Entry 8: Black Ants and Buddhist Chapter 6

In this article, I enjoyed reading something about teaching young students the morals of being a good citizen. Instead of teaching to the test, there are techniques that you can involve teaching in a manner of ways that can contribute to the students life. I enjoyed reading about voting and how important it is to vote. I also enjoyed reading about how important it is to recycle and coming up with engaging ways to express how vital it is to recycle. I think it is important to integrate these topics by having students write persuasive letter writings, poster boards, petition writing, etc. Having the students involved in how to change things around the school for example is a perfect example of being a concerned citizen who wants the best for everybody.

                In my classroom I think I would incorporate a topic twice a week about certain situations going on in the children’s lives. I want to have a topic of course that they can relate to and letting them have a voice. Most importantly I want my students to learn how to make the world a better place. There’s no need for violent protest, angry language or arguments. There are ways we can voice what we have to through peaceful movements. I would also love to play this video for my students, just to give them ideas on what we can talk about as well.

"I choose to teach critically because I believe young children are capable of amazing things, far more than is usually expected of them. I am not talking about raising scores on standardized math tests (although that often happens). I am talking about thinking critically and learning to learn, learning to use basic skills like reading, writing, solving mathematical problems, analyzing data, public speaking, scientific observation, and inquiry as an active citizen in your community. I believe young children can think about fairness and are deeply moved and highly motivated by the recognition of injustice"

Entry 7: Walking and Talking Geography

                                                                   Drawn by Me (:

After reading this article on Walking and Talking Geography, I realized it is important for students to become familiarized with the things around them. Not only is it the thing’s around them, but it is what is around them EVERY single day. A student understanding their community is crucial and plays a bigger factor in their life then they may know. Student’s even get to know a little bit about their friends when they explain the community they live in to one another. Grocery stores, banks, gas stations, parks, houses, stores, etc. All of these things play a major factor in everyone’s life.

                If I were to do this in my classroom, I would have my students draw out a map of the things around their neighborhood. I would love for the students to draw it on their desk with an expo marker and give everyone a toy hot wheel. The hot wheel can demonstrate and create a visual map in their head of the things they see when they are sitting in their own car. The students are to label where the nearest grocery store, bank, library, clothing store or school/park is. I want them to then generate ideas on why those things are so important to their everyday life. Such as “where do we get our food from?” or “where can we go if we want to play on the swings or slides?”. "How does it sound here?" or "Do adults or children use this place?" This gets the students to think about all the important places near them and why they play such a huge factor in everyone’s life.

"Such stories motivate children to explore their local environment and raise awareness of the physical and human characteristics that make up their world, precisely what is overlooked by outside-in approaches to teaching and learning geography."

Entry 6: Kindergarten Students Analyze Primary Sources

                    
                    A picture of how cars used to look and how people made them.
                 https://robohub.org/the-evolution-of-assembly-lines-a-brief-history/

I love this article so much because I can deeply relate to it. I did half of my senior year here at UH in a kindergarten classroom and loved every single day in it. I think the children at that specific age are so truthful and honest but most importantly very curious. The way their minds think and how they process new information is explainable. So when reading this article, I learned that having the kids explore and observe a picture of a certain history event really generates questions. Not just any questions but great questions. In which leads to class discussions and allows the kids to use critical thinking. I love letting kids observe pictures because you get an insight of what they see and to me that’s the most important. The article says that using a primary source for younger children allows them to think deeply. As a teacher you will have to generate great blooms taxonomy questions to the students as they are observing the pictures. I always wondered how you could introduce certain history topics to young children. After reading this article, it taught me a great approach I can use in my own classroom to get students engaged and motivated to learn. I could even maybe use a short film and discuss what they noticed and saw in the video that stuck out the most to them.

“The ease with which many students were able to give reasons for their statements suggests that these activities may have already helped some students do so. We often hear social studies teachers in middle and high school say they wish that students entered their classrooms already knowing how to observe, speculate, provide evidence for their thinking, and ask good questions.”

