Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

By: Dane Pleiss

Making School a Safe Place

                An issue that has been in schools across the world since the beginning of time has been bullying, and I feel it is only getting worse. I feel bullying is a zero tolerance and punishment shouldn’t be taken so lightly, or just shaken off by authorities.  I feel that it is up to our school teachers and school authority figures to take action before it gets even worse.

                I recently watched a movie called Bullied and it talked about a student named Jamie who was bullied so bad in his grade school through high school years that it caused him to runaway and later try to overdose on pills. He went to his principal and other authority figures to seek out help, but he never got the help he needed, and always thought of school as this scary place where he wouldn’t be safe. There are kids like Jamie all around the world that see school as a place where they will just get teased and beat up and nothing will happen to the abusers. I feel that as a future teacher I would never want it to be where any of my students fear coming to school because one of their peers is ruining their life so much that school (which is eight hour days, five days a week, nine months a year) is too much for them to handle because they are scared for their life.

                Bullying can start out as something as simple as teasing someone about their haircut, but someone harassing you everyday about that haircut, and using violence can lead to so much more. Attacking the child’s personal life, maybe because of their sexual orientation or family income can be taking it too far, and it shouldn’t ever go that far. Using violence on a child because their different should be zero tolerance and the bully should be punished for their actions no matter of their “rank” in the school whether they are the star quarterback, or the prom queen. Everyone should suffer the same consequences when it comes to bullying.

                Something that really scares me is that suicide is the number three cause of death in teenagers, and this big number has a lot to do with bullying and how it takes such a toll on a child where they feel the only way out is for them to kill themselves. This is such a sad thing to think that one day my student could be sitting in my classroom and I think everything is fine, the next day they don’t show up because they couldn’t handle being bullied anymore. I feel that it is up to the teachers and school authority figures to crack down on bullying because it has and can ruin a child’s grade school and high school years. Years they will never get back.              

Group Nine Presentation

Group nine presented on chapter 13 which was 21st Century Schools. They started off by showing a youtube clip of students with white boards each with facts about being a student in the 21st century schools. Some of the facts were pretty shocking and surprising because it basically showed how far behind the United States is in their schooling and teaching. I felt that this was a great clip to show at the beginning of their presentation. They went on to talk about effective strategies for motivating students to learn. They are: be free with praise, get to know students, become a role model, give students as much control over their own education as possible. I feel that these are all great ways to motivate a student in their schoolwork and I completely agree with all of them. As teachers we need to have the essential teaching skills, the group gave a short list of some things that all teachers need to be effective with their classroom, they are: organization, focus, feedback, enthusiasm, questioning and closure & application. I feel that they did a good job with their interview in relating it to their topic also, overall it was a good presentation.

Group Eight Presentation

Group eight presented on Class Management and some effective ways to manage your class and explained ways that you can make your students feel welcomed in the classroom. They talked about how a teacher needs to recognize parent involvement in their child's schoolwork and things like that. Some effective ways of making your students feel welcomed in the class is to first welcome the student when they walk into the classroom at the beginning of the day to make them feel like the teacher actually wants them there. Other things like compliment the student on something even if it is the littlest thing, they'll appreciate it. Something they talked about that can be tough for a teacher is learning each of your students learning styles and what works for them. With a class of 30 students this can be tough because you can be moving too fast or too slow for some students and you don't want any of them to fall behind. Something that we also talked about was capital punishment and to not embarrass the students and lower their self confidence, because once you get rid of that, everything goes out the door. This group did a great job presenting on this chapter.

Group Seven Presentation

Group seven presented on chapter ten, School Law: Ethical and Legal Influences on Teaching. The group started out with a news video on Facebook and how there has been problems with Facebook in the sense of students friending teachers and getting access to photos and teachers being fired for what is on their Facebook page. I thought this was a very interesting video because this is whats happening now, teachers in the St. Cloud area were fired for the same thing. The group also talked about teachers being protected by tenure and how that can be a good and a bad thing. Good because if something comes up where there job could be on the line, they are protected. But it can be bad because instead of getting rid of old teachers, its the new fresh minded teachers that get their position cut. Overall this group did a very good job and they had really good discussions with the whole Facebook video and about the tenure.

The Finland Phenomenon

This video compared education and schools in America, and than showed what schools are like in Finland. Finland is #1 in every education category in the world, while the US is ranked #26 in the world. Schools in Finland give every student the same proper education regardless of income, as opposed to the US which is all about income with what education you get. If you don't have money, you won't get the same education as someone who has a good family income. What I thought was cool about school in Finland is that they sometimes keep the same teacher for several grades. I like this because the teacher knows your style of learning and knows what works for the students. So instead of just sending them off to a new teacher the next year, they just bump up a grade with the class. Another thing I liked about the schooling in Finland was that you can choose from either the "academic track" or the "technical track". I like this because if you know what you want to be, and language arts may not be your thing, you can base your classes around engineering and or more hands on work.I think we can learn a lot from schools in Finland being that they are #1 in every category. Very cool video.

Group Six Presentations

Group six did their presentation on School Governance. I felt that this group new a lot about what they were talking about and had a genuine interest in their topic and it made me interested in what they were talking about because I felt what they were talking about was dead on with the examples they were using and the scenarios they were giving. They passed around a booklet of the Anoka-Hennepin finances and it was broken down to every penny. What I thought was pretty shocking was that 96% of school districts are run by school boards. I had absolutely no knowledge of the way schools are budgeted and they gave a lot of information on it. I still feel a little lost by it all, but its not due to their presentation its just something I never have really learned before.

Detroit to close some schools, convert others to charters

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/03/30/michigan.schools/index.html?iref=allsearch

This article talked about how schools in Detroit are being converted to charter schools or are closing. Over 18 schools in the area closed due to a large budget deficit. As a teacher this isn't good because they are getting their job cut and therefore have to find a new job position in the schools that aren't closing, and that would be very hard because one of the reasons for the schools closing is because a lack of students in the Detroit area. I would hate for this to happen to me, to get a job in the school and be settling in and than have your position cut, or school shut down in this case. Also, for those schools turned to charter schools is a change for the teachers because it will change their schedule, and style of teaching which can be hard for a teacher that is older and is tenured to change the style they have been so used to.