Ch. 22 lesbian and gay adolescents

The main thing i have taken away from this class is the importance of the establishment of identity for the adolescent and how the teacher can help assist in this process. The other thing that I think has been extremely important that ive learned in this class is the idea of "other". I think many adolescents think of themselves as the "other", not really fitting in. When you think about the development of homosexual adolscents. identity and the sense of "other" are of extreme relevance. How a child feels about him or herself is of significant importance. If they feel that they have to suppress who they are, then they are not only dibilating their identity formation but their emotional, social, and cognitive development as well. If one does not feel comfortable being who they truly are, or being allowed to express who they are, then all facets of development will be off-set. Self-confidence plays a huge role in development. Feeling like you dont belong can have disatrous effects on your mental well being as well as socially. Its tough enough trying to figure out who we are, but once kids do they typically feel confident enough to express or display this. If being gay or bisexual is not accepted in a school or community, which is often the case even today, then adolescents will hide who they truly are, or sadly try to change whoh they are.
Teachers and schools must find a way to accomodate everyone. They need to be responsible for the well-being of each of their students. I've noticed in sex ed. at the school i student teach that it is heterosexual only there was no mention of anything outside of this realm. Completely ignoring something i feel is ignorant and irresponsible. If things are ever going to be accepted they need to be discussed. The reason why some people are against or fear "homosexuality" is because they have no experience with it or are uneduacted about it. I feel the same can be said for racism, a lot of the time people who display racist attitudes are those who have never had experiences of people outside of thier own race. Schools can be an agent of change by discussing issues that get ignored in society so that future generations are more tolerant through education.

Ch. 16-18 Freedom for some, Discipline for "others"

I found the article by Brown to be very interesting. I ecspecially liked the quote "Education has both enslaving and emancipatory possibilities." The article described the lock down mentality that schools have begun to adopt and how they resemble prisons or military camps. The school I student teach at does have this feel. There is something called "in-house" which is more or less in school detention/suspension. When i was a kid it was a terrible thing if you got detention, and you didnt even think about what would happen to you if you got a suspension. At this "in-house" you see a lot of the same kids EVERYDAY and it is always packed. Many of the kids actually would prefer to be there rather than in the classroom. This is a saddening thing because the school thinks as though they are punishing an action and correcting it when they are really allowing kids to be rewarded for bad behavior by getting out of the classroom. There is no educational benefit from this.
I have been student teaching at an MPS middle school and I am going on my 5th year at the rec. department and many of these kids lack parents in the home. Many of these children have behvioral issues, and dealing with it is a tricky thing. You want to find a way to help it, but in the classroom you can not let these kids misbehavior affect the other students. So the easy thing for the school to do is to remove these students. Its easy to say that curriculum can solve this, by having fun and interesting activities. But no matter what lesson you do there will always be kids that it fails to reach. Not all activities can be extremely exciting and entertaining. Students must learn at some point that they are responsible for thier own work, even if the material is not of great interest to them. They need to learn responsibility and that if they fail to do something it will have negative consequences. There have been 2 teachers in the classroom i have been student teaching in, one was more loose with the students but provided material in a more interesting way and the other one has been more milataristic in hopes of bettering the students behavior through structure. As of yet, this milateristic approach has not worked. Students have become even more disconnected from their studies. I think the best approach is the one that is most suitable to the group of students at hand. And to take this further i dont think you can have only one approach, you need to know each student individually and realize what they respond the best to.

Ch. 9-11 Future of Middle Level Education

I never went to a "middle school" so I've never understood how it differed from my school. I went to a private grade school, grades 1-8. Since I never went to a middle school I've never really understood this anomoly. The article written by Lounsbury and Vars describes the successes and failures of middle school. I understand that there should be training to teach children of this age, but I wonder if having an actual middle school makes any difference, compared to just continuing to be at ones elementary school. Would the education be any different? Would children have different social experiences? Why do they need to go to a seperate school once they reach this age?
The article talks about how there has been this third level of adolescent education established; the middle school in addition to the elementary and high school. It also mentions that there have been successes of this pre-high school set up. However, the article fails to mention specifically how having this middle level school is responsible for these successes or how they've concluded this. I agree that there should be teachers who specialize in this age range of students because this is when students are experiences the most dramatic changes in their life. While the most notable changes are physical this affects their mental and emotional status as well. I understand that this is a signficant time so there should be teachers who focus specifically on this age range, but I'm not convinced that having seperate schools for kids of this age makes a difference in their education.
Maybe too much of a deal is made about middle school, which may stress some kids out. I've worked for the rec dept. the past four years and each year I hear kids talking about getting ready for middle school and thier concerns. It seems funny to me because I do not necessarily see it being any different than the schools they already attend, just a different grade level. Some people may say that you could use this similar arguement for high school, its just the next grade level. But for me i only had 20 people in my class all throughout grade school and once i got to high school there were about 400 people in my class. I think the most important thing to take away from this article is that since this is such an important time in the physical, emotional, and mental development of children there should be teachers who specialize in this specific age range.

