FNED VIDEO!!! --please dont watch unless you already saw it in class

hello all. just wanted to post this on my blog now, before everything was due. but if you havent seen our video in class yet, please wait till them. i promise its amazing and you will be happy to see it tomorrow!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ONXdx5MAqw&amp%3Bfeature=youtube_gdata_player

guess my last post didnt work sorry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJyAZLx2yIA

fantasy sports in the class room

just found this and thought it was interesting.

getting students to learn math by incorporating fantasy sports!

think-pair-share-jigsaw!!! --Shor

So after reading the article and doing the activity in class, I found that the activity really helped to understand it. My section for the activity was "education is not and cannot be neutral". This is very true, from what we have learned from this semester. Education teaches us to be naturally curious, and to ask questions, and like what Johnson says, we must talk about stuff. In our group we had a comparison of if someone from Brown university and RIC were taught the same thing, the person from Brown would be looked at as higher than the person who came from RIC. And this is because education is NOT neutral. Here in our FNED class our class is not neutral, we are asked to think, and talk about stuff that shows us how education isn’t neutral. In our group we were able to find three authors that we could make connections to, 1.) Delpit.- if education was neutral we would be enforcing the cultural of power. 2.) Finn and Oakes.- critical thinking (outcomes-Brown student vs. RIC student) 3.) Johnson.- must talk about things and get them out in the open.

--if education was neutral, you would just float their and then the cultural of power would eventually sweep you away down the river.

Greek life at RIC!!!

Hello all!!!

I’m not sure how many of you know that RIC actually has Greek life on its campus. There are 3 sororities and 1 active fraternity and 1 almost active fraternity. Greek life here is very low key, to those who don’t look for it, but to me it’s about all I think about half the time. I am a part of a sorority called lambda chi and we are an animal rights sorority. We have many events that involve helping the community around us and also the RIC community. We are involved with some local animal shelters and we also are involved in helping out the campus clean up days.
Recently the Greeks have gotten together and we are now planning an event for the school. It probably won’t happen till next semester sometime. But the reason to why I’m writing about this is because my sorority just initiated out new Gamma class last night and I’m just so happy!!!  :-D. Our sorority is still small (only 22 members) but we are growing every semester! So if you are interested check us out next semester! :)

Citizenship in school

As I was reading, I found myself really getting into the article. I found myself really wanting to hug all the children in the world, who just want to be in a normal classroom with their peers, and they can’t because they have a disability, and people don’t think they can do it. When I was in the second grade, I was put into a special Ed room, because they said I had a learning disability. I would only be allowed in my classroom with my peers for a few hours each day, and the rest of my day was spent in another room with other children with disabilities. My brother who is four years older than me was also labeled as a kid who had a learning disability, and our middle brother Greg, was the only “normal one” in our family, or this is how me and my brother Steve called him. All my life I have been jealous of Greg, he got good grades and he never had to go to the special Ed room. A quote from the reading is also how I felt, “I started to notice that I didn't like the classes I was taking called special education. Had to go through special Ed.  almost all my life. I wanted to take other classes that interested me. I had never felt so mad, I wanted to cry”. (Peterson, 1994, p. 6)

When I finally started to get this feeling I felt the need to prove everyone wrong about me, I didn’t like to be separated from my friends and peers, I know I was definitely looked down upon by my teachers. They themselves never wanted to help me, if I got upset or really confused they would just send me away to the special Ed room, and have that teacher deal with me. Finally around the 4^th grade I was in my classroom more often, but I wasn’t alone. They sent with me an aid, and wherever I went she was there. She was always on my back about, did you write this down? are you listening?, did you just hear what she said?. Ughh I couldn’t stand it!! I think that was even worse than going to the special Ed room, this was the kids actually could see for themselves on how different I was at school. At least in the special Ed room, nobody was watching me, my peers maybe had theories but they never saw me getting the extra help.

Then the summer to 5^th grade was when my family moved to Rhode Island, and I was going into the 5^th grade. I thought this was a good chance to start all over again. When I finally started school, I was put in a special Ed room but for only 2 hours out of the day. So I got to spend much more time in my classroom and I really liked the special Ed teacher. In 6^th grade I did the same routine as I did in 5^th.  Then when I finally went to 7^th grade I was in all skills classes but I was able here to start proving people wrong about me, I got straight A’s!!!! :-D. So all my teachers placed me in CP classes for my 8^th grade year. I did awesome here to. I got mostly A’s and B’s. And being in CP classes lasted all the way up until my junior year when I moved up into honors classes. My grades went down a little but I was defiantly a solid B student.

I really want to help advocate for others that I think it is extremely important for students with disabilities to be in a classroom with their peers. I think it helped teach me how they learn and do things for themselves. And I think even me being in the room by myself they could see that I’m not as different as they are. [Community] requires a willingness to see people as they are-different perhaps in their minds and in their bodies, but not different in their spirits or in their willingness and ability to contribute to the mosaic of society. It requires the "helper" to have the humility to listen for what the person says he or she needs. Also, the "helper" must see that the interaction "helps" both ways. (p. 12)

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/oct/23/students-learning-disabilities-succeed-regular-cla/

http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/Including.Students.html

fin and Oakes, based off Caiti's blog

                My blog of fin and Oakes is based off of Caiti’s blog post.  When I started to read what she said, “Why would we only have the students who are doing well getting special attention and better classes and resources?  Who came up with this idea? The "less abled" kids are expecting to do badly. If you are expected to do badly, then why not do badly.  If your teachers believe you are "less abled" and give you non- challenging work and just expect less in general you are going to behave just that way.” These few sentences really made me think, and it made me think about a movie that I watched today on ABC.  The movie was called, “Freedom Writers” directed by, Richard LaGravenese.  It reminded me of this one specific scene in the movie, where the teacher is talking to the librarian who gives out copies of the books to the teachers and the students. But the librarian said that she would not give out the copies of the good books to the teachers who had certain students because they won’t take care of the books and they only deserve the books that are ripped and are not the same version as the better books. I can’t find the clip off of youtube but I have attached a clip of the movie trailer. Also what Caiti said was why we are only giving students who are doing well, more attention and better resources.  In the beginning of the movie it showed the teacher of the freedom writers walk down the hall and see the classrooms of the smarter students and they were decorated and clean and neat, and when she got to her room the walls were bare and the room was dirty. The outlook at the school amongst the teachers and staff is that why waste your time in trying to give certain students an education if they don’t want one.

                The next quote from Caiti’s blog was, "rich get richer and poor get poorer." This isn’t the first time I hear this quote this weekend. I actually heard it at the Promising Practices conference.  It was in my second session where we were talking about the routine of things and how nothing seems like its ever going to change the system.  The professor that I had mentioned to us that it seems as if the rich or going to keep getting richer and the poor are going to keep getter poorer.