Criteria 1

Objective: Apply oral and written communication skills in creating, expressing, and interpreting information and ideas including technical terminology and information.

• Write effectively (i.e., grammar, spelling, structure) for a variety of audiences, purposes, and contex

Essential Question: Do educational practices in the United States facilitate or hinder students’ drive to self-actualize?

The overall educational system in the United States hinders students’ drive to self-actualize. However, some schools are on their way to changing that. Traditional high school and elementary school classrooms give each student a cookie cutter experience. However, some classroom environments, like Montessori and PEAK, are on their way to providing each child with the intellectual stimulation and emotional support they need in their quest for self- actualization. These classrooms are the exception; however, if changes were to be made to adjust the current model, students would thrive instead of struggle. 

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, in order to try for self-actualization, four other needs to be met: physical, security, social, and ego. For some students, even physical or security needs aren’t being met. In places like Pathway Academy, students may not be eating regular meals at home, or even have access to clean clothes. These poor living conditions make it impossible for them to learn and succeed as a student. The education system does what it can to help- food drives, necessities closet- but there’s only so much it can do. These practices are also unpredictable, making it impossible for families to rely on them. All schools have students like the ones described above, yet they rely on clubs within the school or people in the community to try and support these students. Schools need to take responsibility for the children they house. However, to do this, they need to receive specific government funding to go towards the purchase of resources for helping struggling children. Helping meet their physical needs is the first step to meeting their psychological ones. 

        Maslow’s third hierarchy of need, social, is especially important for children. Not only do children feel the need to belong with their friends and peers, but they also need to feel a connection with the adults in their life. This includes their teacher. A teacher’s ability to connect with their students directly correlates to their ability to perform as a learner, as I learned in Brain Rules. This point is known by some teachers, but is not overly emphasized in our current education model. This fault is also difficult to correct. You can educate teachers on the importance of their relationships with their students, but you can’t force them to care. Consider regular high school and elementary classrooms. In either of these classroom environments, the majority of students have no desire to be there. Sometimes, even the teachers don’t! The lack of a connection between a teacher and a student is caused simply by apathy. A student will never feel motivated to put in any effort, because they don’t find value in the learning taking place. 

Schools don’t do enough to support the ego portion of Maslow’s triangle, either. All schools make attempts at it; elementary schools do character awards, high schools host award ceremonies for grades and achievement in sports. The fault lies in that word: achievement. These rewards systems recognize students based on their accomplishments, not the work they put into them. Students may work hard but fail to receive recognition, while other students who fail to put effort are rewarded. This is frustrating for students, and can result in them giving up. This is tragic, because these same students are the ones who need self-actualization; their work ethic would drive them towards self-actualization. PEAK classrooms, on the other hand, do a good job of satisfying the ego portion of Maslow’s. For example, each grade has a topic and theme study portion of the day. During this time, students take notes independently, working through resources and gathering the information they need. Considering some high schoolers can’t grasp how to do this, the kids do extremely well. Some, obviously, do better than others. The hardest part for them is quantity: they work hard, but slowly. The PEAK team teachers realized this, and created an incentive for the kids; every time a student takes a set number of notes, they put up their name up on a wall with the other high achievers. This acts as both a motivation and a reward for the students, rewarding hard work while recognizing those who work hard. If all classrooms had a system like this in place, students would be more likely to succeed. 

Of all the classroom models we have in the United States, Montessori and PEAK classroom models do the best in supporting their students search for self-actualization. In Montessori, students are free to explore learning at their own will. This makes the students- even three year olds- more engaged. A more engaged student is a better learner. PEAK does an even better job. PEAK has times of the day that allow for creativity, like topic study. There are also times of the day for personal development. This block of time, called PGD, is when students work on their thinking. This includes skills like metacognition, counter intuitive thinking, and concepts like Occam's Razor. When looking at the PEAK curriculum, it’s obvious it was designed with Maslow in mind. PEAK teachers also follow Bloom’s level of learning, which support self- actualization.

