If I had been there...

This blog is a student sample for my eighth grade class' unit on the Holocaust.

I can't imagine what life would have been like living in the Holocaust. To have been put through that much pain and suffering is unimaginable. In this blog I'd like to share more of my feelings about what it would have been like to live through the Holocaust and to have been an outsider looking in (like I am now).

The victims of the Holocaust went through so much pain and suffering during Hitler's rule. First, all of their material possessions were taken away and they were told that they were the reason Germany was struggling. To be ridiculed like that must have been horrible. It hurts me to have people laugh at the stupid things I do, so it would be a million times worse if I had to go through what the victims went through. Then to be loaded into cattle cars and taken to concentration camps, they were treated like they weren’t even human. No one ever deserves to be treated like that. To have their family taken from them, forced to work nearly to death (if they were lucky), and then killed if they no longer served a “purpose.” This has to be one of the darkest parts of our history.

To be a soldier looking in on the holocaust must have been like peering into another world. Only this world makes your stomach turn because instead of people staring back at you, their are skeletons. And it hurts so much, because you know that you can't give them all the food you have, because it will only make them feel worse. However, knowing that I had helped to liberate these people and give them the freedom they deserved would be a great honor. To know that I helped to save their lives, it would be life-changing. Just learning about what happened in the Holocaust has made me promise to never let it happen again, so I can only imagine how it made a liberator feel.

This unit has given me so much respect for the victims of the Holocaust.

Turning Points 2000: Chapter 9

Chapter 9 of Turning Points 2000 is all about parental and community involvement in schools. By combining schools with parents and the community, students will have a strong foundation on which they can learn more effectively. Parents should also create a home environment that encourages learning and also have high expectations for their child's learning. Moreover, with more constant contact between schools and parents there will be less of a reason for parents to put their guard up when a school calls home. Student-led conferences are also a way to get parental involvement (in a way) and have contact between parents and teachers. The surrounding community can also be seen as a an extension of the school as well and parents and schools should utilize the tools that the community may offer. Finally, a great way to incorporate the community is through service learning.

A lot of the information given in this chapter can be seen as common sense but most of it needs to be reiterated because many parents still are not involved enough with their children's education. Everybody wins when parents and the community are involved. Teacher and student attitudes both improve and that means more effective teaching is bound to occur. Holding parent nights in middle schools is a great way for teachers, parents, and those involved in the community to get acquainted. These types of get-togethers allow for all parties involved to develop some sort of communication structure.

MMM 15 -synthesized

Abstract:
Chapter 15 in Meet Me in the Middle discusses the importance of involving parents in their students’ education. Here Wormeli coins the term “student/teacher/parent triad” (172) to describe the necessary open communication between all three parties –parents are a vital ingredient in the recipe of student success because students’ learning does not only occur inside school grounds. Wormeli also stressed the idea of sending out postcards to parents whose children have done something positive; this shows them that we are paying attention and we appreciate student effort and work. So often, news is only sent home for bad behavior or trouble in class; these postcards help students’ success by highlighting the things they do well. Wormeli gives several suggestions that are both digital and non-digital to accommodate families that may not have internet access; it is important to be flexible so that all parents can be involved. Schoolnotes.com, blackboard.com and myclass.net are a few internet sites that serve similar functions as a wiki; parents and students can access it anywhere to look up homework, notes from class, directions for upcoming projects, quizzes/tests, and grades. Email is also a great way to communicate. For families who do not have computers at home or internet access, mailing out newsletters, making home visits and inviting parents to the classroom are ways to keep communication open and parents involved.

Reflection:
Everyone seemed to find this chapter useful; it gave several suggestions for communicating with parents and students at home. This open and understanding relationship between parents, teachers and students helps ensure student success by making expectations known to all parties involved, which in turn avoids “he said, she said” situations. Many of us seemed to have our sights set on having a wiki in our classroom to serve this purpose, but this chapter helped open our eyes to other ways of communicating and involving families that do not have access to the internet.
There were some concerns, however. A few people did not like the idea of giving out home phone numbers or personal email to students because to do so would force us to walk a thin line. This can be a) overwhelming for us as teachers because young students may take advantage of it and call us with every little problem, and b) asking for trouble in that it can be seen as inappropriate, or escalate quickly to that end. Another concern a few people expressed was that still not all parents would become involved in their child’s education, and what can we do? What other ways can we get parents involved? And then there is the idea that students need to be weaned off parent “helicopters,” that parents should only get involved to a certain degree, and that students need to be held accountable and take some responsibility for their work and their education.

