More from the blogs...

Music: Guster, "Ganging up on the Sun"

I came from a very small all girls catholic school. Where if you were even five minutes late for class, there would be a search party looking for you, nevermind not taking a "real attendance". There are many different styles of teaching and I am not so sure that I believe that the banking method is the most effiecent for me as it is the msot comfortable for me. I have to be honest and tell you when we went around the room last class and there was the akwardness between two student on how we could change class I wanted to just walk out. Of course I mean this in a joking way and I aprricate how much you care and value our opinions as your students. But i almost just can't handle the uncomfortableness between peers. I feel like that is something that the banking method eliminates. However the benefits of not using the banking method is very obvious to me as well. This is what I have learned being a learner...you have to almost find a way to teach yourself in order to learn.

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I think today in class, I really realized how important it is to be aware of your students in class and make sure you engage them as much as you can or they will not pay attention or retain anything you are trying to teach.

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I started going over all the information chapter by chapter and i realized that i did know alot of the information but there were still more to know. I made flashcards and wrote out everything a bunch of times hoping it will stick in my mind. By 9:00, I knew so much new information and i was surprised at myself and rather proud of myself. Usually i can never just sit down for that long and actually study. I went into the exam pretty confident.

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(this one is really lovely):

This past weekend was Columbus Day Weekend. I went home for the first time. It was AWESOME. I didn't realize how much I missed it. Being home made me think of a lot of things. Living in New Hampshire, fall is always annoying for us because flocks of people come north to see our foliage. Growing up there, I would be like "What's the big deal? It's leaves changing color." When fall came the normal stressors of longer lines at restaurants, traffic, and never-ending raking is usually what came to mind. When visiting this past weekend, I realized why people come to New Hampshire to see such sights. I have never realized how gorgeous it actually is. My boyfriend and I spent most of Saturday driving around looking at how gorgeous our town is in the fall. We have lived in NH for most of our lives, and never realized it. It was really cool to experience this. It also made me think of how different fall at home is from fall at college. Fall in NH is like nowhere else. Fall in NH is apple picking, pies, apple cider, pumpkins, hayrides, town fairs, foliage, and cozy fireplaces. For NH, fall is our Christmas. It entials certain events that most, if not all, residents take part in. At college, it doesn't even seem like it's fall at all. This might be because of the setting. I'm on the ocean, which would never happen at home during this season. The leaves barely change. Sitting here in the library right now, I'm looking out the window that overlooks campus and can see one truee that is starting to change to red, that's all. Due to the weather, passerbys are in shorts and t-shirts. I didn't know how much I missed the traditions of home until I was there again. I realized how much I miss the little things like getting out of bed without climbing down on my desk, showering without shoes, having my own bathroom, sleeping in a queen size bed, and eating home-cooked meals! Another prevalent thing was sitting in my bed with wireless internet! I also missed the freedom of driving from place to place. Although I hate to admit it, I also really missed cooking. Over the weekend, I made three pies, a chicken dinner, and cheesy potatoes. I think that I satisfied my need to cook for a while now.

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In my high school, I had a mixed group of friends and we all shared the common ground of playing basketball. If I had not played a basketball with my black friends, I probably wouldn't have known that we shared anything in common. Now, whenever I see my friends, I don't think of them as black, I just think of them as just my friends. I believe that the key to defeating racism is to first find a common interest with a person of another race and once that initial connection is made, it is hard to even notice that they aren't the same skin color as yourself.

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Shouldn't we all know a little bit more about the world around us?

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I thought that our class discussion was very interesting. Although i did not really realize how much my life falls into her stereotype of not having any diversity in my life. I think that cheating and racism are all part of your environment. Although i am not racist at all i come from an almost all white school and and all white town. An example of how there is almost no diversity is my town and the towns surrounding me is when a black kid named Anthony moved into my town. We were playing soccer against our rival team and a player from the other team came up to me and asked me when we got the black kid and where was he from. We have so little diversity that the other team knew he was not from my town. I could not help but laugh because we both new. I did not come to this school because of the diversity ratio but when it comes down to it i do feel more comfortable around people of the same race. I do have black friends and friends of other races but i would feel weird if i was the minority at a school.