Las mariposas monarcas

Today will finally be the day that I get to see the mysterious and beautiful butterflies that land every year in Michoacan, México.  As those of you who have been following my journey know, I have been studying the unusual migration that the monarch butterflies make every October, and now I will finally get the chance to see their beauty with my own eyes.  

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this migration, I’ll explain it briefly.  Each and every year around October and November, around 60 million to one billion butterflies fly from Canada and the Northern States in the U.S. to the forests of western central México.  This trip can be more than 2,500 miles for some of these butterflies.  Monarchs, because of their unusually strong wings with vein-like structures, are able to travel farther than most every other type of butterfly.  This migration is very unique, but the fact that it coincides with the Mexican holiday “Day of the Dead” is what really draws me to the phenomenon.  The butterflies come to México during the same time that the locals believe that the souls of their deceased loved ones return to the Earth.  These locals believe that this is not merely a coincidence, but that the Monarchs ARE the souls of the deceased.  

This huge statement is not only supported by the fact that the butterflies always come during the time of this religious and traditional holiday, but also by the anatomy of the butterflies.  During the Day of the Dead, death is represented by a skeleton, and bones and skulls can be found everywhere throughout the city.  The veins of the butterfly definitely resemble bones and a skeletal system, which to the locals, represent their loved ones who have passed.  

This Friday, the 28th of October, I will be flying to México to experience this wonder for myself. I will be posting pictures and updates to this blog, so be sure to follow me if you want to see what I am doing.  

Internet Privacy: CIPA and COPPA

CIPA/COPPA

Definition:

CIPA requires all schools to have filters on their computers in order to block inappropriate websites and content. The school will not receive funding from the E-Rate program if they do not oblige.  

COPPA was enacted in 1998, and it requires any website that deals with children under the age of 13 to obtain parental permission before collecting any personal information from the children.  The parents also have the power to retrieve any information on their child from the site as well as to not allow the site to solicit information from their child.

Why the laws are in place:

Both of these laws are in place to protect children and to prevent exposing them to inappropriate material online, particularly when they are in the classroom.  The main goal is to make sure that the children are not being exploited online and are being safe on the Internet.  Although the reasoning is sound, there are some technical problems, particularly with CIPA.  Many of the filters censor much more than they need to, and this can affect teachers’ abilities to use the Internet as a teaching tool.  Many times, helpful websites are blocked, and if a teacher was planning on using one of these websites in their lesson, they are out of luck.  There has been some push for better filters or an option to turn them off to complete classwork, but so far no changes have been made.

General Stats on the compliance of CIPA’s requirements in public libraries:

“In 2002, 43.4 percent of public libraries were receiving E-Rate discounts, and 18.9 percent said they would not apply for E-Rate discounts if CIPA was upheld.”

“In 2008, 38.2 percent of public libraries were filtering access within the library as a result of directly receiving E-Rate funding. Furthermore, 13.1 percent of libraries were receiving E-Rate funding as a part of another organization, meaning that these libraries also would need to comply with CIPA’s requirements.”

Teaching Resource to use in the classroom:

Because CIPA is something that affects every single student in a public school, I could make a quick lesson telling them about it as well as the reasoning behind it.  This could be something extra we could do before heading to the computer lab so that they would understand why certain websites were blocked.  When the students understand something, they are less likely to complain.  We could also turn this mini lesson into a discussion on Internet safety and the importance of not revealing too much personal information online.  In this day and age, students need to be told about the dangers of the Internet, regardless of the class they are in.  Internet is an integral part of their lives, and they need to understand how to use it properly to avoid getting hurt.

Blogs in a Spanish Classroom

USING BLOGS IN THE CLASSROOM

Photo from qbeats blog

I think that any student would love the idea of creating their own blog.  A blog is much more special than a Word Document or a Google Doc because it can be personalized.  Creative students will have a fun time making their page their own, and they will probably be more motivated to do well on their assignments if they know that anyone can see them.  A blog may feel like social media to some kids, and they may be more willing to share their opinions and comment on other people’s pages because it is more familiar to them.  Blogs are also great because they give students a chance to learn how to do more technologically advanced functions, which will help them tremendously in the long run.  While they are creating a blog, they are learning how to embed a video, link a website, and publish their thoughts to a public domain.  Blogs provide a great way for students to share their opinions, or also share with others a topic they have researched.  Blogs also stay with students even after the class has ended.  They can act as a sort of portfolio for them, so they can see what they did in the past and compare it to what they are doing now.  

I could definitely see myself creating a blog for my future classroom, where I would post cool things going around in the Spanish-speaking community and also post extra credit opportunities or shout outs to students who chose to experience the Spanish culture in some way.  This would be a fun way to bring the students together outside of the classroom, and would hopefully allow them to appreciate the Spanish language and culture in a new way.  

