Lessons
It's been a while since I've said that I'd talk about school. XD Well, I'm seriously busy and I didn't have the time to post until now. I can finally breathe now! Lots of things happened, now I think of it. Both good and bad. Oh, my bike got stolen. >< Second time that happens to me. It was locked behind my home, but they cut the chain. Oh, and my mom fractured her wrist last week. =/ She fell down and thought she had just sprained it. But we went to the clinic, then went to this x-ray place, found out it was fractured, and then we had to go to a big hospital to get it bandaged. Myeah... need to return to the hospital tomorrow with her. =S But she'll be ok in about a month.
Mmm. I'm a big crybaby. I read my sister's reply to my previous email and I really crumbled to tears. ^^; I cry a lot at movies too... but it's not everything sad that makes me cry. I think it's really the sincere expression of love that touches me so much. (which means I can also cry at happy events if they're touching ^-^;)
So honestly, I'm still feeling rather cheerful these days. Probably because I feel as if I'm accomplishing a lot. Well, I'm rather busy. My mom looks at my schedule and she wonders how I do it lol =p Well, that's why she spoils me more, I think? And my dad already spoiled me in the past. XD
Actually, it's cuz the daycare increased my hours of work to 17-18 hours of work now. The directrice really wanted to keep me, but the conseil administratif du c.p.e. didn't want any part-time workers; they wanted permanent ones only. So they asked for at least someone with 20 hours per week, and my directrice negotiated for like 18 hours of work. So I have daycare, and I also tutor around 3 hours per week. So I end up with around 20 hours of work per week?
I'm still surviving though. =P The directrice said I'd be free to take off days of work whenever I have exams, so I'll see how it goes. I might stop during the finals of this semester. It's the first time I work so much during school time, so I find it rather time limiting, especially that I'm someone who spends so much time on schoolwork. Well, there's a good point. Since I feel I don't have much time, I'm very productive when I work. Most of the time I have left is during weekends (and sometimes there are still other things planned), and I'm really able to do hmwk from morning to night lol I wasn't able to do that before, unless I had this project to hand in soon or this exam. Now, there's nothing much yet, but I don't want to rush later.
Ok ok, so what about my first two weeks of school? Well, I really love my education classes. I have this class called Ethics and Religious Culture and I thought it'd be rather boring (from previous experience) but it turns out to be one of the most interesting classes I have. o_O It's actually a class reserved for education students to teach us how to teach the Ethics and Religious Culture class (it's a new class of the reform, now they don't have catholic/protestant/moral classes anymore, they only have 1 unified that explores everything).
But I think it's the professor... she's really awesome. She reminds me a lot of Mrs Lopes. And she actually taught elementary school for a dozen of years, and she's currently teaching Ethics and Religious Culture & English at high school. That's one good thing about education professors at Concordia -- they have real teaching experience. It's not just about theory, and it's very practical (not like at McGill where the professors just have a doctorate degree but never actually taught elementary school). She knows how it's like to teach, and she gives us real feelings of how it is to teach that class, the students' reactions and preconceptions, and suggestions on how to react.
She's also creative and innovative. She has all my respect for that. During the first class, we just discussed our preconceptions about this Ethics and Religious Culture program, and hardships we are afraid of as future teachers. She made us answer a bunch of questions, like "What ice cream would you pick if you went to Dairy Queen?" and she made us realize through those questions that such seemingly unimportant and everyday life events are actually intrinsically related to ethics. Classes with her are really fun. =D We also have many outings and guest speakers planned, so we can understand better the different local religious places, since we would need to teach it later. The assignments are actually interesting and useful, such as interviewing children on their views on spirituality, and doing lesson plans for the Ethics and Religious Culture class.
