World Vision Taiwan supports continued education for poor children

A charity in Taiwan is using its money to help children of families in financial trouble to continue their education. They are donating scholarships to elementary school students all the way up to college students. I think this is a great example how a group or organization can step in and help people in need, and once these students are done with school they will most likely live better lives than they could have before. I wish I heard more stories like this happening in the United States. The article is short but uplifting, and I think it’s a good story.  

http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?ID=201102210031&Type=aSOC

Field Experience 1st day Feb 9

When I arrived for my first day of field experience at Talahi Elementary in St. Cloud the teacher had no clue I was going to be there, because her email had been full the entire week I had been trying to get in touch with her. Also the office did not deliver the message I left for her. After I introduced myself she knew why I was there and she invited me into the class.  I got to know most of the student’s names, and used that first day in the classroom to get a feel for what to expect for the next 9 weeks.

Tuition freeze brings out passions

This article is about a bill that if past would freeze college tuition until 2013. If you are or plan on being a college student this topic should be something you look into. The article talks about college students who took the day off of school to show their support of the bill.

http://www.mndaily.com/2011/02/17/tuition-freeze-bill-brings-out-passions

Education Nation chapter 1

2/4/2011

The first chapter had a lot of interesting history and more modern ideas on how to better education in schools. The author talks about how even the simplest question from a young kid can have a very complicated. Even though the answers are complicated that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t tell them or encourage them to find the answer for themselves. The author then went on to talk about how we are teaching children to take tests not how to learn. He talked about how schools are to cautious on how and what we teach and that it is not surprising that school is boring to kids. The book says we need to get kids excited about learning and let them know why we teach them what we do and how it relates to the real world.

Five points that affect me.

1.       Help kids relate what they learn in class to how they will use it in real life.

2.       Help Kids understand Why they are leaning the things they learn.

3.       Praise achievements.

4.       Don’t label students, and treat them all on the same intellectual level.

5.       Make sure students know how to use the available resources, and encourage the use of them not only for school but also to look into their own personal questions.

Sudan needs English to build bridges between North and South

2/2/2011

In this article they talk about how the two halves of the country need a neutral language to communicate with each other. The South has already declared that they want to be a separate country and have chosen English as their language. The North uses Arabic which the South doesn’t like, but the North is going to use English as a second language. Police, Military, and leaders of the country are all pushing to put English classes in place so they can use English to communicate between North and South so they can both work together to stop human trafficking and other issues faced by both sides. Both sides also agree that English is the language of the internet and a key tool in building a better economy and country. I think they have the right idea in using a common language to bridge the gap between these two counties that were in a civil war up until 2005. I don’t know if the English language is a big part in building an economy though, but they might know or mean something that I am missing. I agree with their reasoning for adopting a language to communicate with each other. It makes me think about the U.S. and Mexican border where authorities used to work together to stop drug, human, and gun trafficking before the drug cartels too over. All in all I found the article interesting

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/11/tefl-sudan

Atomic Learning/Computer Lab

1/27/2011

We learned how to use the program Atomic Learning and it is a great program to use as a resource or resource finder. This was my first time using it so I still don’t know a lot about it but I’m looking forward to learning more about it.