community service

Cheer leading has alway been a huge part of my life. At Montclair State I am a member of the cheer leading squad. As a team we like to get involved in the community as well. For the past two month every Wednesday me and three other girls from the team volunteer in Rutherford High School to help coach cheer leading. We basically go to the school for about two hours and teach them different stunts in cheer leading. We did not know how it was going to be until we got there the first week. We had to start from the beginning. There is 12 girls on the squad and only 2 have every cheered before. It was a challenge to have to start from the basic but I loved to get involved and help them learn it. Each week you can see the girl growing as a team and really coming together. Two months later the girls are looking better and there goal as a team is to competed at a local competition. I feel the girls really wanted to be and that is what makes the experience great. The competition season has just started so i have another 4 months with these girls. I feel helping out in a community unlike the one i was brought up in helps we widen my view on life and teaching. I hope to one day teach in an urban school and just by volunteering it helps you take the first step to success.

Arts High School

FINALLY! Today I finally got to observe in Arts High School! It was an very interesting day. I was not sure what to expect when spending the day in a classroom with a teacher in Newark! I was definitely excited to go!

It all started about a month ago when i got signed a teacher to observe. I would email the teacher everyday asking when I can come in. I finally got so mad that today I just decide to show up and go with the teacher. The teacher was shocked to find out that I was there waiting for him. After talking to him for a little I realize he has not checked his email in a while. In his classroom where he teaches health he does not have a computer. He said if he had a computer he would of probably show my email and got back to me.

Arts High School in Newark is alot different and similar to my High School in many ways. It is the same because it is a place where you go to learn and decide what path in life to choice. I grew up in an Suburban area which is different than a inner city school. They way the children talk to each other and the way the act is not the same. They have a different liftstyles. but different doesnt make it wrong it is just different. Growing up you alway hear the Stereotypes of teaching in an inner city school. You really do not know anything until you visit a school in Newark. In Arts the students are there because they were picked. They have a goal in life to become something like everybody else.

The day i observed i got to watch two 10th grade health classes. This was great because my major is Physical Education and Health. A lot of times when observing i only get to see the gym but this time i got to see health. The students in both classes were different. The morning class was quite and calm. There was only 15 students in that class. The class was 80 mintues because of block Scheduling. The other class was loud and crazy. They were the dancers as the teacher put it. They come to health after being in their dance class which means they are all wild. I was good to see two different types of classes. You see how it can be when nobody wants to talk or how it is when they cant stop talking.

Open Door...

"In order to affirm the God-given dignity of all individuals, Open Door seeks to aid all the greater Freehold area residents in need and to encourage them to become self-sufficient" said by Marilyn Rusbarsky one of the many volunteers at Open Door. That quote is the mission for Open Door. Open Door is an non-profit social serve organization. Open Door is located in Freehold Borough on 39 Throckmorton Street P.O. Box 1073. To get in touch with any of the volunteer you could call 732-780-1089. The Open Door hours are Monday thru Friday from 10:00am to 2:00pm. Open Door started in 1970 as a faculty to give out clothing. It then changed in 1987 to a Faculty to provide food for the needy. Open Door serves the community around them such as Freehold Borough, Freehold Township, Marlboro, Millstone and Colts Neck.

Open Door is a non-profit interfaith agency that provides emergency food, emergency funding, mentoring and scholarships. The workers are all volunteers. To be a volunteer means to perform or offer to perform a service of ones own free will. It is administered by a sixteen members volunteer Board of Trustees, two part-time salaried employees and over 150 volunteers. When I visited the faculty I interviewed Marilyn Rusbarsky. Marilyn position at the faculty is simply stated as a worker who volunteered her time to make others lives better. She has been working there for over 10 years now. She said each year the number of families that need help is growing. In an average of a month about 350 families are helped. That means about 1000 people per month. Marilyn said they have five programs within the building. The five programs are a Food Pantry Program, a Lunch Program, an Emergency Funding/Advocacy Program, an After School Program and a Scholarship Program.

Each program has its own way to serve the community. The Food Pantry program provides emergency packaged foods equivalent to a three day supply to qualified individuals and families once a month. The lunch program which consists of sandwiches or hot nutritious meals that are served every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday each week from 12:00 noon to 1:30 pm in St. Peter's Episcopal Church Parish Hall at 33 Throckmorton Street. This Church is located next to the Open Door building. The Emergency Funding/ Advocacy Program is to help people in need with their finances. It provides qualified individuals with emergency financial assistance to prevent eviction or utility shutoff, to provide temporary housing and to help pay for medical needs such as prescriptions. There are many people who are scared to ask their family members for money or help, so they come here. The After school Programs are for children to come to get help in school. Whether they are teaching to use the computers or homework questions. Many children come here to use the computers because their families can not afford to buy one. The final Program they offer is the Scholarship Program. To qualify for these scholarships you have to pass the after school program they have. It is to help needy families, who want their children to go to college to get an education to be successful in life.

