Archive for year: 2014

Despite the cost of living, there are so many advantages to raising children in Southern California.  It takes little planning to be able to expose children to many aspects of culture, science, history and performing arts.  This summer, we spent one day immersed in the artwork at The Getty Villa.  The next, we ventured out do experience American’s pastime – baseball.  A few weeks before that, we studied Renaissance traditions at a local fair.  Just this weekend, we visited the restored farmhouse of our town’s founder.

Additionally, the classrooms are a melting pot that expose the students to their peers of different social, ethnic, religious and moral backgrounds.  Students naturally build a well-rounded network to draw upon in years to come.

I’m often asked if I ever consider moving to another area that would be more affordable.  Maybe somewhere where there are less fires, more rain and no earthquakes.  Nope, Never.  The benefits of So Cal outweigh the risks.

AM

Common Core.. This is a topic we have been discussing in our methods courses this semester. There is SO much controversy about these standards being implemented, but no matter if they are liked or not, they are coming. I would like to put my perspective about this topic.

First of all, I am always about looking at both sides of a situation, but if you were to ask me, I am totally FOR Common Core. Just the FOUR “C’s” of Common Core (Creativity, Communication, Critical Thinking, and Collaboration) alone show my reasons of why I enjoy Common Core. Although some strategies may be too advanced for some students, the overall concept of having students think outside of the box, come up with ideas, and think about their way of thinking are what these standards bring. This is the time for teachers to show their creative side on how they teach. It’s time to use less textbooks and do more activities that tie in all Gardner’s intelligences, including technology usage!

Not only is it time to be creative, but also to be collaborative with peers. Interacting with their peers will expand students’ way of thinking and have them develop their critical thinking. I have recently seen this in action in my placement class. Students enjoy talking with each other about Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science.

Joining all these 4 concepts of Common Core together will make learning more enjoyable and higher changes of it being imbedded in students’ head. Common Core is what will help structure and guide our next generation for the future.

At the beginning of this episode, the Hunahpu tribe finally finds out that John was voted off the Coyopa tribe and there were a lot of mixed emotions. Natalie seemed very happy whereas Julie, John’s wife, seemed a little mad/sad.  This could lead to conflict in the future if she tries to get back at the other members.

There is group conflict everywhere you turn in this show. One of the first conflicts displayed in the forth episode was when the Hunahpu tribe finds the flint that they had lost and Drew wants ask to trade some fishing gear for it. The whole tribe doesn’t want Drew ask for the trade because they know he’ll get turned down, which he does. That was just the beginning of the conflict Drew starts. Drew decides to throw the immunity challenge because he wanted to start getting rid of the some of the players on his team. He thinks that he is the leader of the team and that he knows how everyone is going to vote but little does he know that the whole team blindsides him and he is the one being kicked off the show. I was extremely happy to see him go because he was lazy and didn’t care for anyone else except himself. He started conflict between his own team and could have potentially ruined the team in the future. I think the team made the right decision. I think this whole situation was a perfect example of affective conflict because Drew struggled for power and thought he had it but in the end, the group resolved it the only way they knew how…they kicked in off.  I strongly believe that if Drew would have stayed on the team there would have been more destructive conflict that arose rather than constructive conflict. I’m excited to see the next episode and to see Drew’s brothers face when he realizes his brother is out of the game.

On this episode the tribes really get pushed to new pressured nights. It begins with a very bitter start by Jeramys wife leaving. John is trying to “protect” Val (Jeramys wife) but failed to do so when she was kicked off the last episode.  Tensions run high between John and Jeramy.  Josh is still in a great spot to keep himself in the game. John is really digging a whole for himself with his tribe with his negativity and once everyone on the show finds out that he had said some racist comments as a pro baseball player.  In the first challenge the tribes is a speed and balance activity. Its Wes against his father Keith. It was a good contest between the two and Keith had the lead for most of the game but a slight slip up allowed his son Wes to take the lead and win the challenge, sending Keith and Josh get sent to exile islands. Emotions run extremely high when Keith is taking to his son after the game. The orange team was then choose to get fishing gear as their prize.  John catches a fish thus making himself an asset to have on the orange team. The last challenge of the episode is a maze like field and has a hoop that you need to shoot a ball through. Both teams look strong as the game starts. It gets heated when John is acting and saying very disrespectful things to the other team. There was a lot of lying and plotting this episode but in all I’m glad to see John leave.

That was an entertaining episode! I couldn’t stop laughing at Drew the whole time. Unfortunately for him, the “Kingpin’s” ego got in the way of his million dollars and completely came back to bite him. There were multiple conflicts throughout the episode, connecting it perfectly with chapter 8, Conflict and Cohesion in Groups.

Affective conflict continues with Drew and the Hunahpu tribe as all he seems to want to do is whine and complain about the fishing gear. The girls of Hunahpu are annoyed with Drew’s attitude and the way he conducts himself around camp. Keith also gets himself into an affective conflict with Jeremy when he tells the other tribe members that Jeremy must have the idol behind Jeremy’s back. The other tribe members immediately tell Jeremy what Keith had told them, and this severely pisses of Jeremy. After feeling like they had just formed an alliance and bond through their firefighting careers, Jeremy is outraged at the betrayal from Keith. What seemed like a strong alliance and friendship quickly turned 180 degrees as Jeremy immediately declared he would be gunning for Keith now.

Alec also continues to engage in affective conflict through his communication and bossy attitude towards Baylor. Alec seems to think that since his dad always called him out on his work and made him do work over Drew he can act the same way towards Baylor. Baylor is obviously annoyed and feels uncomfortable with the roles that Alec has established between them.

The biggest and most crucial conflict comes when it is time for Hunahpu to finally vote their first tribe member off. Procedural conflict occurs as almost everyone has a different idea about how the group should go about voting off a tribe member in respect to their future as a tribe. Most of the tribe logically decides that Julie would be the best vote because she really doesn’t bring anything to the table in the challenges or at camp. Drew tries to stir things up when he declares that getting rid of Kelley is the tribe’s best option. Drew sees Kelley as a threat and wants her gone. Unfortunately for Drew, the girls don’t feel the same way and either do the other guys. The girls make a plan to vote Drew off but have a hard time convincing the guys who are all over the place. Jeremy really has no clue what to do and feels like he has no option but to side with the girls and vote Drew off. Smart guy Drew and his manipulation skills apparently didn’t work out like he thought they would and was sent packing.