It's Over Now

Man, I am glad it's over. Not really it wasn't that bad. On the first day of class when Mrs. Quinn stated, “that this class would consist of blogging instead of being a traditional style English class” I was seriously thinking about dropping the class. I was already apprehensive about taking English for the semester anyway so when she said blogging, I was sure I didn't want to be in the class. I had seen blogging before on political topics, but didn't particularly care for everyone stating their opinion on the article that was written. It seemed like most of the blogger comments seem to take pop shots and each other comments which would then turn into a blog argument instead of concentrating on the article. That's what I thought blogging was, but boy was I wrong. Blogging as I see it now gives every individual the opportunity to share their thoughts on matters near and dear to their heart. Blogging has allowed me to follow experts in the career field I plan on going into after I retire from the military. There are also many good sports blogs that I have found since this English class started. I will continue to follow a few of the blogs, of the people in my community and maybe one day I will create another blog.
Lastly, I have enjoyed creating and posting my thoughts on this blog, but this will be my last post. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read my post and special thanks to anyone who took the time to post a comment.

Time to Raise the Wages

If you were to ask most teachers the question why do they want to become a teacher? Ninety- five percent of them would probably say they didn't come into the profession for the love of money. Through talking with many teachers most of them normally state they teach, "because they feel they can make a difference, they love teaching children, and they have a strong need to give back to their community". In today's society we place actors, actress, athletes, lawyers, doctor's and everyone else that make a substantial amount of money up on a pedestal. It is time for this to stop. It is time to stand on the National and state Capitol steps to help get some type of legislation passed for teachers to receive higher salaries. In addition to an overall salary increase for all teachers; those few teachers who go above and beyond the call of duty should be entitled to some type of incentive pay.


I personally think the system works totally against teachers. I say this because most teachers don’t go into education profession for the money they generally teach because of the love for children. Since in the past money wasn’t a major factor, it was easy to get a way with paying teacher such small salaries. But with the cost of living skyrocketing and the loss of good teachers leaving the profession; wages are starting to become a serious problem. How can it be justified that teachers are responsible to educate the next generation and they are literally being paid scraps to teach. I would think that this in itself would put most people on board, to fight for higher teacher wages. Also in today’s society, just like all other profession, teachers are being required to obtain more education and training than ever to receive licensure. So why shouldn’t theacher's be paid more for their services?


Many on the opposite side of the isle seem to argue that teachers make enough for the time they spend working. Some preach that teacher’s work from nine to three daily, but that is totally false. Teachers spend countless hours putting together lesson plans, grading assignments, and conducting conferences with parents and administrators. Not to mention, all of the after school activities they have to help coordinate and assist with such as PTA, sporting activities, school dances, etc. So anyone who believes a teacher job is complete at three o’clock should get the facts straight before than began to speak. It is also often said teachers only work nine months out of the year therefore that constitutes why their salary is so low. I have spoken with many teachers that have been teaching for years and they all have said “it’s a lot closer to ten months than nine”. Think about this as food for thought. Have you ever been to a Thanksgiving or Christmas day parade and witnessed the different schools marching. Be aware that the teacher's that are out there supervising, who aren't being paid, voluntarily gave up part of thier holiday so that your child can march in one of the two parades. Do you think the same can be said for anyone else who helped prepare for the parade? Or the Police Officer who will conduct securityfor the event? I like to tell all the critics that someone sees the need for change because; The American Teacher Federation conducted a survey in 2007 that concluded that the average salary for a public school teacher’s rose above 50,000.00 for the first time ever.


Every since I was a small child I have heard numerous amount of people who say “don't go into teaching, because teachers don't make any money”. This way of thinking has been going on for too long. There are too many good teachers leaving the profession and too many good prospects not becoming teachers because wages are too low. If this trend continues and we don’t start paying teachers more this powerful country will start to decline.

Keeping the Parents Involved

The process of education starts at home with your parents from the time a child is born. That is the reason why as a teacher it is just as important to communicate with the parents--- as it is with the students. With the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) it is a requirement for teachers to keep the parents informed and involved in regards to their children education. It is extremely important that as teachers we must have an ongoing open relationship with the parents to ensure proper development and guidance for our students. My seventh grade teacher once told our class that “if I could get every parent as involved as much as my parents were involved in my educational endeavors that the whole world better off”. At the time I was listening but never really cared about what that meant.

