I came across this video while I was looking for videos about learning in post modern society and I found it very interesting. Mainly, video is about effects of technology on education of American youth but still there are insights into the role of students in 21st century society in general. It maybe useful to watch .

Information Bombardment

         Hi again,

     I am writing this post in the middle of the night. The reason why I do that because I really feel woozy and I need to share how I feel because I think maybe it can help me .

     For couple of days, I am doing research about my exam paper for classroom management class. At the beginning, rough draft of my thesis was something like "Education and every element of it changes or should change when the society changes". I liked my thesis because it is easy to prove and it is what I believe and also to prove my thesis I needed to look through the other social sciences, which I am interested in very much, like sociology, psychology or philosophy. Later, I begin to think about what to include in my paper. As my teacher guided me, I decided to begin with the conditions of present day society so that I could see the most important changes that society undergoes or paramount problems that are faced. Than I began my research. When I found a source related, I discovered something new that I want to mention,and again I started a new research and then I found something else that I want to add and I started a new researh. This continued like this. Now I have a lot of things to include but I cannot decide which one is the most important. I want to include all of them but I cant but what I discovered is I learned a lot from my research on my own. While I was trying to find articles, books, news or any useful source for my topic I felt I am bombarded with knowledge and from my that experince I arrived at a conclusion that we are in the knowledge age and information  is everywhere. The only source is not the teacher. Maybe the most important thing that we can teach to our students can be learning to learn so that we can show them the way to knowledge and give freedom to learn what they want. Moreover, to teach them to think critically can be another aspect of that approach. If they have ability to think critically, they can differenciate and select what is right or what is wrong.

                                                         In conclusion, as teachers, it seemed more reasonable to me to encourage students to take responsibilty for their own learning because I think today's conditions  requires being active learners. As the time changes, the change in the role of student or learner is inevitable. That is it for now. (I will go on searching )  :)

Pronunciation

  Hi,
Today in English Class, we spent time working on pronunciation and I would like to share this video with you. That funny video is a sample of how pronunciation mistakes can cause problems for you. Hope you enjoy it :))

Classroom Atmosphere in Classroom Management Class

     In this post, I would like to talk about the classroom athmosphere in my classroom management class.  The reason why I have chosen that topic to talk about is my satisfaction and dissatisfaction related to my expectations from the class.

     Firstly, I think that the teacher of the class is an experinced person or at least he knows how to deal with the class, he is good at that classroom management. He is also very good at observing and analysing the students. Most of the time he uses techniques that force students to work together and he tries to make mixed groups. For example, we rarely worked with the same people again and again. He listens and cares us. He wants us to make connections between what we have learned as theory and how we can apply that knowledge. He uses different kind of activities all the time and it is not something ordinary for me to join that class because I like experiencing new things. Before the lesson I always wonder what he is going to want us to do. I do not feel pressure in his class, I feel free to attend or contribute whenever I want. I do not feel nervous because of the idea that anytime he can ask questions directly to me about a specific knowledge. He never does it which I like most because I do not attend to the classes like this as it is my responsibilty to study or it is my wish to participate or  share my ideas with the teacher. When I am not forced to do anything, if the teacher is talking about something interesting I listen and join, and most of the time in classroom management class,  I do so because I like this way of teaching.

     Secondly, the teacher is aware of our needs as he wanted us to maintain objectives for the course. In a democratic way, we tried to write what we want to learn from that class. Even though we couldn’t agree about formulating it, we roughly stated our main objectives. To state again, for me, the most important objective is to be able to understand the principles that rules the education system of Europe and to gain a global perpective about education and classroom management. In our classes with Danish students, my expectations and needs were satisfied because I could see the differences in a multicultural class and I could see Danish students’  points of view as a part of European society. For example, one day we watched an interview about education in Europe. We were in the class  as Turkish students and Danish students were there too and we listened a German professor Thomas Ziehe whose main field is youth research, focussed on impacts of cultural modernizations and subse-quent changes in youth mentalities and learning environments, talking about the youth and effects of social changes in education system of Europe. The interview was in English, we all listened and later discussed about what we think and even  prepared a poster together  in groups. That experience was so inspiring for me because it was so different, I liked it so much. I felt really special. It was so nice for me.

     On the other hand, when it comes to our classes that we take alone as international students, there are some problems for me. The first problem is that we are eight Turkish students from different parts of Turkey and a student from Holland. It is not that much multicultural for me and when sometimes our Deutch friend doesn’t come to the class, we are just Turkish students in the class. It is like taking the same class abroad even though the teacher or his style is different. Turkey is a big country both in terms of largeness  of the land and the number of  the population. It is normal for us not to agree about our ideas because it differs according to our backgrounds, our family or our experiences. For example, what one states cannot be valid for anywhere or any condition. The things change according to place where people live or their social status or many other reasons. Most of the time I dont agree with my friends and I dont want our teacher to get a wrong impression about the society or the education system in Turkey  because there are a few things that cen be generalized. I also dont want to be in a position who always adds somethings or opposes or corrects the the generalizations that are made about Turkey by my friends. I know I dont have to critize what others say or state what I dont agree about but I cannot leave it like that because it is not right.

     The other and the most important problem for me is  that, my friends are in the mood of complaining about education system in Turkey all the time. I can understand, it is very normal to compare and contrast because we are going to apply the knowledge that we gain here in Turkey but this not just comparing. Most of the time it is complaining. Yes, there are some problems in Turkey, like in all societies, we should be aware of that problems and maybe try to find solutions but that should not be in the form of complaining like depressed people who repeats the same things over and over. When I hear that I get bored and angry because we are not the government here who is going to solve the problems, we can think about it to some extent but we do not have power the change everything here so it is useless and nonsense to talk about same things and especially problems all the time. I also thing that everthing should be assesed in its own circumstances. All of the societies cannot be same and  cannot be criticized from the same point of view in the same way . I dont like hearing my friends talking as if they have never experienced anything good in that society or education system because I dont hear much about the positive sides of our education system. I dont want to waste my time listening that kind of statements or the things I know very well, I want to learn something new.

