I'm back tonight from an overnight stay in New Town, ND. Yep, another field experience in their public schools for our students majoring in education. We spend two days in the elementary school, middle school, and high school and stay overnight at Four Bears Casino and Lodge just outside of town. Our university students serve as aides to the teachers, helping out however possible, interacting with students, observing instructional techniques, and getting a feel for another community, its school system, and its student body.
It's a good opportunity for me to get to know the university students better, too, since we spend time together on the bus traveling to and fro New Town, in the schools each day, and of course at the lodge at night. I like this group of students and look forward to working with them in future courses, too. They're just starting their education course work, but already they have keen insights into what to do and what not to do as teachers--and why to do or not do it.
Our rooms last night were on the third floor of the lodge, and I had a south-facing window looking out over the rising Missouri River, covered in patches of snow-dusted, melting ice. The hills above the river banks rise up toward the vast blue sky, and as evening falls, the line blurs between the hilltops and the sky; but the lights from the casino and the bridge spanning Lake Sakakawea cast a glow on the water and make it look like the river is the only thing to see outdoors. It's quite beautiful.
Showing posts with label Bluestone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bluestone. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Three Items
I. On the Road Again
I took advantage of Stark County's early voting last Friday (at the court house here in Dickinson) because I knew that I would be out of town all day yesterday (Election Day) and today for work: I accompanied 29 education majors on a field experience to New Town, ND where they served as student aides in the public schools. We left on a charter bus at 5:30 A.M. yesterday and spent all day in the elementary, middle, and high schools. We spent the night at the Four Bears Lodge, where we also ate supper and breakfast. At the end of the school day today, we drove home through the rain, making it back by 4:30 P.M. before the nasty weather began!
The population of the student body in schools on the Fort Berthold Reservation is more diverse (both ethnically and socioeconomically) than that in Dickinson's schools, so this field experience was enlightening for the education majors in many ways. It was also pretty fun because the DSU students got to teach lessons and interact with students one-to-one both days. I'm friends with the elementary school principal and the school district superintendent there, so I enjoyed getting to see them again, too. I'm exhausted, but it was a good trip.
II. Meeting with Teachers
The girls' parent/teacher conferences were yesterday, so Susan had to attend them without me; but she filled me in tonight, and the teachers seem to think that everything is going well with our daughters in their classrooms. Their report cards certainly couldn't be better. Each of the girls was tested and identified to receive instruction in the Gifted and Talented Program, so they leave their classrooms some times of the day for small-group work with the Gifted and Talented teacher--but the same Gifted and Talented teacher works with all three girls, so that meant just one additional stop last night for Susan.
The school recently administered some NWEA assessments, so our daughters' results on those tests were available, too. Their math, language, and reading skills are above their grade levels, according to NWEA. That matches what we see in the results of their Accelerated Reader tests, too (to determine at what grade level each of them is able to read). Once a teacher at our children's school has taught a Moberg, she can be sure that the administration will place future Mobergs in her classroom, too (Abigail's teacher had Suzanna last year; Hillary's teacher had Abigail two years ago). However, Susan said that the teachers were good about not comparing one daughter to another, instead talking only about the girl currently in the class and her unique strengths and areas to work on.
I must say, for as much as those kids read and tend to their homework each night, I'd have been very surprised to hear anything less flattering from the teachers.
III. Playing with Adults
There is a handbell choir at our church, and the director asked Suzanna if she'd like to join and learn to play handbells. They rehearse Wednesday nights, and tonight was Suzanna's first time with them. I asked her to tell all about it:
"I said, 'Yes!' It works out really well with my schedule because at 6:30 P.M. Wednesdays is when it starts, and that's when Hillary has church choir, so I'm there at the church anyway. Handbell choir goes from 6:30 to 7:30 P.M., but I have my own church choir from 7:00 to 7:45 P.M., so I get to play with the handbell choir for only a half-hour. However, at my first half-hour, I think I learned tons. I know which three bells are mine, and I know what the notes are for those three bells. My three bells are high B, B flat, and C. It's really fun because I'm getting to meet lots of other people, and I'm learning how to play bells at the same time. There is a middle school-aged girl and one high school-aged girl in the handbell choir, too, but the rest of the bell ringers are adults."
I took advantage of Stark County's early voting last Friday (at the court house here in Dickinson) because I knew that I would be out of town all day yesterday (Election Day) and today for work: I accompanied 29 education majors on a field experience to New Town, ND where they served as student aides in the public schools. We left on a charter bus at 5:30 A.M. yesterday and spent all day in the elementary, middle, and high schools. We spent the night at the Four Bears Lodge, where we also ate supper and breakfast. At the end of the school day today, we drove home through the rain, making it back by 4:30 P.M. before the nasty weather began!
