Veteran's Day Lesson Plan

So with today being Veterans Day--I am doing a lesson plan with the soldiers today, last Friday, and this coming Wednesday (the days I have class).  I found a couple of things to do with the class...I wanted it to be a mini-lesson type of feel because we are in the middle of units right now.  So we are reading:

Picture courtesy of barnesandnoble.com

I love this book because even though it is a children's story and high schoolers might go eh....but they seem to enjoy the sweetness of the story and I like that it doesn't feel like it was written for 6 year olds and it doesn't talk down to them.

We also watched a couple of videos.  Today's CNN Student News was very appropriate I thought and teenage related.  And ABC News from last Thursday was good...but I didn't watch the follow-up on Friday yet so I can't recommend that one. But I loved how both of these videos focus on not only the sacrifice of the veterans but their families--and that is what I really wanted to hit home for my kids.

What did you do today with your students?

Five Favorite Front-Page Features

lonelyplanet.com

This week for Five Favorite Front-Page Features....more like four this week.  I have been closely watching the Egypt crisis, and I thought that this week I would focus on four articles/clips about Egypt from this week.


Dozens reported killed as clashes break out on the Day of Rage
When I heard about this on the news this morning, I was sadden to hear that things had gotten bad enough that they were just planning on killing one another this morning.

Obama's reaction to Egypt
We can't really take away the foreign aid because that's just giving up all the cards.  But he did cancel military exercises, so that's something

This week, CNN Student News came back and did a recap of the summer.  They started off with the situation in Egypt--which is great to catch up on.  Click this link

Last Saturday the article in New York Times set us up for this week....read Lawless Sinai Shows Risks Rising in Fractured Egypt

Five Favorite Front-Page Features

Last Sunday that this gets to show up as the A to Z Challenge comes to a close.  It has been a fun month to do that and I look forward to doing a wrap-up of it on Wednesday.

5. Bush Presidential Library opened...whether you like/approve of his politics or absolutely hate him....it doesn't matter to me.  He was still president and I thought he was a class act this week by coming back into the media to finish his last real job as president. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dedication-of-the-george-w-bush-presidential-library/2013/04/25/0b9e2e9a-adba-11e2-a986-eec837b1888b_gallery.html

4. White House Correspondence Dinner...the nerd prom :) http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/27/politics/white-house-correspondents-dinner/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

3. Lots of news swirls around about the Boston Marathon bombers...it is almost hard to figure out what is accurate and what isn't it http://abcnews.go.com/US/boston-marathon-bombing-investigators-piece-life-tamerlan-tsarnaev/story?id=19060527#.UX3UmxyG2n8

2. Bangladesh building collapses, a fire breaks out, 377 dead http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/28/us-bangladesh-building-idUSBRE93N06P20130428

1. Possible chemical warfare in Syria...if this ends up being true it will be interesting to see what happens next  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/world/middleeast/us-says-it-suspects-assad-used-chemical-weapons.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130426&_r=0

http://www.cartoonaday.com/democracy-in-syria-cartoon/

My Response to CNN: We are ALL a Team

So this weekend, I saw this article from CNN about the 10 things parents and teachers should know about each other.  I have talked on here before how parents and teachers should be a team, and that parents shouldn't demand things of teachers--just as teachers shouldn't demand things of parents. And again...these opinions are mine alone, but I wanted to respond to this article.

Briefly, this article is a response to an article that they did probably about a year ago about what teachers want to tell parents.  I saw that article then and liked it enough to share it on Facebook.  To me, this new article discusses that parents and teachers are on the same page--some of the time.  They give a couple of quotes--some I agree with and some that I don't. As the article asks at the end: "What do you think about this list and what would you add?" I will do a list of three quotes from the article with my own commentary.

Quote #1 from the article states:
"Parents need to know we're in it for the kids; obviously not for the money," said Facebook user and Florida teacher Cindy Hoffman. "We're in a partnership, trying to do the best for the children as possible. Please don't treat us as adversaries."

I agree because as I have mentioned before, no teacher is in it for the money.  If parents know that we are a team--things go so much better.  Students drive the train (especially in high school) while the parents and teachers work as the staff on the train to help support the engineer.

Quote #2 states:
"As a teacher (oh yes, I am both) I want parents to stop blaming teachers and start working with us," Williams-Solod said. "We can't fix everything, but remember we are humans and we aren't perfect. Also, teach your kids to respect us."

I like this quote because it comes from a teacher-parent.  Sometimes teacher-parents are the worst--because we know what we would do as a teacher for our own kids.  But I think this mom hits the nail on the head--teachers are only human.  And one thing that I have to remind myself of everyday is that parents are only human too. I deal with a lot of kids who might not be in the situation that they were if there were different choices made in their upbringing.  So...again we are a team.

Quote #3 states:
"ADHD is not an excuse; it is an explanation."--Melynda Hartley Johnson, parent

I disagree with this quote to a certain extent. I agree that in some cases ADHD is a real thing--and something that the student needs to learn how to overcome.  However, I think that it can be used as an excuse even when it is a real thing.  No kid that is in a wheelchair or has glasses or any other visible difference says that they can't do something just like everyone else.  They figure out how they can do it their way.  That's what I as a teacher wish the parents that come to me with, "My kid has ADHD." would understand.  I wish I could hear, "My child has ADHD; can we help him learn despite of that?  I want him/her to be able to reach their potential and not be a kid defined by this."  That's really is the biggest thing--we can't define our kids by an explanation--they have to define themselves by what they CAN do, not what they CAN'T do.