So, I just want to put this down on paper...even though this isn't paper but I think you know what I mean. But I have a dream and a wish that just came up this semester. It has gradually gotten stronger and stronger and now I don't think I can deny it.
My dream is to graduate with my bachelors in special education with an emphasis in emotional behavioral disorder (EBD). After that, I would like to get a job somewhere. This is all probably sounding very normal, but here is where it stops being normal. Once I have been in the schools for a certain amount of time, I want to go back for a masters. A masters in neurology. My thesis would be how neurology relates to education.
I would like to create a new area of neurology, it might exist already, at which point, I will join it. But the new area would be Educational Neurology. It would emphasize learning and different education issues. One such study could possibly be: What is the best way to teach a student with a learning disability.
I realize that I might sound very prideful as I say this next part, "I want my name to be known." However, as I think about, I don't think that it is prideful to want my name to be known for something that will revolutionize education as we know. Because revolutionizing education is helping students, therefore I want my name to be known for helping students.
After I get my masters in neurology, I would like to go on for a PhD in education.
I don't know if I will end up doing any of this, but I am pretty sure that I will, because I love the brain. Mirror neurons was my first actual study of neurology (The first time that I actually looked into it) and it changed everything. Mirror neurons have a huge impact on education, but educators, understandably, don't have the time to look into neurological studies.
But Educational Neurology would be the emphasis and it would be glorious. A neurological classroom, where almost everything that is done is done with a neurological aspect in mind.
Some posts that have talked about neurology that I have posted on this blog I will list here:
http://futurespecialedteacher.blogspot.com/2011/03/neurology-and-education-mirror-neurons.html
http://futurespecialedteacher.blogspot.com/2010/12/heart-brain-connection-reflection.html
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Emotions and Feelings
So, yesterday, I spent a day with two friends, Rachel and Victoria. Victoria has a developmental delay. One thing that I realized when I was talking to them was that they have a problem with accepting their feelings. Victoria rides the bus to get to her job, and the bus driver had a stroke the other day and she is scared to go back on the bus. I told her outright, "It is okay to be scared."
She asked one of the most disturbing questions I have ever been asked, "It is?"
Humans in general should be allowed to feel the way they feel. I asked her, "Why do you think it isn't okay to be scared?"
She replied, "My mom told me to just get over it because she can't drive me to work."
Throughout the conversation, I noticed that she was scared even though she wasn't on a bus. I think too often, with people with disabilities, they are told to not feel the way they feel. A few months ago, Victoria said, "My life sucks" while we were riding in a car.
Two of my friends replied, "Your life doesn't suck, don't ever say a thing like that again." You might think that that was an insensitive thing to say, and I agree. But we all do it, to one extent or another. When we tell people "Don't think things like that," we are beheading their feelings. We are helping one more person reject their feelings and thereby creating a huge personality problem. A problem where they reject their emotions or what they are feeling.
To reject a person's emotions or feelings, no matter what they are, is the most insensitive and inhumane things that we, as humans can do. Our brains feel things and think things that we don't like, but if we reject them and act like we never thought them, we reject a huge elephant in the room. And soon, that elephant is going to grow so big that we begin to be crushed.
I think that all too often, we do this to students, and they end up being diagnosed with emotional behavioral disorders (EBD). Not all students that we do this to will end up being diagnosed, but I think that rejection of emotions or feelings is a huge part of the diagnosis of EBD.
We are an emotionally crippled society, we don't like hearing people's negative thoughts. We think that they should just stop thinking those kinds of thoughts and they will be just fine. No, that is not the case, we need to accept what they are feeling and then we go from there.
I have a question: Do you, as a parent, as a teacher, as a social worker, as a human, do you want to feed into our society's belief that nobody should express their negative thoughts, that way, we don't have to worry about it. And by not expressing their thoughts, their thoughts become stronger. Do you want to feed into this?
She asked one of the most disturbing questions I have ever been asked, "It is?"
Humans in general should be allowed to feel the way they feel. I asked her, "Why do you think it isn't okay to be scared?"
She replied, "My mom told me to just get over it because she can't drive me to work."
Throughout the conversation, I noticed that she was scared even though she wasn't on a bus. I think too often, with people with disabilities, they are told to not feel the way they feel. A few months ago, Victoria said, "My life sucks" while we were riding in a car.
