Stand and Deliver (Part 1)

Good Teaching: Mr. Escalante is very playful and does not get intimidated easily. This is displayed when he first starts teaching, in the scene where the gang members come into the classroom. In this scene they enter the classroom and attempt to intimidate Mr. Escalante. However, Mr. Escalante was not intimidated and diffused the situation by making them take their seats.

                Mr. Escalante is also very good at engaging his students, and we saw this in the “chef” scene. He used a creative and visual way to engage his students and teach them about fractions. He dressed up as a chef and brought a knife into class, which definitely caught the attention of his students. He cut apples into various fractions and had the students identify what fraction of an apple they had.

Bad Teaching: Mendoza (the lady in charge at the staff meetings) displayed bad teaching in the staff meeting scene. In this scene we saw how she had no confidence in her students. She says that she “believes they will fail and have their self-esteem shattered”.

                Mr. Escalante also displays a little bit of bad teaching in the scene where the “hair net kid” arrives late to class, because he took his grandmother to the doctors. In the this scene the kid walks in and Mr. Escalante tells him the counselor is looking for him and to have fun in pottery(?). It’s good teaching to be hard on students about tardies and absences, but in this scene it was too hard. When it comes to family emergencies or illnesses there should be a little bit of leeway.

Paper 1 - Educational Narrative Final Draft

How I learned to snowboard

            I started snowboarding when I was in ninth grade, so when I was about fourteen years old. Many of my friends participated in ski school, which was offered through our junior high and high school. I had seen how much fun they had, so I decided to give it a try. Ski school was on Saturdays and they started very early in the morning. We had to be to the bus by 5:00 am so we could make it up to the mountain and have plenty of time for snowboarding.

            The first Saturday of ski school is the one I remember the most. Being a teenager I loved to sleep in, so getting up at 4 am was not the most ideal situation. However I wanted to learn to snowboard, so I got up and made it to the bus on time. The bus ride to Stevens Pass was about 3 hours and in order to save time we had to change into our ski clothes on the bus. Being almost six feet tall at the time this was rather difficult, because I hardly had enough room to get everything on. Although, it did prove to save time and before I knew it I was off the bus and ready to get on the mountain.

Thankfully, as a part of ski school I had lessons and that was the first thing we did. The lessons were about two hours long and because I was in the beginner’s class and it was everyone’s first time snowboarding, we started by learning how to get up. When you stand up on a snowboard you almost immediately start moving, so even though this sounds pretty simple, it proved to be rather difficult. The first fifteen to twenty attempts, I would stand up and within ten seconds fall right back down to the ground where I had started. Eventually I got the hang of standing up. The next thing we learned was how to go down the mountain. This was way more difficult than standing up, because it required us to maintain balance while moving and to control where we were going. Unfortunately for this first lesson we were only able to learn a little bit of this, because after about forty five minutes of it our lesson was over.

            After my lesson I met up with some of my friends who had already done ski school for a couple of years and we went to lunch. This was exactly what I needed, after just a couple hours of snowboarding I was already tired, and this let me recharge my batteries. However, little did I know that how I would really learn to snowboard was still to come. You see after lunch I went out with my friends, but they did not want to go on the boring beginner runs that I had been doing and was more comfortable with. They wanted me to go with them and told me I’d do fine on some of the intermediate runs. Now don’t forget this was my first day ever on a snowboard and intermediate runs were steeper, longer, and had narrower trails than beginner ones. The thought of going on an intermediate run was intimidating and felt like I was attempting an expert run. I was definitely uncertain about it, but after talking with my friends, they somehow convinced me to go.

            The first challenge I had to deal with on the intermediate run was the chair lift. The hard part about chair lifts for snowboarders is getting off, because we only have one foot strapped in. It is very easy for your other foot to slip off and make you fall right in front of the other people getting off at the same time. The difficulty was the speed of the chair lift, because on the beginner run the chair lift was much slower and gave me more time to get off. Now I was on a much faster lift and one that felt like it hardly slowed down so I could get off. So I was very worried and of course fell as I got off.

            After falling, I moved to the side, strapped my other foot in, and was ready to go. My trip down the mountain took about a half an hour due to my constant falling. I honestly couldn't tell you how many times I fell on that run, but it was definitely a lot. I fell so many times that I found myself getting frustrated and thought that when I finally get down the mountain I was never going up again. However, I did notice as I got farther down the mountain I was learning from each of my falls. I found myself able to stay up just a little bit longer than when I started the run. My progress at the time felt painstakingly slow, but it was progress.

