Part+2

**San Antonio, Donna M. and Salzfass, Elizabeth A. How we Treat One Another in School**
 This article focuses on the unfortunate occurrence of bullying in schools and the effects that it has on students. The article spoke of a study that was conducted in three different types of schools: a rural school, a big city school, and a small city school. While 76.5% of students felt safe most of the time overall, there were some noteworthy differences between the schools. Students at the big city school felt safe significantly less than students at the other two schools, while the rural school was the only one where students said that bullying was a true problem - mainly due to verbal bullying - to the point that 72% of girls at the rural school reported feeling being bullied. The article also discusses how students were the least likely to react to bullying by reporting it to an adult, and how the students had very little faith in their teachers when it came to the aspect of effectively monitoring bullying. This wasn't the first time that I read this article, but it's still just as gripping to me. Everyone realizes that in order for people to succeed, much less students, people have to be in safe environments, or rather environments that they feel are safe. The fact that so many students have to deal with bullying has to be detrimental to what they could be achieving in school. I can also relate to how mean kids can get, particularly in elementary and middle school when either myself or friends were often on the receiving end of bullying. It's definitely a problem that needs to be fixed. - Dustin  Reading through this article and through the student statistics on bullying I felt very uneasy. When in some school the majority of students claim feeling unsafe, both physically and emotionally at school, something is very wrong. How do we expect our students to learn if they fear their safety in the classroom? Basic psychology says that before a person can learn, his/her basic needs need to be met, and safety is no exception. As I read further into the article the small section on what schools can do stood out to me. I agree that staff needs to be trained on bullying and be able to spot all forms of bullying. Teachers also need to speak up when they see bullying happen, because if our students can't trust us to help them they certainly are not going to listen to or confide in us. I also liked the emphasis on building a safe classroom climate. I was a little disappointed that the article did not focus on this a little more because I believe this is crucial. Students need to enter a classroom knowing that they will be treated with respect by both the teacher and their peers, and if someone breaks the classroom community code, they will be held accountable. Bullying remains a crucial issue in schools and if we expect our students to learn, we need to promise a safe place to take chances and explore. -Becca  Bullying is definately an issue at most schools, and I have seen it in my placement, although I know it is not as prevelant as in a lot of other schools. Bullying can happen in many forms and can be devestating to kids even though they may not show it. Therefore, we really need to make sure that employees of the schools are trained and aware of what bullying is and how to stop it. Most students don't feel safe because they think that the adults in the building do not respond to bullying enough or at all. Isn't one of our main goals to make students feel safe while they are at school? Then it should be obvious that something needs to be done. The article listed things that could be done to help stop and prevent bullying from occuring such as: integrating social-emotional education into the curriculum, training employees, recognizing all forms of bullying, and create a committee to focus on school relationships. The one I like the most is "Help the Bullied and the Bullies." Most of the time the students who are doing the bullying are the kids who need our attention and support as much or more so than the ones who are the victims. Bullying can get in the ways of a child's education so it needs to stop. -Deanna 

When this essay states that surveys consistently indicate students’ number one fears about being in school have to do with social structure—fitting in, having friends, or being made fun of—my observations during the first week of school seem to be supported. I am teaching 9th grade English for my placement. 9th graders are brand new at high school and many of them take the transition quite seriously. To them it is a big deal. During the first week of school Tosha (my CT) and myself asked the students periodically how their new experiences were going, Were they finding their way around the building? Were they feeling uneasy in anyway? How could we help? The main answers I heard from students, both verbally and in writing, were that they were afraid of going to the wrong room (and getting made fun of as a result), dealing with lunch (having friends to sit by), and dealing with the upperclassmen (to them Seniors were “scary”). I found this peculiar at first, not remembering my own experience as a Freshmen, but after reading this essay it makes sense to me.

I truly believe that bullying is one of the most damaging things that occurs in schools. It bruises students physically, mentally and academically. Thinking about how damaging it is, and how often it goes under the radar of teachers, mostly because teachers have so many things on their plates, I began remembering things I learned about in some of my ED classes—for example, creating a “safe” environment. Teachers don’t have a ton of control over what happens outside of their classroom. But they can certainly facilitate within their room an atmosphere of respect. I think that this goes a long way, not only to inspire students academically, but also socially throughout their day. It is important for teachers to be sensitive and perceptive of the many social nuances going on in their rooms. It is also important for teachers, especially in their classrooms, to take a strong stance on bullying policy. It won’t be tolerated, it isn’t productive and anyone who engages in it will have to change immediately. Educators set the tone.

