EDU 414 Blog About a Family Memory Related to School

I have so many family memories related to school. I feel very fortunate in that my family was very much involved in my school life. My parents came to every parent/teacher conference, band concert, chorus concert, and parent/teacher night, you name it they were there. My parents always made an effort to ask me "what did you learn in school today?" even if I would respond with nothing. My Mom always helped me make cupcakes or cookies to bring to school on my birthday and she always gave me a present to give to my teachers for the holidays and the end of the school year. 


I remember in first grade, every student got the chance to run the morning announcements. It wasn't my turn yet, but for a reason I don't remember my Dad came into my first grade classroom, and my teacher let me run the morning announcements. My Dad sat there and watched while I took attendance, talked about the weather, talked about the date, and whatever else we did during that time. It made me feel like I was on top of the world to have my Dad there watching me. I felt extremely special and important because my Dad got to see me do the announcements and it wasn't even supposed to be my turn to go.


Another memory I have is when my parents told me we were moving and I was going to go to a new school. I was in second grade going into third grade so it didn't really have that large of an impact on me. I was not nervous until the day before my new school's orientation. My new school allowed anyone who was new to the school to come in a day before school started to check out what the school was like. I remember walking in with my Mom and Dad to meet my third grade teacher. I remember I was really nervous and really shy. I met the other kids that moved to Fairfield that same summer because they were meeting the teacher as well. We were the new kids at the time, and I am still friends with them today. 


I remember every year on the first day of school since I was in kindergarten that I would get to pick out a new outfit. After I was dressed in my first day of school outfit, I would go outside and wait for the bus. Every year my Dad would make sure to take a picture of me before I got on the bus. My Dad would also walk me down the to the end of the driveway and wait with me until my bus came. He did this every year until I was in high school. 


My mom would pack my lunch for me everyday. I occasionally got hot lunch, but the majority of the days my Mom would pack my lunch. Every single lunch that she packed, she would always write me a note on my napkin. She would always write something along the lines of "have a great day, I love you, love Mom." These notes are something I will never forget. Even when she makes my lunch to this day (which is rare), she will still write a note on the napkin. Every time I read that note in school it always made my day a little better.


Family and school when combined can be very helpful to any child. It is so crucial for a child's parents to be involved in their school life. Parents really need to be there to help their child with their homework or practice their addition facts. Without family support, it is very hard for a child to do well and succeed in school. As I mentioned earlier, I feel very fortunate that my family was so involved in my school life. These are just a few memories I could think of at the top of my head, there are so many more. If my parents weren't there for me, I don't know if I would be where I am today. I don't know if I would have memorized my multiplication tables, or if I would be able to count change back, or if I would be able to tie my shoes. I am so lucky and I hope that every child has the same experience as me.

2/2 Blog Post EDU 307 - Why is turning 21 such a big deal??

In our society, I feel that people (including myself) think of a twenty first birthday as a big deal. When a person turns thirteen they become a teenager, when a person turns eighteen they can buy lotto tickets and cigarettes, when a person turns twenty they are no longer a teenager, and when a person turns twenty one they can legally drink. There will always be a debate on what the drinking age should be. Some people say that if a person can go to war and die for their country, they should be able to have a drink. These people want the drinking age to be lowered to eighteen. Other people say that if we lower the drinking age it will cause more accidents.  This meaning that kids who are eighteen are not responsible enough to be drinking and making good decisions. In my personal opinion, when I was eighteen of course I wanted the drinking age to be lowered, but now that I am almost twenty one I believe that it should stay twenty one. I consider myself to be a responsible person and I think I could have handled myself if the legal drinking age was lowered, but some of my friends would not have been able to handle it. 


When I hear stories about people's twenty first birthdays it almost makes me nervous. The majority of people say, "I don't even remember my twenty first birthday." The reason behind this is they drank so much that they blacked out and the last thing they remember is taking their first legal shot. Our society makes this okay. In our society, I feel that when someone turns twenty one it is okay if they go out, get completely hammered, and then spend the rest of the night throwing up. The next morning, everyone is so excited to fill them in on what they did the night before, while that person is sitting their with the biggest headache of their life. A twenty first birthday is like a right of passage in our society. You are suppose to go out and get drunk, but is that the best way to start out the path to real adulthood?


I am turning twenty one on Saturday February eleventh. That is about two weeks from today. Everyone wants to know what I am going to do on my twenty first birthday. The problem is, I have no idea! I want to do something amazing that I will remember for the rest of my life. I just don't know what that something amazing really is. I have thought about going to NYC or Boston to go bar hopping. Then I think to myself, well if it snows I will have to cancel and then have no plans. Another idea was to go out to dinner with my friends underage and then go to a bar in New Haven with all of my friends of age. Then I think to myself, well do I really want to spend my twenty first birthday at a bar in New Haven, that is not amazing. There are so many things that could go wrong that I almost don't even want to plan anything. This way when the day arrives, I just go with the flow and then I can't be disappointed right? The answer to that question is no because I can definitely be disappointed if I don't think of something that I will remember for the rest of my life. 


In order to keep myself from going crazy, I just think, well as long as I am with good friends I will have a good time doing anything. I am just hoping that somehow I will have a great twenty first birthday. I am just hoping that somehow it will be something amazing that I can remember forever. The sad part about birthdays though is they are one day out of the entire year. So I am getting all worked up over one day that will come and go so fast that soon enough it will be February twelfth. So why does society make turning twenty one into such a big deal?

My Memories from Language Arts (EDU 307)

The thing that first popped into my head was SSR also known as Sustained Silent Reading. Everyday we were given about thirty minutes of SSR. Everyone would be reading the book they checked out of the library that week and there was absolutely no talking. I enjoyed this time for reading, but at the same time out of the thirty minutes I probably read for about fifteen. I would sometimes write notes back and forth with one of my friends or just become distracted with something. I don't think I ever read for the entire thirty minutes unless I had a really interesting book. Another thing I remember about language arts was learning to write essays. We had to learn how to write essays for the state tests. I remember the essay was very structured and outlined. At first we learned to write and intro, middle, and end. Then we learned how to do an intro, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. We learned how to make different outlines to make our essays better. I am struggling to remember more about what I learned and did during the language arts period of the day. I know we were able to go to the library once a week to pick out books which was always exciting and a nice break from class. Also there were always reading competitions. Every few months you had to write down all of the books you read. At the end of the contest the person who read the most received a prize, the class that read the most received a prize, and the grade level that read the most was recognized. We also had to read over the summer. Summer reading was always such a nuisance. We were assigned books to read which were never interesting and we didn't get to choose which books we read until high school. Language arts was never my favorite subject which could explain why I chose not to minor in English for my Liberal studies major.

Blog #1 for EDU 414

This weekend I went to Vermont to go skiing. I went with my family and my boyfriend. We have a condo at Ascutney Mountain Resort, but since that is currently not open we ski at Okemo instead. I taught my boyfriend how to ski this weekend. He did a lot better than I thought he would and I was very impressed. We made it to the Waffle House which was great. For those of you who don't know what the waffle house is, it is a little building on the slope where they sell waffles. These waffles are basically coated in this sugar syrup and they drizzle chocolate on top. If you ever go to Okemo Mountain, you need to get a waffle from the Waffle House. Skiing is something I learned to do when I was about four years old. I have been skiing my whole life and I even learned how to snow board as well. I also taught kids how to ski at the resort my condo is at. I taught kids from ages 4-12 how to ski. It was a very rewarding experience and I absolutely loved it. It is something that I will never forget.

-Lauren B.