Event posting Promising Practices

My first workshop was about Type 1 Diabetes and how children are living with them. It went over how students can live with checking their sugar levels and how the different foods affects their sugar level. They informed us about us what we could do for a student if their sugar levels are low. The nursing team went over how they got a grand to help educate nurses at different school information on how to treat children with different sugar levels and how to educate the teachers to look for signs when a student is going into trouble with their sugar levels. They are trying to keep student that have Type 1 diabetes in school more so that their parents don’t have to come get them. Many children have this and people started to see a problem with children going home all the time because people didn’t know when students were really in trouble with their diabetes. I worked with a teacher that would get one or two phone calls a day about her daughter and her sugar level. She would have to leave work every other week because the school wanted her to come pick her daughter up. Most of the time her daughter was fine but the school nurse would send her home just in case.

The second workshop was the build homes and improving the land in Olneyville.  The image on the right is a picture of the area of Olneyville with in Providence, RI. The workshop was so good. She talked about the different steps them had o go through to improve the parks so that people wanted to go to them and worked with the police department so that they could keep that children safe when they were playing in the park. The image on this page shows one of the three parks that they reopened for the community. The other items they talked about was how they needed start a food bank and a program to help educate people about hunger. I connect really closing with this because I work with different groups to educate people of how big of a problem hunger is in America.

       I understood how large of a problem hunger was in our communities, was when I went through it myself with my twin boys. As I was struggling to put food on the table I used it as a learning experience to help others so that no children would have to feel hungry.  Being a teacher at a daycare I grow to know the families very closely and understand when they are having hard times with money for food. You can also realize it in the children because they can only think about how hungry they are instead of learning. Occasionally, I have to tell a child to slow down when they are eating, knowing in my heart it is only because they are so hungry. I feel education on hunger should be something everyone should know about incase one day it occurs to them or someone they know. If we all work together on getting educated on how hunger is a problem it will help stop children from feeling hungry.  Many people don't know it is a problem until they have to experience it and are not sure where to turn for help. Educating people about hunger will benefit communities to work together so that no one has to miss a meal. When we work together we can change the world, like the Olneyville team did. This workshop reminded me of the video we watch on the community listening to the youth wanting to go to the park.

The team that helped improve the town by lessening to what the people of the town wanted and the police and the government wanted. They started by seeing that a lot of the crime was happening in the park and people wanted to be able to go to the park again. By asking different people what they wanted help turn the town around and have them work together to change the community they all live in.  The team has chance a whole time from the housing to afterschool programs to making sure people have food on the table. This group of people have changed how one town is looked at for the better and people are now able to go to different parks with their families and improve the homes people were living in. By people seeing that here need to be a change and learning from others around them they were able to one part of Providence for the better.

Empowering Education by Ira Shor

In the article, Empowering Education, I feel there was one item that keeps came up Money. But we have the right to a free Education. Well, the free education come by the price of how much the town how to put into the education system.
This article I compared to my service learning project and the school that my children go to. In my service learning project the school ran out of money to have art and music be part of the children's education. These two area are not something that school has to have, it is extra. The town also doesn't has a lot of programs for students to do after school every day. There is one sport program, which is through a grant the school and a  21century grant through the federal government. This program makes it so children can bring dinner home. Many of the children depend on getting there meals through the schools food programs. Many towns start cutting them school budget before looking at anything else.

The school has a PTA group and do have parent volunteers but they are not able to create the amount of founds from a small town to start and most of the people are living in poverty. When the school does a fundraiser they do it in other towns to help get founds for their children's school. The PTA did a fundraiser in Barns and Noble in Smithfield. This brings in more money then doing a fundraiser in their own town.

At my children's school the PTA does a lot events right at the school and sends home a lot of flyers to buy items for their school. They also have double the amount of parent that are full time with the PTA. The schools PTA has a lot more people keeping up on the webpage for the PTA from Facebook page and the webpage to help advertise events to people in the community. The PTA just purchased a new science program and a new math program last year.  The school was not able to buy a lot of the new programs so the different PTA groups work on different project from educational fieldtrips, to new playground to new educational programs. Educational program should not so much money for schools to buy. The programs should be created by the government to pay for them. Programs shouldn't not be made for only schools with money to buy.