Open door faculty is a special non profit organizations. It has been running for the past 35 years. The faculty is a small building located in freehold borough. When you walk into the building there are two front desk with people to help you. They are very friendly and willing to help you. To the left of the front desk there is a table with all different kinds of bread and food for the people. By the windows there are different types of books for all ages. Children are always coming in and out of the faculty to get books to read. The faculty was very clean and it looks like they take care of it. There are several rooms such as the dinning hall, pantry packing station, desert table and check in (front desk).

Open door I feel is a very successful organization. In my High School I remember working with Open Door to help people during Christmas time. Open Door give us names of families and what their children wanted for Christmas. We went out and brought the presents they asked for. As a surprise for the families the day before Christmas we went to their house and brought them the presents. We had somebody dress up as Santa Clause to make it seem realistic. I will remember the look on those children faces for years. They were so happy and excited to receive the presents. The parents would thank us a hundred times because we showed we cared about them. I feel everybody should take the time to get invited in our community. A small present or just the visit to their home, made their Christmas. We do not realize what we have until we see what some do not. We take a lot for granted and should be thankful for everything. I feel this is on of the best faculty in our community. They really know how to help make people feel like they have a place on this earth.

Open door clients come to the faculty for many different reasons. The clients are the working poor as well as other low income people such as the elderly, people with disabilities, unemployed, local welfare and persons receiving TANF. TNAF stand for Temporary Aid to Needy Families. Children are 42% of the client base they serve. Assistance is provided to people in need regardless of race, creed, color and nationality. On a personal level people are there to help with their lives. They are there to help in any aspect to make them better off. The facility is a great location in the middle Freehold. Open Door is open and willing to help anybody in need. They are also willing to take any suggestion to make their facility a better place. They are willing to have more people come into volunteer to help our communities out. A way to help is by sending money donation or food and other products to the faculty. Some types of food they ask for are vegetables soups, pastas, cereal, can foods, bread, salt & pepper and rice.Anything that can be sent out without being damage can help. For thanksgvings my family and I brought food for Open Door. We felt it was a good opportunity to get involved in our community.

Life as a teenager...

Imagine yourself back in High School! When life seemed simple but complex at the same time. Is High School like it was when you were in it? The answer to that is probably NO. High School is about finding out who you are and how society views you. It is expressing the unique qualities you have to make you your own person. When attending a football game on Friday November 9 at Howell High I realized many things I did not notice when in school.

I realized student mostly go to the games to socialize. They all meet there to have a good time and to get away from their parents. High school is about growing and becoming the person you want to be. There are many different types of people who attend the games. In the typical high school you have the jocks with the varisty coats, the band, the cheerleaders, goths and the people in between. During the four years in high school you find out what group you belong too. In that group you find people to be your friends. Friends are people who share the same interest and like the same activites you do. They are the people you do everything with.

Inquiry Project

Our project is on parent involvement in Urban Schools. We find it very important for parents to be involved in their childs life. We have found studies to prove that children do better when their parents want to know how they are doing in school.

Here is a "pop quiz" on how parents involvement.

Poor Districts Stranded

State cotninues to fund School Project in Suburbs wile leaving poor distincts stranded...


In New Jesery the state seems to be funding and supporting wealth and middle class suburban areas then poor distincts. The suburban districts are tapping into a funding formula in New Jersey’s School Construction law, known as "Section 9." Section 9 requires the State to provide aid for a portion of the ongoing interest payments on local school construction bonds. Construction is being done to make the schools bigger and better for the students to learn in. They are building these schools to help benefit the future youth.
I feel this is great that the state wants to help fund but not funding the urban area is wrong. The urban areas is where the schools need the construction. They need the money to help their schools be successful in learning. I feel as future teacher we need to stand up for the Urban school and help them get the money they need. For me, visiting an Urban school really opened my eyes. I come from a suburban area where I alway got the top technology and top everything mostly to help us learn the material. I realize I want to work in an Urban area so I can help them achieve their goals in life. I want to make a different in somebodies life. We should start helping the Urban by starting with the state. We have to show them that the Urban school should get the same amout of funds or even more. They need to fix their schools and get connect to the advance technology available.

AHHHHHHHH! 1 month!

