Life Chances and The Pygmalion Effect

1. Do you think that the ways these concepts are applied to society and education are accurate or inaccurate (or somewhere in between)?  If the answer is different depending on the venue, explain that too.  Be sure to provide examples in your answer.
I do think that these two concepts are applied to society and education accurately. I know that for my own personal life my life chances would have been drastically different if I had been raised by my other parent. My parents divorced when I was in first grade and my brother and I lived with one parent while the other moved back to a smaller town where we had first lived. If I would have moved with that parent my life, I am almost 100% sure, would not be the same today. Even though both parents loved me one was able to provide for me a more stable life with not as many challenges. I still had to work hard at school and had a job from the time I could start working but everyday life was just easier. I had less obstacles with this parent than I would have had with my other parent. I think that my physical and mental health would have not been as strong if I had moved. I think that the expectations for me would have been less if I had been with the other parent. I was able to see from a pretty young age that education was important and if I wanted to have a career and a family I needed to focus on my education and making the best decisions possible. 
I think that when we look at the elementary schools in our town that there are some pretty clear examples of these two concepts at work. The life chances kids have at one school are not exactly the same ones that kids have at others.
 2. In what ways, if any, can the two ideas be linked or can they affect each other?
When thinking about the definition from Wikipedia for The Pygmalion Effect, The Pygmalion effect is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy, and, in this respect, people will internalize their negative label, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly. Within sociology, the effect is often cited with regard to education and social class, I think that the idea of life chances is linked directly to it. It seems that it would be appropriate to say that if a child feels that their chances in life are limited because of what has happened in their education up to this point and their social class that they would then not expect for many great things to happen to them. We know that this doesn't always have to be the case but many times it is. 
3. In what ways, if any, do these phenomena manifest themselves in your classroom or among the students you work most closely with?
I try to set high expectations for all of my students. I know that some might need modifications or accommodations to meet these expectations. In first grade it can be as simple as not helping them open their snack after they have tried it once. I keep telling them try again, try again and most of the time they can get it. It seems many times they are so used to someone else doing everything for them that they don't ever give it any effort. As an educator I believe that we are responsible for the whole child, so I want them to know that they can do something even when it might be hard at first. I don't want them to think that's it's okay to give up after the first try-even on getting their snack open as silly as that may sound. I want them to learn grit from being in my classroom. When it comes to academics I try to instill that same effort. I keep telling them they can do and when it seems like they have tried the best they can and are still having difficulty I will step in and provide some guidance. We do a lot of celebrating then when the next time they do it on their own or with less support from me. I want to be their to push them to do their very best when maybe no one else is.
At the school I teach at we are at around 65% free/reduced lunch. After reading the research about life chances it is clear that many of my students will face challenges when it comes to completing their education, obtaining employment and sustaining positive physical and mental health. I'm hopeful that the C3 initiative has components in place to help students work through some of the challenges they are facing even as young adults. I came across a paper that discussed the the term disconnected as it relates to young adults in their economic and social perspectives. The paper titled, Connected by 25: Improving the Life Chances of the Country's Most Vulnerable 14-24 Year Olds gave a lot of information about helping these young people form connections that would help them work through some of the obstacles they might face.
At the same time we know that what we do in the early years is so important for a child's academic and social success. This is where my passion is. I want families, all families, to have many enriching opportunities for their young children. There are great programs available in our town but many of them cost and others may just not be something that all families can get to or be part of for various reasons. I would like to help change that in our community. I think with the combination of more parenting classes available along with enriching opportunities for children, we can start to have a positive impact on life chances.
4. What, if anything, does this mean for you? 
All of this information means a lot to me. It makes me feel a bit overwhelmed at what is expected of me as a teacher but at the same time excited to help in any possible way. I like the fact that I am more aware of these two phenomena and how they impact my daily job and my own personal life. The research on life chances I read was just amazing and I'm excited to really dig into it to help with finding ways to guide parents to provide the very best for their child from the moment they know they are going to have a child to the time when that child sets foot in a classroom. 

