Today, as I was observing a seventh grade class for another one of my education classes, I couldn’t help but notice how much older the students looked. As I was sitting there, for some reason I began to think about how and when students begin to smoke cigarettes. I’m not a smoker however; I’m exposed to second hand smoke daily. Growing up, I was exposed to smoking from both my mother and my older brother. Luckily because of this and the fact that the smell of cigarettes made me nauseous, I never tried it. It concerns me that some students may pick up this habit of smoking from the people they are surrounded by. With that said, I strongly feel as though, smoking should be banned nationwide. It is a known fact that smokers are not only jeopardizing their health but the health of others as well. Second hand smoke is a leading cause of unpreventable deaths in the U.S. In addition, smokers are taking huge risks when it comes to lung cancer, emphysema, bronchitis, heart attacks and even stokes. Does anyone agree with me here on this putting a stop to smoking??????

When I was told in my college courses,” Okay, we’re going to learn how to write lesson plans, I was starting to get excited because they sounded like fun to construct a lesson plan, BUT… when I first started to learn last week, I was like Uh-oh, I don’t know about this. I’m actually starting to get nervous now because there is so much that you have to write. I have been told by some people that already are teachers that after awhile, I won’t be writing so much in my lesson plans as I will for the first few years, because I am a beginning teacher. One reason why I am nervous is because since I want to be an Elementary teacher I have to write out lesson plans for 5 subjects compared to Middle School and High School that only make 1 or 2 lesson plans. I am looking forward to the challenge because in the end I’ll be happy with my profession. It will feel like an accomplishment.

Daily, students are faced with many different beliefs systems, backgrounds and heritages in the school setting. Going to school should be something positive and should develop into a place to be comfortable for children. Students are faced with the fact that home is the only place that is the norm for them. Their home is filled with all sorts of things that comply with their heritage. In my opinion, every school district should have a time for children to bring out their ethnicity and educate other students on certain foods and dances that their family shares. This time should be experienced through celebration and equally expressed throughout the school. The only way we can truly relate to someone and their lifestyles is if we’ve experienced it as well. When developing a healthy learning community, it should include multicultural learning to emphasize diversity in the classroom. When building a multicultural learning community, it is important to make differences among people a good and positive thing. We want to make sure there are images and posters of people working together but at the same time we want to acknowledge where these people come from. The only way to make a student feel comfortable is to be able to relate to them. Instead of making students feel ashamed for where they come from, we should celebrate it. Teachers need to show concern for their students and do this equally among everyone. This shows that the teacher really cares about the student’s performance.

Every child that one might come encounter with has different backgrounds and upbringings. As teachers, we are faced with many different races, religious beliefs, and personalities amongst the children in our classrooms. There are many things in life that contribute to shaping the person we become as adults. Diversity in childhood is a crucial element in life because it’s something that we encounter for the rest of our lives. I’m grateful that during my childhood I was able to experience both being the majority and the minority in my schools and neighborhoods that I grew up in. Now looking back on my experiences as a child, and the people that I have met, I understand that those experiences are what made me become the person I am today. I feel as though it is very important for teachers to first understand the different backgrounds and races that we will encounter in order for us to truly relate and connect with our students.

When I think of reading now, most of the time, I think of school work or assigned readings from our text books with the exception of a few books that I only recently, declared to be my favorite. However, after these few years in college my understanding and interest in reading has expanded significantly. As a child in grade school, I struggled with reading mainly because I could never “take in” the information that I was reading. This was because I never really read for pleasure which consequently leaded to only reading what I was told to read. As I try and think back to my earliest memories of reading and where and when it all began, I honestly can’t think of anything. Most students can look back of when there parents would read to them at night or a favorite book they had as a child. Unfortunately, my lack of interest in reading as a child is primarily due to the fact that I didn’t have any positive influences around me growing up. Of course I do remember Dr. Seuss books and the fun books that involved colorful pictures of some sort however, I can’t think of when I began to read them. I think that parent involvement is a huge factor in a child’s reading ability, it definitely has affected mine.

