The Buzz of Public Education

After leaving our last lecture I felt compelled to write about how I felt about the things that we discussed. (Interestingly enough I couldn't wait to jot down extra info that we didn't get to share in class.) Much of the class we spoke about an article by Harold Hodgkinson about demographics in education. Many of the statistics that he spoke of were reiterated from the last article we read, "The Public Education Primer." Although it seems as Prof. Goldstein explains that he is the creme de la creme of education demographics so it appears what I just said may be vice versa. In class we discussed many of the key terms in his article, in my opinion the most interesting one was transiency, this is a term also can be interchanged with mobility. When our professor told us about the example from Newark I was floored. For those who may have been spacing off about what you were going to do this weekend, or just weren't there let me fill you in. Some time a few years ago Newark's mobility rate within their schools was at 40%. This 40% means that if at the beginning of the year a school has 100 students and at the end they still have 100, BUT 40 students are new and 60 are old, this is showing us how much more stress this students as well as teachers are having. The way that I saw it was, how can these children be moving from school to school and not having problems with it? They must have at least gripes about it, each and every school has a different curriculum, while the state may try and regulate what the students are learning, nothing is perfect. While I find myself to be an educated person, I also find myself incredibly naive to the kinks in our education system. After reading both articles and hearing the experiences that Prof. Goldstein has to offer it makes me learn more and more about why I might possibly want to teach.

Martian Activity

Schools have specific curriculum standards that provide our students with the higher capability to learn. Also standardized testing provides administrators with deciding what our students are having problems with and all what knowledge of what our students are learning in the classroom. This will help our schools they excel in.

More than half of the country’s public school students are white. Children of color make up the majority of public school enrollments in six states and many school districts. Children of color also constitute a majority of students in two-thirds of the nation’s 50 largest school districts, and over 90% of enrollments in several of the nation’s largest districts. In major U.S. cities classrooms are more culturally diverse.

A majority of teachers have advanced degrees as well as more then 10 years of experience. This means not only are our teachers well educated but have stay in the system for quite some time and have great experiences with our schools. Nine out of ten of the teachers are white as well as eight out of ten teachers are female.

Ah The Official Icebreaker!

Well, let's just say after a first week of school(not even a full week mind you) I am completely and utterly overwhelmed. The first day is always nervewrecking, especially for me. Someone who is not normally quiet is hushed by the nerves of college and meeting new people. After my first full day of classes I had the joy of working a wonderful 4-12 shift at my job. So during that time I pondered on everything that had happened that day. I realized that this semester will be incredibly challenging but finally the semester where I am learning about what I want to do. The classes I am taking are interesting and thought-provoking which makes me hope that the semester will be great.

After sitting through my first education class I got nervous. Reason being that I don't necessarily want to teach for a living, but decided that this(Health Education major) would be the best route to take to further my career in Physical Therapy. The reason I chose this was because I thought to myself that while in school it would be ideal to get my teaching certification that way I wouldn't have to go back to school in the future if I chose to change professions. Another reason was because the classes for health education fulfill my requirements for entrance to Grad School for Physical Therapy. I am hoping that this class will make me open up as far as public speaking(not my forte') and also realize what is going on with our public education.

With an opinion of someone who went to public school, I can say that anything I can do to improve the system and make the children/teens in our schools happier and have a better learning experience, I would love to be apart of it. I know that I was fortunate for having gone to a public school but at the same time receiving a Vocational-Technical experience. Not many teens coming out of high school can say that they had the experience that I did as far as my education outside of just Social Studies, Math, English etc. I thank my high school for giving me the knowledge I know now and the drive to what I will become in years from now. I can only hope that if one day I do teach that I can impact someone's life in my field of work.