Weil Article

The article I just read was about segregating boys and girls in the classroom. Personally, I think that this is a bad idea. I don't think that girls and boys should be segregated in the classroom because classroom aren't just about learning the curriculum. School is giving children the chance to get used to society and the environment that they live in, and that includes boys and girls being together. In school not only do you learn subjects like history and math, but you learn how to climb the social ladder, you learn about the community, and you learn about how to interact with other. Going to a same-sex school only teaches you how to interact and work with people of your sex, which could really set a child back socially. Everybody is different and learns in different ways, and if you separate those children they'll never learn about cooperation. I think that it's important for boy and girls to be in school together because that's where they get the experience that they need to interact and socialize with others after they finish school.

Kliewer Article

I found this reading to be very interesting and I liked it a lot. I personally am going to concentrate in special ed, and it's good to read an article on special ed children in the classroom and know a little bit more about it. What I liked most about this article was what Shayne Robbins did with her classroom, and I admire how she was able to really connect with her students, especially Isaac who went through a lot of difficulty doing things as minor as flipping a page. The way she was able to understand Isaac's behavior and learn more about the way he thought and all of his actions is very inspiring. Shayne always knew exactly was Isaac was trying to say and she was always able to make sense of his actions and what he was doing and I think that it's very important to be able to connect with your students on that level and get them to able to participate in class and such when they find it very difficult.

School Visit

At this school visit I worked with Curtis and Debbie again, and they weren't well behaved this week. They both were off the walls and Curtis didn't want to play candy land. I got him to play though. Debbie was very upset while playing candy land because the cards she got put her behind and she kept trying to cheat because she wanted to win so badly. Eventually they did calm down and it was just another regular visit. After that I went to my kindergarten room and I worked with a little boy named Elliot. Elliot needed help counting because when he has to count up to 20, he would always skip the number 16. So when he counted he went straight from 15 to 17, which became a problem because his answers were always one off. So i had to help him remember and teach him that he's skipping a number. Elliot and I finished his math packet early and then the class went to the library and my time was up.

Fourth School Visit

During my fourth school visit I worked with Curtis and Debbie together again. This week I gave them different assignments. With Curtis, I had him reading passages again and then we played candy land. For Debbie, I had her play candy land with us, but I also gave her the second grade word list, because her teach told me to start working with her at a second grade level and work our way up. The rules of candy land are similar to the word list, you pick up a colored card, and then on the card is a word that you have to use in a sentence. If you use the word correctly, then you get to move forward to the color on the card. Curtis wont the game of candy land. In my kindergarten class, the students did a math packet with the teacher and I sat next to a boy named Marcus and helped him with his math packet, as well as helped the other two children at the table.

Third School Visit

For my third school visit, I worked with my third grade students for the first hour. This time when I worked with them I didn't work with them one-on-one, I worked with both of them at the same time. I had Curtis read one passage, and then i had Debbie read the other one after. After that, they worked on the word list together, each of them having to make a different sentence for the word. I noticed that when putting them with me together, they were harder to work with because they were more rowdy than they were when they were when I was alone with them. After I worked with them, I made my way down to my kindergarten classroom. In that classroom, I was mostly observing, since they were taking a math test when I went down there. In that class one of the boys threw a big of a temper tantrum and refused to take his test, and he had to be escorted out of the classroom by the student teacher and another teacher from down the hall. I enjoyed working with the kindergarten class.

Second School visit

When i went to my school for the second time, My visit was cut short. For the first half hour i worked with a boy named Curtis, and i had him read short passages and paragraphs, and then we worked with the third grade word list. With the word list, he had to read the word and then make a sentence with it. After he was done, I worked with a little girl named Debbie. With Debbie i did the same exercise, but she had more trouble with it than Curtis did, especially with the silent Es and words that couldn't easily be spelled out, such as "caught." After that my class has gym and I obviously cannot go to gym with them, so I was supposed to be moved into another classroom for the remainder of my time. However, when I went to ask where to put me, the head of the volunteers forgot that I had to be placed somewhere else. She put me in a kindergarten math class for the next week and sent me home a half hour early.

Talking points on Carlson

1. "Within normalizing communities, some individuals are subject positions get privileged and represented as 'normal' while other individuals and subject positions are disempowered and represented as deviant, sick, neurotic, criminal, lazy, lacking in intelligence, and in other ways, 'absonormal.'"
This quote means that we have a serious problem when it comes to the respect that we lack for other cultures, and that society needs to change the way that we view people.
2. "Aside from being an absence in the curriculum, gayness has been made visible in some various limited and marginalized contexts. To the extent that gayness is recognized in the curriculum, it is likely to be in the health curriculum, where it is associated with disease.:
This quote is one that I find to be incredibly important because it shows us how little we teach about homosexuality, and what we do say about it is negative. I believe that we are sending out the wrong message about gay people and that it shouldn't be so avoided by people.
3."The official policy in most school districts is in the identical to that of the U.S. Military, namely: 'Don't ask, Don't tell.'"
I think that this quote is important because although it is an improvement of the way that we treat homosexual teachers, it is wrong to try and avoid the truth. Gay people shouldn't have to hide who they are in the classroom as if they are ashamed of their sexuality.

I found this article to be a real eye opener on the way that some people treat homosexuality, and that we should change the way that we treat the topic of homosexuality. We shouldn't try to hide and avoid it so much because there's nothing wrong with it, and there are many more people these days who are "coming out."