what I value in a teacher

A lot of teachers think that the only way they can teach is by standing in front of a class and lecture it seems and it makes the class not interesting and makes students not care because it gives off the impression that the teacher does not care about the students. This makes students not want to do homework and not try on class assignments which can effect their grade. What I value in a teacher is that they know how to connect and engage with the students. It makes it harder to learn if they are boring and seem like they have no interest in you as a student.it makes it easier if the teacher is not all business and know how to make the class fun but still have structure in the class and still play the role as a teacher. I feel students pay more attention and learn better that way because they don’t want to fall asleep in class because it not interesting or talk the whole time to their friend because the teacher doesn’t care and there is no structure. If students truly enjoy the class for these reasons they are more likely to succeed in the class and have better grades.

Audre Lorde: comparing and contrasting teachers

Audre Lorde story was very interesting. I thought that her talking about how catholic schools talked about public schools were very much how people who go to public schools see catholic schools. Mrs. Baker changed the way Audre acted and I think that is very important to a child who feels like her parents can’t connect to her. I think Audre felt like Mrs. Baker made that connection. Mrs. Baker praise Audre when she did well and got excited when she learned to do new things that Audre hadn’t been rewarded for in the past. To a 5 year old that is important. Miss Teacher, on the other hand, seemed like she didn’t want to understand Audre’s needs and was stubborn about her ways of teaching and was willing to embarrass Audre into doing something she couldn’t do. How the article helped me was it gave me an idea of how to organize my second paper.it showed me how to compare and contrast teachers in a different way: by telling a story. I found this article very useful and will try to use its format in my second paper.

thought on Ken Robbinson's speech

Education prepares us for an unknown future because we don’t know what jobs will be available in the future. Ken Robinson says that human creativity is squashed as we get older but people who teach us it is wrong to fail. If we are afraid to fail then our creativity starts to go away.  People teach kids that they should have a career in mathematics or English because they are what create good jobs. Ken talked about a little girl who was really fidgety in class and she couldn’t think without moving so her mom took her to a physiologist and the physiologist told her mom that she was a dancer and later in life she became a famous chorographer. Now they would have diagnosed her with ADHD and put her on a pill to calm her down. Ken says that students who say they aren’t good at school and aren’t smart actually are but we focus on other subjects when they maybe good at something more artistic. The arts programs in school are the lowest paid programs. Ken thinks that they should be just as important in the school system. I agree with him and found his speech very insightful.

"Stand and Deliver" obsevations

In the first part of the film I noticed that when the teacher first walked in the room students were doing and saying whatever they wanted to and didn't care about learning. The teachers started joking around with them and would break the ice with a fraction activity that included using cut up apples. When students started to notice that the teacher cared about their learning by talking to their parents and talking about them going to college the students started to care more. In a course of 2 years the student went from 7th grade math to learning calculus and trying to get college credit. One of the things I didn’t like about the teacher was that sometimes he went too far with his jokes and hurt his students when we would talk about their personal lives. I feel that those kinds of conversations belong outside of the math classroom. I did like that he tried to connect to each student and help them succeed as an individual no matter how much they didn’t believe in themselves. He tries to make each student feel like he or she can go to school and have a career no matter their background or the color of their skin. He is a teacher that puts his students over himself and is will to work extra hard to make sure his students get the best possible education.

learning country music

Being a five year old girl with an older sister who doesn’t live with you makes you want to be like them. You want to watch the same movies as them and have the same friends as them but in my case I wanted to sing the music the music my sister Brittany, or as I call her; Britt, did. Britt and I were very close when she would stay with us and I think part of that reason is because we shared a room when she would come to visit for the summer or Christmas. We would have to deal with (and learn to like…as our parents would say) sharing dresser space and the space of the room. Britt is three years older than me so I thought it was cool to have my older sister stay with me (until I was around the age of seven) even though she probably thought I was the most annoying person on the planet.