Anyways, you can tell I love it :P Although Mrs Lopes tells me to take the reform with several grains of salt because she sees that it did not do her students good XD According the Ministry of Education, we are supposed to teach this Ethics and Religious Culture class objectively, and as I heard that, I was like thinking "It's impossible for us to be completely objective... = =" And, as if the professor heard my inner voice, she said after "But it's impossible for teachers to be completely objective. HOWEVER I can teach you how to become more self-aware." Haha xD I love realistic teachers. But I think Mrs Lopes is still on the top of the list of my favourites for me :P
I have this geography class as an mandatory elective class (complementary). I was so surprised when I entered in the room which was an auditorium, and there were 200 students, and the professor had this giant powerpoint screen and a mic. oO We become so invisible in the class. But the prof is doing not bad... Pretty dynamic and interactive. Asks a lot of questions.
OK. I had this Canadian history class as another mandatory elective class, and luckily this class was smaller. But... the prof is extremely boring. -_- And she assigns so much readings!! = = it's like 60 pages per week... (ok in Cegep I didn't read the textbooks, but since it's my first semester of university I'm still testing and adapting, so I'm reading just in case) 60 pages per week is a lot, especially class asks me to read around 30 pages per week because of the nature of my program. And I have 10 page research papers due for every class (except music which is a concert... btw my winter concert is Dec 12 at 8 pm so come come =D) This history class asked more reading than my main education classes = = Ah I didn't mention. The main difference between Cegep and university for me is that there is A LOT of readings, even though there are less class hours... ><
So I was feeling rather overwhelmed by this history class that I considered my toughest class. Then, one night, after reading another 30 pages of history and getting really fed up (it doesn't help that I'm not naturally interested in the subject), I suddenly had the brilliant idea of dropping the class and changing this class for an elective chemistry class that I would've needed to take later anyways ^_^ I know I'll still need to take Canadian history later, but I'll try to avoid this prof... I'm happy that universities let us sorta this "trial" period (in the first 2 weeks, you can drop and add classes as you wish without it appearing in your grades and without paying for anything). After the change, I finally felt I could breathe again. And wow, I realized I really did miss chemistry. The readings are like... so not much compared to my other classes. XD I caught up the readings I missed in the beginning so quickly. And for once, the tests aren't about only memorization, but problem-solving. Omg I miss math/science so much. I had a lot of fun doing that. I'm aiming for a A, A+ if possible cuz I feel I can do it. =P
The music class is pretty cool. Makes difference from my other classes. No readings to do lol Although I think it's hard to be graded based on music performance. The teacher's asking more than I thought. (but I wonder if all music teachers are sorta unorganized like that? lol) She saw I was at a good level (and btw, it's true that people who played flute for Cegep aren't really that good... XD), and she wants me to play a bunch of pieces (which means I need to somehow find time to rehearse outside school with all those different people) and she wants me to play this Prokofiev sonata for flute and piano, really well known. It's nice. But it's hard. It was one of the possible exam pieces that I could choose last year, but my teacher said that Poulenc was more do-able for me... So yeah. Another challenge here. o-o I may ask for some extra lessons with my previous flute teacher now xD
Finally, my educational psychology class. At the beginning, I wasn't sure how it'd turn out... But the class today was totally great. Actually, I realized the reading education textbooks isn't a pain, cuz I actually get interested and reading becomes much faster. The course material is rather interesting. I learn a lot from the textbook... it's a good textbook., a good base for new teachers, and it admits that there's no solid framework on how to become a successful teacher. Oh, I read this really touching article/story... maybe I can share it someday. I also read this interesting study that made me laugh and think (it was talking about diverse learners in a classroom):
"Children and adolescents from Western and Eastern cultures typically hold different beliefs about learning. Among Western students, learning is largely a process of acquiring external knowledge. Knowledge exists "out there," and students can acquire it, at least in proportion to the extent to which they possess internal characteristics such as intelligence and ability. Western students also believe that learning takes place in school and in response to the teaching of others. Asian students believe that learning is largely the means by which one cultivates self-perfection. Knowledge is something one must have, even in the face of hardships."
