November 10

As we discussed in the lobby of the theater, the movie was obviously very well made with very wealthy contributors, etc. Therefore, it was pretty convincing, however, I believe it was extremely one-sided. Afterwards, I was left with a lot of questions...some of them I cannot even remember now - I wish I would have written this earlier - but overall, it was simply an attack on the public school system and teacher unions that "keep jobs locked into place after 2 years." Although the cute children and loving parents who wanted more for their children tugged at my heart strings, I know this is not what the entire public school system is like. In order for our nation's education system to change, the change must occur at a much deeper level...at the level of families and communities and hopefully, eventually, we will have some sort of societal level wake up call that will make us realize that if we don't improve our education system, we are going to suffer as a nation. The change this movie suggested, disbanding the unions and closing public schools with replacements of what I am not really sure - charter schools? is not the answer to the problem. Obviously there is not one answer to the problem...which is why this movie is extremely misleading. It leads us to beleive that there is this simple solution - that all public school teachers need to go and we need to start over by starting these private fascilities - which is not a reasonable, justifiable, or long term fix to the problem. So what is? This is the question. It is obvious that we need reform...but how and what do we do next?

In Kuma Ch. 10, we take a look at the four language domains of reading, speaking, listening, and writing. It is obvious that we should not be separating these skills when it comes to teaching English Language learners. We should be providing them with a classroom environment that integrates all of them into well prepared, engaging activities. Kuma gives tons of examples of activities that are successful in doing this, and once again, I am really grateful for this book and all of the ideas. It seems to be something so obvious, but reading about it and breaking it down will really make it stick with me and be an important factor when I am planning for class.