Critical Voice
I liked this article... (how bland of a statement, but at the moment I couldn't think of a better opening line) I thought it was interesting that it seemed like Stan really thought that his plan for teaching actually was good. The first time I read it, it seemed like he thought teachers would be relieved to have their lesson plans handed to them. Then when I read over it again it seemed more like he was talking to administrators that they could have full control of their teachers. He must really think very little of teachers to think that they want the creativity stamped out of them and only do what people tell them to do. Either that, or he has a very stereotypical view of administrators. That they want all the power. Though it may be rare, I'm sure there are many administrators and principals who advocate for their teachers.
As far as developing and having a critical voice, I think teachers with passion have that. You have to. You can't be really passionate about something without willing to speak up for it. When we see kids being mistreated or unfair rules being enacted how are we supposed to stand by silently? I think of the Malcolm X quote, "If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything"
Guatemalans
in other news... I saw something on the news that made me so incredibly upset. Apparently in the 1940s Americans injected the Guatemalans with STDs for a study! I could barely believe it. I mean who does that? The first rule in conducting studies is that you can't harm the people that you're studying. Why do we think that people in 3rd world countries are somehow less than others? How can people justify something like that? It reminded me of when the colonists gave the American Indians blankets infected with smallpox. What are we supposed to do with information like that? I mean what do you even begin to do to correct that? Or make sure that something like that never happens again? Why can't we learn from history? You can't see the future, but historical vision is 20/20 you can see what you did, know what happened and what the effects were. Goodness... I'm slightly dumbfounded.
Humus
Lastly, I went to my field placement on Thursday and it went a lot better than the first day went. There were a lot of interesting events, plenty of journal material, but I'll just tell you the funniest, shortest story. I was helping with a science lesson with the students and we were talking about climates and they were reading in the textbook, and one kids was reading about soil and he said, "soil is made of nutrients and humans" I giggled in my head and told him it was humus. Could you imagine :)? You can tell that kids sometimes guess at words. When they get to a foreign word, without really reading, they just tell you what they think it might be. I had to tell a couple kids to slow down and really read. But it was a good day. Got a rough plan for what I'm going to do for my lesson. We'll see how that goes ;) AND! I learned about the gallon guy/girl! Click on the link in the links section... I thought it was a great way for kids to learn comparative measurements! It was even helpful to me!
Adeus! (bye in Galician <-- where do they even speak that?)
Imani
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