NCLB

The website that we had to look at about NCLB was kind of disturbing when I read it. When I read this article, the impression that I got was that they want everyone to be equally intelligent. They want all the kids at the same level, which is the level that the state chose for that year. This is not going to happen. Number one, they say that they are testing the schools and it is helping the latinos in their studies and they are catching up with the higher percentage of kids that are testing higher. First of all, for example, the statistics even show that yeah, the students that are testing alot lower are benefiting, and benefiting quick. But the rest of the kids that tested higher are progressing very slowly and then they just plateau. Once they hit that plateau, they don't benefit at all. Is that really fair? If I knew that I wasn't going to progress after a certain point, I personally would reconsider waisting my time comming to school.
In addition, how does this effect our teachers? The article sais that teachers have 64 minutes to teach the kids math and 94 minutes to teacher reading. This is great, but besides the fact that they are taking time away from all the other subjects, what are the teachers really teaching the kids during this time. Teacher have to get their students to pass these tests, so most of the time that they have, the teachers are only teaching what the tests are going to test. This restricts teachers from teaching kids other things, like reading certain novels, or writing in different techniques. Is this really teaching? How are our teachers going to get the regular lesson plans in ontop of teaching for the CATs, for example. This is not fair for the teachers, or the students. NCLB, is it helping or harming our school systems?

Inquiry Project

I finally came up with an inquiry project question. I wanted to do something that related to my field, which is P.E. I noticed that when we went to ARTS High School that the school had to outside property for the students to play the outdoor sports outside. When I thought about that, I realized that these kids are not getting the real feel on how to play the outdoor sport. I want my question to be about how this effects the teachers, for example, how they come up with lessons that teach the sport the best way they can and comming to as close as they can with getting the feeling of playing outdoors. In addition, I want to get the opinion of the students. I want to know how they feel about only being inside, and does this change their mind about how they feel about P.E. For example, if a student loves sports, do they dread comming to P.E because they know that the sport is totally different played outside? Or what about the space in the gym? Is there enough? Is it too hot in the gym making the students dread P.E even more? These are the the questions I want to incorporate into my inquiry project.

Observations

My observations were done in front on the student center in the first quad. I payed a lot of attention to the sounds that I heard and I realized that I noticed the athletes right away because I am an athlete myself. When we regrouped in the classroom we discussed everything we observed. We noticed our biases when we observed. For example, a classmate and I thought that everyone was relaxed and calm. The other classmates thought that everyone was in a rush. We analyzed why we felt this way and we found out that everyone was on their cell phones. I know that I am never on my cell phone unless I have time to kill. The other classmates say that they are always on the phone and that when they are rushed, that is more of an incentive for them to call somebody. A lot of us all picked up on the same sounds that we heard. We also picked up on how the athletes walked with the athletes, the hispanics walked with the hispanics and so on.
Doing this activity made me realize that I am bias in my own way and that I have to be aware of that when I am observing. This activity also helped me to learn how to take specific notes and be able to write them quickly with abreviations.