There are several types of parent teacher conference settings, but the type of setting that is most intriguing to me is the home visit. This was the type of visit that was highly encouraged while I was recruiting for the Army. A great advantage of the home visit is that it puts you right in the middle of the family’s home where they feel most comfortable. As we all know when someone is comfortable they tend to be more honest and upfront with you and less likely to lie or be defensive. This type of visit is good because it gives you the opportunity to see in what manner the student is living. Most importantly it shows the parent, student, principal, and administrators that you as a teacher are willing to go above and beyond the call of duty.

When I become a teacher I will also communicate with my students parents by way of newsletter. On Friday I will send a newsletter home informing the parent what is to come for the following week. This practice should increase parent and student communication at home. This technique will allow the parent to help prepare the child for the upcoming week’s lesson over the weekend. Being a recipient of this newsletter will show parents that it is important to me that they are totally involved in their child’s education. The information in this newsletter will give the parent the opportunity to discuss the lesson with their child prior to the lesson being taught. I believe this type of involvement will encourage the parent(s) to become more involved into my curriculum.

Since technology has become so important with the passing of information it will be extremely important for me to develop a website that my student’s parent can access at anytime to see what is going on in my classroom. This site will show all current and past assignments and projects, test dates, current events. It will also have a calendar with all pertinent information that parents need to know such as when teacher workdays are scheduled, holidays, and when report card will be due out. During orientation I will ensure that I get the email address and phone number of every parent as another way of communicating. When dealing with email as a teacher it will be extremely important to check my email twice a day and reply back in an appropriate timely manner.

Last but not least, the most important gesture in communicating with a parent in regards to their child is to follow up. Following up with a parent after there has been some type of communication shows the parent that you genuinely care about the well being of their child. Once you have shown the parent that you sincerely care nine out of ten times they will put more effort in promoting academic success for their child. Now I truly understand the statement that was once uttered by my seventh grade teacher.

Drop Out!!

Did you know that a third of the kids that enter high school today fail to walk across the stage on graduation day? I found this hard to believe, because when I was in high school in the early nineties dropping out of high school was something that was almost unheard of in those times. However, I did consider dropping out when I was in the eleventh grade to help support my mom, who was a single parent raising four kids, but that thought quickly faded from my mind. In my time it was always instilled in me if you didn’t receive a high school diploma there was no way you could land a decent job yet earn a decent salary. In such a short time things have really changed. Statistics show across the country children of all races and gender are dropping out, but Blacks and Hispanics are dropping out at an alarming rate over Whites and Asians.

A couple of days ago I was talking to a sixteen year old kid who stated that he drop out a few weeks ago, because he just doesn’t like going to school. If he was related to me I probably would have suckered punch him for dropping out for such a dumb reason. He went on to say that “I’m from DC and the school I was attending wasn’t teaching me anything anyway that‘s why I stopped going”. Where are we going wrong as a society, if we allow a sixteen year old child to drop out of school simply because he or she doesn’t like school? Do we stand by and let them throw their entire future away? “A report, issued by America's Promise Alliance, found that only about half of the students served by public school systems in the nation's largest cities receive diplomas”(cbsnew.com para 2). There has to be more research done, more questions answered, and major changes conducted to change this trend.

I also talked to a twenty six year old that stated “he drop out at the age of sixteen, because he was extremely bored with school”. It was so boring to him that he would go only twice a week and when he did attend he would just go to sleep in class. He failed so far behind on his assignments he just decided it was in his best interest not to go back, because he wasn’t able and willing to catch up the work. He now looks back on his decision to drop out and has realized that it was the worst decision he has ever made in his life. As a young teenager he had always wanted to be an accountant, that horrible decision has only landed him jobs in construction and in the restaurant business. He recently went back to school to receive his GED and will attend college in the spring; however, he is was still visibly upset for wasting so many years of obtaining the occupation he wanted to be at a younger age.
We as parents and educators have to change the mindset of these children at a very young age. We can’t wait until their teenagers to tell them the importance of a high school education. It has to start practically before they start their first day of school in other words it should be stressed diligently by the parents at home. However, it is also the early childhood teacher’s responsibility to be able to recognize if there is a child that need a little more attention in this aspect—and that teacher should assist in fixing the problem before the child gets the desire to quit or before the child gets bored. These are the things that were instilled in me at a young age and I believe it was one of the reasons why I didn’t drop out when the desire was there.
Watch CBS News Videos Online