The population of the student body in schools on the Fort Berthold Reservation is more diverse (both ethnically and socioeconomically) than that in Dickinson's schools, so this field experience was enlightening for the education majors in many ways. It was also pretty fun because the DSU students got to teach lessons and interact with students one-to-one both days. I'm friends with the elementary school principal and the school district superintendent there, so I enjoyed getting to see them again, too. I'm exhausted, but it was a good trip.
II. Meeting with Teachers
The girls' parent/teacher conferences were yesterday, so Susan had to attend them without me; but she filled me in tonight, and the teachers seem to think that everything is going well with our daughters in their classrooms. Their report cards certainly couldn't be better. Each of the girls was tested and identified to receive instruction in the Gifted and Talented Program, so they leave their classrooms some times of the day for small-group work with the Gifted and Talented teacher--but the same Gifted and Talented teacher works with all three girls, so that meant just one additional stop last night for Susan.
The school recently administered some NWEA assessments, so our daughters' results on those tests were available, too. Their math, language, and reading skills are above their grade levels, according to NWEA. That matches what we see in the results of their Accelerated Reader tests, too (to determine at what grade level each of them is able to read). Once a teacher at our children's school has taught a Moberg, she can be sure that the administration will place future Mobergs in her classroom, too (Abigail's teacher had Suzanna last year; Hillary's teacher had Abigail two years ago). However, Susan said that the teachers were good about not comparing one daughter to another, instead talking only about the girl currently in the class and her unique strengths and areas to work on.
I must say, for as much as those kids read and tend to their homework each night, I'd have been very surprised to hear anything less flattering from the teachers.
III. Playing with Adults
There is a handbell choir at our church, and the director asked Suzanna if she'd like to join and learn to play handbells. They rehearse Wednesday nights, and tonight was Suzanna's first time with them. I asked her to tell all about it:
"I said, 'Yes!' It works out really well with my schedule because at 6:30 P.M. Wednesdays is when it starts, and that's when Hillary has church choir, so I'm there at the church anyway. Handbell choir goes from 6:30 to 7:30 P.M., but I have my own church choir from 7:00 to 7:45 P.M., so I get to play with the handbell choir for only a half-hour. However, at my first half-hour, I think I learned tons. I know which three bells are mine, and I know what the notes are for those three bells. My three bells are high B, B flat, and C. It's really fun because I'm getting to meet lots of other people, and I'm learning how to play bells at the same time. There is a middle school-aged girl and one high school-aged girl in the handbell choir, too, but the rest of the bell ringers are adults."
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Road Trips
One part of my job involves supervising pre-service teachers (also often referred to as student-teachers) doing their internships in area schools. Most of those schools are within the city, but this semester I also have a per-service teacher in Hettinger, ND and another in Sidney, MT. Furthermore, twice per semester another professor and I take a busload of prospective Teacher Education majors to New Town, ND for a field experience during which they observe classrooms and help out however the teachers choose (e.g., handing out papers, working with small groups, etc.).
Moral of the story: I have been doing a lot of driving recently for work. The route southward to Hettinger takes me on gently curving roads through occasionally hilly terrain past vast fields and pastures toward the SD border. The road also happens to be a grotesque battlefield strewn with the corpses of pheasants, raccoons, rabbits, skunks, cats, deer, and other critters that have "played chicken" with oncoming vehicles and lost. Hettinger takes two-and-a-half hours round trip.
The route to Sidney takes me first on Interstate 94 through the rugged Badlands of southwest ND and into the plains of eastern MT until I get to Glendive. Then I head north on a curvy, hilly highway alongside the impressive Yellowstone River and through some alternating areas of woods and fields and pastures. Homicidal deer lie in wait along either side of the highway between Glendive and Sidney, the animal kingdom's equivalent of suicide bombers. Sidney takes four-and-a-half hours round trip.
The route to New Town takes me north through the Killdeer Mountains, a gorgeous part of the state but a treacherous section of highway on which motorists are well advised to heed the ever-changing speed limit advisories. 45 miles per hour may be fine for this half-mile, but when the sign says to drive 20 miles per hour when rounding the next curve, it means it. Going off the road would mean tumbling to a certain death at the foot of the mountains, careening first through trees and rocks past many thousands of years of layers of minerals exposed by glacial activity and finally coming to rest in a tangled heap of metal and charred flesh upon the grassy grazing grounds of bison (a scenic route toward death, I suppose, should one have the wits about him/her at the time to take in the beauty en route to one's demise).
You might have already guessed this, but deer hide out in the ditches along this stretch of the road, too, waiting to leap out at the most inopportune time. It requires a keen eye, enjoying not only the beauty of the terrain but also watching out for deer and paying close attention to the speed limits. Cattle, too, are a common sight right in the middle of the highway. There are certain parts of the highway at which I know that I will see a rogue cow, having escaped the fence and "making a run for it," albeit with the speed of a bovine . . . which, to the human eye, looks like a film in slow motion mode. Why those particular ranchers don't fix their fences is beyond me. There was a cow out on the road on my way back from Sidney, too, this week, so perhaps modern cattle have evolved into wilier creatures than I remember.