Plagiarizing is a huge ordeal for students all around the world. In high school this topic was mentioned however, teachers never really emphasized the consequences or even what exactly is considered plagiarism. It wasn’t until my first college English Comp class that I got a thorough explanation of what exactly it is. Being an education/ writing arts major, this topic is something that crucial to discuss in the classroom. When doing this, it is very important to not make assumptions that all students will plagiarize. In a lot of cases teachers often mention the techniques or tools that they have access to determine if something was plagiarized. I see a huge problem with this. I understand in ways teachers are basically throwing the message out there that this is a serious action however, it also shows the students that you have no trust in them. Speaking from experience, when I was first introduced to this topic and “warned” in a sense, I was insulted to know that teachers not trust our work. I feel as though even with these discussions and warnings of what can happen if you plagiarize, if a student wants to do it they will take that chance anyway. In closing, when introducing this topic with students it should be set up without the assumption that students will do it.

N.Y. Times: PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy dropped an intellectual bombshell this week, surprising the nation and touching off waves of protest with his revision of the school curriculum: beginning next fall, he said, every fifth grader will have to learn the life story of one of the 11,000 French children killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust.Nothing is more moving, for a child, than the story of a child his own age, who has the same games, the same joys and the same hopes as he, but who, in the dawn of the 1940s, had the bad fortune to be defined as a Jew,” Mr. Sarkozy said at the end of a dinner speech to France’s Jewish community on Wednesday night. He added that every French child should be “entrusted with the memory of a French child-victim of the Holocaust.”

I was really intrigued when reading this article.  I like the idea of bringing history into reality for students.  The truth is, we do sugar coat history and by doing so we don’t really get a feel for what certain people went through.  By doing this project, thje child will relate his/her life to those of the children who went through the Holocaust.  By seeing that they were just normal kids who liked to play games, hang out with their friends, etc they can truely get an idea of what thathorrible time must have been like.

It is also important to connect kids to history because, unfortunately, history tends to repeat itself.  If we do not understand what we have come from we will never be able to understand where we are going.  It is important that students see what can come of hate and prejudice and how wrong what happened was.  It was a real event, with real people and they need to understand that.

While reading the article Understanding Internet Plagiarism, it made me think of why people plagiarize. Do people think that they will not get caught? There are thousands of sites on the internet of cheat sites that is there for people who want to cheat. Teachers all over know how to get to these sites and they always find out that one of their students has copied a school assignment. Why won’t this stop? How come people don’t want to compose their own written piece? Even though writing an essay or working on a research paper for an academic class is a lot of thought and work, people should know that it is always an accomplishment in the end. Why would anyone want to risk their future for cheating on a school assignment? This could prevent a person from finishing his/her academic career and from obtaining any great job that may come in his/her way. So, my advice to people all over is….compose your own work to keep your dreams and future alive!!!

When I read the tutorial on Lonelygirl15, I thought it was a little strange at first. I understand how movies are fake and television shows are fake, but I didn’t think anyone on YouTube would create a script and characters and post on YouTube. When I did watch lonelygirl15’s video it was believable that (Bree) was a 16 year old girl. She didn’t look like she was acting at all. I don’t think I could pull something off like she did. I would probably laugh the whole time because I would be making fool out of myself. But, from watching some of her videos, they are a little boring and I don’t see why people continue to watch them

I’ve just experienced for the first time Diigo.com and I have to say that I wasn’t too impressed with the program. For starters, I much rather read a hard copy of something. Reading on a computer screen starts to become fuzzy and frankly my eyes start to burn and become irritated especially when you’re reading four pages. Also, when it comes to annotating, this task was very difficult for me. I’m still not sure if my sticky notes and highlighted items become public because it wouldn’t let me click on the pull-down menu to make it public instead of private. I also feel generally, when you are annotating, you are basically jotting down a few notes about the passage, however when you do this technique online, as you type you know you have an audience that is reading this so what you choose to write becomes more detailed so people can understand it. When I think of annotating something, it’s for me to look back on certain key areas or even areas that weren’t so clear to me. I’m not sure what the purpose of doing this online is when annotating is for my personal benefit.