I read it, and wondered where I was situated in, having sorta both cultures in my identity. Maybe I have a balance of both points haha But of course, the textbook then talks about the main point which is that cultural differences in beliefs about learning affect student expectations and reactions, so teachers must attempt to respect and accommodate different perspectives. =P But this is a more introductory textbook. I think I have a class later that is just about "Diversity in the classroom" =O
And today in class, we sorta got outside the box, and started discussions. Discussions are really interesting cuz everyone has child-related experience (we had to have it to get in the program), and we started asking the professor questions of how to react, cuz we know the professor is the expert in the field. We talked about the usefulness of time-outs, if it's a technique in the past or if it can work. We also talked about how to react to a child who disrupts the class often. Of course, we ask these questions, cuz we see teachers who react to the situation but don't manage to solve it. Then we wonder ourselves, what can we do differently then? It was really interesting. I learned a lot of neat tricks, haha.
We also talked about cognitive development in children today, and how pre-school children have limited ways of viewing the world. That they can only see things in 1 dimension, 1 perspective. For example, if you see a 3 dimensional object, and the child sees one side, he thinks that everyone will see the same as him no matter where they are positioned, and he'll be absolutely convinced that he's right. They have difficulty understanding the concept of sharing. We teach them to share, but we often see them taking the toy of another and saying "You have to share!" (I was totally laughing in my mind when the prof said this, cuz it happens so often at the daycare). In other words, they see that the other needs to share (1 sided), but they don't see that they have to share themselves. They also have difficulty understanding cause-and-effect. Often, you ask a child "why", and if they're young, they'll often answer with a "because" as if it's sufficient. Also, we teach them to say sorry, but they often don't get the link between what they did and the reason of saying sorry. So educators really need to make it clear for children.
Oh yeah, this afternoon, I was at the daycare, and I was with this last child waiting for his parent, and I was looking at a book with this 3-year-old child. It was a book like "Find Charlie" and it was the image of a boat on fire and people escaping. And I just thought of what I learned in class today, and decided to do a little test. I asked the child "Pourquoi est-ce que le bateau est en feu?" Obviously, there was no real answer. I was wondering if he'd invent a reason. The little boy went "Parce que... (pause) ... Parce que parce que parce que (around 10 of them in a row)" He was seriously puzzled and troubled and disturbed. I totally laughed and I felt so mean for putting him in such an "embarras". XDD But it was so cute. Yeah, I actually look forward to go to daycare work sometimes because the children are really endearing. <3 Afterwards, I just said sorry to the boy and said that there was no real answer, although I'm not sure he could understand, haha. I just said some possible reasons, and then he just imagined other reasons haha. 3 year olds are really fun to be with, cuz it's an age that they really learn a lot and absorb so many things and they're just so fascinated at the world and they want to know everything.
Tonight, I had my first Ikebana class!! (yes today was a big day) And I did my first basic arrangement (I'm learning the Soketsu style @@)... There are really a lot of rules in oriental floral art. o_O Measurements, angles, etc. It seems really simple, but it's not lol There aren't many flowers, and my teacher said "We don't want a crowd of flowers, instead we want to create space." So it puts a lot of emphasis on the lines and the direction. Anyways it was really fun. I hope my arrangements will improve later on though xD This first one, basically my teacher did with me haha It has this sort of pine but that has "flowers" on top and they give a very Japanese feel. There aren't many elements because the teacher said I needed to master the base and that it needs to be very clear to me before I move on to more complicated things. My teacher learned Ikebana in Japan and she goes there every year, and she was president of Ikebana International in the past or something. But anyways, here it is =P (in a vase that isn't meant for it... used a different type of vase at my teacher's, and this is the only one I found at home, so yeah ^-^;) By the way, there are many buds so this arrangement will continue to grow this week =3
Wow it ended up being a really long rant. You managed to read through all that? o_O Hahaha sorry that I tend to write so much. ^//^;; Maybe it's cuz I don't post often enough, so I have to talk about everything in 1 post. I'm sure I made a lot of inattention errors through that cuz it's actually quite late now and I'm tired. But basically I wanted to express that I really feel that all of this is like a new beginning for me, and even though it may ask a lot out of me, I feel a lot of enthusiasm, hope and happiness towards it. =3 I think I realized lately that I was really forgetting about some things in the recent years... But I think I've been really going through a rebirth now, and I'm finding back my truly bright eyes. And of course, some things inside me are more stronger than before ^^
