Chapter 1 Reveiw, Class Notes and Values

BOOK

So far, I am not really “feeling” the book. I seem to be getting better or at the least, more tangible information from class lecture. The chapter seems to be full of vague, subjective at best, material. The exceptions are the charts. The charts (1.1 through 1.4) seem to have more specific and objective information that is at the least, more to the point.
For example, charts 1.1 through 1.4 that are located throughout the chapter, give characteristics of behavior for specific age groups, recommendations for topics to teach for the age group and some suggestions for books that deal with those topics. I have been “out of the loop” for way too many years to be familiar with any of the books being suggested, but for a new teacher, I am sure this would be a great place to start.
I do like the way the chapter is organized. This may seem trivial, but I think the color coding of the sections and sub-sections make the chapter easy to follow. For example, the section on Cognitive Development is in an orange color, and its subsections, Observing, Comparing, Classifying, Hypothesizing, Organizing, Summarizing and Applying and Responding are in green. This color coding also makes the chapter easy to outline (if a student were inclined to do so.)
The next section, Social Development, has some interesting statements. On page 29, it states, “George Maxim, (1993) emphasizes the role of literature in influencing positive racial and cultural attitudes.” I found this statement strange as I never though of literature as having or promoting a negative racial or cultural attitude. What is this man trying to say?
The section, Moral Development was a bit technical and hard for me to grasp. I can't believe this section did not mention the story of the hard working ants and the poor planning grasshopper . . . anyone remember this story?

NOTES

I haven't taken a great deal of notes in class. The exception to this was the day we had the Effective Presentation Skills presentation. This was essentially a refresher presentation as I had an almost identical presentation in my speech class a couple of semesters ago. It was definitely worth sitting through again.
One of my favorite aspects of the presentation was the “speech fillers.” I am guilty of doing this myself from time to time. It is truly annoying to hear, “You know?”, “like” and “ummmm” again and again in a presentation. It can be so distracting that by the end of the presentation, you can't remember anything about the subject matter – only the “um's” and “you knows.”

VALUES

This was a great class. The group activities we did using the hand outs was eye opening. My opinion is that of course most values come from your family. However, when I did the worksheet, I found that most of my values come from my friends. I was surprised to see that hardly any of my values came from my family. I think this is due to the fact that I did not get along with my parents growing up. They both had some issues. One of my father's issues was physical abuse. It is rather difficult to focus on values when you are getting your ass beat on a regular basis by crazy dad and being sent to school by a mom who has bruises all over her face from the same man. Oh well, I guess we all can't have Ward and June Cleaver upbringings . . .
I have many friends who are teachers so I don't think it at all surprising that I want to go into teaching. All of my friends tell me how rewarding it is and how much enjoyment that get from their profession. They are all great individuals and I admire and respect them a great deal, so I don't mind saying that most all of the values that I have today come from them.
As far as being able to teach values – hmmm. I think we as teachers can certainly try. I am of the belief that parents are responsible for teaching their children values. Teachers can certainly reinforce values but unless they are being taught at home, it is going to be an up hill battle.
One value that I wish had been instilled/reinforced in me is the value of Time Management. It is now approximately about four hours before the assignment is due and my internet service is still down. Time Warner Cable is going to get an earful from me. Their timing couldn't be worse . . . .