Lindquist Chapters 4,5,8

These chapters were probably the best three ive read so far in this book. For me the way i will feel most sucessful as a teacher is my ability relate to my students and create a fun, informative, and interesting classroom. The chapter on Making it Meaningful provided many good examples of how teachers have created unique learning opportunities for the students that keep them engaged and wanted to learn more, which is what i want to be able to accomplish. I also enjoyed reading about how Lindquist was able to provide examples of ways to encorporate math and ELA into the social studies curriculum since more and more evidence shows how those two academic areas are taking more and more time out of social studies due to high stakes testing. The other key point that Lindquist mentioned was how project based learning can also encourage student-student teaching and learning especially in areas such as multiculturalism.
Chapter 5 furthered that idea with stressing the importance of P.O.V and describing how important it is to student learning in social studies to be familiar with many perspectives. The opening example about the car crash and the different witnesses was a perfect example that stressed the importance of P.O.V. This chapter also connected with my research paper on teaching diversity highlighting the fact that teachers have to be confident and comfortable with their personal values to be able to create an environment that is accepting of all beliefs and values.
The final chapter on assesments was informative as well becuase i hope to utlilze varying assesment methods in my classroom. I was the type of student that didnt so well with the standard test format, i have always benefited from alternative options, such as brochures or papers or posters so this chapter provided reassurance about using alternative methods, while also stressing that the standard tests evaluate the teacher as much as it does the student, so they do have and important place in the classroom.
One quote that i really enjoyed in this selection of readings was, "Learning is like weaving-sometimes the same threads are used in the same pattern, sometimes the same threads are used in a new pattern. Sometimes new threads are used, combining with familiar threads to deepen an existing pattern or to create a new one. One day, from the myraid of threads, a beautiful holistic pattern emerges" (192).

Week 2 Fried and Lindquist

As i continue to read Fried's Passionate Teacher Im coming across more ways to think about how my classroom will be shaped in the future and what aspects even at this point i feel to be essential to a sucessful classroom. Ths ideas however, that stuck out most from the chapters was the idea that we are there to prepare children for the future. "Education is, afterall, about enabling students to know and do important things and to act as decent, responsible, and thoughful people" (46). In order to complete such a task a teacher must go into the each school year with a mission and an established mindframe of how they want to portray themselves while maintaining an open mind to reform despite the potential for negative perceptions from others. I also enjoyed the "less is more" debate on content in chapter 3 because it brought up valid points from each view point that every teacher faces. With time constraints due to testing and the importance on areas like math and ELA teachers have to decide what the most important information is to teach while also restricting the amount of information to avoid overwhelming students. The answer that Fried provides, " For the passioante teacher, its got to be both-students will experience a rich, content filled curriculum; students will discover for themselves the excitement of in-depth study" (55). I also found the chapter on designing a unit as a good place for reference to help organize thoughts and ideas for curriculum development. My experieces in a school provided a real life reflection upon Friend's theory about "the game" The general workings and expectations within a school keeps this game alive and unfortunaty i have seen that teachers have so much respoonsibility and even though they may know that students take the easy way out, they are too worried about what will be covered next or what test the children need to be ready for and not about the quality of the immediate results.
The Lindguist book i feel has provided me with a lot of information and though a little overwheming i can see how it can be integrated in a very useful way. The chaper on student teacher interactions was very informative in terms of providing me with many ideas of how to create sucessful classroom management. The importance of allowing students to partake in creating the classroom rules and feeling that they have some control over their classroom experience i feel to be an essential part in a sucessful classroom. If the students respect follow their rules while knowing that the teacher respects their ideas i feel creates a peaceful classroom. The other chapters continued to expand my knowledge and idea base of how to constantly expose my students to fun, content filled, and engaging activities by working crosscurricularly or introducing activites that extend beyong simple art projects or worksheets that will be more memorable for the students.

The Passionate Teacher and Seeing the Whole through SS Chapter 1

I really enjoyed reading the first chapter in both books. I found myself reflecting back on my own personal experiences as a student in elementary school as well as my professional experience working in a school. Specifically about what teachers i could identify as posessing that passionate nature. My favorite line in the Passionate Teacher was on (pg 23) "Passionate teachers convey their passion to novice learners-their students- by acting as partners in learning rather than experts in the field" I have found in my past two years as an assistant teacher that students tend to be more comfortable and less intimidated if the teacher participates in the process of learning and investigating and as a result feels more comfortable in taking risks and asking questions. I see myself as someone who is more open to questioning and participating when i sense that a teacher doesn't feel like he or she is a know-it-all in the subject and never makes mistakes. That leads me to another statement on (pg 27) "Passionate teachers are always taking risks, and they make at least as many mistakes as anybody else (probably more than most). I think that part of what makes teachers passionate about what they do is knowing that there is always more to learn and finding ways to convey vital information poses a fun challenge.
What i really enjoyed about the first chapter in Seeing the Whole through Social Studies was how we were given an example of how a few teachers provided a working example of how vital social studies is and the sucessful ways they were able to encorporate it into many crosscurricular activites. Utilizing the idea of taping numerous multiple intelligences to address different learning styles (pg 20-23) i thought to be very thought provoking because creating units of study can be a daunting task, however, thinking about multiple intelligences, i felt, was a great way to help teachers brainstorm unique activites to make learning more fun and yet accessible to diverse learners. Since language arts is an essential conponent in elementary school the ways in which the authors provided ways to coneect the two (pg 31-34) was very informative. I think that overall this chapter demonstrated that social studies can be integrated with all subject units and not take away vaulable time for subjects like math and reading that are so important.