Entry 5: Black Ants and Buddhists Chapter 7

                               

                           https://www.pinterest.com/pin/570831321501456369/

As I read this article, I realized that teaching history is a lot harder than it seems. In elementary there just seems to be a lot of touchy subjects that are hard to explain to the minds of young innocent children. Although not all history is bad, there is just a lot to be taught. Elementary educators are most likely the ones who introduce the truth of some history to students. Although it may be tough there has to be a way to connect these topics to student’s everyday lives. In this article it talked about educating students of History and current events. It mainly focused on engaging the students to make connections, text-to-text, text-to-self and text-to-world. It also talked about teaching students history as a contextualized story. My whole life, I personally felt like I was taught History all wrong. I never understood it, it was mainly consisted of lies and I just didn’t seem to relate to it. As I got older, I had a high school teacher who taught History like it was a story and it just all made sense. He made real life connections and things we used or went through on a daily in today’s society. As a teacher I hope to teach History in a manner where my students can make self-connections or real life connections to the situations that happened in the past. It’s crucial for students to understand the importance of history but the real truth about history as well.

“Desire for students to grow as people who not only can recognize injustice, willing to take effective, principled stand for justice.”

Entry 4: Critical Literacy for Young Citizens

                  
                         Work sheets for students

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/268034615302536546/

                                                                           https://www.pinterest.com/pin/469570698618790202/ 

After reading this article, I realized that there are a lot of social studies lessons that can be incorporated with fun activities. The main idea of incorporating activities is to engage the students and keep them motivated to learn throughout the lesson. For anyone, even us students in college we appreciate doing activities that we can use to help us learn and remember the information being taught to us. In younger students social studies can be a bit tricky. A lot of teachers go back to the style of reading from the textbook which is an okay approach. I just personally feel like there can be a more creative approach to engage the students in what they are learning. Having the students read about the topic is a great way to build up conversations and questions they may have. But by reading, I mean picking books that you know your students would love to read. Incorporating read alouds and other helpful resources to educate them a little deeper before introducing the topic. For example, I love learning about cultures, traditions, celebrations etc. from other countries. I think you can learn a lot about your own students and friends when you educate yourself about different cultures.

                In my own classroom I cannot wait to teach about Dia De los Muertos. A tradition celebrated in Mexico on November 2^nd of every year. It is a day you honor those who have passed and who are special in your heart. I think using fun arts and crafts to learn about each tradition would be neat. As a teacher I would like to use a month or two out of the school year to celebrate different cultures and countries every week. I would love to make all my students feel comfortable and at home in my room. It would be nice to place books around the classroom as well or other resources the students can use to learn more about such traditions.

"Our experience tells us that even very young children can make sense of historical text and, in fact, enjoy doing so when it is relevant to their lives and around a question of interest."

I took this quote as even if it is not personally relevant to their own personal life, it is relevant in a sense that they are surrounded by friends of all cultures and ethnicity everyday at school. 

Entry week 3:

After reading this week articles, I realized that there was a misconception of what really happened on the bus that Rosa parks was riding on.  In school they taught us that she rode in the “front seat” of the bus. When in reality she sat in the front seat of the colored section and was asked to move from her own designated area since the bus had two different sections. The reason I decided to pick this song was because there was a serious time where blacks went through a thing called segregation. Segregation was something that separated the blacks from using the things white people used. This song portrays a time where things have slowly changed and will continue to change hopefully for the better. The connection of this song was between the time around slavery and the civil rights movement. I love this song and this genre of music; it’s so soulful and has great meaning behind it.Teaching slavery in schools would be a tricky concept to touch on but as we educate ourselves more on what went on through both sides it educates us to teach it correctly.  

"Rosa did not sit in the front row of the bus. She sat in the front row of the "colored" section. It is important to point this out. It was not her intent to break the law of segregation."

Entry week 2:

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After reading the articles for this week I learned that History has been taught wrong in schools for decades now. I read that it can affect us and our perspectives of society because there is really only one side told. The history books have been "white washed" and very one sided. There's a whole other side to history that students are not learning. It is important for us to learn the truth about history so that history does not have a way in repeating itself. I hope that as an educator I get the chance and opportunity to include important topics into the student’s curriculum. It is important to take the time to inform the next generation of children the truth about history. I honestly think it is sad that as we got older, we started learning the real truth about history. It’s scary to think that it is being taught wrong, I hope to be a part of the change and teach what is real.

"History helps students be better citizens by enabling them to understand what cause what in society. History helps students become critical thinkers"