Boys and Girls Learn Differently

Honestly, I have nothing bad to say about your presentation. You incorporated the most important things I can think of into this presentation: humor, discussion, interaction, and having us physically involved. Most of all, it was very informative. Personally, you kept me in suspense because you had me and a few others dress up while the other half did not. I had no idea why but it definitely got me thinking about the presentation a lot. You really taught us that not only do boys and girls learn differently but we do things differently as well. Case in point: the human knot activity. The ladies thought things out while the guys got competitive and just went really fast. Overall, excellent job and nice comic at the end. It made me laugh quite a bit and at the same time gave some closure to your presentation. Great job!

Book Respone to "Boys and Girls Learn Differently"

Overall I thought you guys did an awesome job. I loved how your presentation was more hands on than just you guys standing up there telling us what the book was about. Through your activities you showed us what the book was about. I thought it was very clever how you only told half the class to dress the same, while not telling the other half. It showed to me how in middle school students are judged so much on what they wear, and more learning can take place when students don't have to worry about being picked on in class. Even though I was a little mad that I didn't get a stress ball, that activity showed how different boys are than girls when it comes to paying attention to a lecture. I usually take notes because it helps me pay attention in class, but that same strategy doesn't work for guys. By far my favorite activity was the human knot. It was a great example of how different guys and girls really are. It would have been great if we could of had a team of all guys and a team of all girls, but the point was still shown. The guys did more of a trial and error method, where the girls had to think it out first. Because of this I am leaning toward have separate math classes. It just seems like the most differences are in math. Great job on the book presentation!

Boys & Girls Learn Differently Book Talk response

You guys did a great job of sneaking little pieces in to make your points: the "dress code," the stress balls/powerpoint outlines, the human knot, etc. They were clever and had us wondering until you explained each one to illustrate your point. The directions on the questionnaire activity were a little fuzzy, but the idea was good, and generated a good discussion about dress codes. The activities were engaging and fun. The powerpoint was well done -not too detailed so that you had to do much of the talking. I learned a lot about how boys and girls learn differently in terms of content area, group work, instruction and discipline; thanks to the powerpoint outline you gave me, I have it as a resource! The comic book was a clever and humorous wrap-up. Awesome job.

Boys and Girls Response

I really enjoyed the presentation today about the book, "Boys and Girls Learn Differently." You had some good information, and the hands on activities were fun and educational. I really liked the discussion we had on the different topics. I can see how uniforms/a dress code could bring down the level of teasing in a school, but I just feel like it isn't worth the suppression of student expression and I feel like it will not help to mask a student's SES. It was great to have the conversation though, because it helped to develop all of our philosophy.
The only criticism I have is something you recognized during the presentation, that we didn't talk much about how boys and girls learn differently. In the future groups may want to break up the reading by having someone whose interested in Ele. Ed. read that portion, a Sec. Ed. read that portion, etc etc. That way you could have shared more knowledge and maybe gotten that background info that seemed to be missing. That would also have given you more information to present, as it seemed you were heavy on the hands-on and short on the information.
Overall, I enjoyed the presentation (and winning at the human knot!).

Response to Becoming a Wiz

First off I want to say that you guys did an awesome job with the wiki. It had so many links, charts, tables, and just a lot of information - too much information to be covered in one class period. It seemed like you guys had the hardest book to summarize because it had the greatest amount of information. It was just too much information for us to soak in at once. My first suggestion was for you guys to cut out some of that info, but then I didn’t want you to change your wiki because it was so good. So what if you would have given us like 20 minutes to explore the wiki on our own? It would have eliminated a lot of the explaining that you guys had to do, and it would have made more time for the activities, which I really liked. The quizzes gave everyone info about themselves that they never knew before. The true color activity was engaging and fun, but it also told us stuff about ourselves and others that we never thought of previously. My favorite was the game with the cards because we got to compete against the other teams. Overall I thought you did an awesome job with the amount of information you had in your book.