When I finally reached the bottom and met my friends, who had made it down the mountain in about five minutes, they told me to go again. I was very hesitant, because of how much I fell on the first run. However, I realized that falling was a part of learning, so I agreed and went back up. I fell even fewer times the second time down the run, which was very encouraging, so I continued to go down it all day. Each time falling less and improving my snowboarding skills.

            The reason this experience was significant to me was because I didn't just learn to snowboard that day. I learned that not giving up is important and can make you successful. I also learned that sometimes taking a risk, which was going down the intermediate run in my case, can be frustrating, yet rewarding. If I hadn't gone down that run I would not have learned to snowboard as fast as I did. I would probably have stayed on the beginner run and learned at a much slower rate. The saying “you learn by doing” was absolutely true in my case. 

Paper 1 Rough Draft

How I learned to snowboard

            I started snowboarding when I was in ninth grade, so when I was about fourteen years old. Many of my friends participated in ski school, which was offered through my school, and I had seen how much fun they had, so I decided to give it a try. Ski school was on Saturdays and they started very early in the morning. We had to be to the bus by 5:00 am so we could make it up to the mountain and have plenty of time for snowboarding.

            The First Saturday of ski school is the one I remember the most. Being a teenager I loved to sleep, so getting up at 4 am was not the most ideal situation. However I wanted to learn to snowboard, so I got up and made it to the bus on time. The bus ride to Stevens Pass was about 3 hours and in order to save time we had to change into our ski clothes on the bus. Being almost six feet at the time this was rather difficult because I hardly had enough room to get everything on. Although it did prove to save time and before I knew it I was off the bus and ready to get on the mountain.

Thankfully as a part of ski school I had lessons and that was the first thing we did. The lessons were about two hours long and because it was my, and everyone else in the groups, first time snowboarding we first learned how to get up. When you stand up on a snowboard you almost immediately start moving, so even though this sounds pretty simple, it proved to be rather difficult. For probably the first fifteen to twenty attempts I would stand up and within ten seconds have fallen right back to the ground where I had started. Eventually I got the hang of standing up, so we moved onto the next thing, which was to learn how to go down the mountain. This was way more difficult than standing up and took numerous lessons, because it required us to maintain balance while moving and to control where we were going. Unfortunately for this first lesson we were only able to learn a little bit of this because after about forty five minutes of it our lesson was over.

            After my lesson I met up with some of my friends who had already done ski school for a couple of years and we went to get lunch. This was exactly what I needed because after just a couple hours of snowboarding I was already tired and this let me recharge my batteries. However, little did I know that how I would really learn to snowboard was still to come. You see after lunch I went out with my friends but they did not want to go on the beginner runs that I had been doing and was more comfortable with. They wanted me to go with them and told me I’d do fine on some of the intermediates. Now don’t forget this was my first day ever so the thought of going on an intermediate run felt like doing an expert run. I was definitely uncertain about it, but after doing some talking my friends somehow convinced me to go.

            The first challenge I had to deal with on the intermediate run was the chair lift. The hard part about chair lifts for snowboarders is getting off because we only have one foot strapped in. It is very easy for your other foot to slip off and make you fall right in front of other people that are getting off at the same time. The difficulty was the speed of the chair lift, because on the beginner run the chair lift was much slower and gave me more time to get off. Now I was on a much faster lift and one that felt like it hardly slowed down so I could get off. So getting off I was very worried and of course fell.

            I got back up, strapped my other foot in and was ready to go. My trip down the mountain took about a half an hour due to my constant falling. I honestly couldn't tell you how many times I fell on that run, but it was definitely a lot. I fell so many times that I got frustrated and thought to myself that when I finally get down the mountain I was never going up again. Although I did notice as I got farther down the mountain I was learning from each of my falls and was able to stay up just a little bit longer than at the beginning. My progress at the time felt painstakingly slow, but it was progress. When I finally reached the bottom and met my friends, who had made it down the mountain in about five minutes, they told me to go again. I was very unsure because of all my falling but I realized that falling was a part of learning, so I agreed and went back up three more times that day.

            The reason this experience was significant to me was because I didn't just learn to snowboard that day. I also learned that not giving is important and can be successful. I also learned that sometimes taking a risk, going down the intermediate run in my case, can be rewarding. If I hadn't gone down that run I would not have learned to snowboard as fast as I did. I would probably have probably stayed on the beginner run and learned at a much slower rate. The saying you learn by doing was absolutely true in my case. 