Early Literacy

I watched the video from the Educational Summit about early literacy. I can't say that I learned anything extra special but it reminded me of some key things. I was reminded that if a student is not reading at grade level by 3rd grade they face an uphill battle with learning. I didn't write down the percentage that do not graduate based on their 3rd grade level but I do remember that it was high. This is so important to what I do at first grade. I want students leaving me at the end of the year being able to read at grade level and having a love of learning and reading. One of the ladies that was on the panel talked about the importance of being connected with parents as much as possible. Even though I know this and I want to be very connected with the parents this doesn't always happen like I wish. As we come closer to conference time I want to remember that some parents do not have good memories of school and I want to do everything I can to make sure their child does have a good memory of school and a love of learning. Another topic that was discussed was universal pre-k and all day kindergarten. Knowing that so many families have other issues in their lives that take away from the focus of education it is important that these programs can be available to all families to help prepare students for kindergarten and their educational career. Helping families learn how to help their children be successful is something that I have a lot of interest in. I wish we had more programs in our town to really help families once they know they are going to have a child. This might be something I pursue in this class. One person on the panel mentioned the Campaign for Grade Level Reading. I have not looked into this but I plan on checking it out to see what it is all about.

Teacher Town Hall

This was a great video to watch. I thought that the first part about evaluations was very relevant because our district is trying something new in relation to evals. It's my year to be evaluated so Mrs. Koehn comes into the classroom periodically and makes notes on her iPad. One time she came in during the AIMSweb math comp test. It felt a little funny that she was in during that time but then as I thought about it more it's a part of my day 3 times a year so it's okay that she came in during that time. At the beginning of the year I was a little nervous about the walk-ins but now I am much more comfortable with them. I like the idea that she is going to see what she sees and some days it might be better than others or different than others but it's real world teaching and learning that she sees.
The topic of tenure is a big one and I have somewhat of mixed feelings on this. I think that if a teacher has a track record of not helping students make progress in their academic areas that they can be fired or put on a probation period. I think that they should be given a mentor teacher-even if it is someone younger with less experience. I think we are getting to the point where some teachers have lost the drive to be learners themselves and then this causes them not to be up to date on the latest research and best practices.
The poverty section was very interesting. I love the idea of a community learning center where we bring in what the students need to the school. I feel like our district tries to help the best we can when we know the parents can not get the child to an appointment or whatever it may be. I know last year on of our teachers took students to the doctor because the parents had no transportation. Our teachers do so much for our students but it would be nice if some of these basic needs could be handled in the school building. I want to check out the donors chose website also.
As for the common core I feel like the new standards are appropriate. I really appreciate the fact that we can go deeper instead of just skimming the surface. Again, we have to be learners and know that it will take some learning on our part to do something different.

Decision 2012 Parts 1 and 2

I really enjoyed watching both videos. I think both of them made some great points about education. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just find someone who would mix all the great parts together and then maybe we would have what we need. I don't know that any of this will be in an organized manner but here are my thoughts.
I like two comments that President Obama made. The first was about how we should not base teacher pay just on test scores. He mentioned that the standardized tests shrink creativity which is something we've been talking about a lot. It's nice to know he wants good teachers but he knows that merit pay based on test scores is not the best way to judge this. I also like his ending comments about kids-"learn how to learn, learn how to think and be equipped on how to compete and be good citizens." This covers many of my ideas about why I am a teachers. He did also comment that parents have to parent but he did not focus on this as much as Governor Romney. I agree that parents have to parent but for many of our students this will just not happen like we hope it would.
I also liked a few comments that Governor Romney made. I agree with his notion that we should be focused on the best and brightest teachers. I feel like our district does a good job with this but I'm guessing we could do better with higher salaries and other incentives for beginning teachers. I also feel the same about how it doesn't work just to send more money to bad schools/teachers and have them continue to do the exact same thing as they were doing. His view on parents being the number one provider of early education is obviously very strong. He mentioned it more times than I could count. I agree with this and wish this could be the case for all of our families but it is just not. So I feel like there does need to be more options available for 3 year olds to receive an enriched early start so that when they come to kindergarten and first grade they are able to focus on learning, thinking and being good citizens.

Conferencing

I do not have an exact issue picked for my project but I know that I want it to be in the area of reading and possibly technology combined with that. I found this article about reading/writing conferences and a few things stuck out to me. In the pictures you will notice that the teacher and students look very relaxed. Some are on a couch, some on the floor and it just looks like a cozy place to be. I like all of that. The next thing that stuck out to me was that this teacher has found a manageable way to meet with her students weekly to discuss their reading and writing. This is an area that I would like to work on improving in my classroom. I'm not sure my classroom would look quite the same but I think that I can take some of the aspects of her plan and apply it to first grade students. How often do you conference with students about their reading or writing? Is this something teachers should do more or less? What are your thoughts?

Should we teach social issues?

What are your thoughts on teaching social issues? This article made me think a lot about what Barbara Coloroso spoke to us about on the 19th. If you believe in educating the whole child then you would probably say teachers should teach social issues. What are your thoughts?