     I dont know what can be done about that or I dont know if something should be done or not but I just wanted to share how I feel about the atmosphere in the class. I hope in the second term we can be in a multicultural classroom with different students from all over the Europe and I can learn different things. I hope I can achieve my goals about gaining a global perpective in the second term.I think that it will be interesting. We will wait and  see. Thats all for now.

Caring in Schools

        Hi,

     Last week, we had our classroom management class with Peter. Our topic was generally about caring. We reviwed the ideas about being caring  in a classroom and discussed the distance between a teacher and a student. We talked about where the privacy starts and the professional domain which is accountable as publicly ends for a teacher. We also mentioned our thoughts about being transparent in relationships between students  and teachers.

     Now, I would like to restate my opinion. I think everybody wants to be cared as that is a universal need  and I agree that caring students increases the success. I agree the idea that today,  if,  for whatever reasons families cannot meet the needs for caring, other institutions must fill the need. As educaters, we must take public responsibility for raising healty, competent, and happy children. Like Noddings, I also think that schools cannot achieve their academic goals without providing caring and continuity for students.

      According to German philosopher Martin Heidegger, a caring relation is, in its most basic form, a connection or encounter between two human beings ; a carer and a cared-for. In order for the relation to be properly called caring both parties must contribute to it. It is said that sometimes even though teachers care very much , students still claim that “They dont care!” , the reason for this when the caring is not received, it is not comleted and this cannot be called caring. Reception, recognition, and response seem to be primary to charecterize the consiousness of one who is cared for . After receving the care,and recognising , if it is responded then the process can be called completed. At the other side, for a carer, caring is more than motivational displacement which is the sense that our motive energy is flowing toward others and their projects. For example, think that, we are students at university who know the city and the facilities very well. One of our exchange students who is new and does not know a lot about city says that s/he is so bored and asks us what to do as social activity. When we begin to think about the social activities to participate in the city for that person , this is motivational displacement, when we suggest an idea to help that person get rid of this problem, that is caring .That is to say, when the carer does something to help, then it is called caring and I think that we need that kind of caring teachers these days.

     Some people argue or worry that, that kind of relationship puts to much burden on teachers and very little on the students. I dont agree because the roles in that kind of  relationship is not stable. Caring is mutual. When teacher cares  students and if students response, in this case both parties contribute to caring each other. It is not only students who needs to be cared all the time but also teachers by students. That behaviour creates a positive and open communication athmosphere in classroom.

     Personally, I would like to have that kind of teacher. A teacher who really cares me, my ideas, my needs and feelings. If I knew that, teacher cares me, I would do the same for my teacher and that is what I generally do. When I see that teacher cares me, I feel a strong sense of responsibility for my teacher because s/he does not have to do this and  and I know that  requires a great devotion to teaching. I love my teachers who behave in that way but I dont like the others who do not care students. There are some teachers who see teaching as only a job to get salary that does not require so much effort. They choose the easy way, they come to class, give the lesson, ask questions and leave it. They do not give importance to the other side,I mean students , and I do not like them and I also do not like the ones who tries to be cool and acts as if s/he does know a lot then us and thinks that s/he is the best or the most important person about that subject or anything because they tend to ignore our existence as individuals who have different ideas, characters, feelings and perpectives.I do not respect them as teachers.

     However, what I declare is not being too much close to each other. I still think that neither teachers nor students should be transparant. Caring does not mean to be too much close,  to me. I think that keeping the distance is still good idea, as I stated before ,and as  Thomas Ziehe suggests, a teacher should be someone who is active, pretty much engaged, and tries to understand the students but a teacher should not be trasparant or should not expect the students to be so. In our classroom management class, we discussed some cases. Mine was a teacher who invites his best students to his home and has parties with his students and lets them to drink alcohol etc. The teacher’s  intention was to make his new students to communicate with his old students because he invites both of them but later he was critisezed by his collegues and I think his collegues were right. As a teacher when you invite your students to your private place, like your home, and have parties together and drink, I think, here the privacy starts and the professional domain which is accountable as publicly ends for a teacher. He could have organized a party in a public place, like, maybe at the canteen of  the school or in a cafe and he could have invited all of his students not only the best ones and organized the activities to be done at the party accordingly maybe also with other teachers participation. From my point of view, I would not like to see my teacher drinking alcohol and being so close to students in his/her home and doing silly things. It would be nice to gather and do something together that cannot ruin the respect for teacher. That is what I would like to see my teachers way of  behaving ; sincere and warm but not too much close.

     Our classroom management teacher is one of the teachers I like. I admire his patience to listen and care all of his students’ thougts and ideas. Even though he keeps the distance, he treats equally to all of us and gives importance. He is not warm in his relationships with students which sometimes makes students stay too much away from him. When the class ends, all of the interest that he shows during class disappears and that makes students to see  him as a stranger or a person that does his job professionally and leaves when the time is up. I dont know if that is right or wrong but I notice that he cares his job and students even though his efforts  to stay away very much. He listens us and must care that he arranged a teaching practice for us despite the fact that he does not have to do. He knew that we wanted to observe a class in a public school of Denmark and he arranged it for us. We all appreciated him.

     That is all what I want to say for know. Thanks for your attention to my blog .See you in another entry :)