Midterm Project

http://prezi.com/lxggc_lompze/present/?auth_key=tsfcv41&follow=s4bxg9lwgc34&kw=present-lxggc_lompze&rc=ref-1011542

This is the link for my midterm project.  I made a Prezi of my four year plan at Wartburg College.

Storyteller & Humanitarian: Laura Simms

Laura Simms is a very awarded and internationally recognized storyteller.  She has been telling stories for over forty years.  She believes that the arts have bonded communities together which is why over her lifetime she has been trying to advocate the power of storytelling.

One of the interesting points she brought up was that bullying is actually a form of storytelling.  We believe in one thing and act upon it without taking responsibility for what we said.  This is something that stuck with me because I have never thought about how bullying is made up of rumors and hurtful things that the bully rarely takes responsibility for saying.

Laura also discussed how someone once told her after listening to one of her stories, how they thought the story was nice, but no one in the world was kind enough to actually be the person in the story.  She was shocked and felt lousy because she truly enjoyed the story.  I was shocked that someone at a convocation would say this to her because it was a great story.  It just proved the point that storytelling has lost its flare.

However, Laura has a friend who was a victim of war from Africa who told her a story that proved the man from the convocation wrong.  There is someone who is that kind in our world.  Her young friend, whose name I am not able to spell, told her how the boy who had cut off his arms and killed his parents asked him for forgiveness.  Then Laura's friend had the opportunity, took it, and forgave the boy who cut off his arms and killed his parents.  I could never imagine what Laura's young friend had gone through during his life and I was absolutely inspired after hearing the story of how he forgave the person who took so much from him.

Overall, this convocation was very eye-opening to understand how powerful the art of storytelling can be.  It is a very powerful tool to have when trying to engage a large group of people.  This made me realize how much I still love listening to someone telling me a good story.  I absolutely loved listening to Laura Simms' stories.

Voting Rights!

The issue of needing to have a drivers license or some sort of picture identification is very discriminatory and not fair to many citizens, including some elderly.  Additionally, if only 86 cases of voting fraud take place each year, it seems as if our government is trying to fix something that isn't broken.  Instead our politicians should take time to do something about America's debt or fix the related topic of social security fraud.  I found this video that I attached with something that Oklahoma has done to lessen the restrictions on driver's license rules when voting.  However, I still firmly believe that the United States should start focusing on real issues and stop trying to fix things that aren't broken.    

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib5sWRdUyH8

Pre-Law Career Panel Discussion!

I was not able to attend the Accounting Career Panel Discussion due to the fact that I had class during the 10:45 time period.  Therefore, I decided to attend the Pre-Law Career Panel instead.  At this panel I listened to people who are lawyers and judges describe the career path they took and their experiences in the law field.  The speakers all had different majors that they graduated from Wartburg with.  For example, some were political science majors, business majors, an economic major, and even an accounting major! These speakers practice in things including family law, healthcare & insurance law, employment defense law, lobbying, and company defense work.

It was very interesting to learn about the different types of law that they practice.  For example, one man on the panel talked about cases that involved eBay and Facebook.  Some worked at law firms with 700 lawyers, and another worked at a law firm where he was one of two lawyers.  This was intriguing to hear about the differences within sizes of law firms.

Another discussion topic that was interesting was the fact that all of the speakers agreed that law school does not teach you about the business end of being a lawyer.  Being an accounting major I found this interesting.  They said that being a lawyer is just like running a business because you have to attract customers like every other business does.

One ironic discussion point that I remember is that the growing cost of schooling, including law school.  One of the panel guests wanted to warn pre-law students that if you don't know for sure that you want to be a lawyer, you should not go to law school.  I found this somewhat ironic considering that every student in this discussion panel is paying $30,000 plus to attend Wartburg.

This panel was much more interesting than I thought it would be.  They actually brought up business aspects that are within the law field much more than I thought they would.  I was very intrigued with the fact that an accounting major went on to become a lawyer because before I thought they were two very different career paths.  However, I now realize that you could practice law that involves business or even financial law.

