Ermz

Saturday, January 27, 2007

A Challenge to all of you: Images of God...

I was looking for an assignment on my memory stick when I came across a file entitled images of God I opened the file to find out it was the powerpointt assignment that my students in grade 7 had made during one of our Religion units. The students were asked to create a God Wanted slide -- on the slide it had to include an image of where they saw God. We then compiled every students slide into a slide show. Upon reviewing it as a class we discussed how, we all see God differently depending on the role God plays in our life.

Here's the best representation I could find of my image of God right now:

And since I couldn't shake this image from my head, here's one more:

And here's your challenge! Post your own image of God to your blog, and pass this memo onto your blogging friends! Let's see how many unique images of God we can collect, and how many people share a similar and a completely dissimilar image of God. If you participate in this exercise, please let me know in the comments so I can check out your image of God at your blog!

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Proper etiquitte on eating pie.

My uncle is here from portugal. This is the first time he has left the islands bisides being in the war in Africa (years, years ago) so this presented a rather interesting trip. He first had to adjust to the cold, despite the fact that it really wasn't that cold. He then had to adjust to this rather rapid "time is money" culture. He was shocked how large our airport was -- and how many cars travel on the highway (401). It was quite hilarious.

But one event tops it all....

As we sat down eating dinner we decided to treat ourselves and introduce my uncle to the term desserts, in Portugal we don't do desserts. In fact I was surprised when I reached Redeemer and every meal was followed by dessert. Weird, but a pleasant treat.

Anyways,

we had cherry pie and my uncle didn't understand what kind of 'torte' this was. He stared at it for quite some time. We just sat their watching meh!! Some time elapsed and we began to consume our savoury pie (my first time having cherry -- I still prefer apple) I guess he, my uncle, missed the fact that we were eating it with a FORK. He had a slice of pie in his hand and cherries were oozing all over his hand. It was hilarious. Everyone dieing of histaria. It was too funny. All he kept saying was "who eats this stuff; it's to mushy" and "it's dripping everywhere".

I guess we failed to inform him of the proper etiquitte on eating pie. As a result a lesson was learned: one must educate those who come from a different culture on various cultural differences including how to eat pie.

Friday, December 08, 2006

What a scene..

Imagine this:

Walking down a hall as Christmas music plays faintly in the background; you see student's art pieces decorating the walls -- with scenes of winter and Christmas. In the "pit" (open area of the school - typically a meeting ground) a scene of what Christmas is all about -- with the manger scene centered, elves working around, reindeer lurking at every corner. AND off to your left, a large window--- and the snow is gracefully falling.

Peaceful isn't it?

Reflective!!

This was the scene I encountered today as I walked back to the classroom from the first half of parent-teacher interviews. This scene took me back and it was a simple reminder that:

GOD IS GREAT!!!

Sunday, November 12, 2006

REMEMBRANCE DAY

Below are some of the Remembrance day reflections that the Grade 7s from my placement have written.

Remembrance Day is a sad, people going to war fighting and killing. In WWII Laura Secord saved Canada but the leader Brook was killed as he was going to the war but Laura’s husband lived. My Gram and Grandpa went to war but lived. They were very young when they went so they do not remember a lot. Jordan said that if they chickened out they would have been thrown off the ship into the water. It made me wonder if that is true and that they must have had a harsh life. The slide show and music reminded me of Iraq and how people are fighting for peace. As a result it made me think of my poverty essay. If everybody were to put the money they used on war onto poverty there would be peace. I think this is a sad thing but it makes me happy to know that people put their lives in danger for me and for out country, Canada . We should show our respect for them. We should always remember them; they have helped us and we owe them our gratitude.

Remembrance Day is a very sad time. People have sacrificed their lives for us in many wars such as WWI, WWII, and the continuing war in Afghanistan . This is a very sad time for mothers, sons, daughters because many men and fathers are sent to Afghanistan and sacrifice themselves to defend their families, friends, other relatives and Canada . The war in Afghanistan still goes on and many people are dying. Now while the war is going on, we salute the brave, strong soldiers that give up their lives to protect their friends, families, and Canada .

During the Remembrance Day reflection I felt very thankful for the Canadian soldiers who fought in the wars to protect us. We have not been physically harmed but we are all emotionally hurt because we all have the feeling that soldiers are dying all over the world just to protect us. I felt sad because the Canadian soldiers and other countries soldiers are fighting to protect us. Some day when Canada is in danger again we will all help the dying soldiers so that we can all live in peace.

Remembrance Day is a very emotional day because we remember all the soldiers who have died in the wars. They go to Afghanistan to fight for the world and keep it safe for us and so we can keep carrying on. They back each other up and they listen to our national anthem with pride. They fire at them for Canada , they attack for Canada , and fight for Canada to keep us safe and happy. I feel very sad for them because they risk their lives and all they get is death. They all go down there with pride and fight with pride. They die and fall for us. So we gather today to remember and to salute our soldiers. O Canada, We salute thee!

