A Challenge

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to present a new technology to veteran teachers at an MTT workshop. It was my first experience presenting in a professional capacity rather than as a student myself in a university or high school classroom. One of my goals as a teacher is to continue to develop professionally through attending, and hopefully one day presenting at, workshops such as the one I attended yesterday. During the course of the day, my fellow interns and I were challenged to write an article about our experiences with this technology for an educational publication. I am very excited (and nervous) about this opportunity! I want very much to become involved in the wider world of educational research, but it's also incredibly intimidating. I feel like I don't know where to start! I'm an English Ed. major, and so have had more experience with writing than most, but I'm still not quite sure how to go about writing an article like this. My questions from this post are: How did prominent figures in the field of education make their start in the area of publication? What are the editors of an educational publication looking for in the way of an article? How can I use this experience as a springboard to further my own professional development and growth?

Violence in Schools

We had a somewhat eventful day yesterday. Actually, down on my end of the building it was extremely uneventful, for which I'm incredibly grateful, but there was an incident involving a student with a gun in our school.

While it was happening, the only thing we in the classroom knew was that we were on lockdown. The principal communicated over the school PA system that the entire school was on lockdown until further notice around 8 am. Apparently, a student brought a gun to school (although no bullets were found). Another student told a teacher, and that teacher notified the appropriate people and the situation was contained and resolved quickly. We did remain on lockdown for quite a while, just in case, and we ended up keeping 1st block all the way through 3rd since testing was delayed. According to my teacher, this is the first time that our school has had an incident of this nature.

On my part, I was extremely impressed with the way faculty and administration reacted to and dealt with this potentially nightmarish situation.

My question is, how are students supposed to sit down and take a standardized test (that has a direct impact on their future) after an occurrence like this? It bothers me that so much weight is placed on standardized test scores without taking any other factors into consideration. Such as whether or not there was a gun threat at their school on the day they tested.

Graduation Exam Week

This week students at our school are taking the graduation exam, so everything’s been just a little bit weird.  They’re testing in our classroom, so we’ve been displaced to a rather drafty room at the very end of the hallway, next to the outside doors.  We have mostly seniors, so only a few still have to pass a portion of the exam.  The library has something called Teen Tech Week  for students without discipline referrals who want to go and play the Wii or Xbox while other students are testing.  The library’s funding has been consistently zeroed out for the past few years, so they sell snacks and drinks during graduation exam week in an effort to replace some of that lost funding.  Central Office employees have continued to maintain a presence in the building during testing, which is a little nerve wracking. 

So far, the only problem has been what to do with students who don’t have to test and haven’t gone to the library.  My 1st block class is currently studying Shakespeare’s Macbeth, so we’re having a Shakespeare film festival.  I love the idea of exposing them to more of Shakespeare’s work, and it’s so much more fun for them to watch the DVD’s, especially when classes are off of the regular schedule and they end up spending four hours in one class and skipping another altogether.  However, there is always the question of whether or not it’s appropriate to show full-length movies in class.  I think as long as they’re connected to actual class work, it’s great, but I’m only an intern.  :)