Talking about Race

There is often discussion of how teachers are hesitant to talk about controversail issues. The article written by Jervis notes that in some classrooms race is not talked about because it sometimes it is just overlooked. I dont think that teachers are avoiding talking about race in schools today because it is controversial, it may have been controversail 40 years ago but not today. I think that they are not talking about it because maybe they feel as though its not their job to talk about it. This is a difficult issue. How many and what kind of social issues should teachers raise in thier classroom. Gay rights might be an issue that teachers today feel is controversial, probably because of the backlash of some parents.
There was an interesting statement made in the article that white people dont think race is an issue. I would agree, that some white people do not think it is an issue. I think this would be the case for more white people than black people when it comes to this opinion. Its typically the people in power that are unable to see that there are problems that exist. This could possibly be a reason for why some teachers dont talk about it, they possibly may not think its as big of an issue today as when they were growing up. If you live in Milwaukee you better think that race matters. Its impossible to ignore it, ecspecially considering MPS. Many people often are concerned by the fact that most M.P. Schools are severely segregated. This should not come as a surprise since Milwaukee has been consistantly at the top of most segregated cities in the country. I feel as though schools mirror the societies in which they exist. If you live in a rich neighborhood you're going to have a school with many resources, and if you live in a segregated neighborhood you're going to have segregated schools. I think problems need to be taken care of in the community first, instead of relying on changes in the school to influence society. Theres no argument that there needs to be changes in the schools to address issues such as race, but people should not expect these changes to be responsible for the changes that needs to happen in the surrounding community.

PBL in the classroom

I feel as though the author brought up many important points about probelem based learning, but some might not fit with problems of today. Many students can learn more effectively from classroom activities that are more hands on learning. However, many teachers have to "teach to the test". This means that they have to focus on teaching to material covered in standarized tests. This severley limits the teachers realm of creativity and teaching possibilities. When teachers are pressured into teaching so that their students pass standarized tests they focus on specifically the criteria they know will be on the standarized tests.
Teachers that involve problem based learning into their classrooms have studetns that use critical thinking skils as well as an enthusiasm for what they are learning. Problem based learning activities are not like normal homework assignements that kids find to be busy work. Problem based learning activities let kids find out what their creative areas might involve. This process makes kids go deeper into thier thinking, and they have to invest more of their time and effort into their assignment making it more meaningful. This strategy, if set up efficiently by the teacher, can prove to be very beneficial for students because it promotes a higher level of learning.

Middle Schoolers and Sexuality

Sexuality. This is such a cruical and prevelant part of the lives of middle school aged children, but many teachers and parents are much more comfortable ignoring the issue all together. As students' bodies begin to change and their hormones start taking over, sexuality is a huge part of the identity of middle school students. For this blog I'm going to choose to write about sex education. It seems as though it is obviously awkward and uncomfortable for students, but I think you would find many teachers who would find it uncomfortable to teach as well. That is why many sex ed classes are jokes. Students are not learning the information they need to hear to make smart, safe, informed decisions regarding thier health and sexuality.
The middle school students that I am student teaching have their first sex ed class this monday. I think it should be very interesting because I think that many students will find this very uncomfortable. Like most sixth graders they are not the most mature individuals and I anticipate alot of giggling going on. The boys and the girls are going to be split up. This is a common way of teaching students sex ed for the first time, but typically a male takes the boys and a female teacher takes the girls. There will be two female teachers and I think that they boys may find this extremely awkward. I think that you should try and make the kids as comfortable as possible so that they can ask important questions they want to know more about and I just dont see that happening if they have a female teacher.
I think it is important not to be one sided when teaching this issue. I dont think it should be a moral issue but an issue regarding health and safety. I went to a Catholic school, and while it wasnt an abstinence only class it surely didnt address important issues regarding safe sex. This is such a tricky topic because it is a moral issue and many families approach it this way and may not want their children to learn it in the school. There should be a way students can ask questions that they may be too embarassed to ask so that they have the information they need to make safe decisions. I dont know if this is possible in the classroom though.

teen bashing and child beauty pageants

I’m not quite sure I follow the logic of Mike Males’ argument. I agree that the media has an overly-negative view of teenagers, and neglects to cover stories on good things that teenagers are doing. However, I do not necessarily think it is “teen bashing” when newspapers and magazine report on the number of teen pregnancies. Males is disturbed by the term “teen pregnancy” because he argues that most of the fathers are in fact not teenagers. I think this is a moot point; it doesn’t matter what you call it there are still teenage girls who are having babies regardless of how old the father is. I think that the media has a right to make a big deal about this because teenagers are not capable of financially supporting a child, let alone themselves. There are of course many adults who could barely support a child, but teenagers almost certainly could not. I think there needs to be more education about this topic, because it is often people of lower class that have teen pregnancies which further puts them into poverty because it disrupts their education. I will agree with Males’ argument that “teen problems” are often issues that are more accurately due to poverty than to age. I feel as though Males’ disagrees with the term “teen issues” because these same issues are prevalent among adults. I don’t see the problem of terming them as teen issues because there should be a distinction made because teens are less apt to deal with such issues, whether it be emotionally or financially.
The article about beauty pageants could have been written about kids in general not just girls when it comes to domineering parents. Many parents, fathers in particular, push their kids to be super athletes that it becomes stressful for kids. I believe that the point of youth activities, whether it be pageants or sports, is to be fun even if there is competition involved. There is nothing wrong with competition, but when adults are the ones pushing their kids past the limit the competition aspect becomes too stressful for kids. There are these unreal expectations that parents put on their kids. To me this is absolutely a form of child abuse. Again I have no problem with competition, to a limited extent, in youth activities but the focus should be on promoting healthy activities, fun activities, and something that is a stress reliever not a cause of stress for children