"Waiting for 'Superman'"

This week in class we watched Waiting for "Superman" a documentary about the struggles of public schools. The documentary chronicled the struggle many parents face when they live in a poor district with a failing school and fear their child isn't getting the proper education they need to succeed in life. These parents choose to put their faith in KIPP schools and other charter schools public lotteries which occur whenever the number of student applications have exceeded the number of positions available within the school. I'm curious about how many parents put their education in the hands of a random drawing, I found it upsetting how clearly many of our public schools are failing students but there's very little reform that can be done. I found the discussion of tenure and the "lemon dance" really interesting because while tenure protects great teachers it also makes it nearly impossible to get rid of poor teachers and because of that it assists in the decline of the school. The discussion of tenure really clarified things for me especially when the addressed the "reform" schools New York sends their teachers to when they've acted poorly but haven't done anything grievous enough to get fired for because one of the teachers in my school was sent to one. My school has been doing a "lemon dance" passing the same history teacher back and forth between the high school and the middle school because they don't have the grounds to fire him. After this documentary it makes more sense why they just kept cutting back his classes and moving him to lower grade levels rather than fire him. Tenure is a blessing and a curse in public schools. After watching these five families struggle to find good education for their children I know I'm going to endeavor to supply my future students with the best education I can because I refuse to be a teacher who does nothing after achieving tenure. I want to deserve tenure and do my best to offer students a fun, functional, engaging and educational classroom.

  Today in class we discussed resumes and cover letters, I never expected to have fun learning about how to write a resume but I did. Getting the chance to write silly cover letters was a good way to learn the format. We got to work with a couple of partners and really bond over our topics because we had to make it an equal collaboration of what we were writing about. Reading them out loud was nice because we could all giggle and enjoy each other's work.
  This was a fun activity and I'm hoping we'll get the chance to do more activities of this nature. We got the chance to be creative and think outside the box while still be productive and learning a particular skill, in this case it was writing cover letters. This activity was important because it showed us how to take dull topics and make them creative and engaging.
  I learned that even topics that shouldn't be very engaging can be if you give students lose guidelines and the free reign to be creative. It's definitely something I want to apply in the classroom because the technique is incredibly simple but very effective. Being creative is very important not only as a teacher but in my daily life because it allows me to think outside the box and think critically to solve problems.

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