Take your position pg 203

I can't really say that I completely agree or disagree with the emphasis on essential knowledge and standards. There are so many pros and cons to this situation. It does seem like the students now know less then the students 10 even 20 years ago. So I have to ask is because we are not teaching the essential or is it the way teachers are forced to teach the essentials.
I think that every student should have a database of essential knowledge and I think standards help teachers keep on track. I don't think that some students can function productively in real life situations without a mastery of the basics. And I do believe that it is the teacher's responsibility to guide the student in this mastery. But i also think that education officials have taken essential knowledge and standards to an extreme. I believe that standards are a good guide but everything has to be connected to them know. All we are doing is pounding information into the students and hoping that they will be able to regurgitate the information in order to raise percentage rates so that the country will be able to congratulate themselves on good education system. Then when those percentage rates aren't high enough we punish everybody by essentially taking away educational resources.
In this new "standards based knowledge" we have forgotten to incorporate real world education that all students need and that is frankly, more relevant to some school communities, especially those of urban schools. Most of these students are not interested in a bunch of facts whether they need to know them or not. They are concerned with other problems, like if they are going to have anything to eat or if there is going to be enough rent money. We need to not forget life skills in our teaching. We need to show students how to succeed and teachers may be the only persons in some of these students lives who can help them succeed and survive. We need to equip students with essential knowledge and essential life skills by putting equal emphasis on both.

exercise 2.1B

For an icebreaker and a personal info gatherer, to reach all the modalities, I would have everyone stand in a circle with a ball. I would start by telling my name and about myself then I would throw the ball to another student and they would have to tell something about themselves including their name. I would make sure I specified to make the information PG-13.

1. I went to public school from K-2 then 3-6 were in a private school. After that I was home schooled for junior and senior high.
2. The school was small because me and my sister were the only students.
3. There isn't anything in particular that sticks out the most. The social events through my secondary years were probably the best since I wasnt around students my own age on a daily basis.
4. I remember everything about my teacher because she is my Mom.
5. I wasn't with other students daily but the other home schoolers I remember were, for the most part, very quiet.
6. My over all school life was busy. I did my school, I was involved with a few sports and I also had a job. Then in my senior year of high school I was able to complete my freshmen year of college. I also considered that a plus about my schooling situation. I ended up graduating college a year early.
7/8. I cant really answer these two questions because they don't apply to my situation.
9. I didn't really run into peer pressure but parental pressure was intense.I loved school and my parents knew that so they made it clear that my best was an A and I shouldn't let myself slip below my potential.

Video

This is a neat video that students made about the symbolism in the book The Lord of the Flies, which is another required trade book that high schoolers have to read. It would be a neat idea for students to make report this way and this video could be used as an example.

Video

This is a great parody situation on Hamlet on how it might of been created. Something fun for the student to see in relation to the play.

Video

This video I made for my previous class to use with the book The Giver. This book is standard in the High School curriculum. It would something fun to help solidify what the book was about.

Jeopardy

Personally, I really hate PPT. I do not like giving PPT presentations  and I dont like listening to them. Most of the time it seems like people just read the slides and I could do that myself. I am really glad to find a more interesting way to use PPT. I really like the Jeopardy game and I think that secondary students will really enjoy it. I was also glad to find out about the action buttons. Making remedial activities will be useful as well.