My Opinions on the Independent Project

• I think that the Independent Project would work well for a certain type of student. 
• I do not think that all students would be able to motivate themselves or want to teach themselves.  
• It would be very hard for some students to transition from our traditional education system that we have now, to the Independent Project way of learning.  
• This program seems like a way to get gaps in your education; you may not learn everything that you should to in order to graduate high school. 
• I personally learn better with someone teaching me rather than teaching myself (that is also partially due to the fact that I can be lazy.) 
• I think that this program would work very well for students who do not learn well in a traditional classroom setting (i.e. students with learning disabilities.)
• What would all the teachers do while we teach ourselves?  They would have to be trained differently.
• I don't think that the Independent Project would be useful for all career paths, but some like entrepreneurship or architects may value this way of learning.
• I do think that there is value in allowing students to choose what they are interested and want to learn about.
• I do believe in some independent work during school because it will teach students how to learn independently, and they will be able to apply this skill in future jobs/career fields.

How to Grade

Thanks to Mr. Dr. Birgen I have another topic to blog about :) 

If you have a student who never turns in homework, never comes to class, but takes the exam at the end and gets 100%, what grade should they get?

If you have a student who turns in all the homework, comes to every class, sits in the front row and pays rapt attention and fails the exam at the end, what grade should they get?

This is a very difficult question to answer considering I've been on both sides.  However, I think that the person who doesn't turn in homework and doesn't come to class should get a failing grade.  Where the person who pays attention and fails the final exam should get a B or C.

My reasoning behind giving the person who doesn't do homework a failing grade is because they haven't given enough effort to earn an A or any other passing grade.  Although they clearly already know the material since they aced the final exam they did not give any effort in regards to coming to class or turning in homework.  If they already knew how to do the skill then doing the homework would not be a difficult thing for them to do, and they could have learned something new by attending class.  

The student who paid attention and gave it their full potential/effort should get a B or C.  They should get this grade because they have done everything in their power to try and learn the skill and information.  They have showed up to class, paid attention, turned in the homework, but they couldn't pass the test.  Perhaps they know the information but are not very good at taking tests, so they failed the test. There are many different reasons for people to not do well on tests, but I know from personal experience that if you had a bad day or something traumatic happened, that can severely affect how you do on a test or another form of evaluation, even if you do know the information.  

Big Brothers Big Sisters

My time with Bailey during the Big Brothers Big Sisters program is such a blessing and such a great opportunity.  I started meeting with Bailey the fall of 2012 and I have continued to meet with her each week for 45 minutes to an hour.  Each week I try to plan a different activity for us to do together. One week is something educational.  For example, we sometimes read a chapter book together, practice for her spelling test, or work on homework.  The next week we do a fun non-academic activity together.  Some of these activities have been painting our nails together, blowing bubbles outside, or playing a board game. 

Bailey, a fourth grader who attends elementary school in Waverly, is a fun, giggly, smart, and stubborn little girl who does not come from the best home.  The reason she was put into the Big Brothers Big Sisters program was because of how her parents did not require her to attend school each day.  She watched her parents get divorced at a young age, and it is also very evident that she doesn’t have many rules at home either. 

To help her in school and social settings I have tried to do different activities that would encourage a more positive view of authority figures.  Rather than her talking back to a teacher because the teacher is incorrect, we have tried learning about a polite way to inform the teacher of their mistake.  Additionally, instead of yelling at a classmate for being in Bailey’s personal space, we have tried to learn how to respectfully tell them that they should scoot over. 

Unfortunately, many of the social skills we learn together are things that parents teach their children.  However, Bailey’s parents have not done the best job of this, so the Big Brothers Big Sisters coordinator and myself are trying to help Bailey as much as possible.  Over the past year you can see how much help this organization has helped her.  Her grades are all up by nearly 10% on average, her attendance has gone up from 3 days to 4.25 days of school per week, and she has not yet been sent to the principal’s office this school year. 

I am so proud of the work that I have put into finding activities that are fun and will help Bailey in school.  I am even more proud of the work and determination that Bailey has begun putting into her schoolwork though.  Big Brothers Big Sisters is such a great organization, and I am so happy I decided to join this organization so that I can watch Bailey progress over the years to come. I encourage anyone who enjoys volunteering and service work to join this great organization.