Conditioning applied to the hormonally challenged

It seems there are limitless ways according to the book to condition students and children to behave and act like human beings. Positive reinforcement, Negative reinforcement, Various types of punishment, and Extinction. Also a few techniques that go hand in hand with these and help ensure the effects are long standing and permanent, such as Spontaneous Recovery, Generalization Discrimination and Shaping.
For me Most of these weren't used, it seems to me Positive and negative reinforcement, and outright punishment were more likely to be used than any of the rest. Extinction certainly never occurred I guess because I was able to push my parents buttons so well, and something that rational was nearly always out of reach. I feel like sports really kept me going and my love for it and the rules about eligibility kept me in my shoes most of the time. This would basically mean the school used negative reinforcement to keep me in line. My positive reinforcement came from parents, teachers and coaches who encouraged me by pointing out the positive things I was able to accomplish through hard work.
I'm using this blog to basically keep track of the things we are covering, since we don't have an actually classroom this helps me "take notes" in an easy way so I can review later on in the semester.
My Edu blog is slacking this week so I read back over some of the things he has put up in the past. Fact is I got part of the headline for this blog from his site. He refers to the middle school kids in his class as "Hormonally Challenged" which I think is very apt and telling.

It was interesting this week in the blogs to see the examples of conditioning people came up with. Because my own conditioning was rather limited in scope, and some of the concepts are confusing, it was great to read the examples and be able to put them in context because I feel like the text was rather lacking in examples this week.

I think I showed how PR and NR were used in my own life already so I'll say this about my own classroom. I plan to coach, hopefully baseball and football. In the event that these things don't happen I hope to have a good relationship with the coaches and other extra-curricular activity coaches/teachers, so that instead of referring to the principal or sending kids to detention, which I feel rarely works, at least it didn't for me. I'll refer behavioral problems or academic problems to these coaches. Most kids have at least one thing they love "outside" of school, For me there was nothing more motivating than having a coach come to me and say we need to talk about your grades. Or for them come to me and say Mr. ****** said you were acting up, we'll make sure you don't have the energy for that tomorrow. I also plan to encourage and reward good behavior and effort, not just grades. Many kids don't get the support they need to reach their full potential, I know it is Utopian to think I can reach every child, but I can hope to help them believe in themselves and encourage them to put in the time and effort, which breeds my my own modus operandi "Personal Responsibility". If I can't teach anything else, this will be the major life lesson I hope to pass on.

Chapter 7: Special needs

In reading this week we covered alot of material regarding behavioral disorders, mental retardation and learning disabilities. We learned about IEP's, the good and bad regarding ability grouping and other ways to mainstream children who otherwise would be left out into our classrooms. My own experience with mainstreaming is rather weak. I may not get to say it for a while so here it goes: Back in my day ........ we didn't do alot of mainstreaming I remember a few students who I saw only during P.E or lunch who had such problems as we have discussed. I cannot say for certain but I can never remember a time when I actually had one of them in a "real" class.

This week in my educational blog " a view from the middle" he had some interesting observations about teenagers and non-verbal communication. How quickly they are willing to turn on one another, and how funny it all is. He made a great statement in that "if you can't laugh in this job you have no business being here." I thought it was quite apt as my oldest mouthed off the other day, something she rarely does and after sending her off to her room my wife looked at me and said" she's gonna make a FINE teenager."

