If there were only 100 people in America
This article discusses the relevancy of a book written by David Smith that is being used to help children understand the concept of the world. In the book, the number of people living in America is reduced to 100 and 1 person equals 1 million people in the real world. Not only does this book help students truly see the magnitude of having 5 billion people living on the planet earth, it also makes connections in math, languages, social studies, and science. I believe that the use of materials that utilize cross-disciplinary material is essential when dealing with today's student. Gone are the days even when I was in high school 6 years ago of students being able to sit in a classroom and listen to a lecture and learn from it. We simply have to evolve as educators to meet the needs of the ever diversifying student population. At my school we have a high percentage of Hispanics that is somewhat uncommon amongst some of the other schools in the county. This leads to issues with language, almost all of them are in some type of ESOL class, and with their cultural background. There are two different types of Hispanic students at my school, 1 is extremely respectful of the teachers and does everything that is right and the other that knows how school operates in Mexico and the lack of quality teachers so they live for the moment and do not care about being a good student or citizen. Now this may seem like profiling or being racist, but it is something I deal with every day. So to deal with these things, I must alter lesson plans and become very rigourous in my discipline procedures that are normally somewhat relaxed in order to keep students from going bonkers in the class. On top of this, David Smith highlights the impressive, yet disparaging facts of the highly uneven distribution of wealth, the cultural mix in the population, and the dominant religion. This book can allow teachers to bring the world into their classroom and get students to think of more than just themselves in the learning process.
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Cory --
ReplyDeleteYou bring out many excellent points in your response but what really resonated with me was your comment, "utilize cross-disciplinary material is essential when dealing with today's student. Gone are the days even when I was in high school 6 years ago of students being able to sit in a classroom and listen to a lecture and learn from it. We simply have to evolve as educators to meet the needs of the ever diversifying student population."
Students, in my experience, learn better if they can connect a concept to more than one content area like math and language arts. Yes, gone are the days where students can sit in a class and listen to a lecture. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that students don't know how to sit still for longer than five minutes. They are bombarded with video games, computers, cell phones, etc. We, as educators, have to constantly be on the lookout to find new and invented ways to reach our students.
I can't relate to your situation with the Hispanics in your school but I can relate to the discipline procedures. Even in the Catholic School we have our share of discipline problems. How are you able to alter your lesson plans and still meet the state and federal standards?
Cory,
ReplyDeleteMarc Prensky wrote some good articles about the new generation of learning. You probably read him from the Tech Ed classes, but he changed my views on digging in my heals and making the kids adapt to my style. I agree that we need to use variety and bring art into teaching.
We have a high population of Hispanics as well, but I more relate to your illustration of 1 well behaved and 1 misbehaved with the Caucasian students. This is frustrating because I do not understand how a few students can be selfish enough to disrupt an entire class or lazy enough to view education as entitlement. I want to learn how to inspire and motivate students to change this attitude and behavior.
Philip