When I was five Brittany came to visit for the summer like she always would and at the time she was involved in doing beauty pageants. Part of doing beauty pageants is coming up with routines to perform at the competitions. I remember sometimes she would perform her talent acts to my parents but I would never pay much attention to them because I was either outside playing or I didn’t want to sit still but one night I was tired and bored so I sat down with my parents to watch her perform a song named “Why Haven’t I Heard From You” by Reba Mcentire.

I always knew that she could sing because she would sing in the shower or make my stuffed strawberry shortcake pillow sing “My Little Sunshine” when I would go to bed at night, but I had never heard her sing with purpose in front of me like she was standing on a stage. She sounded beautiful with a rich voice that seemed to have as much character as the expressions on her face. I was awed by the performance and only wanted to hear more of this thing she called “country music.”  I had always learned the simple nursery rhymes in school and the songs that we sang in church but had never really been interested in other types of music until Britt performed that day.

The next day, I asked Britt when she woke up if she would teach me how to sing like her so she sat me down at the kitchen table with a printed copy of lyrics and taught me the words of the song by having me recite the phrases back to her. After I had the basic idea of what the words were she got our dad’s stereo and got a white CD with the title “Read My Mind” out of our room. At first I listened to the song. The voice on the CD was much different from Brittany’s. It had a lot more rasp and had a deeper southern accent and was amazed to find I loved the sound of it. Brittany taught me the arrangement of the notes and by the end of the night I knew the chorus of the song. Every day that week I worked on the song and listened to it over and over again. By the end of the week I had the song memorized and perfected it as much as a five year old can and I was so proud of myself. I loved the way Reba sang it and I loved how I could add rasp and be powerful with the lyrics.  About a week after that Britt asked me to sing her and my parents the song because she knew I was excited about learning it. After I was done singing my parents’ jaws seem to hit the floor. My mom said I sounded like a mini Brittany and never thought I would be able to sing too. When Brittany left she accidently left the CD at our house and I slowly began to learn the other songs on the CD. I was hooked on country music.

Fast forward three years to the audition section of American Idol season four. I was sitting in the living room with my Disney princess blanket eating a bowl of strawberry ice cream. As I watch the screen a small town girl from Checotah, Oklahoma with an accent that would be noticeable from anywhere. As my eyes became glued to the TV and the rest of my family disappeared she started to sing, “I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Bonnie Riatt. It wasn’t a traditional country song but this girl added a recognizable tone to it that had made me an excited eight-year-old girl. I told my parents right then and there that she would win the competition.  They didn’t believe me because there were other good singers but all my faith was in this small town girl. A few months later my prediction came true, Carrie Underwood was standing on stage with a smile on her face and tears of joy running down her cheeks. she was a true inspiration and automatically became my all time favorite country artist. About 6 months after that I was learning all the music off her first CD and trying to perfect every song like I had with the Reba Mcentire album. I listened and knew the songs so well that my mom took me to her concert the following summer. I had told myself I wanted to be like her when I grew up.

To this day I still listen to and love country music. It’s actually the only type of music on my IPod. I love singing with the southern twang and even though I have done musical theatre and sang more technically, something always bring me back to the raspy, heartwarming sound of country because that’s where my voice started and where I am comfortable.  If it wasn’t for my sister singing a Reba song eleven years ago and Carrie Underwood being the first country artist to win idol and go on to inspiring success.  I would not love country music as much as I do today. Country music has made a large impact me because it was the type of music I listened to all through my childhood. My mom listened to oldies, my dad listened to classic rock, and a few years later my sister moved to listening to pop music and punk and my younger sister, Sierra, has always like pop music over all. I’ve tried to like other kinds of music but I always find myself changing the radio to the country station. The dream to record and perform country music still lives today. I work on about 5 different songs a week and sometimes record them on my computer. The dream may stay a dream, but if it weren’t for Reba, Carrie, and most importantly, Britt I would not be as connected to music or be as good of a singer as I am today, and for that I am forever grateful.

learning country music (rough draft)

Being a five year old girl with an older sister who doesn’t live with you makes you want to be like them. You want to watch the same movies as them and have the same friends as them but in my case I wanted to sing the music the music my sister Brittany, or as I call her; Britt, did.