Alot of good stuff on the boards this week, most seemed in lockstep but a few jumped out. Our group project was great and I learned quite a bit in researching material for it. I hate to use my own as an example but a couple of things that didn't make the final post really are going to stay with me and help out I think. This site had some great info about using technology for dealing with children with emotional and behavioral disorders.

http://www.knowbility.org/research/?content=improve

Ability grouping I feel like has it's place in teaching, but as i have said many times and I'm sure I'll say again, it depends on the kids as a whole and individually. I leave nothing off of the table, I've always been a proponent of try anything, a view that could have lead to trouble in my younger, less mature, days, but didn't. It's a fine line between segregation and ability grouping and kids know, they know what you are doing when you group them. They may have LD's or Disorders or even Retardation but one thing they almost always are is perceptive of their place within their peer group. You just need to be careful when doing this type of teaching so as to not alienate children who may and probably do have a skewed view of their place in life. As far as modifying the idea, well I would say it depends on the kids again but that's a cop out. I would say use it but be aware of the way you mix the children. I would be more apt to use it in class rather than grouping in a separate class, and use an offshoot of scaffolding to do it rather than grouping all kids with problems together.

In the time I have been keeping this blog my basic ideas have not changed, I still believe "Personal Responsibility" is the order of the day. I think it stands true fro every aspect of our society from the homeowner who borrowed to much to the loan officer who approved the homeowner for more than they could afford. From our leaders, teachers and police officers to the men, women and Children who spend their nights huddled together in shelters across America. The one thing we are missing in this great nation is personal responsibility.

Cultural and ethnic differences are a part of American society and have been since we gave the first small pox blanket to the Indians. We didn't start out on a good foot there but I believe for the most part we've made great strides in making a place for people to come here and live out their dreams. Is it harder for someone of a different background to come here and succeed? I don't think so, if we are truly rising above prejudices and teaching in a manner that asks a child to look within themselves to achieve what they want from life. Lead them and encourage them to reach levels never before thought possible, they will. If on the other hand we make excuses and exceptions for a child, force them to point out all the ways they are different, many of them will leave with a reduced sense of themselves. Let's be clear I am not saying a child shouldn't be proud of where they come from or that a child should shrug off their heritage for the sake of the accepted Anglo-Saxon traditions. I'm saying the choices to do so should be theirs, not part of some show in class so that the teacher can feel good about promoting differences. I truly think in a lot of cases this will do more harm than good, especially if a teacher is unfamiliar with the accepted practices of other ethnicity's. I think we as teachers should learn about other cultures if for no other reason to find out what drives them, what makes them tick. But we should do it to help lead those children in class, not to point out to the others in class how they are "Not like us".

Question : How will you become an effective multicultural teacher? What teaching methods will you use to guarantee you are effective with your students?

I think I've already covered this, but I plan to teach students, not cultures. I believe every student just wants to be treated the same, regardless of differences in background. People from all over the world come here to enjoy our freedoms and learn from us. While we have much to learn from them I think we do it without placing the onus on them to explain their views, beliefs or customs. Children are sometimes awful and pointing out additional differences will sometimes only make it harder on a student who may already be experiencing alienation from peers because of the obvious differences. My teaching method will be to expect greatness from each child. By setting the bar high, but making goals achievable, you set them up for success rather than failure. The most important thing to a middle school child I believe is self-confidence. And by giving them goals they may think are out of reach but encouraging them to try harder and do more and ensuring success you will build a foundation of success they will take with them throughout life.

My educational blog, http://jenniferbarnett.edublogs.org/2007/08/23/letting-your-student-transform-you/, seems to cover a lot of topics about real world teaching. It is mostly observations she has made in teaching. From the need to adjust practices and teaching styles for a given class. She talks about her struggles to find time to go into deeper discussion with the class because of her need to stay on the basic vocabulary for the classes sake. It seems to me a real eye opener, in that, regardless of plans, regardless of want to, the kids in the class, and their abilities are going to dictate how much or how far a class delves into any one subject. Her solution to this one problem was to look outside herself and turn to technology. She found Quizlet, http://quizlet.com/, which was created by a kid who had a hard time with his own vocab. It is now the most fun part of the day for the kids and they actually learn the material. This is an example of teachers thinking outside the box, realizing they may not have all the tools necessary and finding them for the sake of those she teaches. I hope to be able to admit I may not have all the answers and be willing to look outside for help, for my own sake and that of the kids.