I think we all should remember and take this day seriously because there are soldiers out there that fought and died for us. I am very thankful, because of them, we have schools that are safe and homes where we can sleep at night without having to worry about bombs being dropped on us. Will it hit me? Will I see my friends and family tomorrow? Is it safe the spot where I am at? Thanks to the soldiers we don’t have to be worrying about this right now. They have created and sacrificed their lives so we can live. I hope one day every single person will stand and actually show emotion for the soldiers and what they have done for us. One day we will all have a peaceful world and I hope that we can all be safe. Why war? Why can’t it be stopped? What do we have to do to make is stop? If kids all around get taught well, to not choose war and to not harm others this will not happen. Unfortunately there are people out there that choose the opposite. We should all work together to make a difference.

Together
Everyone
Achieves
More!

Remembrance day a day to remember World War I and II and all of the wars that have taken place. Canadians have been there to help at wars that don’t involve Canada . Young men all over Canada have volunteered their lives to help others. They left their homes, family and peace behind to help others who are living in a world of sadness and despair. Those poor people who have their houses bombed have had family and friends die. The horror of it and yet Canadians are there. Many have fought and died bravely. Others lived but risked their lives. Remembrance Day is the day that we honour all those soldiers who have died and those who risked their lives for us. We wear a poppy because of the poem, “In Flanders Field”. We stand for a moment of silence; we listen to the bugle play; we try to imagine the soldiers; and we pray. They deserve to be honoured. They deserve to be loved. We honour and love them today.

No one likes war, war is horrible. Thousands of people go to war and they fight and kill other people. Canadian soldiers die in Iraq . It is horrible to think that everyone has to fight. There is no real point to war. Why do people just start killing each other for no reason? I wish there was no such thing as war. Why should people go to a different country just to kill people? I don’t know how many people die a month in Iraq but even if one person dies a month it’s still horrible. War is horrible, everyone hates it. No one really wants to go to a different country to die. I would never go to war ever! War = Bad

Friday, November 10, 2006

A new chapter,

WOW! What a fantastic week.

Lately I have been at my teaching placement completing my practicum.

I had a variety of emotions stirring on the first day they soon settled; I was quickly welcomed by the staff, more like a welcome back, and by the students. However, with the week rolling by so did a variety of different experiences. Experiences during non-instructional hours range from setting up a monument and assembly for Remembrance Day to supervising detention to dealing with sever bullying to understanding the difference between ‘homework’ and ‘school work’ all in a very short time, you could say in 5 days.

I am in an intermediate setting. I have a grade 7 homeroom class with rotary taking place in the afternoon (great experience). This provides me with ample opportunity to get to know a wide variety of students (and different teaching styles that occur as a result).

This week was my first week and it was wonderful. I was expected to teach 25% this week -- I think I achieved this goal...but I may need to do some calculations.

I love every student and they are all truly an inspiration. I am able to see things in a new perspective everyday. They all enlighten me whether its with music a new sport statistic to explaining the true meaning of "trust" (todays Religion lesson). Often, I find myself doubting that the students will truly understand or grasp the deep meaning of something and often I am tickled by thier wisdom.

A lesson learned -- never underestimate!

Monday, October 30, 2006

The Purpose of EXAMS

The purpose of exams

The main purpose of exams is for lecturers to check that you have understood the work. A more conventional answers would be: to measure knowledge of the content of, or the achievement of, the learning outcomes that are equivalent to those of a specific course (Intended Learning Outcomes). Hmm...what can I say Curriculum foundation helped me recall the definition or it could just be freash in my memory because I just finished writing the exam today.

Or you may agree with me when I say-- the purpose of Exams is to freak all students out and create massive chaos across the planet, especially since exams affect all divisions of Creation. Lets look at this way, the furry little animals know when its exam time. Just watch them scurry around as people pull in and out of the parking lot. They are much more cautious when they run across the street. Roomies always know when its exam time - even when they aren't on the same schedule -- they tend to put coffee on (even if you don't like it :)

Preparing for exams involves a high release of energy (something I tend NOT to have during exams) and an unusual degree of focus (hence the blog writing), which produces a very intense kind of learning (sure, I now know that Math is my next exam). That focus and intensity are not easy to reproduce under any other conditions. Ofcourse! becuase it isn't happening NOW!

Some advantages of examinations:

There are some positive benefits in exams! Yes, I said it.

You cannot be expected to give very long or detailed answers in exams: you need to use less information than in a comparable piece of coursework. As a result, less in-depth research and reading may be needed than if you were set additional coursework. You don’t have to write out references or bibliographies in full at the end. I told ya there were some benefits. I don't know about you but not writing a bibliography saves me tons of time.

Examiners are generally more sympathetic about scrawled handwriting (my arm and hand went limp) , minor grammatical errors (definately didn't proof-read) , spellings and forgotten details (because it definately happened).