Sadly, these classrooms are not the environments every student learns in. To help students effectively in their drive for self-actualization, changes need to be made. More resources need to be made available for underprivileged students, so their physical and security needs can be met. Teachers need to work on their relationships with their students to create a bond of trust and respect to ensure their social needs are met. Schools and their teachers need to work on rewarding students for their efforts towards a goal, instead of only recognizing them when they reach it. Classrooms like Montessori and PEAK can serve as models, and aid teachers as they work to turn their classrooms around. With the current model of education, most students will never even reach the quest for self-actualization.

• Deliver formal and informal presentations that demonstrate organization and delivery skill
• Use knowledge of reading strategies in the content area to enhance learner achievement
• Apply active listening skills to enhance communication with learners
• Utilize questioning skills to enhance instruction and learner achievement
• Demonstrate the use of motivational and engaging communication to provide information and discussion

Read Aloud: Round 1 I gave my first lesson today! I read the book Sadako by Eleanor Coerr. Through this book about a Japanese legend, my goal was to show the unique culture of the country. The book details the story of a young girl named Sadako Sasaki, who is diagnosed with leukemia after the atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. Through the japanese legend of called the Thousand Crane Project, she tries to heal herself by folding a thousand paper cranes. Sadly, the girl succumbs after she is only 2/3 of the way done. In a happy ending, her classmates fold the remainder of the cranes for her, and publish her writing while she was in the hospital. Her words spread all over Japan, and later a monument was erected in Peace Park (a monument to those ravaged by the atom bomb)of Sadaka; a girl holding a large, golden crane. Today, people from all over fold origami cranes and send them to the monument. The kids got so excited, one even suggested that their class should complete the thousand crane project. They also did very well picking up on the details of Japanese culture from the book, including paper lanterns being sacrificed at Peace Day, traditional kimonos for Japanese girls, a festival to commemorate those killed at Hiroshima called O Bon, and of course, the cranes. One even picked up on the symbolism the cranes held for health, healing, and life.

These are pictures of the Hiroshima Peace Park, mentioned above. The glass display cases contain the cranes people send in!

After reading the book, I ran through how to make their own origami cranes. It went really well, and I'm happy to say some (most) of their cranes looked even better than mine. After seeing how difficult it is to make one, they seem have to rethought the thousand crane project, though! These are the instruction the kids used...

And how their cranes turned out afterwards!

Read Aloud 2: On Monday, I gave my crane lesson to a different third grade class. It went really well; they made some very interesting observations on culture my other class didn't catch. One student commented on how the clothes they wear reflect their culture. Another one commented on a huge example of culture the other class missed; when Sadako's friend dies, she comments on his journey to a star island. We talked about what that meant, and how it might be the equivalent of heaven in our culture. Another student commented the cranes were a Japanese good luck symbol, and they drew connections to the good luck symbols we have in our culture (horse shoes, four leaf clovers). The crane making activity went really well with them, too. Instead of the students going back to their desks to make them, I kept them in a circle around the carpet and we folded the crane on dry erase boards. This made it a lot easier to help them if they had questions! Overall, their cranes turned out much better than the first time around with the other class. I believe it was the culmination of their location on the carpet with me and the fact I had a better idea on how to instruct the lesson a second time around. I'm really glad I got to do the lesson again; it improved a lot just from the first to the second time.

• Demonstrate the use of multiple technologies for communication and collaboration with students, parents, administrators, and community

Over the summer, I took a trip to a country called Sri Lanka. While I was there, I lived with people from all over the world. I was there for a month, and developed close friendships with these people. I still talk with them on a weekly basis. Right now, my third grade class is learning about countries and their different cultures for their theme study. We came up with the idea to "pen pal" with my friends to learn more about their cultures. Using a website called TodaysMeet, we asked them questions about what life was like for them in their countries. You can read the stream below. We had friends chatting from 5 different countries: Blanca (Spain), Puja (UK), Daphne and Doron (The Netherlands/ Holland), Moeno (Japan), and Michal and Karolina (Poland).