Mmm. I'm a big crybaby. I read my sister's reply to my previous email and I really crumbled to tears. ^^; I cry a lot at movies too... but it's not everything sad that makes me cry. I think it's really the sincere expression of love that touches me so much. (which means I can also cry at happy events if they're touching ^-^;)
So honestly, I'm still feeling rather cheerful these days. Probably because I feel as if I'm accomplishing a lot. Well, I'm rather busy. My mom looks at my schedule and she wonders how I do it lol =p Well, that's why she spoils me more, I think? And my dad already spoiled me in the past. XD
Actually, it's cuz the daycare increased my hours of work to 17-18 hours of work now. The directrice really wanted to keep me, but the conseil administratif du c.p.e. didn't want any part-time workers; they wanted permanent ones only. So they asked for at least someone with 20 hours per week, and my directrice negotiated for like 18 hours of work. So I have daycare, and I also tutor around 3 hours per week. So I end up with around 20 hours of work per week?
I'm still surviving though. =P The directrice said I'd be free to take off days of work whenever I have exams, so I'll see how it goes. I might stop during the finals of this semester. It's the first time I work so much during school time, so I find it rather time limiting, especially that I'm someone who spends so much time on schoolwork. Well, there's a good point. Since I feel I don't have much time, I'm very productive when I work. Most of the time I have left is during weekends (and sometimes there are still other things planned), and I'm really able to do hmwk from morning to night lol I wasn't able to do that before, unless I had this project to hand in soon or this exam. Now, there's nothing much yet, but I don't want to rush later.
Ok ok, so what about my first two weeks of school? Well, I really love my education classes. I have this class called Ethics and Religious Culture and I thought it'd be rather boring (from previous experience) but it turns out to be one of the most interesting classes I have. o_O It's actually a class reserved for education students to teach us how to teach the Ethics and Religious Culture class (it's a new class of the reform, now they don't have catholic/protestant/moral classes anymore, they only have 1 unified that explores everything).
But I think it's the professor... she's really awesome. She reminds me a lot of Mrs Lopes. And she actually taught elementary school for a dozen of years, and she's currently teaching Ethics and Religious Culture & English at high school. That's one good thing about education professors at Concordia -- they have real teaching experience. It's not just about theory, and it's very practical (not like at McGill where the professors just have a doctorate degree but never actually taught elementary school). She knows how it's like to teach, and she gives us real feelings of how it is to teach that class, the students' reactions and preconceptions, and suggestions on how to react.
She's also creative and innovative. She has all my respect for that. During the first class, we just discussed our preconceptions about this Ethics and Religious Culture program, and hardships we are afraid of as future teachers. She made us answer a bunch of questions, like "What ice cream would you pick if you went to Dairy Queen?" and she made us realize through those questions that such seemingly unimportant and everyday life events are actually intrinsically related to ethics. Classes with her are really fun. =D We also have many outings and guest speakers planned, so we can understand better the different local religious places, since we would need to teach it later. The assignments are actually interesting and useful, such as interviewing children on their views on spirituality, and doing lesson plans for the Ethics and Religious Culture class.
Anyways, you can tell I love it :P Although Mrs Lopes tells me to take the reform with several grains of salt because she sees that it did not do her students good XD According the Ministry of Education, we are supposed to teach this Ethics and Religious Culture class objectively, and as I heard that, I was like thinking "It's impossible for us to be completely objective... = =" And, as if the professor heard my inner voice, she said after "But it's impossible for teachers to be completely objective. HOWEVER I can teach you how to become more self-aware." Haha xD I love realistic teachers. But I think Mrs Lopes is still on the top of the list of my favourites for me :P
I have this geography class as an mandatory elective class (complementary). I was so surprised when I entered in the room which was an auditorium, and there were 200 students, and the professor had this giant powerpoint screen and a mic. oO We become so invisible in the class. But the prof is doing not bad... Pretty dynamic and interactive. Asks a lot of questions.
