A whole new mind

First off! Awesome presentation. I felt that your links and connections were completely engaging and revolutionary...it really got me thinking and excited for every new station. I think the two parts that I would implement the most within my own classroom out of the sections discussed were definitely the Story section and the Design section....BUT THAT'S PROBABLY BECAUSE I'M SO RIGHT BRAINED ;). I feel as a lecturer telling stories about the past have to be comical, make people thing, very visual, and very expressive. A great story teller makes the content come alive in very vivid and interesting ways and that's a personal goal I have for myself. Secondly! Image is everything. So the design and flow as well as the appearance of my room is one of the most important things in terms of the climate of my room.

This We Believe

Pages 1 - 26

This section makes a great point that we have touched on at several points throughout the semester about Middle School education being that of a reactive time in an adolescences life. I know for myself personally I had the most tremendous and "world crushing" blows dealt to me at the age of 10-14 and I can attest to what a powerful time in a persons development this is. The fluctuation most middle school teachers deal with in terms of range of emotions and energy levels is always something that kind of struck me as a daunting task I never thought I could manage! But it is at this point that I feel that the most significant changes within a persons outcome can really occur which is what Is making me change my mind as well as the reading within this course.

Pages 27 - 33

The next section of the book is about practicing what you preach which I think a lot of administrators seem to simply forget about in the sea of bureaucracy they face as part of their jobs. When dollar signs and results are their major buzz words some administrators lose track of why they started the career in the first place. Students! It is one thing to have a driving vision and to etch it in stone, while it is quite another to adapt it into your personal philosophy. Our job as educators is to stay up to date and make sure we are meet each obstacle with 110% effort and focus on what is best for our students. We need to make these visions and goals we set for ourselves attainable and self actualized in order to have continued success within our field.

Pages 33 - 42

This next section deals with respect and professionalism in terms of interacting with students. Which one would think would be the easiest part of our job as educators but unfortunately in my experience is the least followed by veteran teachers. In fact my experience in practicum was listening to the "social studies boy club" where teachers would sit behind closed doors to openly name drop and bad mouth students. This Isn't the model we should be sending our kids. we should emphasize their importance as the future and see the greatest potential in everyone of them in a multitude of industries and professions.

Pages 43 - 62

I think overall what I learned from this book is that having a great foundation within this school through harmonious balance of educators, faculty, administration, parents, students, and community is the essential keys to success. Regardless of whether or not your school actually has this when you first get there or not is totally irrelevant, this book gives you that goal to shoot for.
Schools are like a great recipe sometimes you need the right chemistry and balance in order to be completely happy with the end results. This book makes very important points that we have all learned and hopefully internalized since our humble beginnings in the UMF education program. I don't feel as if they are being too idealistic with their claims because the points they make emphasize major problems I have seen within my experiences in education, things that I have always hoped to correct and exemplify when I have a classroom of my own.

Meet me in the Middle (Chapter 2)

Synthesis:

The important factors we all agreed on for this chapter were the two major points that the author tried to get across. First was to be passionate and empowered towards your content. Once an educator shows that enthusiasm and connection to the subject students are more apt to connect with the material. For most of us the teachers that inspired us and really got us engaged were pretty clearly described by this chapter and the strategies it presented. For each lesson plan we must keep the knowledge of student’s particular learning style in the highest regard in order to successfully motivate each student and effectively communicate with them. We must all keep in mind the variety of activities and games we can use to let our students feel interested with our content and classrooms. Finally what we must all keep in mind for our student’s is the mood and atmosphere in which they all learn. Creating comfortable, relevant, engaging learning experiences for these students is the only way in which we can become better middle school teachers.

Analysis:

The things that we have all found through the reading of this chapter is a general consensus on the best way to reach our students. In practicum and throughout our general education courses we have all learned about the Multiple intelligences and Meaningful Engaged Learning which I am sure we have all had experiences where we use these models in practice. This chapter is a good one for all of us to consider because it gives us all a chance to reflect as pre-professionals and see what the most effective methods for ourselves are and what we can do to challenge ourselves for the benefits of our students. We need to keep our students interests and personalities in mind constantly while planning if we hope to be the most competent and successful educators.

Meet Me in the Middle (Chapters 1,2,17)

I felt overall that this was a self-help book for any pre-service teacher. It does a good job suggesting pedagogy and different techniques for being successful within the classroom but the tone of it was something that I could not get into. Since starting in secondary education I have read a lot of books similar to this but as with everything I must take it with a grain of salt. There are some suggestions made that sound like very risky legal problems if the advice is taken. The examples of touching the students to establish comfort or "find out that he is real" is something that we have to be very careful of in the times we live in. Or the bit about visiting a student at their home as a sort of enviornmental and ethical risk that can actually hurt our reputations or sever ties with our students. I felt like the approaches and suggestions made towards motivation and attitude were something that I will be able to refer back to and it is surprising to me how even with the change of emphasis (from high school to middle school) a lot of the methods of gathering attention and making your environment more accessable seems more universal then I had originally atticipated. I found myself referencing methods and theory courses as well as moments in practicum that I could recall learning or using such strategies in order to better connect with my audience. Overall these chapters were more like a review then anything strickingly new to me but I think anything that makes us as educators sit back and rethink our game plans is a great investment of our time.