Grade Geography Class - Original Writing Essay

On that awkward and confusing day, I shifted from corner-to-corner. Finally, one of the students said, “Miss.” “Miss.” “The security button is over there.”

I think this was an obvious jab at the education system to ridicule the way classes are taught, and to exemplify the fact that no one ever wants to be in class, everyone would rather be out enjoying life then to be put to sleep by some monotone old man teaching a non-interactive history class.

On the first day of class, after he was done checking in, he sat down to observe his classmates returning from their summer vacations. Initially, he walked in full of confidence and his head held high. However, that quickly changed when he heard his classmates speak French, and the feeling of intimidation washed over him like waves hitting the beach, “at my age, a reasonable person should have completed his sentence in the prison of the nervous and insecure . . . my fears have not vanished, rather, they have multiplied with age” (Sedaris, 1999, 1). For being a forty-one-year-old man, he thought these feelings of insecurity and fear in the classroom would have ended long ago. If he thought things could not get worse, he was mistaken. The teacher walked in, rattled off commands to the class, and then asked them to recite the alphabet. In that moment, he knew he was in trouble, “I’ve spent time in Normandy, and I took a monthlong French class in New York. I am not completely in the dark, yet I only understood half of what she said” (Sedaris, 1999, 1) and, despite the exposure he already had, he was still unable to understand everything the teacher was saying.

1. Question: Why does Gatto think that school is boring and childish? How does Gatto’s depiction of school compare with your own elementary and secondary school experience?

To begin, over the course of this semester, I had the opportunity to conduct my history classroom observations at Sierra Vista High. This high school is a public school located in Baldwin Park and is part of the Baldwin Park Unified School District. Sierra Vista High School has a student population of 1,895 students. The student population consists of 90 percent Hispanic, 6 percent Asian, 3 percent Filipino, and 1 percent white. These demographics were shared by the vice principal of the high school. While I was at Sierra Vista High School, I was given the chance to analyze and observe three history teachers. Thus, in this paper I will discuss and share my experiences observing the

Outline the geographical processes relevant to the management of the Cronulla, Wanda and Kurnell area.

A typical routine of a fourth grade student in Five Oaks, Michigan shifted immediately when the unfamiliar substitute teacher entered the classroom. Mr. Hibler, the students’ normal teacher, came down with a cough and wasn’t in the classroom for a few days. Inside the school setting is where all the important and developing events throughout the story occurred. The students were used to the typical memorization of facts, predictable subjects, and uneventful classroom teachings. Miss Ferenczi disrupted this normality of the routine of a day the students had. “She said that the Egyptians were the first to discover that dogs, when they are ill, will not drink from rivers, but wait for the rain, and hold their jaws open to catch it.” (Baxter 256) The facts and statements she said to the students engulfed their thoughts. Leading them to be confused, intrigued, and curious to hear more. These were feelings they never expected to feel at school. While, more often than not, Miss Ferenczi was presenting mythical, untrue, or incorrect facts, the students mindsets shifted in the classroom. Boredom no longer invaded the students whenever Miss Ferenczi was speaking. “There was no sound in the classroom, except for Miss Ferenczi’s voice, and Donna DeShano’s

The book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, begins with an introduction in which author James W. Loewen empathizes with the students. He discusses how History, specifically American History, is taught incorrectly. Loewen is able to share his understanding of why high school students think history is boring. He begins his argument with facts and numbers by saying that out of all the subjects in school, history is almost every student's least favorite subject. He goes on to say that teachers also misrepresent history to students by teaching history as a ¨set of facts¨ rather than ¨showing how we got to this point.¨ Loewen’s writing style is much more relaxed than a typical non-fiction

On October 27, I, along with Jenna Mrofchak and Andy Norton, shadowed multiple teachers at the Chagrin Falls Middle School. During the day, I shadowed Mrs. Mrofchak, a life science teacher, Mrs. Bauer, a world history teacher, Mrs. Dennison, a health teacher, and Mr. Richmond, a english teacher. Throughout Mrs. Mrofchak’s first period class, I was able to interact with the eighth grade students by answering any questions about the high school or my freshmen year. Afterwards, the class began to take notes and continue in a day to day class schedule. As a result, I was able to watch the class's reaction to the different explanations the teacher gave. Additionally, I was able to gain knowledge about how to control a classroom

History is a remarkable subject that offers and eagles eye view into the past. With textbooks such as, Hist3, a great deal of interesting information can be acquired. However, a common misconception runs rampant through students minds; the idealism that history is useless and that the subject is that of a drag. Who can blame them? Our text books can only do so much in terms of providing the means in educating ourselves when we’re not in a class room and when given the opportunity to appear in class we have the luxury of (hopefully) having and interesting professor to enlighten us on all the side conflicts, affairs, and bloodshed that has happened. Even so, when we as students have exhausted the book and our instructors, we have the privilege

April 20th started out like any other school day which I particularly dreaded. The worst days of your life, well, you don’t realize them at first. Even when the sun is shining or it’s raining. You can never see the miracles or horror that may unfold. I hadn’t realized how badly I would dread this day.

Throughout secondary school, instead of accepting the facts stated in my textbooks, I continued to ask questions. Disillusioned by how complex historical events were taught like equations with a simple cause and effect, senior year of high school I determined that I would become a teacher. As a teacher, I aspire to not be hindered by standardized requirements and teach history in a way that resonates with students and evokes passion.

The Oregon Coast runs from north to south along the Pacific Ocean. Oregon is three-hundred and sixty miles long and two-hundred and sixty miles wide, making it the ninth largest state. Oregon is bordered by California and Nevada on the south, Washington on the north, Idaho on the west and of course, the Pacific Ocean. Oregon's nickname is the Beaver State because in the nineteenth century beaver skins were very valuable to trappers in the area. The longitude in Oregon is 116 45W to 124 30W. The Latitude is 42N to 46 15N. The Highest point in Oregon is Mount Hood reaching 11,239 feet high. The lowest point in the state of Oregon is the Pacific Ocean. According to www.netstats.com the average elevation in Oregon is 3,300 feet

I walked into room 160 and saw a group of anxious 14 year olds, waiting for the lady we had all heard so much about to walk in. Rumors about her ranged from “she will make you cry daily” to “she’s basically the human form of a fire breathing dragon”. When the bell rang, we all prepared for the worst. The small lady that walked in, with short brown hair and glasses too big for her face did not look nearly as intimidating as all the stories suggested, which was comforting on that first day of class. This was Mrs. Carballo, my AP US History teacher. She started our first day off by talking about the summer reading and our objectives for the year. By the time the second week rolled around, I felt pretty comfortable with the course...that is, until we all received books that were almost bigger than we were!

“The History Teacher” has the same premise as “A Barred Owl”, where the teacher changes the facts of history in order “to protect his students’ innocence.” (1). One example of this is how he tells his students that the ice age was just the “chilly age… when everyone had to wear sweaters.”(3-4). Collins used events that involved death and destruction, to accentuate how big the contrast between the teacher’s explanations and reality is. It ends off with children leaving the classroom to “torment the weak and the smart”, while the teacher is oblivious to it all.