OK. I had this Canadian history class as another mandatory elective class, and luckily this class was smaller. But... the prof is extremely boring. -_- And she assigns so much readings!! = = it's like 60 pages per week... (ok in Cegep I didn't read the textbooks, but since it's my first semester of university I'm still testing and adapting, so I'm reading just in case) 60 pages per week is a lot, especially class asks me to read around 30 pages per week because of the nature of my program. And I have 10 page research papers due for every class (except music which is a concert... btw my winter concert is Dec 12 at 8 pm so come come =D) This history class asked more reading than my main education classes = = Ah I didn't mention. The main difference between Cegep and university for me is that there is A LOT of readings, even though there are less class hours... ><
So I was feeling rather overwhelmed by this history class that I considered my toughest class. Then, one night, after reading another 30 pages of history and getting really fed up (it doesn't help that I'm not naturally interested in the subject), I suddenly had the brilliant idea of dropping the class and changing this class for an elective chemistry class that I would've needed to take later anyways ^_^ I know I'll still need to take Canadian history later, but I'll try to avoid this prof... I'm happy that universities let us sorta this "trial" period (in the first 2 weeks, you can drop and add classes as you wish without it appearing in your grades and without paying for anything). After the change, I finally felt I could breathe again. And wow, I realized I really did miss chemistry. The readings are like... so not much compared to my other classes. XD I caught up the readings I missed in the beginning so quickly. And for once, the tests aren't about only memorization, but problem-solving. Omg I miss math/science so much. I had a lot of fun doing that. I'm aiming for a A, A+ if possible cuz I feel I can do it. =P
The music class is pretty cool. Makes difference from my other classes. No readings to do lol Although I think it's hard to be graded based on music performance. The teacher's asking more than I thought. (but I wonder if all music teachers are sorta unorganized like that? lol) She saw I was at a good level (and btw, it's true that people who played flute for Cegep aren't really that good... XD), and she wants me to play a bunch of pieces (which means I need to somehow find time to rehearse outside school with all those different people) and she wants me to play this Prokofiev sonata for flute and piano, really well known. It's nice. But it's hard. It was one of the possible exam pieces that I could choose last year, but my teacher said that Poulenc was more do-able for me... So yeah. Another challenge here. o-o I may ask for some extra lessons with my previous flute teacher now xD
Finally, my educational psychology class. At the beginning, I wasn't sure how it'd turn out... But the class today was totally great. Actually, I realized the reading education textbooks isn't a pain, cuz I actually get interested and reading becomes much faster. The course material is rather interesting. I learn a lot from the textbook... it's a good textbook., a good base for new teachers, and it admits that there's no solid framework on how to become a successful teacher. Oh, I read this really touching article/story... maybe I can share it someday. I also read this interesting study that made me laugh and think (it was talking about diverse learners in a classroom):
"Children and adolescents from Western and Eastern cultures typically hold different beliefs about learning. Among Western students, learning is largely a process of acquiring external knowledge. Knowledge exists "out there," and students can acquire it, at least in proportion to the extent to which they possess internal characteristics such as intelligence and ability. Western students also believe that learning takes place in school and in response to the teaching of others. Asian students believe that learning is largely the means by which one cultivates self-perfection. Knowledge is something one must have, even in the face of hardships."
I read it, and wondered where I was situated in, having sorta both cultures in my identity. Maybe I have a balance of both points haha But of course, the textbook then talks about the main point which is that cultural differences in beliefs about learning affect student expectations and reactions, so teachers must attempt to respect and accommodate different perspectives. =P But this is a more introductory textbook. I think I have a class later that is just about "Diversity in the classroom" =O
And today in class, we sorta got outside the box, and started discussions. Discussions are really interesting cuz everyone has child-related experience (we had to have it to get in the program), and we started asking the professor questions of how to react, cuz we know the professor is the expert in the field. We talked about the usefulness of time-outs, if it's a technique in the past or if it can work. We also talked about how to react to a child who disrupts the class often. Of course, we ask these questions, cuz we see teachers who react to the situation but don't manage to solve it. Then we wonder ourselves, what can we do differently then? It was really interesting. I learned a lot of neat tricks, haha.
