FieldPost 4 Beachwood High School

During my second individual observation, I sat at lunch with the social studies department again. Mr. Velotta and I left about seven minutes early, and I was able to ask him a few questions. We talked about dress code, school spirit, their LGBT program, and college as an education major. Beachwood's dress code is more lenient. There school spirit varies from sport to sport, and the seniors that year. They had a board of suicide stories from gay, lesbian, and transgender people to spread awareness. When we spoke about college education majors, he felt that most students are not prepared for the profession of the teaching. He found himself panically reading the textbooks before the lesson, because felt so unprepared to teach the students. He said during the first three years of his teaching career he learned the most. He has now taught for 21 years, and in my opinion perfected the profession. He is so energetic and involved with his class. He reminds me of my favorite history teacher from my freshman year.

FieldPost 3 Beachwood High School

I was placed in Mr. Velotta's classroom for my independent observations. During my first visit, I arrived around their lunch period; therefore, I ate with the social studies department. They were all very nice and welcoming. There were some Ohio University and Miami graduates.
After lunch, I observed Mr. Velotta's classroom. The desks were set up as a "V" shape, which I found more engaging than the typical rows. The room was heavily decorated with spongebob (literally spongebob everywhere). Mr. Velotta said that everything was donated to him by students (Spongebob happy meal toy's, stuffed animal Spongebobs, painting of Spongebob characters, etc). This showed me that not only he participates with his students, but they enjoy him enough to want to participate in his collection. Also throughout the change of classes from lunch to last period, multiple students stopped in his classroom just to hello. I loved this. It projected that he is very talkative, involved, and cares about his students.
During class, the students worked on group projects relating to Big Business. Throughout the period Mr. Velotta was very energetic and involved. In the beginning he told them the consequences if they goof off and do not take the project seriously. However, the students were perfectly behaved, very into their projects, and on task. They were drawing detailed Spongebob characters on the posters, and Mr. Velotta loved it.

FieldPost 2 Shaker Heights High School

I was very excited for our class trip to Shaker Heights High School. I would like to teach AYA when I graduate college, so I was anxious to see the classrooms. I was placed in Mr. Babinec (an English teacher) and in Mr. Kelly (a history teacher), both John Carroll graduates.

Mr. Babinec's classroom was such a fun environment. He really engaged with his freshmen students; he talked about topics they could relate to. For example, he used a Lil Wayne lyric to deceive what an alteration was. However, the main lesson focused on Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, specifically the prologue. Mr. Babinec began by reading the prologue to the class. While he did that, he asked the students to annotate. He wanted them to write anything that came to their minds; for example, if they did not understand any words or phrases, or if they found something noteworthy or interesting. Mr. Babinec was very humorous; you could tell the students found him extremely funny and witty. His humor made the classroom atmosphere less uptight, and let the students be comfortable.

The second classroom I observed was Mr. Kelly. His lesson was on the Emergence of Child Labor. Mr. Kelly was also very comical and sarcastic. He related certain parts of the lesson to real world instances. For example, he spoke about how pictures from the 1800s era reminded him of his hometown Youngstown. His classroom was similar to Mr. Babinec's, in the way that it was very laid back and enjoyable to be in.

BlogPost 8

In my future teaching career, I would like to teach either high school History or English. For this imaginary lesson, I am going to focus on History, specifically U.S. Government with the help of current events. For example, if it is a Government class, and the students are learning about the political parties (Republican and Democratic), I could show news clips of the presidential election. Fox News, CNN News, and MSNBC, more times than not, will show the same events, but discuss them in different ways. Fox News tends to lean more Republican, CNN normally leans more Democratic, and MSNBC leans more towards the left on the liberal side. I would show all three clips, and then discuss why each news channel had different views, the reasoning behind it, and then open the floor to the students to share their views on each topic.

This in itself is bridge building. The news channels connect back to the lesson, and it links classwork with everyday life. It is so easy for students to regurgitate what they hear at home when it comes to political parties, whether it be Republican or Democratic. This will help students understand political parties from both stand points, then decide their outlook on the topic without a bias atmosphere. I feel that is necessary for students to be aware of what is going on in the world around them. When I was in high school, my peers and I loved when teachers would show current events, and then discuss them afterwards. Sometimes it would break out into a debate, but it would always leave us more knowledgeable than we were when we walked into class.

Blog PostIt Notes

While reading through the chapter “The Banking Concept of Education”, multiple things stood out to me. One topic in particular was the list of situations that are apparent in the banking education. For example, “the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing.” This concept was obvious in my sophomore year geometry class. When the teacher was “teaching” us he mostly talked down to my peers and me. It was extremely hard to learn in that environment; he made you feel as though he was all knowing, and there was a small chance you would be able to grasp the content. Also, if you had trouble understanding material, he was not quick to assist students. I hope my future students will never feel this way in my classroom. I will make a conscious effort to make a comfortable learning environment. Obviously I will know the concepts more thoroughly than my students. But, it is necessary for me to learn from the students. Even though I am the teacher, there is plenty of ideas I can better understand through my students.

BlogPost5

My high school is located in a very suburban, white, wealthy area. At my high school, addressing homosexuality and heterosexuality was quite divided. There was a group of boys who were totally against gays and lesbians. We had a history teacher who was gay, and some of the male students refused to take his class (which they really missed out on, because he was an awesome teacher and taught one of my favorite classes). This group of boys was very conservative, Republican, and basically regurgitated anything their parents said. On the other side was a group of both boys and girls. This group was extremely liberal and democratic. There were multiple feminists and plenty of human rights activists; they were very quick to speak their minds, and happy to share. But, with this divide came conflict. There were countless Twitter and Instagram fights for everyone to see. Debates in our government classes over controversial topics got heated, and people would get extremely into them. Although those two groups were divided, all the other students kind of floated in the middle. Some students were all for gay rights, but never spoke out about it. Some students used derogatory terms. Some students were against it, but stayed quiet about it.

Regardless of where each student stood, there was always support from some teachers and a LGBT program. In my school that I teach at one day, I plan to be open with my students. I plan to leave it up to them if they want to talk to me about issues going on in their lives. I probably will not reach out to them unless I feel pulled to do so. I hope that in the school I teach one day there is a LGBT program. If there isn’t one, I don’t know if I would start one. Although I am all for gay rights, I am not extremely passionate about the subject. To start a program like that, I feel as though you should be fervent about the gay and lesbian topic.