The guest lecture by Peter Johnson, last Thursday, was highly informative for many reasons. Peter Johnson brought in a vast amount of Maine political knowledge. Mills spent time in both the Maine Senate and Maine House of Representatives and recently ran for Governor of Maine. Today Mills is the executive director of the Maine Turnpike Authority and was chosen for this position by Governor Paul.
The most important insight that Peter Johnson left us was his opinion and rationale for paying teachers more. I am a secondary education major, so this insight was rather enticing to me. I would have to agree with Mills opinion on this, but not for the sake of just paying teachers more. If we want our school systems to get better, then paying more for teacher’s salaries could certainly be a step in the right direction. I would assume that if a teachers salary was doubled, then it would lead to a rising slope of more people entering the education field. Presumably, I would imagine more people out of the science and math fields would enter the education field, because as I see it, many of those people in those fields tend to migrate towards higher paying jobs. Therefore, that means many of the nations best and brightest do not become educators. Rather, they would want a more extravagant lifestyle, then what a teachers salary entails. Attending college for four years and then only being paid a salary of approximately thirty thousand dollars is demoralizing. That is not that much over the poverty level and it takes quite a few years to raise an educator’s salary. If merit pay, or just an overall increase of salary is adopted into the education field, then it sounds rather enticing and hopefully would create a positive affect. I know certainly if I were paid merit pay, I would certainly give it my best effort. One should not forget though, that not all students are created equal in the cognitive sphere, so merit pay would have its issues. Some teachers could be giving optimal effort, but the students just may be a factor in the reasoning of why there is difficulty. Many students with disabilities are mainstreamed and I certainly cannot see holding them at the same rung as all the other students.
One certain aspect that was discussed in our class and shared by Peter Johnson is that he spoke of the citizens legislate and how it consists of very few rich people.
Harrison, L. H. (Ed.). (2004). Kentucky Governors (Updated ed., pp. 217-220). Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky.
AP Seminar was my first experience in an environment that was completely dedicated to learning, without the fixation on the letter grades that ‘determine’ success. My peers were my teachers. I discussed, debated, and collaborated with peers that shared various viewpoints on thought provoking issues that challenged my own. I learned to ask the ‘Whys?,’ ‘Hows?,’ and ‘What Ifs?’ and dive deeper into discussion. The environment fostered differences in interests, mindsets, and intellect. My attraction drew me to seek an intellectually diverse learning environment that challenges my preconceived opinions and ideas. Columbia, through the Core system, acknowledges and uniquely accomplishes the same goals of learning as my AP Seminar class. The prospect
“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand” (24). Life has ups and downs and it is bound to happen to everyone. Whether it is a death in a family to getting fired. But there is one thing you can do to make your life interesting.
Teachers and theorists have played a huge role through out history. There are those that have dedicated their lives to learning and investing in tools and strategies to help children succeed and grow with their development. There are those that have created schools, programs and set standards for teachers that are even used in todays school systems. This gives teachers the opportunity to adapt to any personality and give that child the best care and education they deserve. With that being said, there is a lot of weight that can be on a teachers shoulders but people may often overlook these very important people. The pay may not be the best in this particular field, but that is not the reason they do what they do. This specific group loves children and love what they do. The reward for them is seeing that child succeed no matter how young or small they may be. These amazing folks are sometimes even labeled heroes for the impact they can really do in a young persons life. They are changing peoples lives with the investment they make everyday. With teachers investing in children's lives in the beginning with programs like Head Start and Pre-Kindergarten, America will have and has seen brilliant and successful people.
I went to the school board meeting on March 21, 2016 in Kanawha. The following people were at the council: Wayne Kronneman, Leah Deutsch, Ryan Hiscocks, Ryan Johnson, Jay Burgardt, Mona Buns, Gary Chizek, Todd Hammer, and Jon Harle. The others were mainly community member which included teachers, principals, parents and supporters. Some of the West Hancock staff included Mr. Peterson, Mrs. DeHart, Mrs. Bruns, Mr. Francis, Mrs. Gast and others. The other people who were there were parents and other community members. The first part of the meeting was the revision of the budget and presentation of the budget. This was given by Wayne Kronneman. He explained the budget of this year and how it compared to last years. Also he also talked about the budget for next year. After that they had a discussion with the
Teacher merit based pay has become a growing interest amongst politicians for the past fifty years. According to Jane Lincove, author of Can Teacher Incentive Pay Improve Student Performance on Standardized Tests?, “a growing list of school districts and states have experimented with teacher incentive pay” due to pressures of high-stakes accountability (3). Texas began deliberations regarding incentive pay as early as the 1980s (Springer, p. viii) The miscarriages of early incentive pay programs helped formulate the most recent teacher incentive pay program in Texas, ensuring it would be adequately funded, provide teacher involvement in its design, reward educators for student performance
At the base of every profession lies the information and skills we learn from our teachers. Yet teachers get paid close to one hundred times less than the professional athletes used for entertainment. Teachers help kids and teens learn basic curriculum as well as important life skills they use throughout their lives. Without the knowledge a teacher gives us we lack good doctors, lawyers, government officials, engineers etc. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the average high school teacher makes about $57,200 annually, teachers deserve much more for the job they do. (“High School Teachers”)
