Essay Week 9: My Ideas About Education

Traditionally, schools were created to ensure that citizens of the United States were better educated and become productive members of society. I think we should go back to this model instead of the business model we currently use. I believe that we should learn basics for how to survive on our own. I remember classes like personal finance and single survival in high school, and I think those are a great idea. I also believe we should maintain basic math and English skills, as well. Although I don’t believe in a liberal education, I do believe that some aspects of it can be beneficial. For example, I think that requirements for math, English, and science should be honored. They enable people to develop basic skills to help them in the future and to better understand our world. I believe that students work better when they are working on subjects that they find interesting. I also think that standardized tests are not a viable option anymore. Students should receive grades based on knowledge they gained that should be measured through another means, like presentations or projects where they can show the knowledge they gained in their own creative ways. I really love Laura Gibbs’s experience in her fourth grade open classroom. I think this would be a brilliant idea to implement in a larger scale to see how this would affect learning. I especially agree when Laura says, “…We have replaced curiosity and passion with grading”. I know that when I was in school, I had to focus mainly on grades and don’t recall much from what I was supposed to learn because of this. Now, in college, I am constantly doing homework and unable to do extra reading about things that interest me because they have me taking classes that I don’t care for and have no true interest in, that require hours of my time to complete for a grade that seems irrelevant. If I were to teach, I would grade based on projects and presentations rather than test grades and quiz scores. There may occasionally be a quiz, but I would mainly want to ensure that my kids retain the information they learn and are able to apply that to something in their real life. I think this would cut down on anxiety over grades and encourage creativity.

This is not what I want my children and future generations to look forward to:

 Hours of sitting and listening to lectures about subjects they are not interested in. Not retaining any knowledge and learning skills that are not necessary for them and, most of the time, will not help them in their life. 

Picture: Google Images

Week 9 Reading Diary

Eskimo Folk Tales Unit

The Coming of Men, a Long, Long While Ago

I can’t imagine living in complete darkness all the time. I wonder if the fact that fire used to burn has anything to do with “firewater”. The scenes described in this story are terrifying. The earth being so overcrowded, no one dying, getting so old you are unable to walk, see, or lie down. I thought it was a nice touch that everyone who dies becomes a star in the heavens.

The Coming of Men

Nukúnguasik, who Escaped from the Tupilak

This story was kind of interesting, but also pretty boring. I don’t think I would need to read this one again because I didn’t gain anything from it.

The man who escaped from the Tupilak

The Woman who had a Bear as a Foster-son

I don’t know how its possible for a frozen bear to come to life, but it is a heartwarming story. I’m glad th woman decided to save the bear. I loved that the bear became accustomed to playing with human children and was loved by the townspeople. The ending of the story was so sad. It really reminded me of the movie Fox and the Hound by Disney where the mother is forced to let go of the animal she loves and force him into the wild.

The Woman who had a Bear as a Foster-Son

Qalagánguasê, Who Passed to the Land of Ghosts

Why did everyone in his life die? And how do people die from eating sea weed? He was paralyzed from the waist down? It would be incredibly difficult to see the ghosts of your dead family. I wonder why they only come out when he is alone. Why would the people he lived with treat him so poorly? I think it is sad that his family turned him into a ghost, but good that he was able to be happy again.

The Boy who Passed to the Land of Ghosts

Isigâligârssik

Why did the wizard take his wife away? This story is so odd.

The Tiny Man

The Insects that Wooed a Wifeless Man

He oversleeps much like I do. Noseless people? I feel like this man molested the girls in the town. I wonder what the fire man gave to him to help him wake up.

The Insects that Wooed a Wifeless Man

Reading Diary Week 8: Review

I noticed that in the instructions it says to just focus on your favorites and not get tied down in note taking. However, I find it most useful to write down key points in all of the stories rather than just my favorites and record my reactions to each one. The main strategy I use for writing my diary posts is, a stated in the last sentence, take note of the main points of the stories and be sure to note if something intrigues me. I typically use the same strategy every time. If I find that my post has become really long, I will go through and delete story notes that are short or uninteresting. I have had the extreme of really short and really long posts, it just depends on the unit. If a story reminds me of another story I have heard, seen, or read, I will include that in my note-taking. Sometimes I just refer vaguely to a story rather than by title. I also tend to take notes while I read. I find this method most effective because I have a really terrible memory and will forget details and things I thought were interesting even directly after I read. I think my diary posts are most useful when I write the storytelling post each week. I like to go back and read my notes so that I can remember which story I liked the most and see if I can imagine a spin to the story that I could write about. I think the most useful thing about my reading posts is that I include links to each individual story, so when I decide on one for storytelling, I can follow along while I write to include certain aspects of the story. Overall, I am not keeping up with the reading very well so far. I have had a really difficult time because once you get behind, you are basically screwed, which I don’t like. I don’t remember much of the reading. As I said before, I have a terrible memory. So, I can remember general details and even specific twists in the story, but I can never remember names, titles, or even which unit the story is in. I don’t have any strategies to make this any better. So, I will keep writing detailed notes in my reading diaries.