I really like the Child Trend Data Bank web site it has a lot of good information. It's a great page because it breaks down the drop out rate everyway imaginable. A blog that I think will be a good source to use when completing my analysis paper is D-Ed Reconing. His site has identified several hyper links with valuable information.

Prayer Should be Allowed in the Classroom

As a nation we should strongly consider allowing prayer back into the public school system classroom. Why not in the classroom? Students are already allowed to pray on the bus, flag pole, cafeteria, etc. Therefore, prayer should be allowed in the classroom also because prayer helps to prevent illegal and immoral acts, and prayer also helps to produce a stable learning environment. Not to forget that this nation was built on the principles of God.

In 1962 the Supreme Court handed down a historic decision in regards to prayer in the classroom. The court ruled seven to one that it was unconstitutional for school officials to mandate an official school prayer, and to make the recital of that prayer mandatory. This decision was obtained in the Engel vs. Vitale case. I wasn’t around at that time but after a considerable amount of research it looks as if this one decision put this country in a free fall toward moral decline. “Since prayer was removed from public school classrooms in 1962, we have had a six-fold increase in violent crime, our divorce rate has tripled, births to single mothers have increased five-fold, the teenage suicide rate has tripled, and SAT scores (standardized college entrance test) have dropped 80 points (approximately 10%)” (Creation Science Evangelism para 4). These statics alone have convinced me that we need to allow prayer back into our classrooms.

Looking at the numerous amounts of changes that have taken place since prayer was removed from the classroom; I have come to the conclusion that our schools are far worse off than they were in the past. Our children have become less obedient and more self absorbed. The principles that our schools were built on are totally declining—prayer, discipline, and obedience. We must understand that morals are generally taught by the parent and teachers. Without religion and prayer how can morals possibly be taught properly? Personally I think our allowance of the secular viewpoint and the disregard of prayer is the primary cause for the failing of our school system and our children.

I fully understand that the removal of prayer form the classroom is not solely responsible for all the problems in our school. Some might argue and I agree that a part of the problem is the failure of the parents to turn the television off and ensuring that their children are completing their homework assignments. But, statics show that "the year after prayer was removed from schools the pregnancy rate for girls under fifteen rose from five thousand to twenty-seven thousand" (popular issues para 5). Shortly after that SAT scores dropped, drug use increased, and violence rose to an all time high. The importance of prayer has been documented and identified since the establishment of this county. There have been many forward steps that we have taken for the advancement of our school system since the beginning of time; but when prayer was removed from the classroom that was a huge step backward. I believe as John Adams once quoted “that school prayer will always promote good citizenship”.

Sex Education---Should be Taught in Middle School

Two years ago my best friend daughter, who was sixteen at the time, told him that she was three months pregnant. He was so disappointed when she informed him of the bad news, that he walked away from her in order not to physically abuse her. The thought of sex education being taught in school had never crossed his mind until this incident was tossed into his lap. Kimberly just like most American teenagers had been having sex since she was fourteen years old. Her parents never fathomed that she would start having sex at such a young age. They had talked about sex many times before as a family, but she always had this look on her face as if having sexual intercourse was the worst thing that she could ever imagine. Now they see that Kim, like many other children her age, don’t feel comfortable talking about sexual intercourse with their parents.
It is time for these School Boards to wake up and smell the coffee. Sex Education need to be implemented in our Middle School curriculum immediately. We can introduce sex education into the classroom as a co-ed option, but it would probably benefit the teenagers better if the classes were gender exclusive. Middle School is the ideal time to implement sex education classes, because this is when puberty starts; it's when the hormones level start to rise; and when the bad behavior begin. If sex education becomes mandatory we could most importantly-- educate these teenagers about the importance of safe sex. There are so many benefits of teaching children about abstinence, pregnancy prevention, the use of contraceptives, and how to protect themselves from contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Sex education in the classroom can stress the fact that condoms have an unbelievably high failure rate and what the consequences are, if that were to happen while participating in sexual intercourse. Instead of the child hearing from their buddy that yeah dude condoms do break from time to time. Many of these children don’t believe it only takes one time to have intercourse to become pregnant. In the classroom we can let pregnant girls tell their story since they are the subject matter expert. This practice in itself should open a few teens’ eyes to not want to be in that same predicament. That would then allow the teacher to bring abstinence to the table, being that this will be the most difficult option for teenagers to consider. Education and dialogue in the classroom could drastically minimize the spread of sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea and HIV.