Two of my friends replied, "Your life doesn't suck, don't ever say a thing like that again." You might think that that was an insensitive thing to say, and I agree. But we all do it, to one extent or another. When we tell people "Don't think things like that," we are beheading their feelings. We are helping one more person reject their feelings and thereby creating a huge personality problem. A problem where they reject their emotions or what they are feeling.
To reject a person's emotions or feelings, no matter what they are, is the most insensitive and inhumane things that we, as humans can do. Our brains feel things and think things that we don't like, but if we reject them and act like we never thought them, we reject a huge elephant in the room. And soon, that elephant is going to grow so big that we begin to be crushed.
I think that all too often, we do this to students, and they end up being diagnosed with emotional behavioral disorders (EBD). Not all students that we do this to will end up being diagnosed, but I think that rejection of emotions or feelings is a huge part of the diagnosis of EBD.
We are an emotionally crippled society, we don't like hearing people's negative thoughts. We think that they should just stop thinking those kinds of thoughts and they will be just fine. No, that is not the case, we need to accept what they are feeling and then we go from there.
I have a question: Do you, as a parent, as a teacher, as a social worker, as a human, do you want to feed into our society's belief that nobody should express their negative thoughts, that way, we don't have to worry about it. And by not expressing their thoughts, their thoughts become stronger. Do you want to feed into this?
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Technology- Cash Cow
So, the other day I played the game cash cow on the iPod touch. This game revolves around combining coins to equal other coins. So, three nickels and a dime equals a quarter.
As I was playing this game, I realized the educational benefits of it. It is helping students combine like terms. And like terms are going to be important in the later parts of mathematics such as algebra, geometry, etc.
It reminds me of a talk that Clifford Stoll gave where he talks about the Internet and computers and their role in education. He posited that learning is not suppose to be fought, therefore, computers and games should not be used in education. He gave the example that when he was in school, film strips were used, and he never paid attention to any of them. He believes that the film strips were basically a babysitting tool, and like this he believes that computers and technology are used for the same thing.
Like it or not, today's students are different than the students that were in the education system 20 years ago. We cannot go back 20 years ago because times have changed. Today's students rely on technology to entertain them. So why don't we utilize that desire to use technology as entertainment and use it as a teaching tool.
One of the things that I would like to do as a future EBD special education teacher is to create a computer game that has no rules as well as computer game that has rules. These two games would be the same game just one of them would have rules and the other would not. The idea behind why there would be two versions of the game is that the game with no rules would be used on Monday. It would be an introduction to the lesson for that entire week. The idea is that just like there are rules in games, there are rules in social situations. The rest of the week, we would talk about the particular rule or rules that relate to that game. On that Friday, we would play the version of the game that has rules.
The benefit of this is that it is keeping students interested while teaching them what their supposed to learn. In EBD, we're supposed to teach them social skills. By making social skills fun and social rules fun, it is making students want to come because it's fun. I recognize that I am of a very few minority that believes that education should be fun and not the way of making education fun is by creating a very strong rapport with students.
As I was playing this game, I realized the educational benefits of it. It is helping students combine like terms. And like terms are going to be important in the later parts of mathematics such as algebra, geometry, etc.
It reminds me of a talk that Clifford Stoll gave where he talks about the Internet and computers and their role in education. He posited that learning is not suppose to be fought, therefore, computers and games should not be used in education. He gave the example that when he was in school, film strips were used, and he never paid attention to any of them. He believes that the film strips were basically a babysitting tool, and like this he believes that computers and technology are used for the same thing.
Like it or not, today's students are different than the students that were in the education system 20 years ago. We cannot go back 20 years ago because times have changed. Today's students rely on technology to entertain them. So why don't we utilize that desire to use technology as entertainment and use it as a teaching tool.
One of the things that I would like to do as a future EBD special education teacher is to create a computer game that has no rules as well as computer game that has rules. These two games would be the same game just one of them would have rules and the other would not. The idea behind why there would be two versions of the game is that the game with no rules would be used on Monday. It would be an introduction to the lesson for that entire week. The idea is that just like there are rules in games, there are rules in social situations. The rest of the week, we would talk about the particular rule or rules that relate to that game. On that Friday, we would play the version of the game that has rules.
The benefit of this is that it is keeping students interested while teaching them what their supposed to learn. In EBD, we're supposed to teach them social skills. By making social skills fun and social rules fun, it is making students want to come because it's fun. I recognize that I am of a very few minority that believes that education should be fun and not the way of making education fun is by creating a very strong rapport with students.
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