TRULEY WRONG

One other topic was to make sure children asking about their own education and question what they are doing in school. Educate the children to have a voice, it is their educate and they should get the best one they can. It should not be baste off of how much money a the towns people have to give.

People need to invest into the children that one day will run this country.

Citizenship in Schools

Having children be part of a community, not part of a system.

In the article call Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome by Kliewer I was see how it was related on SCWAAP and the article by Oakes.

SCWAAP plays a part in this article by people having Able Body. If a student is different in the littlest way they are thought as not being able to be part of that classroom community. A children should not be seen with what they can't do but what they are able to learn to do.  People have an image in their head of having a classroom with able body children and giving them worksheet to complete to show how you have taught them. It should be more of a picture of  a diverse classroom with every child being different and bringing something special to their classroom community.  In the article the teacher proved that having children of all ability's in the classroom create a community of learning for everyone to take part in. When we label children with a disability and teach them outside of the classroom, it doesn't help students in the classroom or the students with disabilities but we still do it. The same goes with how we separates children into different districts by where children live. We have proven that it does work but we still do it. When every child finishes school they will be working with all different people from all different backgrounds. Working as a community is what is going to change the world and going to create better leaders to lead the next generations.

Looking outside the box to teach children of all different backgrounds should not just be done by a worksheet like Oakes pointed out about the different working class groups. Just because a student have a disability doesn't make it so we turndown what they are learning but need to look at how we are teaching them. Teaching the students in one room as a citizens in the community helps them learn from each other and helps other students become leaders in their class.

Teachers that look at their  students as citizens create  great relationship with each other and see how each one has their own identify in the classroom.

Literacy- Finn

I was reading Austin blog and I really liked the quotes he used. He connect the quote to different reads and how Johnston would agree with what was happening in the schools

"The status quo is the status quo because people who have the power to make change are comfortable with the way things are". (Finn XI)

In this picture you are able to see the students were able to do a hands on project with their classmates. The teacher helped the students brainstorm ideas but they have to create different ways to go faster to win the race. The teacher was able to get the items for this class by a grant because the school was unable to buy the supplies.

I feel this quote is so true because many people don't really see how different each school is when it comes to education. Many people believe that students that live in a low income areas are just not that smart and the parents don't care. This is not true at all. Students that might leave in a low income area might only have one income house holds or a parent that has to work a lot. Peoples will try everything they can for their child but are unable to give extra money to the PTA groups for fundraised help because they are working so hard to put food on the table.

When people say a name of a town they already have an "image" of what kind of town it is. Like, When I say the town name Central Falls, RI. People think of only negative ideas but it has positives to the town, too. But to find these great items in the town you need to take a deeper look and learn how the town was decided. This is a clock tower that is in a great park for children and their families. This clock tower is on the hill

and you look up and it is breath taking. Just like this clock tower, there are great student that are in the Central Fall Schools. Some believe that the students don't have anything to give back to the community and they score low because the students don't care. Well, it is our job to teach them the rules and codes of power so they can be successful through life and at the same time learn from them about who they take in information best. Give some of the student’s power in how they learn and learn from them. Teacher should never look down at their students. They should learn how to connect to them because they are the next generation to lead this country. If we give up on student because we think we know everything about them, than what are we really teaching them? 

People with power need to stop and take a look of how we can help them. One step that Rhode Island College has done to help student's is showing them that they can go to college. The program is called Innovation Lab. The college helps with money and the families on the journey of going to college and staying in college. It is a little step to help others get a higher education in a low income area. It is nice to see Rhode Island College has not turned their head on educating for every student no matter what their income background is. They have stepped up to the plate and shown that every student should get a good education and helped shown they can go to college if they really want to.

