Are they advancing?

After assessing the parents' knowledge from math night, I came to the conclusion that most of these parents are so far behind, that they lack basic skills on reading, writing and math. Unfortunately their short coming affects their kids' academic progress. I don't need a Ph. D to know this, but there has been some research that supports my theory. So far our school's kids have shown lower academic scores and slower progress compare to their counterparts. These, so called academic progress, scores provide a profile that the teachers aren't doing their jobs, and that the children are simple minded. But it is really how it appears? Just to think that a child can come to school dressed and semi prepared from a home that has parents that are a century behind in their basic skills is almost a miracle. Are these kids really simple minded? When they entered kinder they hardly know their names or their parents' names, much less other crucial information. They don't know one single letter sound, and lack basic language, and yet after a few years in school they move on to a position that stands right below their counterparts. It seems to me that their progress could be clasify as unmeasurable. I would say that these children are making bigger gains than those that are above them. These children started from way below their couterparts, and yet every night, every weekend and every vacation they go back to the same environment that provides zero support for their accademic growth, but they manage with the help of our wonderful teachers to get back in line and to intend one more time to reach grade-level standards. I think our kids are amazing!

First Parent Math Night

Last night another colleague and I conducted a Parent Math meeting or mini workshop. This was an opportunity for parents to come and learn innovated math that their students are using in our school. Our math curriculum doesn't start using the standard algorithm math to solve additions, subtractions, multiplications or divisions, instead we use math concepts that allow students to gain the reasoning behind the operation rather than the procedure to get an answer from an operation. Unfortunately, many of our kids don't make great gains because they don't get any math support at home. Thus, we provided a workshop so our parents can understand the logic of this curriculum and to introduce different math games they can play at home that will support their students learning. From this workshop I learned many things about our parents, a few that I can think of are:

• Some parents don't know any math themselves, to add 11 plus 8 some were using their fingers.
• Some parents don't believe in innovated math, because an older child did well using the standard algorithm, thus they don't understand why we use manipulatives.
• Some parents want to keep learning the innovated math, because they noticed that their child can greatly benefit from this methods.
• Some parents want to learn to read and count because they don't know how.
  

Now that I know our parents more, I think I can speak on their behalf and try to put more workshops that they can benefit from.

It was tiring to do a workshop for two hours, cleaning afterward and arriving home close to 9 at night, but the feeling of fulfilling is great, the long day was well worth it.

Books

Between tiny gaps of a hectic schedule, I can squeeze some leisure reading. I know that I am not good at selecting non-text books, unless is a trade book for teens or children, so I selected the book Frekonomics because it was recommended to my son. I just made over half way through. I can't say that I have read every page, but I have paid attention to every word in some topics. I didn't care to read about Summo wrestles, but I was intrigued with the information about decreasing crime rates in the United States, (I wonder where they got the statistics). Overall the book touches on points that are critical components of our economy, but we don't think about them because they aren't tagible factors. It just seems that all the factors are related to actions, money and the course of time, and that laws that impound some of our actions can have insignificant positive effect on the economic. It is a book worth reading, at least to get educated about alarming facts taht affect our economic.

Just as I have been failing to constantly write in my journal, I am also failing to write in the computer. Like every American I have time constraint but I can squeeze a few seconds to add a blog, however, I don't know what to put down. Whenever I am driving my head gets full of questions, once at home those thoughts stay on the road and are out of my head. Nonsense is an appropriate title for my blogs because it is nonsense.
I will admit that at times I have issues to write down but I question, not the privacy, but the safety of writing all my ideas here. Not that they are disturbing, but I would say they might be private, like family feuds or strong disagreements on certain topics. From this idea I ask myself, how much we should keep to ourselves to avoid drama? how much can we share with others to remain socially acceptable, without adding drama? By drama I mean starting discussions, back slashing comments, groupies (check on spelling) and so on.
I tried to remain connect to far away relatives using Facebook, but I don't received too many comments on my posting, It is because I don't comment on socially acceptable topics, or they are just too boring? It just seems to me that I was better off using my simple journal with my crooked penmanship, where safety of becoming a social outcast is not a threat, nor exits the disappointment of not fitting into someone else's conversation clichet.

Words, Affect versus effect

Yesterday I took a tour on OWL (Online Writing Lab) sponsored by Purdue University. I tried their practice exercise on the difference between effect and affect. I did poorly the first time I took the test. After reading the meaning of each respective word I did much better. You can say that reading the meaning was an effective strategy to increase my test scores. Not reading high quality books has affected my language and writing development.
I still don't feel completely confident on its proper usage. As far as I remember effect is the result of the cause, something made to happen such as consequences, the influence. Affect in the other hand is also an influence by actions. This is a weak interpretation of their true meaning. I guess I am not ready to use these words. I must revisit OWL but on another time, right now I am nursing a cold.

Introducing a Turtle Writer

Have you ever read a book and wondered how the author came out with all the different ideas?
This constantly happens to me. I enjoy reading, although I don't have much time to read, I still able to squeeze reading time by skipping some of the house chores.
Beside finding a great plot in a story is the language used by the author. I have read books with less than intriguing plots but with spectacular language. My first language isn't English, by now you probably figured it out, in the process of improving my English I read many books. Almost instantly I felt (sp) head over heel with descriptive, transition and splendid words that can carve a mental image. From that feeling and in conjunction of improving my writing I decided to write my own thoughts. I've tried writing in a journal, I think there are two or three around the house, I don't always seem to have them handy and my penmanship is not very appealing, after a paragraph of two the words get sloppy. For all the effort I have put into it, I feel that I have not made great gains. Thus, I called myself a Turtle Writer, But I must admit that I have not been fully faithful to the cause. Maybe by using technology I can speed up the process of turning into better writer. It seems that blogging about nonsense topics will get me to use many splendid, descriptive and better transitional words. I am not quite sure how this system of blogging works but I have a place to put down my ideas, without the tedious process of writing them by hand.