Where did the time go? I feel like we just started this semester but in reality we only have about a month left. This is the hardest month for a student I feel because we have so much work due before the end of the semester and so little time to do it. I am starting to feel the pressure of trying to write my papers or study for that last exam to get good grades. Grades are very important to me. My parents have alway pushed for me to get good grades. They alway say "I do not want you to be like I was in School.. study and get good grade.. you'll thank me one day." I never thought I would thank them because I hated going to School and i hated studying until i got to College. I realized the hard work I put into my schooling paid off and I am happy I worry about grades because if I didn't I would probably fail.

excited!!!

Tomorrow i am going to the Arts School in Newark. I am pretty excited to see how the school is and what it has to offer to their students. I have heard so many great things about this school and I finally get to see it tomorrow!! =]

Finally!

In class today we found out we can do our inquiry projects in groups! I was really excited about this. It took off a little pressure on figuring out a question and how to do it by yourself. I was unsure what to do before this class. My group and I want to do something on parent involvement in schools. I feel this is a great topic and it is something important to look up. It might be hard to find information we need but I'm ready for the challenge. There are a lot of studies done to show the involvement parents have on their students academics. I am excited now to go to the Arts School to see how the students and parent react in this topic of school. The Arts is a good student that must student go because they specialize in a field.

*inquiry project HELP!!!

I still do not think i get the project! The questions I feel I come up with do not will work for this type of project. AHHH!! its making me stressed!

*inquiry project*

It has taken me a while to come up with an idea about this inquire project. I am still not sure what the project is about. I am a Physical Education and Health major and i know there is still a lot of information I would love to learn about that area.
"How do teacher attitudes towards learning affect the students success in schools?" How are urban and suburban teachers different?"
I feel the teachers play a big role on the students. They affect the way the student look at life and school. If a teacher is not teaching to his or her ability the students are not going to get anything out of the class. We have all experience teachers like this one time or another.

underage drinking

Today i realized in schools we need to teach about alcohol and the effect is has on students. For one of my other classes, I am teaching about underage drinking. Underage drinking is growing in High Schools. It scares me to think my little sister who just started High School can be peer pressure into drinking at such a young age. They made the law 21 to drink because the government feels at that age people have more responsibility and understanding of all the consequences when it comes to drinking.

Drinking has become an event of celebration for many teenagers. Alcohol is the number one drug choice among children and adolescents. A higher percentage of twelve-one year olds used alcohol rather than use tobacco (Drunk & Drugged Driving). National statistics say that if a someone starts drinking at the age of fifteen, their chances of becoming an alcoholic doubles. By the time they reach the eighth grade almost 50% of the children have had at least one drink. It has also been reported that 20% of them have been “drunk.“ About 20% of eighth graders and 50% of 12th graders have consumed alcohol within the past 30 days (Drunk & Drugged Driving)). Among 12th graders, almost 30 percent report drinking on three or more occasions per month. Drinking has become a growing problem among teens (Drunk & Drugged Driving)). Teenagers do not realize the effects it has on their bodies or others around them.

I just felt i need ed to express that we should try to send the message out about underage drinking and the effects it has on students. I feel this topic is something we do not realize we have to stress with younger students. The younger we start by telling them the effects, I feel we can get the message across that it is something to wait for.

Using what we learned in everyday life..

In class a couple weeks ago we learned about critical reading and the important of it. We all have to read whether its for class, ingredients, or a newspaper. Sometimes we read and miss the main point of the book or paper. Professor Goldstein give us tips on how to in prove our reading skills.
The skills are:
1. Take your time
2. Title- tells about the reading
3. Background/summary
4. Look for main points
5. Look for Sub points
6. Identify important quotes
7. Apply what we have learned

These skills helped me in many of my other classes. To take the time to break everything down made it easier to understand the materials i was learning. I was telling my little sisters about these skills and they said they were going to try it the next time they read. These skills are also a great thing to teach your students when they are starting to learn how to read.

*exploring education*

In this class i would love to explore more about the safety in schools. School is sometimes a scary place for people and the parents want to know they are sending there children to a good school. I feel this class really gets you to learn about the ins and outs of being a teacher. It explores all aspect of what it takes to become a successful teacher. I want to learn about the different ways to protect the students if something happens.

Parker!

What role does education play in other countries?

Education plays an important role in all countries. We need education to have an successful career these days. In many of the reads we saw that education is something to be taking serious. We learn about education everyday we live. We are always learning about something new to help keep our lives interesting. In the parker reading we learn about Idiocy. Idiocy is the scourge of our time and place. Idiocy in today’s society means extreme mental retardation or something notably stupid or foolish. We need to understand everybody has an important part in our country and we have to figure out what it is. We have to remember Idiocy is from Ancient Greek which means a term of reproach. A person who is an idiot is self centered and rude they need to understand the central goal of education.

