There is way too much that goes into creating an ultimate classroom....

Blog #6
Alison Getsloff
Idea Illustrator
Pages 167-204

This reading was about discipline in the classroom and how to deal with the differences between boys and girls- but I think, it all comes down to respect. Respecting your elders, respecting your teachers, respecting your parents, and respecting your peers.

On pages 160-161, it is stated "Discipline could be a matter of fear- fear of God, fear of the rod, fear of parents. The teacher might not utterly bond with a student yet nonetheless instill fear because the child feared other forces- perhaps family and God- that supported the teacher. Futhermore, the child was taught from infancy to respect elders, including teachers, as inherently right. Both innate respect for the teacher and fear of punishment by supportive religious and family forces have diminished."

If the teacher and students can come to a common ground, where respect is mutual, then, hopefully in the future discipline won't be nessesary. 

"According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average child watches 20,000 thirty-second TV commercials every year and sees 8,000 murders on TV before finishing elementary school. By age eighteen, the average American has seen 200,000 acts of violence on TV, including 40,000 murders. Dr. John Nelson of the American Medical Association (an endorser of National TV-Turnoff Week) said, 'If 2,888 out of 3,000 studies show that TV violence is a causal factor in real-life mayhem, it's a public health problem'."

"The average American youth spends 900 hours in school each year. That same average American youth watches 1.500 hours of television.Community collaboration in this area is crucial: teachers and parents alike need and want training in media literacy. This is because the media- especially its violence and amoral content- are ghosts from the home that visit many schools by way of schoolchildren who are allowed at home to surf the Internet inappropriately, watch whatever television they want, and see developmentally inappropriate movies," 

I think with all of the technology advancing everyday, it's just going to get worse and worse for the next generations. There are so many distractions with new technologies that kids aren't focusing on what's important for their future. Obviously, they don't know that all of this technology is mind-altering their health-like it was mentioned in the book, if parents could collaborate with teachers on positive training in the media literacy field- more school work and outdoor fun could go on. Healthy activities. If only some of these new technological advances' could be educational....

In the section titled "Innovations for Academic Excellence" starting on page 180, it give examples of how to engage your students, boy both and girls. Something that caught my attention was written on page 181, "By essentially making a game out of letter learning, she had great success". Both boys and girls thrive off of competition- "Cooperative learning is, of course, something to be enjoyed and celebrated, and its praises cannot be sung enough for both male and female brains," page 196. I think teaching and learning should be fun. Kids should want to learn, enjoy learning and want to do more of it. I never want any of my future students to dread coming to school. I want to make my classroom a learning environment where everyone can be open with each other, express themselves anyway they choose, and I just want to have fun. The more fun you have, the more experiences you will remember, and the more you will in-turn learn in the process.