MIND THE GAP

 1. "Testing, I realized with dismay, had become a central preoccupation in the schools and was not just a measure but an end in itself (Ravitch 12)." 


       With No Child Left Behind education of children has been shattered. I hate the fact that we are educating students to pass standardized test. At the school I work at it is the main goal to have students perform well on these tests that often time we get so consumed with the test that we forget what is so important;  are we teaching the students to be learners at all?  Is it possible that No Child Left Behind and these high stakes test have allowed students not to be able to think but just memorize what they need to pass? What good is that doing any student or society?  In this quote I think Ravitch sums it up perfectly, this was supposed to measure what students we learning now it has become such an issue that we must teach to it. 


"I was attracted to the idea that the market would unleash innovation and bring greater efficiencies to education (Ravitch 10)." 


        I think Ravitch is being personal in this quote simply stating that she thought No Child Left Behind would make education better and solve the achievement gap. Lets be honest who would not want to support something that is name 'No Child Left Behind"! Instead NCLB has shown no huge innovation or efficiency to education. I think Ravitch is saying what she thought was wrong and confesses to that fact in this provocative quote. 


2.      I agree with Ravitch's definition of what a well educated person should be. As I wrote my definition I notice it was not that different from Ravitch's idea of a well educated person. I defined a well education person as a person who has extensive knowledge in all subjects as well as an independent thinker who is able to form logical explanations and be able to articulate those explanations. I also think that it is important to always be evolving your knowledge. It is important to keep up with an ever changing world and in order to stay well educated you need to know how to use all modern technologies and understand all current events.


3.      Thinking about the class discussion on Ch. 1 and 2 in The Death and Life of the Great American School System  I left thinking that our class has a really great, somewhat heated discussion on what we had read. We appreciated Ravitch's honesty in saying that she was at first pro No Child Left Behind but  states as she looks back now that she was wrong in her thinking. This seemed really brave to me. It is not often people admit that they are wrong and she did. I think this allowed us as readers to trust her. As we discussed No Child Left Behind and the negative effects it has on both students and teachers, I just kept thinking of an experience that I had last school year. I was teaching a Life Science class and was at first really excited. I thought great I can have students do all these cool hands on labs and get them really interested in the subject, and then I was handed my pacing guide. This was a very strict pacing guide provided to me by the state due to us being a school that is on program improvement. The was no flexibility in this pacing guide and no time for fun lab experiments. This frustrated me to no end. It was my job to make students enjoy learning and have them excited about coming to school each day. I was bored with the material I had to present and I could only imagine my students we just as bored. I tried to make it as exciting as possible but I had not much time to do anything creative before we had to move on to the next topic. I worried about my students. The drop out rate where I work is pretty high once students reach high school. I wonder if the state putting these schools on pacing guides was really driving children to be disinterested in school. No Child Left Behind might be helping the test scores rise but has any one looked at the correlation between that and drop out rates in these high risk schools? It just makes me wonder...


4. GAP IN CONTENT KNOWLEDGE FOUND IN CA STATE PE STANDARD BELOW!!!


GRADE 6 

9. 1.11  Design and perform smooth, flowing sequences of stunts, tumbling, and rhythmic patterns that combine traveling, rolling, balancing, and transferring weight. 

RESOURCES TO HELP FILL GAP IN MY CONTENT KNOWLEDGE


BOOK RESOURCE
I found this great book titled, Teaching Tumbling by Phillip Ward.  This book has 42 lesson plans on tumbling for physical education classes and is a great resource!

!

I learned serval things from this informative book by Phillip Ward. I learned how to teach safety procedures for tumbling and how to control the class in an effective way in order to maintain everyone's  safety. This book walked through step by step movements and describe each movement in an enough detail to teach it. It also provided pictures which is great and will make it very easy to have students look at these pictures as they are trying these movements. The diagrams will also allow me to demonstrate each sequential step to a tumbling skill set. 

WEBSITE 

I also felt this website provided created greater clarity for teaching Tumbling. There were different lesson posted by various teachers and some posted instructional videos which is extremely helpful.

http://www.physicaleducationupdate.com/

ARTICLE 

The article below by Patti Komara, " What, When, and How to Teach" is about her 10 Commandments of Teaching Tumbling, she walks through step by step motions and talks about safety when teaching these skills and safety has been my biggest fear when it comes to teaching this standard.

What, When, and How to Teach

By Patti Komara

         

5. Annotations of Resources for my line of inquiry...

Abney, Robertha; Richey, Dorothy L. (1992). Opportunities for Minority Women in Sport- The Impact of Title IX.Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 63, 56-58.


       This article offers insight to the benefits of minority women in sport since Title IX has passed. This article talks about the role of minority women in sport. Minority women participating in sport have increased since Title IX, however the numbers of minority women coaches and trainers is at an all time low. This article is helpful to me to see the effects of women in sport and how Title IX has changed women in sport.


McArthur, Laura H; Raedeke, Thomas D. (2009) Race and Sex Differences in College Student Physical Activity Correlates. American Journal of Health Behavior,33.1. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 June 2012.


       This study shows the correlation between Race or Sex and Physical Activity in College. The study looks at college students through research studies. The study was completed to see what physical activity patterns college students have and what psychosocial variables related to motivation and behavior change. The data collected in this will be beneficial to me because it shows the benefits for female college students doing physical activity.








Blogs I have responded to:

http://smc-mat-temple.blogspot.com

missasch.blogspot.com

http://jennsmc14.blogspot.com