We also talked about cognitive development in children today, and how pre-school children have limited ways of viewing the world. That they can only see things in 1 dimension, 1 perspective. For example, if you see a 3 dimensional object, and the child sees one side, he thinks that everyone will see the same as him no matter where they are positioned, and he'll be absolutely convinced that he's right. They have difficulty understanding the concept of sharing. We teach them to share, but we often see them taking the toy of another and saying "You have to share!" (I was totally laughing in my mind when the prof said this, cuz it happens so often at the daycare). In other words, they see that the other needs to share (1 sided), but they don't see that they have to share themselves. They also have difficulty understanding cause-and-effect. Often, you ask a child "why", and if they're young, they'll often answer with a "because" as if it's sufficient. Also, we teach them to say sorry, but they often don't get the link between what they did and the reason of saying sorry. So educators really need to make it clear for children.
Oh yeah, this afternoon, I was at the daycare, and I was with this last child waiting for his parent, and I was looking at a book with this 3-year-old child. It was a book like "Find Charlie" and it was the image of a boat on fire and people escaping. And I just thought of what I learned in class today, and decided to do a little test. I asked the child "Pourquoi est-ce que le bateau est en feu?" Obviously, there was no real answer. I was wondering if he'd invent a reason. The little boy went "Parce que... (pause) ... Parce que parce que parce que (around 10 of them in a row)" He was seriously puzzled and troubled and disturbed. I totally laughed and I felt so mean for putting him in such an "embarras". XDD But it was so cute. Yeah, I actually look forward to go to daycare work sometimes because the children are really endearing. <3 Afterwards, I just said sorry to the boy and said that there was no real answer, although I'm not sure he could understand, haha. I just said some possible reasons, and then he just imagined other reasons haha. 3 year olds are really fun to be with, cuz it's an age that they really learn a lot and absorb so many things and they're just so fascinated at the world and they want to know everything.
Tonight, I had my first Ikebana class!! (yes today was a big day) And I did my first basic arrangement (I'm learning the Soketsu style @@)... There are really a lot of rules in oriental floral art. o_O Measurements, angles, etc. It seems really simple, but it's not lol There aren't many flowers, and my teacher said "We don't want a crowd of flowers, instead we want to create space." So it puts a lot of emphasis on the lines and the direction. Anyways it was really fun. I hope my arrangements will improve later on though xD This first one, basically my teacher did with me haha It has this sort of pine but that has "flowers" on top and they give a very Japanese feel. There aren't many elements because the teacher said I needed to master the base and that it needs to be very clear to me before I move on to more complicated things. My teacher learned Ikebana in Japan and she goes there every year, and she was president of Ikebana International in the past or something. But anyways, here it is =P (in a vase that isn't meant for it... used a different type of vase at my teacher's, and this is the only one I found at home, so yeah ^-^;) By the way, there are many buds so this arrangement will continue to grow this week =3
Wow it ended up being a really long rant. You managed to read through all that? o_O Hahaha sorry that I tend to write so much. ^//^;; Maybe it's cuz I don't post often enough, so I have to talk about everything in 1 post. I'm sure I made a lot of inattention errors through that cuz it's actually quite late now and I'm tired. But basically I wanted to express that I really feel that all of this is like a new beginning for me, and even though it may ask a lot out of me, I feel a lot of enthusiasm, hope and happiness towards it. =3 I think I realized lately that I was really forgetting about some things in the recent years... But I think I've been really going through a rebirth now, and I'm finding back my truly bright eyes. And of course, some things inside me are more stronger than before ^^