At fundraiser, Lady Gaga may or may not have chatted with President Obama - Yahoo! News

At fundraiser, Lady Gaga may or may not have chatted with President Obama - Yahoo! News:

So, this may seem like it is a bit odd to see on my blog (I love lady gaga by the way, I'm wierd that way [along with spelling the word wierd incorrectly just to show that I am wierd] anyways), but I have a quick comment on this idea of anti-bullying.

Read on if you read this line, or not, it's up to you. But I think that the push for anti-bullying is stupid, flawed and doesn't work. It might work a little bit, and definitely probably helps more than not doing anything and burying (That's wierdly spelled) our heads in the sand.

And like I always try my best to do on this blog, I want to propose an alternative to anti-bullying campaigns. There is such a thing as behavior covariation. Behavior covariation just means that if you take some behavior away and don't replace it, another one, possibly better, but most likely just the same or even worse will come up later. Because of this phenomenon, we need to teach what we want students to do. Instead of yelling at them, "Don't bully" (or even kindly telling them that), we need to teach them how to interact with each other without bullying.

Teach tolerance, acceptance, and embracing others. Don't teach "Don't bully" because a lot of kids who bully don't know what not bullying is like and what it looks like. By teaching students to embrace others, and if they truly do, it is possible that the students' behavior of bullying will go down without even teaching "No bullying." The reason behind this is that why would we bully if we embrace others personalities and cultures?

So, I would suggest to teach students to embrace others differences first, and if bullying is still an issue, then issue the statement, "No bullying" and then go on with that particular student and give teach them to embrace others in a different way.

Albert Einstein said, "The true mark of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expect to see different results." Change the teaching style, if it seems that the teaching style is working for 98% of the class, keep it, but teach that last 2% in a different way. Find their strengths and utilize them while you teach.

Study: SpongeBob Impairs Kids Concentration

http://www.wric.com/story/15441247/study-spongebob-impairs-kids-concentration

Causation is NOT relationship.  This study says that watching Spongebob causes attention problems.  Well, I can say that Ice cream causes death, is that true?  No, there is a correlation (relationship) between the two and the causation of both of them is summer.  During the summer, you eat ice cream, and you are more likely to have a heat stroke which can cause death during the summer.

I think that we are in a different society with different brains than before.  I will be able to discuss this more when I get a book that I am supposed to read this semester called "Endangered Minds."  But we can fight and deny and throw temper tantrums about this change in brain function caused by TV (i.e. impulsiveness, lower intelligence tests, etc.), or we can take this research and think "Wow, it sure was different when I grew up," and then teach them in a way that helps them.  This could mean that we now have to teach differently.

Teaching differently has happened before, look at education 300 years ago.  300 years ago, they focused intensely on handwriting, now they are beginning to teach typing more than handwriting.  A teacher from 300 years ago would be in utter horror to see how the education system has changed since he or she taught.

What can we do, we can limit their tv watching, but let's be honest, we can't destroy all TVs out there (I mean, we could, but that might not be the most legal thing to do).

Our teaching will have to look differently, so what could it look like?  We have to use technology in teaching.  Teaching out of a textbook is an old practice that puts students to sleep.  Worksheets should be piled up in one place and then burned (sorry, I just hate worksheets, they don't actually encourage true learning which is learning that is practiced.) and we all dance in the ashes.  I encourage you to look at my next post because it is going to be about apprentice learning.

School Buildings Falling Apart

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/america-school-buildings-bad-shape-133335895.html

This article asks the question: Does attending a run-down school affect students' achievement levels?  I would like to comment on this question.

It says in the article that there is a positive correlation between how good the school's shape is and student achievement, so what could be some reasons for this?  One reason which I think would be that if students are in schools that are falling apart, they might begin to think that "If the school isn't even cared for, how can the school care for me?"

This argument makes sense to me because if you are in a hospital that is falling apart, you would question their ability to take the best care of you.  I don't think there is a difference between a hospital and a school because both are imperative to our society.

However, I don't think that there is necessarily a causation between these two things because something else could probably cause both of them to move together.  With this, fixing up our school buildings would probably add more things that can help students such as computer labs and more books in the library.

What really matters is to help students succeed in any way possible.  If that means fixing our school buildings, then so be it.  However, that can only get us so far, we need to hire good teachers.  The definition of a good teacher is one who cares about their students and doesn't want to see their students fail at all.

What kind of Education should we give our students?

I ask the question in this post: What kind of education should we give our students?  The answer, according to the United States supreme court is a basic minimum.  In their words, "we should be giving the students a chevy education, NOT a cadillac education."  And here we have it, this, I think, is the very root of our problem as a society.  The very root of our education problem.

I have heard time and time again that we are at an educational disadvantage compared to other countries.  Many different views on how we are that way.  We don't have a 6 day school week, we don't have longer school days, we don't have year-round education, etc.  But never once has this been brought up as a reason that we are educationally disadvantaged in regards to the rest of the world.

Let's say that we have a 6 day school week, 12 hour school days and year-round school.  What good is any of that going to do if we only decide to give a "Chevy education?"

In Board of Education v. Rowley, Rowley was a girl who was deaf and could lip-read 60% of things that people said.  She was getting the services of a tutor that was written in her individual education plan (IEP).  Her parents wanted the school district to go one step further and give their daughter an interpreter for school.  The school denied their request, and the parents subsequently filed a litigation (sued) the school district saying that Rowley was not being provided a free appropriate public education (FAPE).  The lower courts sided with the parents and said that the school must provide the best education for the student.  The supreme court got the case and they sided with the school district saying that school districts only have to provide a minimum level.  And that adding an interpreter to her IEP would be costly to the school district, so they were only told to provide a minimum education level.

This, I feel, is completely wrong.  Rowley understood 60% of what was being said.  Imagine that she is in a biochemistry class and she doesn't understand 40% of what was being said.  I feel that it is morally wrong to just go to a certain level of interventions and then say, "Well, we've done everything that we could," when we know of a bunch of other things that can help the student.

We need to do what is best for the students, and deciding that we only need to provide a Chevy education is just wrong because we are not trying our best to make students' lives the best they can be.  I know now that I am going to get into a lot of trouble in the future, because I am going to do what is best for the students who are under my caseload.  I refuse to accept 7 guys who don't know a thing about education deciding that education for students should only be a minimum.  I will do what is best for my students, no matter the consequences (which might involve getting fired because I put a service on their IEP that the school doesn't think should be on there because it costs extra).