We can take Parkers document and compare it with our last paper on the quote "The free common school system is most American thing about America." They are liked because Parkers say , "The main reason is that is not a private place, like our homes, but public, civic place with congregation of diverse student." (Parker, page 3) That’s exactly what school is a place where diversity is a big part. School is a place where students are willing to learn. Student make school a place where they take their personalities and express it in different ways. In all countries student have the mind frame to be successful in school. Public Schools are like Common Schools where student are on the same level of learning. To be educated is the most important advancement to earn in our times. Its important to teach other children in all country what is right and wrong.

Education is important in all countries on different levels. Public or Private schools are common types of school in different countries. Over Sea education seems more advance then in the United States. My friend, Anthony, is from Britain and when he moved here he was head of us in his learning. He was telling us the material we are learning in schools in January he learned in September or last year. They are more advance and move faster so they can learn everything so the students can start working. Immigration plays a important part in this too but they are more likely to do better in classes than American. They will do better because they know all materials already. I think this is funny because American is suppose to be the most advance country and we sometime leak the knowledge.

In Parkers Article we see school is separate from home and environment . School is like Village squares, cities, crossroad, meeting place, community center, and market place ( Parker, page 4). It is a place of diversity which makes our schools special. We are all different to make out what the world is today.

just for fun!

The weather is hot
Feels like summer is still here
Class books not much fun



Writitng one Haiku was not enough. Haiku's can be made up of anything you want. It is fun to just write about anything and see what the reaction is from other people. It is fun to just make up something and have it mean a lot. This Haiku is about today, the weather is so nice and it feels like summer. Summer seems so long ago when all we do now is study and go to class. I can not wait for next summer!

A new game..

Three girls play outside
A lovely game of hopscotch
They learned yesterday


This Haiku is about three girl playing a new game they learned. This is something I will be teaching children to do. My major is Physical Education. Teaching students new, fun, and exciting game has alway been my passion in life. Being a gym teacher is something I feel I will be successful in doing because I love to get involved in school. I have alway played sports and feel I will be able to teach them something from my experiences. This class show us different areas and lifestyles so we know what to expect in the future!

group...

On planet earth we have educational facilities called schools. The way they are structured are from grades one to six, which are known as elementary school, seven to eighth, which are known as middle school, and nine to twelve known as high school. The content knowledge of the student in known by their grade level. Students are required to know certain subject areas such as Math, Reading, and Science. As shown by the PEP, Math, reading, and Science scores have risen from 1990 to 2005 in elementary and middle school, yet in high school scores have declined from 1990 to 2005. This decline is due to low moral from students, lack of resources and educational funding. By improving this, it will show an improvement on scores in the upcoming years.

Most of our students come from a Caucasian background. There are about 53% whites, 5% Asians, 15% African Americans, 24% Latino, and 6% American Indian. Due to the surrounding areas that we live in we want a positive and successful education for our students. As successful educators we find ways to connect language, music, cultural background and lifestyle of different students to make them feel comfortable not as an outsider. Our main goal is to push our students and motivate them to succeed in what ever they choose to do in life.

Our teachers often begin at or about the age of 22 and having received a bachelor’s degree. Many continue to pursue their own education as well as working to educate their students. 47% of our teachers have achieved a master’s degree or doctorate, and 58% of our teachers have been working in the field of education for over ten years. The majority of our high school educators are trained specifically in there are of content, ranging from 79% of Mathematics instructors to 84% of Social Science instructors. Although the Federal “No Child Left Behind Act” does not require instructors to have a degree in their field of teaching, it does require them to, “demonstrates subject matter competence.” A constant flow of new ideas about teaching is coming into our education system through an average of 14-21% of full time teachers with less than 3 years experience. These instructors, though lacking in experience,, more than compensate with a passion for teaching and a wealth of newand exciting ideas!

A Fresh Start...

Hi everyone! This is my first time blogging. It is something new and exciting to learn! Starting at a new school can be scary. Nervous and anxiety takes over and you are unsure how to feel. The fear of not being liked and accepted are always something you face. Change is a good thing though. Change is always taking place everyday. The way a person reacts to a new surrounding shows character and growth.
Learning about new people is a great way to get involved in a classroom. Activities to get people to open up helps them feel more comfortable in a classroom. Finding out things about people from different towns or states helps you see life in a new way. It opens up a new level of interaction among people. After the first class I am excited to get to know everybody on a personal level. This class will help us learn all about becoming what we want to become in life!.

Someone once said:
"I believe that every human soul is teaching something to someone nearly every minute here in mortality."

This statement is something I am going to end this blog with. It not only explains what this class is going to be like but it is true. I feel you are always learning and growing each and everyday. We are alway teaching each other about something whether we know it or not!