With so much of the population on the affirmative side there must be some pros to this curriculum. Such advantages might be:

• Classes are gender exclusive. This saves embarrassment amongst students and teaches them only what is necessary to know based on their gender.

• Taught properly, sexual education could become a regular course such as Human Anatomy or Biological Science complete with tests and grading that goes towards their graduating credits.

• Student’s can be taught the correct terms of the reproductive system, sexually transmitted diseases and birth contraceptives rather than the “street lingo.”

• Myths surrounding intercourse can be dispelled (such as not being able to get pregnant the first time).

• Studies show that many teenagers become sexually active before the inclusion of the educational classes. Early inclusion of classes has proven to help students remain either abstinent or to at least be responsible if they are active.

• Appropriate sexual education can have an impact on preventing sexual problems in adulthood.("Essortment.Pros and Cons" par 3)

There are many individuals in society that are totally against placing sexual education into middle school curriculum. They feel it is the parent’s responsibility to teach their child about sex, but as I stated earlier most teenagers don’t feel comfortable talking about this subject with their parents. They would rather discuss that kind of information with their peers, so it seems right to have a teacher facilitate that information during school hours. Others might say teaching teenagers about sex promotes intercourse and therefore the teachings would encourage teenagers to engage in sexual activity. That is one of the most ignorant statement I’ve ever heard. We have now entered the twenty first century. Whether you believe or not our kids are engaging in sexual activity at a staggering rate. It is the parent’s job along with the education system to educate these teenagers on the consequences of having sex at such a young age. If it were perfect world abstinence would be great some might abstain but the majoritiyof teens are not. For this to work, sexual education has to be added to the curriculum; we need to identify the right teachers to properly teach the subject; and the teenagers must receive a GRADE from the course.


Essortment.Pros and Cons of Sex Education in School. 2002. 10 November 2009.
http://www.essortment.com/family/sexeducationch_saqs.htm

Special Needs Children

It seems that there are many more children in today's society than in the past that are labeled as special needs kids. Instead of placing these kids in a general classroom (full inclusion)with normal children--- special needs children would be better off, if placed in a special education classroom. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to place kids with disabilities in a general classroom wasn't thinking about the effect that it would have on them or the affect that it would have on the so called normal children.

I have been removed from school for many years, but if my memory serves me well I remember that school age children can be very cruel at times. Especially, if you don't look like them or act a certain way. My nephew is in the fourth grade and he has three special need kids in his classroom and he stated to me that “no one in the class talk or play with them other than the teacher.” The majority of children that I know usually socialize with kids that they have things in common with. Just as well, kids with certain disabilities are more likely to gravitate towards kids in which they have things in common with. Therefore by thrusting these kids in a class with normal kids is like taking a sheep out of its natural habitat and placing it with a pack of wolves.

At first I thought it was a good idea for inclusion, but after talking to a parent that sat in a classroom to observe this practice she made me realizes that it is not such a good idea after all. She stated “the class that she sat in had an autistic child in the room.” She went on to say that “the child must have disrupted the class two or three times while she was there.”

Teachers already have enough obstacles to hurdle in the classroom while trying to teach twenty–five to thirty kids at a time. Teachers in the general classrooms just don’t have time to concentrate on a modified curriculum for a child with special needs. I know many people will think that this is segregation all over again, but I truly believe it is in the best interest of the child to place them in an environment where they are able to become as socially productive as possible instead of placing them in social isolation with children that never communicate with them anyway. NO one should be denied the right to the best education as possible; it’s just my belief that a special education class is the best option to educate an individual with special needs.