Photo from Youtube

I took a class in college where we had to volunteer with the Latino community and post several blog posts about our experiences.  Every 2 weeks, we would share a post with our classmates and we would discuss what we had done.  This was a great way to get involved with the community, and the blog made it easy for us to record our doings and share them with the class.  This was the first time I had personally created a blog, and it was not nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be.  I had a really fun time with that project, and I hope to do something similar with my future students.

The only constraint I would have with blogs would be the setup process.  Setting up a blog, choosing a username, and selecting a theme may take a long time for a classroom of middle schoolers, and I don’t know how much time I would want to take to get things started.  Also, I would want to make sure that the students had wifi outside of school so they could work on them at home as well.  It wouldn’t be fair if some of the students didn’t, because they could so easily fall behind.  These problems are not detrimental, and they definitely will not stop me from using a blog when I am a teacher, but they are still something to think about.

Blair Waldorf as a Student

BLAIR WALDORF GOSSIP GIRL

Blair Waldorf is a main character on the TV show Gossip Girl.  Blair is an excellent student.  She receives straight-As and expects to attend an Ivy League school.  She comes from an extremely wealthy family; her dad is a lawyer and her mom is a fashion designer.  She attended Constance Billard School for Girls, which is a private high school that is extremely expensive.

Although she does well academically, her snotty attitude is evident to nearly everyone, and she has a harder time getting into college and making friends than some of her more pleasant friends.  This video shows her dealing with the consequences of her actions, while her friends are being rewarded for their positive attitudes:

Although Blair is a top student, she tends to care more about popularity and her social status than her classes.  She makes several bad decisions in order to get revenge on her fellow schoolmates, and ends up being expelled from Constance.  She is able to get back in (with an apology and a ton of cash) and tries to redeem her status as a good student.  She does not play sports, and instead spends most of her time setting up glamorous brunch dates for her friends and family as well as enjoying her time as queen bee of the school (all while making sure no one gains too much social power).

If Blair were my student, I would do all in my power to make sure she doesn’t bully anyone in the classroom.  Blair has a tendency to be extremely rude and demeaning to all she feels are below her (basically everyone), and I would do my best to change her attitude.  I would assign projects that allow the students to think about different cultures and people in order to make them think about others instead of just themselves.  Blair is a good student and she will do fine in her classes, but she needs to know that she is not the only person in the world.  

Academically, I would say that Blair is college ready, but her childlike attitudes and close-minded perception of the world make her more of a child than an adult.  She needs to lose her attitude before attending college, because professors and other college students will not put up with it like Constance students did.  She will do absolutely fine if she just grows up a little bit.  College requires deeper thinking, and she will not be able to do this if she is always thinking about herself.

About Me

INTRODUCTION

Hello all!  My name is Ally Kamphuis and I am finishing my final year here at Grand Valley.  I study Secondary Education, Spanish, and English, and I am beyond excited to start my career as an educator of a foreign language.  I am currently a teacher assistant in three 10th grade Spanish classrooms at Rockford High School.  I learn so much about the students and about teaching in general every single day.  In my free time, I absolutely love to exercise - especially running (it helps me to de-stress) - and I also love to play with my dog.  I have been a waitress at Russ’ Restaurants (at one of the locations in Holland) for 5 years.  I am probably one of the few people in the world who will admit to loving waitressing.  I am such a people person, and having a job where I can talk as much as I want to AND get more money for doing so is something I never thought possible.  I find the same joy that I find when waitressing while teaching, but I feel as if there are more benefits involved in teaching, especially the feeling I get when I help a child who has been struggling.

This video shows a little more about me :). An interesting period of my life was when I studied abroad in Spain for a semester, and some of the pictures are featured in the video. Living in Spain and experiencing the Spanish culture firsthand was an indescribable feeling, and I am so glad that I was blessed with the opportunity.
 

FUN-FACT

I have always had a knack for languages; they make sense to me the way math makes sense to some people.  When I was a child, I was so drawn to languages that I started to dissect them and put them together in different ways in my head.  From this, I acquired the skill of talking backwards.  Anything that I can say normally, I can also say in reverse.  I used to do this involuntarily in my head for years, and for a long time I thought that it was something that everyone could do.  Once I discovered that it was not normal, I shared this skill with my friends and quickly became a spectacle for many of my classmates.  I can still speak backwards nowadays, but I don’t do it nearly as much as I used to.

EXPERIENCE WITH TECHNOLOGY

Honestly, I don’t have much experience using technology in the classroom.  Sure, I have created many, MANY powerpoints and other presentations, but I have never used a Smartboard or any other advanced pieces of technology in the classroom.   I would be interested in learning about more technological options for a Spanish classroom, because most of the equipment I can think of is more commonly used in math and science classrooms.