On Bullying

After watching most of the TED Talk videos I found the common thread between each story to be that bullying affects all sorts of people in multiple ways. As a teacher, being aware of the variety of ways that bullying can manifest itself today is very important. As a former coach of a girls team, I am well aware of how differently bullying can look; boy-boy, girl -girl, boy-girl, and girl boy, all appear very differently and are dealt with differently.

Only recently has the phenomenon of cyber bullying come to light but with its massive reach and ease of use, its effects are becoming more and more prevalent in our schools. As a special education teacher, I can see the need for social skills lessons and classes with my students who are developmentally delayed or lacking in emotional control. In the past, I have led lessons on topics like bullying and asking for help. These classes should be available to all students but I do think that special education students are particularly in need.

At Leslie, we have "bullying slips" where students can report incidents and seek help from their counselor and other staff. This is, of course, a good resource but my skeptical side see a slippery slope. While I do think bullying is a real issue, I also see savvy students who abuse our system to "get kids in trouble" or get out of class. I fear that in a possible overreaction to the problem of bullying that our schools could go too far in the other direction where students are not given the opportunity to have conflict and work through it themselves.

Class Room Competition

Competition has been a big part of my life. Playing youth sports, coaching high level high school basketball and even in my social life I find myself competing with friends in games. Not surprisingly I have integrated classroom competitions into my lessons. I use a PowerPoint jeopardy game to review the math concepts that we have covered in the past weeks. In reading this paper on competition, I often reflected on my jeopardy game. I do place the students into teams and we do keep score. However I give rewards based on participation and displaying appropriate behavior during the game. 

The concept of mastery vs performance learning was also very interesting to me. I know from personal experience that when I participate in a game based on knowledge I often find myself trying to form a strategy to win and "beat the game" rather than accessing the knowledge and learning from the game. I see this tendency in my class at times when the parameters of the game are not carefully constructed. 

The data seems to suggest that cooperative  conditions actually produce learners that perform at higher levels. This is a very important finding. However, a middle school life skills class is generally an uncooperative environment. Students require the skills and the ethic to cooperate before they can cooperatively learn. Competitive learning environments may draw in students to a subject area initially because they want to "play the game." In this sense I see competition in class as a positive tool at times. 

Finally, I also can see where the cooperation and competition can unite. In my classroom jeopardy game, at its best, students work together to generate answers and share knowledge. At the same time they are competing to get the correct answer and earn a prize. I like seeing this balance in my students and I think it allows students with different motivations to work together. 

Girls on the Edge pt.2

Well I am sure of it... I do NOT want to have a daughter. I am mostly joking of course, but this book can get your mind going down a rabbit hole....

Early in chapter 5, Sax is speaking to early childhood education and says that its "all about doing the right thing at the right time." This advice seems to sum up the advice of the entire book on raising a daughter.

I found chapter 5 to be very interesting. The idea that waiting to begin school till age 7 rather than 5, may produce children that are more ready to learn and more excited to learn in a classroom setting. The parents role in choosing when to start their child is obviously most important. As the book suggest if a girl is not ready to begin kindergarten there is a chance she could be misdiagnosed with ADHD. The medications and other implications that follow can be problematic. The parents role in educating themselves on these issues and understanding what kind of a school is developmentally appropriate for their daughter is a tough task requiring not only education but also socio-economic assets.

I have known of the "monkey tests" for sometime and have often referred to the tests when debating friends who claim gender roles are ONLY social constructs. Adding the "what" and "where" systems of the human brain to my arguments will be fun. As a teacher, knowledge of gender differences is essential. Finding creative ways to breakdown gender stereotypes will help both male and female students.

Sax suggests that anyone can teach boys with the right strategies but to teach a girl you have to really care about her as an individual and she needs to know that you care. I have found this to be very true through my coaching experience with both boys and girls. When I figured out that simply checking in with a player as she was shooting baskets before practice or greeting her as she came into the gym made a big difference when it came to her attention and respect during practice.

Sax speaks extensively on spirituality. I was raised catholic and went to private school for 12 years. Today I am more or less against organized religions and think that some can be quite dangerous, especially for young girls.  I worry about children being indoctrinated into religions and it is difficult to here conversations at school about bible study. Ideally I want children to explore and learn about their spiritual sides for themselves but I am not sure what the teachers role is in that pursuit.