Kathy stands at the front of our circle of chairs around the board room table. It is the last day of class and despite the laughing, there is a sense of sadness in the room. We all are going to leave for spring break the next day and may never convene in the same room …
Category Archives: Education
30 Hours and Connections
Our last day of class observation has come and gone. 30 hours of K-12 class observation under our belts. Looking back on the past week I did not know how the class would end. It had been a rollercoaster of laughing and professionalism and overall block pandemonium. We spent week 3 doing more of the …
Experiencing Classrooms
“The block is halfway over” says Kathy as she starts Wednesday’s class. I am taken aback, it feels as if the class just started and now we are closer to the end than the beginning. The week was a whirlwind of 4th grade class observations and discussions. Monday and Wednesday were typical days in a …
Intro to K-12 Classroom Culture: Week 1
A week in the Classroom Another first Monday, the students sit around a conference table with the hopes and worries for a new block written in front of them. It is the smallest class I have been in with only 9 students to fill the air space. The professor, Kathy Greene, comes in dressing with …
Lessons from Mitchell High School
During every period of the Language Arts class we observed at Mitchell High School last Friday, the school’s negative reputation in the Colorado Springs community was brought up as a topic of discussion– both by the teacher, Rob Lessig, and the students themselves. Mitchell’s low test scores mean that the state has them on watch, …
Empowering Examples of Student Organizing
Throughout our class time last week, groups of us watched documentaries, gave presentations, and taught 90-minute lessons in a project called Teaching for Social Justice. Two of the documentaries (Precious Knowledge and The Children’s March) profiled examples of student organizing that, as our class agreed, everyone should know about. We are young people and students …
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STEMs of a New Education in America
For those of you who don’t know, Colorado is currently undergoing a massive educational reform (or, at least it’s trying). Here are some scary statistics (and if you don’t believe me, look ’em up): *The average cost of educating one child annually is nearly $13,000 *District 11 (here, in Colorado Springs) is suffering from a lack …
Creating Inspired Adults, Not Worker Bees
I’m currently taking the class Frameworks in American Education with Mike Taber (who is incredible, by the way). Today we brought up the idea of the new paradigm. That is, we discussed in class possible paper ideas where we propose a shift or change in the American educational system. One of the ideas that came up …
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