We have talked a lot about teaching as a profession. Education does not fit perfectly into the parameters of a usual profession, but it does have a hierarchy. This hierarchy is responsible for keeping the whole system accountable. This is important for education because the profession is under constant scrutiny. Within this system, I would like to talk a bit about the role of the administrator. An administrator is a principal, superintendent, board member, etc. who work more on the legal side of things. They deal with things like hiring, contracts, salary, working conditions, and firing of teachers.
This weeks reading talked about the position of principals in schools and the effects of their method of leadership can have on a school. The difference between a manager and a leader, for example, can change how a school looks. The type of authority that the principal holds is another factor. Is the principle a traditional leader who gained power from the social position they hold from being principal? Do they have a legal/rational authority, enforcing rules and law within schools? Or do they have the charismatic authority that is naturally given to people with a personality and charisma that people want to follow? I am not saying that these three types of authority are exclusive either. In fact, I believe that the principal of my own high school had a combination of all three. She was always aware of the position she held, but at the same time made an effort to have positive relationships to all of the staff and students. She was always giving teachers feedback and advice. One thing I did not know, is that the principal does not do the hiring. They can suggest certain people and play a role in choosing who they think would fit well in their school, but the actual hiring is one by the school board.
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Back in elementary and high school, I never had anybody with a visible disability amongst my peers in the classroom. Students who struggled in class were taken out of the classroom to take lessons from educational assistants who could work with them in smaller groups or individually. I noticed this, but never gave it much thought until high school where all students who had some form of disability that made academics challenging had been set aside in their own wing of the building. We had very few interactions with these students unless they came around to the classrooms to collect attendance or take the recycling for their work experience. I did have the good fortune to get to know one of the girls during an afterschool program called “Cooking Club” where we were taught how to make different recipes. She was slower to respond to questions, but if given enough time to answer questions, she always had something interesting to say. She is an extremely kind and compassionate girl and I was happy to get to know her. I came to understand that she often had trouble in conversations because some people didn’t like to wait for her responses or became uncomfortable around her due to minor differences.
In Dan Habib’s talk, he discussed the positives of having inclusive classrooms and the downsides of segregation. When a youth feels included- like they belong- their self esteem increases along with their social skills and academic performance. This is true for all students; able bodied or not. Those who are differently abled are aloud to find purpose for themselves and the students around them also benefit from the collaborations and friendships that occur. Inclusive Education classrooms are effective because all students have more motivation to help each other and be engaged in the learning. On the other hand, youth who find themselves cut off from social interaction get no benefits from being alone. If they are unable to communicate their thoughts and feelings, they become trapped in their own minds. This can also be related to how expectation can affect the achievements of an individual. For example, if the expectation for a student is higher, they will try to rise to meet that challenge. However, if the expectation is lower, the student isn’t given room to grow. This is an issue that can be easily fixed in most cases if the knowledge of this factor exists. Why do we find dealing with disability so difficult? People often fear what they do not know. I feel like this is a large factor in why there is still such large percentage of youth who are segregated from the classrooms. Guest speaker Kelsey Culbert stressed this knowledge that humans avoid what they don’t understand, she also tells us that having a disability does not make them any less human. I agree with her. I found in my own experiences that I did not always know how to talk to somebody with impaired sight, hearing, mobility, etc. for fear of offending them in some way. For this reason, I really enjoyed reading Kelsey’s blog because she details a few of her own struggles and then details what she called “Disability Etiquette” which reminds the world that they are human too and gives tips for minor changes in conversation that will help everybody to engage in conversation more fully. My Question: What are we waiting for? Inclusivity is a benefit to everybody involved. Volunteering at William booth most weekends has allowed me to get to know some of the residents who participate regularly. This meant that have been able to identify a few patterns within the workings of the home and adapt what I did in small ways to be more helpful. For example, I have been able to confirm that, yes, we do tend to make decisions for people if we do not think they are capable of making those decisions themselves. This is becoming a noticeable theme within caring professions that work with vulnerable sectors: children, elders, and people with disability. There are times where taking the initiative to help the residents is necessary, but if they are able to speak for themselves, I found it was better to ask what they needed first such as the bingo situation I mentioned in my last CBSL blog.
“I noticed how we will, at times, judge others incapable of doing a task. When this happens, we tend to overcompensate for their perceived inability. I had been told that to help these women, it was my job to place the pieces for the lady on my left and place the chips in the hands of the lady on my right. Not two rounds into the game, they both proved this information wrong.” (CBSL blog 1) The severity of our assumptions is different with every person as well as how strongly they react to it, so the line between helping and stepping on pride can be difficult to distinguish. I surprised myself with how quickly I came to learn who the regular participants were for the bingo and church services. I began to learn some of there names and where their rooms where. I knew that some of the players preferred certain types of bingo cards and I learned who liked to attend which service. Some would only attend the first service run by the salvation army, some would only attend the catholic service that was held later, and some would attend both just to do something. By the end of my volunteering there, I also knew which rooms to avoid because they didn’t play bingo or were not religious. I feel like this volunteer placement gave me an opportunity to reflect on how I interact with others and taught be how to adapt to the needs of different people. My CBSL placement is at the William Booth Special Care Home. This senior care home is in conjunction with the Salvation Army and their mission statement is: “to provide comprehensive services for the spiritual, physical, emotional, psychological and social well-being of the individual.” * The home provides a wide range of activities for the inhabitants to participate in if they so choose, and if they have no desire to join, they are free to spend time in any of the lovely commons areas playing board/card games, watching TV, or talking with each other. As a volunteer, it is my job to help those who wish to participate in getting where they need to go as well as helping run the activities. At my first volunteering opportunity here on September 30th, I helped clear away their lunch and then set up for a game of Bingo. I followed one of the workers to inform regular bingo players that the game was going on and push their wheelchairs if necessary.
