Roxbury High School Soccer Game

Roxbury High School Soccer Game

I attended a Roxbury High School soccer game. This wasn’t just any game, it was against their rivals. The game was home at Roxbury at 4:00, just a bit after school got out. I showed up a little late, and when I got there, all the bleachers, except one, were taken up by all the Roxbury High School students supporting their classmates. One of the bleachers that wasn’t filled with students was filled with the players parents. It seemed that there were more mothers at the game then fathers, but that’s just what I observed. When I looked at Roxbury’s players, I think there was only one kid that wasn’t white and he was Spanish. I found that interesting because when I looked at the students on the bleachers, they were very diverse. More then half of the students were males. When I got there, the score was already 1-0 Roxbury. The students were going crazy, yelling and screaming! They would try to say things to the other team to take them out of their game mentally. It was great to see how many people showed up for a soccer game because I remember people only going to the football games. During the second half, more parents came to watch that had no kids on the boys soccer team, but had daughters on the girls soccer team. The team played great and aggressive. Roxbury scored a second goal in the second half. The Roxbury team won and everyone was excited. The parents seemed to be very proud of their sons. The players all had a smile on their faces because they won this game against the team they hate most.

5K Turkey Trot

5K Turkey Trot

I attended the first 5K Turkey Trop in Lake Mohawk. I not only just attended it, but I decided to run in it as well with my 11 year old brother. My brother and I arrived an hour early, at 7a.m, and there were still a lot of people there. There were food stands with fresh fruit, Danishes, and coffee. They were giving away raffle ticket for prizes, there was music playing, and there was even the Sparta’s mascot there. People brought their dogs to join the fun and everybody had a smile on their face. By the time the race was ready to start, I felt like the whole town plus more showed up. The runners were all warmed up and wearing the Turkey Trot t-shirt and the spectators had posters made up and blow horns. There were even people running that aren’t even runners, they just wanted to be a part of the community gathering. While I was running with my little brother, he was so tired that he wanted to stop, but I wouldn’t let him. So at least four different people that were passing us would help him out and would cheer him on to keep going and that he was doing great! All the runners seemed so nice and caring. There were all different ages, gender, cultures, and nationalities. It really was a great experience. When we finished everyone was cheering and the finish line and it was such a good feeling. P.S. my little brother made it without stopping!!

10 Hours Community Service

For my 10 hours of community service, I volunteered at my YMCA in Morris County. What I did was I taught little kids how to swim. When I first found out what I was going to do I was a little nervous because I don’t know how to do the backstroke, but I do swim everyday. They told me that I would be fine because I was going to just be helping the instructor. So I helped teach this one class that met three times a week. These kids were 6-8 years old. We had five kids and three were boys and two were girls. As soon as I saw these kids I fell in love. I had one Spanish girl, one African American, and one Chinese boy, the rest were white. For the most part the kids listened very well and they actually were improving. I have to admit that there were days that they would not listen, and then I had to say something and get them under control. I feel like I benefited from this because I have to learn how to be stern and let them know who is in charge. After I spoke up they calmed down, but it was like if one started to act up, they all did. I also couldn’t stop laughing with these kids. These kids would say the most random and interesting things about their families and themselves. There were times that I shouldn’t have laughed, but it was hysterical! And I can’t say enough how smart these kids are. They remember every little thing you say and do. One day the little Spanish girl, Alissa, was crying and crying and wouldn’t stop. I didn’t know what to do because she was so loud and her mother didn’t even come over to see what was wrong. I decided to act like a kid and do some goofy things to make her laugh. It definitely worked! On my last day, I let the kids and parents know that it was my last day and I had three different parents come up to me and tell me how much their child loves having me help teach and that they thought I was great with the kids. That made me feel so good about myself and gave me more confidence about teaching. My biggest accomplishment I think was the fact that the one Chinese boy, Kevin, wasn’t able to do the tickle-tee-snap stroke in the beginning, but by my last day, he got it down and I was so proud of him.
I had such a great time with these kids. Knowing that I am helping these kids and having them succeed is an amazing feeling.

Field Experience at Arts High

Field Experience at Arts High

When I attended Arts High on Oct 26, I went right into the office to let my teacher know that I was there. When the secretary had called my teacher, Mr. Mogley, he had no idea who I was and why I was there after e-mailing him three times telling him that I was coming. Once we took care of who was who, I had a great time and a great teacher to talk to and observe. Mr. Mogley was a physical education teacher. He was really outgoing and relaxed. Right from the beginning when he and I walked to his office, kids would go out of their way to talk to him. That was the first sign that said, he is a great teacher and has great relationships with his kids. Once we arrived at his office, his co-workers were there as well and I had the opportunity to talk to all of them. They all gave me little tips here and there that will definitely be useful in the future. Because Arts High had block scheduling, there was plenty of time for me to talk to the P.E teachers, (I was relieved). Once the period was over we walked up to the gym so he could teach his sophomore class. Everyone was confused on where to go. This was the first day that the kids had gym because before this they all had health. As Mr. Mogley started to warm the kids up, all the kids wanted to come over and talk to me and find out who I was. I felt honored, but the kids had to get started, so I joined them. It was great! I got along with the kids so well, and they couldn’t believe the shape I was in ( mainly because they weren’t in shape). Mr. Mogley thought it was great the fact that I joined in because he noticed that the kids were working harder. These kids are all so nice and respectful. They love their teacher too. I asked some of the kids why they loved their teacher, they said, “because he doesn’t talk to us like we are 6 years old and he’s cool.” The phys. Ed. Classes were very small. He only had 7 kids in his class and 5 of them were girls. This was good because they got a lot more done with less pandemonium. The kids kept asking me, “Why do you want to be a phys. Ed. Teacher?” I asked, why do you want to major in music? I noticed that all of his students were black or Hispanic. There were no white kids at all. But this was fine, everyone seemed to get along great! During class, a lot of the girls were singing the whole time, and they are AMAZING! There were times that I got carried away listening to the girls sing, that I forgot what I was there for. I also had a chance to talk to some students about the school. I found it interesting that any of the 4 kids that I talked to could only say great things about the school. They all seem to speak very highly of the school, the programs, and the teachers. It was such a great experience to attend Arts High. All the teachers were willing to help me and answer any questions that I needed. The students are also great kids and it proved to me that just because they live in Newark doesn’t mean that they are worthless, drug dealers, or stupid. I had such a great time that I know that I want to do my student teaching there if I get the opportunity.

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.