After making it alive to the north side of the Killdeer Mountains, one finds oneself on the Fort Berthold Reservation, and the section through which the highway winds has steep hills and winding roads and gorgeous trees. Nearing New Town, one discovers the Four Bears Bridge spanning Lake Sakakawea. Large bodies of water always impress me, and the bridge offers an excellent vantage point for taking in the grandeur of the incoming Missouri River and the lake that stretches off to the north and west. New Town takes three hours round trip.
Once I'm in Hettinger or Sidney or New Town, I'm busy in the school observing the pre-service teacher or supervising the field experience students in their classrooms. However, there isn't much to do while driving to each destination besides take in the scenery and think--sometimes in my head, sometimes aloud (worthwhile radio stations fade out of reach long before I get wherever I'm going). When I ignore the carnage of roadkill and the threatening stare of diabolical roadside ungulates, I can appreciate the beauty of the rugged buttes and verdant valleys, the rolling rivers and majestic lakes, the fading grasses, and the trees whose leaves are bright green at the bottom but progressively more golden toward the top.
One doesn't normally associate such a mix of beauty and danger with training future teachers, but that's my life! (Or maybe it's just life as I see it.)
Moral of the story: I have been doing a lot of driving recently for work. The route southward to Hettinger takes me on gently curving roads through occasionally hilly terrain past vast fields and pastures toward the SD border. The road also happens to be a grotesque battlefield strewn with the corpses of pheasants, raccoons, rabbits, skunks, cats, deer, and other critters that have "played chicken" with oncoming vehicles and lost. Hettinger takes two-and-a-half hours round trip.
The route to Sidney takes me first on Interstate 94 through the rugged Badlands of southwest ND and into the plains of eastern MT until I get to Glendive. Then I head north on a curvy, hilly highway alongside the impressive Yellowstone River and through some alternating areas of woods and fields and pastures. Homicidal deer lie in wait along either side of the highway between Glendive and Sidney, the animal kingdom's equivalent of suicide bombers. Sidney takes four-and-a-half hours round trip.
The route to New Town takes me north through the Killdeer Mountains, a gorgeous part of the state but a treacherous section of highway on which motorists are well advised to heed the ever-changing speed limit advisories. 45 miles per hour may be fine for this half-mile, but when the sign says to drive 20 miles per hour when rounding the next curve, it means it. Going off the road would mean tumbling to a certain death at the foot of the mountains, careening first through trees and rocks past many thousands of years of layers of minerals exposed by glacial activity and finally coming to rest in a tangled heap of metal and charred flesh upon the grassy grazing grounds of bison (a scenic route toward death, I suppose, should one have the wits about him/her at the time to take in the beauty en route to one's demise).
You might have already guessed this, but deer hide out in the ditches along this stretch of the road, too, waiting to leap out at the most inopportune time. It requires a keen eye, enjoying not only the beauty of the terrain but also watching out for deer and paying close attention to the speed limits. Cattle, too, are a common sight right in the middle of the highway. There are certain parts of the highway at which I know that I will see a rogue cow, having escaped the fence and "making a run for it," albeit with the speed of a bovine . . . which, to the human eye, looks like a film in slow motion mode. Why those particular ranchers don't fix their fences is beyond me. There was a cow out on the road on my way back from Sidney, too, this week, so perhaps modern cattle have evolved into wilier creatures than I remember.
After making it alive to the north side of the Killdeer Mountains, one finds oneself on the Fort Berthold Reservation, and the section through which the highway winds has steep hills and winding roads and gorgeous trees. Nearing New Town, one discovers the Four Bears Bridge spanning Lake Sakakawea. Large bodies of water always impress me, and the bridge offers an excellent vantage point for taking in the grandeur of the incoming Missouri River and the lake that stretches off to the north and west. New Town takes three hours round trip.
Once I'm in Hettinger or Sidney or New Town, I'm busy in the school observing the pre-service teacher or supervising the field experience students in their classrooms. However, there isn't much to do while driving to each destination besides take in the scenery and think--sometimes in my head, sometimes aloud (worthwhile radio stations fade out of reach long before I get wherever I'm going). When I ignore the carnage of roadkill and the threatening stare of diabolical roadside ungulates, I can appreciate the beauty of the rugged buttes and verdant valleys, the rolling rivers and majestic lakes, the fading grasses, and the trees whose leaves are bright green at the bottom but progressively more golden toward the top.
One doesn't normally associate such a mix of beauty and danger with training future teachers, but that's my life! (Or maybe it's just life as I see it.)
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