During the bingo, I sat between two women whom I had to help play Bingo by pointing to the squares on their boards as they were called out. It was here that I experienced first hand that Seniors have reduced mobility and fine motor skills. The woman on my right would occasionally place the bingo chips on top of one another so I would move them to the proper spots and continue with the game. It wasn’t that she lacked any intelligence, only that her arms would not always cooperate to put the pieces where she wanted them to go. This brings me to my second point: I noticed how we will, at times, judge others incapable of doing a task. When this happens, we tend to overcompensate for their perceived inability. I had been told that to help these women, it was my job to place the pieces for the lady on my left and place the chips in the hands of the lady on my right. Not two rounds into the game, they both proved this information wrong. I discovered that the lady to my left could mark her squares on her own if I pointed to the one that was called and gave her the time to do so. On my right, she could pick up the pieces from the container on her own; it was only the chips on the table that she had any trouble grasping. This reminded me of a friend in high school who had been held back from regular classes because it was perceived that she could not keep up, however, the lessons she was taking after where far too slow and unstimulating. I feel as though we as educators do this more often than we would like to think. I learned a few other things as well in my time there. For example, not everybody who participates in the activities here are residents of the home, many of them live nearby or drive in to visit and join in or have come to visit loved ones and friends. Another example is that seniors have lower immune systems, so we are required to sanitize our hands after leaving every room we touched something in. This prevents the spread of germs. The last thing that is of note to this blog is that all of these people are very resilient. In a conversation on the way back to her room, one woman talked with me for some time about her family and her travels when she and her husband were young. It was a conversation I enjoyed having with her, and we talked comfortably for nearly thirty minutes past when I was due to leave. The people living here have all gone through good times and hardship alike, they kept going through it all and are still going. So, my question of the week is how we can help others and ensure that we are not encroaching on their pride or their learning opportunities? This week’s readings are primarily based around development; socially, physically, and cognitively. The textbook posed questions such as how does physical development affect an individual’s social development and vice versa, what is the importance physical activity and its relationship to cognitive development, and even, can we multitask? The textbook discusses many things, but the above are a few points that stood out to me.
There were a few things that surprised me in this reading (Chapter 3, pg. 63-74 and Chapter 8, pg.258-291). First being that early maturation in youth can be the cause for issues- both immediate and distant. For example, females who begin their menstrual cycles earlier are at risk of mental health issues as well as a chance of higher body fat later in life. Males who mature early are often popular because they fit into the norms of “masculinity” because they generally are tall and broad-shouldered. However, these boys tend to have behavior problems when they grow older. On the flip side, males who mature late are picked on for their smaller stature but characteristically grow to be more creative, tolerant, and perceptive. While these statements may not be true for every individual, I did see these trends within myself and my classmates growing up, especially with the males. Another thing I learned was that parenting styles could be summarized into four main categories. I had expected more to exist, though I do not know what they would have been. Authoritative (democratic), Authoritarian (strict), Permissive (friend), and neglecting (uninvolved). These parenting styles, and different combinations of said styles can have a broad range of impacts on an individual’s life. Personally, my parents fit into the authoritative category, and their support is the reason I am who I am today. Lastly, I found the section on multitasking to be fascinating. In today’s world, everybody is constantly in a rush. We often think that multitasking is a helpful tool to get things done faster. However, there has been proving fact after proving fact that this is not usually the case. There are two types of multitasking according to our book, sequential and simultaneous. Sequential is when a person switches back and forth between tasks. We often believe this is allowing us to do things at once, when in fact, our focus is only on one task at a time. Simultaneous is when a person’s focus can overlap onto several different tasks, though this only works in cases where the tasks require various areas of the brain. (I.e.) walking and chewing gum). My question for this week: Is it possible to have control over some of the things that influence our lives? For example, why do we allow ourselves and social media to continue enforcing strict social norms when we know it hurts many of our youth, continuing into adulthood. Here in ECS 200, I believe we will be discussing Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Biological Model of Human Development and tying it back into what we will learn in the lectures and seminars throughout the course. As this is my first official blog post, I would like to stray slightly from the 3-2-1 format that we will be experimenting with more in the near future.
Bronfenbrenner’s model lays out in simple terms, the basics of human interaction and development. How an individual reacts with the world and how that world will impact the life of the individual. The model is constructed of five ecosystems, defined in our textbook as “physical and social contexts in which we develop”; we have the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and the chronosystem. Having an understanding of these systems and the effects they can have in all aspects of a person’s life could help us as educators relate to and empathize with our students, perhaps leading methods of teaching that better fit our students. In our first seminar, we were divided into small groups and given a chance to discuss the impact each factor of the Human Development model. To summarize, my group spoke about how each piece of the model could be both positive and negative, affecting the individual’s world view to some extent. I learned the basics of the Bronfenbrenner model while taking psychology back in high school, however, reading the textbook's interpretation has clarified some aspects and built on others. For example, I was unaware of the chronosystem (the time period the individual lives in). I also had never considered that the systems could affect a person internally (hormone levels) as well as externally (beliefs, behaviors, values, etc.) So now I understand Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Biological Model of Human Development a little better, but how do we apply this knowledge for everyday purposes? I will likely explore this further in future posts. |
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