A group that was a significant part of my high school identity was Student 2 Student, the drug and alcohol-free club at Glenbrook South. The club’s goal was to create a safe and comfortable environment in which students can abstain from the use of drugs and alcohol while connecting with other people who share the same beliefs as them. Through Student 2 Student, I was able to meet others from GBS that I would have never met, and I was fortunate enough to become acquainted with some of the most supportive people in my life. A social club, Student 2 Student survived because of the familial atmosphere that was created within it. There was a bond shared between the leaders and members, allowing everyone to have fun while making healthy decisions
Looking back over the course of the semester, I feel that I learned many new and interesting uses for technology within the classroom – both for classrooms that have a lot of technology and for classrooms that are limited with technology. For the majority of the class, we utilized William Kists’ book The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age (2010), which provided multiple modes of instruction that both utilized and/or created technology. One of the first things that I remember, and consequently that stuck with me through the course’s entirety, is that individuals must treat everything as a text. Even a garden is a text. The statement made me change the way that I traditionally viewed Language Arts both as a student and as a teacher, as I very narrowly saw literature and works of the like as texts only; however, by considering nearly anything as a text, one can analyze, study, and even expand his/her knowledge. Kist (2010) states that society is “experiencing a vast transformation of the way we “read” and “write,” and a broadening of the way we conceptualize “literacy” (p. 2). In order to begin to experience and learn with the modern classroom and technologically advanced students, individuals must begin to see new things as literature and analyze those things in a similar manner.
There is no more critical role in our current society than that of a teacher’s. Teachers help shape the minds of the future. Tomorrow 's engineers, scientists, politicians, and educators are all greatly influenced by today 's Instructors. Without teachers society would not be anywhere near where it is now, and only a select few would have access to learning. Sadly however important teachers are in human civilization, they are still drastically understated, unrecognized and under paid. Although some people may argue that performance pay is good, performance/merit pay is bad because it will result in teachers doing much less personalizing of the curriculum, and spending that time doing only what things need to teach in order to keep their student’s
Coming into speech class, I mentally and physically prepared myself for what was in store. I never really like giving speeches, especially impromptu speeches. Signing up for speech was hard for me to do because I absolutely did not want to take it and was considering not taking it in high school and wishing that I would never have to take it. My fears for COMM 101 was being judged. I am not really one to care about what people think about me, but something about public speaking gives me a fear that people will judge me if I stutter or not be able to complete a speech. I just wanted to do my best in this class and just breeze through this class and get it over with. Getting up in front of the class for my first speech, was petrifying for me
After re watching my own presentation I have noticed many different things that I didn’t think of or notice when I was originally presenting it. While watching it some of the things that I think I did well on where first my talking. This is something that I know I did better on because I did my presentation a little different from everyone else. Another thing that I think worked well for my presentation was the word to picture ratio. I felt like I did a good job not putting my entire script on the screen but enough to give the class a good summery about what I was talking about. Some areas of the rubric that I still think I need to work on is being more specific on answering the essential question making it more obvious as to what my over
In many states, teachers are underpaid. Though money is not the motive for most teachers, without enticing salaries, many are lured away from the teaching profession and graduates looking for a first year teaching position are not given much to look forward to. So, since teachers are not paid adequately, raising the pay scale would ensure that our children are left in the hands of quality educators. One way teachers can be sufficiently compensated is by merit pay. The formula is simple; as test scores and evaluations rise, so would the teachers’ salaries. Although controversial, it is just one of many
During this College Composition course, I came across numerous obstacles and educational involvements. Every factor of this course contributed to my overall learning experience. For starters, we often read out of our textbooks, “The Little Seagull Handbook” and “They Say I Say”. These books helped showcase proper writing techniques. In addition, we would have class discussions that everyone would participate in. This opened my eyes to different viewpoints that could influence my writing. I recall one class we had a debate over a topic and everyone had to choose a side to argue. Then when we wrote argument essays, even though they were on a different topic, it helped me view my topic in different ways. Lastly, the most helpful to my writing was peer review. We were told to read our paper out loud to our partner. Although personally I am quiet and dislike reading out loud, I found this very helpful. Instantly, my partner and I could find grammar mistakes that one may not pick up on while reading silently. Then we could also talk about other possible revisions for my paper. For every paper, we would have conferences with the professor. This was effective as well to have a professional giving corrections and ideas. When we would get back our graded rubrics on the assignments we completed, the instructor would leave comments to
Overall my experience of being in Lingleville ISD was a great experience that allowed me to learn a lot not only about the students in the classroom, but also helped me learn a lot about myself. Going in to this classroom I expected to only learn things about classroom management and maybe a few strategies. After spending a few days in this room I learned many other things. I did learn about classroom management but I also learned about content, strategies, organization, lesson planning, and inclusion adaptations. I learned that an inclusion special education student can really thrive being in a mainstream classroom, not only academically but also socially. It was a wonderful learning opportunity to get to be a part of that. My mentor teacher