Education Reform Obama

Obama interviewed this morning on MSN about education reform, something that many agree is drastically needed. It is important to know what the government is considering in this area, as the children of today are the leaders of tomorrow. Please take the time to view this interview, if you haven't already click here.

Book to Movie

Let me begin the post by saying I love the idea of taking books and turning them into movies. In theory it would give extended life to the story, plot and characters. The problem lies when Hollywood's reproduction does not follow the storyline of the book.

A few months ago I viewed a movie tailor for the motion picture Percy Jackson and the Olympians The Lightning Thief. It looked like an exciting adventure. When I discovered that it was first a book, I decided to read the book prior to watching the movie. I like to read the book first, because, obviously, the author's tale was the inspiration behind the movie to begin with. I purchased the book, thinking my future students might enjoy it as well.

I thoroughly enjoyed Mr Riordan's masterpiece. The book was unpredictable and held twists and turns in the plot that kept me up one night long past the time I normally retire. I liked how I got to grow with Percy and learn things about the half-bloods as he did. I will not give away the plot line to anyone who has not read it, but it is certainly worth reading.

The movie, in itself, was a good movie. The problem was when it did not follow the storyline of the novel. The basic idea of the book was present in the movie, but the plotline and events that led to the ending were scarce. A couple of funny parts that were present in the novel were left out, and multiple fights were left out. Some characters (important ones at that) were left out of the movie. It almost appears as if the filmmakers asked a forgetful person who had read the book what it was about, and wrote the script on that, rather than the novel. Needless to say, I was disappointed with the movie.

Wordle

I learned about Wordle while I was browsing a new blog. Currently I am brainstorming ways to use it in my classroom. The "sticky notes" on the site (thanks to fellow diigo users-a universal bookmarking site that also has many other features) helped me to understand it. However, before I use it in the classroom, I need to make sure it is used in a meaningful way that is more than just fun. What did I create my first wordle on? This site! Click here to see everything that is this site and the neat way wordle puts it together.

Recently I viewed the music video for the song "American Ride" sung by Toby Keith. At first it was humorous, but if one takes a closer look, it is really rather sad what our world has turned into. And what is even more sad, is that the children of today are growing up in this world.

To quote the lyrics in the song, the children of this generation are "kids on you tube, learning how to be cool, pays to be a mean girl". It is sad how true this actually is. Why is youtube so popular? Because there are parents and "dad works his can off paying for the good life" who do not have enough time to spend with their children, hence the kids turn to media to get advice on life. This gets out of hand, snowballing quickly into getting high on aerosol cans and dealing with insecurity in their looks and weight. But who can blame them? When their resources show that the majority of women (on television and in the media) are a size 3, that untruth is enough to depress anyone.

So, as teachers we need to try to identify with all the pressure and stress our students are dealing with today. The gap between being too young for things (drugs, sex, suicide) is quickly spiraling downward, and we need to be knowledgeable as teachers. What can we do? Give special attention (whenever possible) to those kids who set themselves apart from the class and might fall between the cracks. Let them know that at least one person cares, encourage him/her and be that reason for them to live.

Really, is the United States of America diverse?

My educational textbooks state over and over again that the United States of America is growing more diverse and has statistics to back this up. Recently moving to a larger town, I know there are places much more diverse than the small town I grew up in. I see it, others see it, but does the media accurately reflect it? This is the question that lead me to flip the channels in search of commercials, rather than shows.

My mission was to see if commercials actually reflect the growing diversity by showing multiracial people. I watched various channels for an hour and recorded how many men and women were shown using the following categories: white, Hispanic, African American and Asian American.

There were 72 men and 44 women shown in an hour of commercials. 55 of those men were white, 10 were African American, 5 were Hispanic American and 2 were Asian American. Of the 44 women: 33 were white, 8 were African American, 4 were Asian American and none were Hispanic. I think the numbers speak for themselves: the media of the USA does not accurately portray the people that make up America. When will all be considered equal?