Notes from Ken Robinson video

• He was interested in education
• all kids have tremendous talent
• kids aren't frightened of being wrong
• If you're not prepared to be wrong you will not come up with something original
• we are educating people out of their creativeness
• All education around the world has a hierarchy of education:

             mathematics
             humanities
            Art

• In the next 30 years more people will graduate from a university than in past history
• A degree is no longer worth anything. It used to be that if you had a degree you could get a job, but that is no longer true.
• we need to rethink the fundamentals in which we educate our children

"How I Learned to Love Solo-Travel" by Cate Huston

            “How I Learned to Love Solo-Travel” is a blog about the author’s past experiences travelling solo. Not only is this an educational narrative but it’s also a travel guide. There are bullet points throughout the blog providing tips to the reader on how to make travelling alone easier. Tips such as, “stay somewhere comfortable”, “morning/afternoon/evening – pick two”, and “it’s not the trip, it’s a trip”, I know are all good tips based on my own personal experience. I have been on trips before where just about every minute of our trip was planned out, starting early in the morning and ending late at night. Now while this does allow you to do much more of the touristy things it is exhausting and not very relaxing. So I definitely could relate to the advice she gave and strongly agree with it. 

            The fact that this blog gave advice is similar to some of the previous ones we have read because they also gave advice. In “How I Learned to Program Computers” Feross tells the reader if you want to learn computer programming then just start building stuff and take some computer programming classes. In “How I learned to Live Google Free” Romero tells the reader which websites he thought were good replacements, or even the ones he thought were better than Google. 

Malcolm X’s Narrative vs. Mike Rose’s

I enjoyed reading both of these stories. Malcolm’s narrative was about how he learned to read and become a better writer. He talks about the struggles he had expressing himself the way he wanted to and what he did to change that. The first thing he did was copy the entire dictionary! That is crazy! But he was determined and in the end, along with the constant reading he did, it made a huge impact on his life by making him a better reader and writer.

            Mike Rose’s narrative was about the time he spent in the vocational track while attending school. The vocational track was “the bottom level”; it was for the students that the school defined as “slow”. It was designed to teach the students skills they would need to be successful in the workplace, but he discusses how in his case it did very little, and was designed more to occupy the students.

            In both narratives they each started from low points but through determination, personal motivation, and education they broke societal expectations. Malcolm became a very famous and successful human rights activist and Mike Rose went on to become a highly successful professor and writer. They both proved that you truly can do anything you’re determined to do.

Pre-writing

Writing has never been something I truly enjoy so in the past I haven’t really done much pre-writing. Usually writing just consists of me sitting down in front of my computer, creating sentences.  I would write whatever I could think of and then try to continue to build off of what I had just written. My success with this was decent because eventually I could get to the point where I had a complete paper. Although the downside was it always proved to be very time consuming.

                For this class and for future writing I may have, my plan is to do some pre-writing that is visual, such as an outline.  I think this approach will help make the writing less time consuming. What I am going to try is to come up with a topic and then brainstorm ideas that are related. I believe this will be more efficient, because when I sit down to do the actual writing, I will have a framework of what I wanted to cover and in what order.

“How I learned to Program Computers” and “How I learned to Live Google Free”

After reading “How I learned to Program Computers” and “How I learned to Live Google Free” I had a better sense of how my narrative paper should be modeled. I noticed and really appreciated that both were composed of many short paragraphs, rather than just a few long ones. I thought this was a good format because it was easier to remember the content of each paragraph, therefore making it easier to remember the whole narrative. Since I realize that the content of a paper with long paragraphs can get lost, I will format my paper with shorter paragraphs.

            Also, interesting to me was that in both narratives the use of quotes was limited. There were a few used within each one, but for some reason I just expected there to be more since they were narratives. However, noticing this made me understand you don’t need too many quotes to write a good narrative, so I will keep that in mind when writing my first paper.

One of the most important things I've ever learned

One of the most important things I ever learned was customer service. This may seem weird at first but the reason for this is because learning customer service helped me be successful at my first job. It also helped me in general as well. I apply what I learned to everyday interactions. Things like how not to make people mad or how to deal with people that are mad at you without losing your cool and how to be helpful to other people is useful in any situation.  

First Post

Test post.