that Aesop’s fables provide and think they are a great lesson for any age.  You will also find a printable worksheet to go along with the podcast.

I love the lessons this fable teaches.  The first for me is that you should always listen carefully to what is being said as well and listen for the unspoken meaning behind what is being said.  The second, more obvious lesson, is if you want something done right you must do it yourself.  Sometimes I follow that lesson a little to well.  I know I should delegate, but dang is it hard.  I think letting go of any kind of control is probably something most teachers have trouble with. 

What does this fable mean to you?  Do you have a tendency to want to do everything by yourself?

As always, please, let me know what you think of the podcast and the worksheet.  If you have a request for a specific fable I will try to use it in an upcoming post.

The Lark Photo Credit:  Stephen Barnett from Flickr, Creative Commons License

When we call a parent in for the first time and recommend testing their child to find out if he or she has a learning disability we are almost always asked what a learning disability is. That can be so hard to explain to someone who is not in education because the term learning disability can mean so many things.

Learning disability is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as:

Any of various conditions that interfere with an individual’s ability to learn and so result in impaired functioning in language, reasoning, or academic skills and that are thought to be caused by difficulties in processing and integrating information.

That is a great clinical definition but it has a tendency to scare a lot of parents. They hear impaired and automatically jump to the worse possible scenario and think their child won’t be able to graduate from school, go to law school, or run the family business. Not all of them say it but you can almost always see the moment of fear in their eyes when you use the word impaired.

So that’s when I give them my definition.

 
• A learning disability just means that you learn differently. It means that you need a little extra help and that you see the world around you in a unique way. It doesn’t mean you can’t learn. A learning disability has nothing to do with how intelligent you are it has to do with how your brain processes information.

Once a child is diagnosed with a specific learning disability then we can go back to the parent and give a more exact definition for their child’s learning disability. With a diagnosis in hand a learning disability can actually benefit the child. Whereas previously he or she did not have the tools to succeed in school the diagnosis of a learning disability tells teachers how to help the student.

As a parent what has been your experience with your childs learning disability? Were you afraid when you first found out about the learning disability? Have you seen an improvement in school since your child was diagnosed?

Leslie Brooks had a wonderful post recently about Literacy Coaches.  She provides some wonderful resources on helping your child become an enthusiastic reader that I plan on using.  I’ll probably end up talking about several of the sites she recommend individually in the future.  For now though you can check out her blog in the link above.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

What did you think about the resources?  Did you find them as helpful as I did?

Open Bood Photo Credit: FXR from Flickr, Creative Commons License

I love video games and so do most of my students.  I found several YouTube videos on Second Life Education potentials but this is one of my favorites.  It almost makes me wish I was a Science teacher and I’m pretty sure I’m now going to have to go check out Second Life again too. 

Have you used Second Life or any other video game to engage your students?  Which ones and how well did it work?