Britt and I were very close when she would stay with us and I think part of that reason is because we shared a room when she would come to visit for the summer or Christmas. We would have to deal with (and learn to like…as our parents would say) sharing dresser space and the space of the room. Britt is three years older than me so I thought it was cool to have my older sister stay with me (until I was around the age of seven) even though she probably thought I was the most annoying person on the planet.

When I was five Brittany came to visit for the summer like she always would and at the time she was involved in doing beauty pageants. Part of doing beauty pageants is coming up with routines to perform at the competitions. I remember sometimes she would perform her talent acts to my parents but I would never pay much attention to them because I was either outside playing or I didn’t want to sit still but one night I was tired and bored so I sat down with my parents to watch her perform a song named “Why Haven’t I Heard From You” by Reba Mcentire.

I always knew that she could sing because she would sing in the shower or make my stuffed strawberry shortcake pillow sing “My Little Sunshine” when I would go to bed at night, but I had never heard her sing with purpose in front of me like she was standing on a stage. She sounded beautiful with a rich voice that seemed to have as much character as the expressions on her face. I was awed by the performance and only wanted to hear more of this thing she called “country music.”  I had always learned the simple nursery rhymes in school and the songs that we sang in church but had never really been interested in other types of music until Britt performed that day. The next day, I asked Britt when she woke up if she would teach me how to sing like her so she sat me down at the kitchen table with a printed copy of lyrics and taught me the words of the song by having me recite the phrases back to her. After I had the basic idea of what the words were she got our dads stereo and got the CD out. At first I listened to the song. The voice on the CD was much different from Brittany’s. It had a lot more rasp and had a deeper southern accent and was amazed to find I loved the sound of it. Brittany taught me the arrangement of the notes and by the end of the night I knew the chorus of the song. Every day that week I worked on the song and listened to it over and over again. By the end of the week I had the song memorized and perfected it as much as a five year old can and I was so proud of myself. I loved the way Reba sang it and I loved how I could add rasp and be powerful with the lyrics.  About a week after that Britt asked me to sing her and my parents the song because she knew I was excited about learning it. After I was done singing my parents’ jaws seem to hit the floor. My mom said I sounded like a mini Brittany and never thought I would be able to sing too. When Brittany left she accidently left the CD at our house and I slowly began to learn the other songs on the CD. I was hooked on country music.

To this day I still listen to and love country music. It’s actually the only type of music on my IPod. I love singing with the southern twang and even though I have done musical theatre and sang more technically, something always bring me back to the raspy, heartwarming sound of country.  If it wasn’t for my sister singing a Reba song eleven years ago I would not love country music as much as I do today and the memory of her teaching me to sing “Why Haven’t I Heard from You”  always comes to mind when I listen to Reba and puts a smile on my face.

main idea of my narrative paper... learning country music

Having a sister who is three years older than you that doesn’t live with you when you’re a five year old girl means that you want to be like them and do the things they do. My older sister Brittany, who lived with her mom in South Carolina, came to visit every summer and every other Christmas. We shared a room when she was here which meant we were very close and also meant I would annoy her to death. Brittany, when she was younger, was in beauty pageants and was really good at them. She won many categories like beauty and talent. I remember seeing my sister… who was from the south… performing a song in the living room to my parents. To me, it was the best performance I had ever seen and left me wanting to sing with a twang that filled people ears with a sweet heartfelt sound. At a young age I knew the simple song that I would learn in school like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and Mary Had a Little Lamb” but had not really paid attention to any certain type of music. She sang “Why Haven’t I Heard from You” by Reba Mcentire and I was hooked on country music.