Connecting everything

"Miss"

At first I didn't know why they didn't understand call me by my name. I wanted to look to see what the children called the other teacher and they didn't call their other teachers either "miss" or "mr". This was the first time I had heard children call teachers not by their name. Delpit

"Who do you think you are, Oreo?"

The first time I was called a name like this I didn't know how to respond. I learned that I needed to know how to respond to the students and learn to get to know them. I needed to know where these kids where coming from when they called me this and why they didn't want a white woman coming into their life. I can see where they are coming from, who was I and why did I want to help them.

When talking to one of the students they were telling me how they had to talk care of their 11 siblings before they go off to school because their mother had to go to work. That really made me think of what the students had to do before they every got to school. They had a lot more stress from what was going on in their everyday lives.

The Problem we all Live with

We said that we need to have equal education for all students....but are we really giving one?

It is time to go back and look at the education system and see what is working and what is NOT?

Why keep having the same educational systems, if it is failing so many children? Each child that comes to school has different things going on and you can't just tell how smart they are by a test you give them. We are giving them an education based on the amount of money the neighborhood has.

When hearing what the parents had to say about letting the children come in the school I could not believe it but it is so true. When I was looking for places to live I looked to see how well the school was placed in the state. I didn't shop a school for color but I did shop for a school that had a great education. Just like one mother said on the show "I shopped for a school department". If parents are shopping for schools that means that the school systems are not equal at all. I have seen with my own eye's school that are teaching with very old text books and others schools have new math and science programs. How are children getting the equal education if different towns are having to teach with older programs? We are teaching the next generational of leaders, we should be able to get the best programs for all school not just leave it up to the PTA groups that raise most of the money for the programs. 



A big problem in schooling and programs that are run in school come from the systems that the government has in place. It is not that they give more money to different areas, it is they don't help give the same new programs to all the schools so they can teach the best, newest information that is around. Science is any area that changes all the time from new information about outer space to animals discover in the ocean. But if you are still teaching with the text book from 10 years ago to bad for those students. It is telling them they don't need to know the information they are from a low income area they are never going to get anywhere anyway.



The article on Kristof and the information on SWCAMMP really make me think how they are all yell and showing us that we are still not treating everyone with the fail and equal rights that we say are country has. We have all of these bars on the bird cages stopping people trying to make a better life for them and/or there child but push them back in so they can every get out of where they are not matter how hard they try.  

We do have problems with segregating still....

Let's not be sorry for not giving child the education they should be getting because of their color or financial background.

Service Learning Project

I was reading Sydnia Paige blog and a quote that she had wrote about from the article Kahne and Westheimer was

"By finding and engaging in community service activities, Mr. Johnson explained, students would interact with those less fortunate than themselves and would experience the excitement and joy of learning while using the community as a classroom." 

I agree that the classroom is a community and they are learning from each other.  The students can use the classroom community to help the outside community they live in.  Service learning in the classroom is imported because students should learn how they can change their community, in which, they live in for the better. Teachers will tell their students about helping in the community but a student doesn't really understand the hole service learning area just by being told about it. There is a feeling that a person gets when they can see how they are impacting the community.



The feeling of accomplishment is something that a person has to feel to fully understand what it means. There are so many ideas that students can do and still be learning in the classroom, like, doing a food drive and learning about what foods are good for your body. Another idea could be a science class learning about animals and helping a local SPCA group.

When reading this article it reminded me a lot of a person that has give most of his life to service learning in schools and helping their education. Mr. Feinstein has given so much to R.I. from making sure children and their family's have food on their table, to college helping give students a great educations, to helping students in different schools learn about what service learning is in their community. He helps write for grants, raise money, and grow each person to see how helping others, helps everyone!

By children doing different service learning projects in the classroom or in the community they will  grow up to help make our world a better place for the next generation. By doing one service learning projects a student can walk away with a world of knowledge.

Children should know what is going on in their community and know how they can help to make it a better place. It is hands on learning for a lifetime.