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On Tuesday, my class picked the person they want to pen pal from the Today's Meet group from a few weeks ago. I made a powerpoint with pictures of each pen pal, and we went back over the Today's Meet Feed from a few weeks ago to refresh over the responses each person gave.  As a refresher, they have 8 people to choose from, with 6 countries represented:
-Michal, Poland
-Karolina, Poland
-Doron, The Netherlands
-Daphne, The Netherlands
-Jasmine, Hong Kong
-Moeno, Japan
-Puja, UK
-Blanca, Spain

I pulled each student out and they told me their top two choices for pen pals. Using those requests, and the country they are studying for theme study this year as a guide, these were matches I made:

-Owen (Studying Mexico)- Michal

-James (Studying Brazil)- Michal

-Charlie N (Studying France)- Doron

-Charlie F (Studying China)- Jasmine

-Ava (Studying Japan)- Moeno

-Katie (Studying Morocco)- Karolina

-Amy (Studying Greece)- Daphne

Next Tuesday, the students will enroll is a Kidblog class. If you haven't used Kidblog before, here's a quick run down:

A teacher creates a "class", which generates a blog. From there, you can create categories for each student. The student can then post inside their category. When it comes time to publish their post, they can choose different audiences based on the privacy options the teacher makes in the blog settings. Once the students post, the instructor has to go in to approve the publication to the desired audience. Until then, it is only viewable by the instructor.  Guests can also enroll to participate in the blog using a join code, just like the students do. The process for a guest to publish a comment in the same as for a student to post; they comment then wait for instructor approval. This allows the teacher ultimate control for what goes up on the blog. 

The students will be posting their messages to their pen pals into their category in the blog, and the pen pals will comment their responses back. Next Tuesday, our goal is to get the students all enrolled in the class blog and have them write their first message to their pen pal.

Hopefully, the students will be able to get a lot from the blogging. They'll get to make connections with someone who lives in a culture unlike our own, while practicing using technology they may not be used, and get access to an inside source of the country they are studying.
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Last Tuesday, students wrote to their pen pals for the first time! They wrote out their first entry on a piece of paper in the morning, and then in the afternoon while I was there I helped them type it into their blog. Since it was their first one, they introduced themselves and asked their pen pal some questions about themselves.

This is how the class blog turned out. You can see on the right each student has their own category they post into. All of the posts go into the home page as well.
















All the pen pals responded within a day or so. A few of the pen pals even attached pictures to their responses! Next Tuesday, they'll read the responses from the pen pals and blog back to them.
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Yesterday, the students read the comments from their pen pals. I was back in my own classroom at North, but my teacher said the kids acted like it was Christmas. They also typed up their response to their pen pal's questions. They were encouraged to post to their buddy during Thanksgiving break to show them the American traditions we have.

Here's an example of a student pen paling with her partner, Daphne:

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The students have continued blogging with their pen pal. Students have posted about their Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and Winter break plans. Many of the pen pals have similar equivalents in their countries that are celebrated in a different way.

            One of the pen pals, Moeno (from Japan), recently sent our class a box of Japanese food to try. The kids were delighted! We shared it with both third grade classes, sampling different Japanese goodies. The box was huge and filled with a variety of snacks: flavored gummies, green tea Kit Kats, spicy crackers, and Pocky. She even added little items to show Japanese culture, like a bottle of soy sauce with Japanese characters and a fan. We all had so much fun trying everything. The gummies had to consistency of an eyeball, and were cloyingly sweet. The spicy crackers were deceivingly hot: they grew in heat as I chewed. Oddly enough, the Monday class couldn’t stand them, while the Tuesday class ate an entire package. The pocky was a favorite all around, which isn’t surprising. Both the Monday class and the Tuesday class have students who are studying Japan for their topic study, and they talked to us while we ate.  The Tuesday student noted the packaging on the box: it is meticulously decorated. In addition, each package of food had the English name of it, in addition to a description. She made a connection between the box of food and the Bento boxes the Japanese serve food in. In both cases, great care was given to appearance. She guessed that the Japanese care about fine details. I was super impressed, and excited. It was what I hoped for when the pen pal project started; students being able to take the read in their books and connect it to real world experience. As a thank you to Moeno, we are going to write thank you notes to send in a box back to her, along with each of the student’s favorite candy.