Finally, I liked what the essay said about helping both the bullied and the bullies themselves. There are usually extenuating circumstances that cause people to act the way they do. The same is true for young people. Intervening in a bully’s life will not only help their victims, but them as well. -Alex  Luke's summary We have already covered this chapter in class. but since it is such an important topic I was glad to read it again. The article points out that bullying affects not only the student's personal life, but his school life and grades as well, something most teachers tend to ignore. It does not stop at school, either, and can greatly affect the rest of a person's life.Studies on bullying have shown that bullies are in all communities. Boys and girls bully people differently, and different socioeconomic schools have different types of bullies, but they are omnipresent. Some people, particularly boys, believe that they should use violence to protect themselves against bullies, and both sexes believe that their should be more intervention from the adults. The article also talks about different strategies that schools can use to not only stop bullying, but to take the first step in identifying it.  <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I really enjoyed the section titled "Help the bullied and the bullies." I think that too often we use a band aid on the problem and simply punish the bullies and help the bullied. I love the idea of helping the bullies work through their problems as well. We need to see if and how the bullies are being treated at home and if that is hurting the way that they interact with other students. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">-luke <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Bullying is clearly a problem, but I do understand why students are reluctant to report bullying to an adult. I know this is the response we want them to have, but I’m not sure there is much we can do to promote the reporting of bullying. Bullying, for starters, is in the eye of the beholder. As a sarcastic adolescent, I had pretty thick skin and wouldn’t consider rude things my classmates said to me as bullying/harmful. However, there are students who would consider sarcastic and rude comments as bullying, so it makes it difficult for teachers to decide what actions are to be considered as bullying. When do we get to tell kids to toughen up and get a grip? I recognize bullying is a serious issue and I wish it could stop, but I honestly don’t see how teachers can entice students to report more instances of bullying. Mostly, students want to lay low, so bringing these issues to the attention of faculty members is social suicide. -Lauren

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Strom, Paris S. and Strom, Robert D. Cheating in Middle and High School**
<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It is no surprise that cheating exists in high school and middle school. However, stopping it and eliminating it altogether can be a tough thing to do. This chapter talks about many different reasons why students cheat and some ways we, as teachers, can try and prevent it from happening in our classrooms. Students cheat for many reasons including: needing good grades for college, they don't have enough time to do original work, and it is not important to them. The answer students give for cheating that really gets me is: "Everyone else is cheating." If true, this presents a big problem and one that needs to be stopped immediately. Ways we can help prevent and discover if students are cheating. There are many websites out there these days that can help determine if student work, particularly in papers, is original or copied. This chapter provided many websites that may be useful in the future. We, as teachers, can also do some things to help our students not want to cheat. The chapter gives the following suggestions for assignments: <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1) The purpose of every project should be clear, identify anticipated benefits, and invite dialogue regarding methods, resources, and the types of products that are acceptable for submission. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2) Relevance for the students should be established. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3) Encourage the students to express their feelings and describe the processes used to reach their conclusions. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">4) Emphasize higher-order thinking and creative behavior. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">5) Go beyond the customary scope for problem solving. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">6) Encourage varied types of information gathering. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">7) Identify the criteria that will be used for evaluating the quality of performance. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">8) Allow students to reflect, revise, and improve their product. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">9) Consider the use of oral critique. - Deanna

Certainly, cheating is an ethical issue that has evolved wit the development of technology. What used to be rather simple to execute and quite simple to prevent has become much more complex difficult to prevent given the Internet, iPods, cell phones and numerous other technological devices that can be used to cheat. Additionally, with the Internet being used as such a prominent research tool, writing tool and storage tool for content, the issues of plagiarism and other types of academic dishonesty have boomed over the past several years. While it is important to discuss the social and ethical issues of cheating, develop strategies for its prevention, have a clear stance on and implement policies that deter students from engaging in such acts, I think it is also important to discuss a few surrounding issues. Some of the reasons for cheating mentioned in the essay were the need for good grades to get into college; students have to do well on tests to get school funding; or parental pride that their children out perform others. One must ask if the system we have created with our assessment strategies have as much to do with the issue of cheating than moral deterioration or disregard of ethical behavior. Perhaps, if state testing was not so high-stake, students were encouraged to learn for intrinsic reasons, and education was not so competitive then people would not have a reason to cheat. Certainly, this is an idealistic statement, however, I think there is some truth to it. If assessment was different, cheating may not be so prominent. -Alex

Everyone has at least one story that involves cheating, whether it happened in high school, college, or the workplace. The reality remains that cheating IS an issue in our school systems and with advancements in technology, the internet and electronics, new avenues for cheating are opened. In this article, Robert and Paris Storm explore issues related to cheating and try to explain the motivations for cheating. Between high stake tests, the pressures to get good grades, and the belief that "everyone else does it" the majority of students cheat at some point in their education. The article also explores the role that technology plays in cheating and how cheating has become more manageable with internet and electronics. Students now have devices and internet resources that feed them answers or simply just do the work for them. At the same time, with these advancements in technology, parents, teachers, and school systems fail to educate students on academic honesty on the web. All in all, this essay takes the pressing issue of cheating and breaks it down trying to understand the implications, reasoning, and forms of cheating in today's schools.

As I read through this article I looked through the lens of a teacher and tried to make sense of why students might want, or feel the need to cheat. When I approached the section of the article that spoke about prevention of plagiarism, I was intrigued by some of the suggestions. Just like best practice suggests, this article stressed the need to give more challenging tasks that make students think critically. Instead of giving students a multiple choice test where they can cheat very easily, ask questions that make students explain their reasoning and defend their answers. It is much more difficult to cheat on an essay test then a fill in the blank test. Not only does this control cheating, but it also promotes literacy in the classroom. If students take their thinking up a level like Blooms suggests, they are more likely to retain the information for a longer period of time. In short, if cheating is such an issue, teachers and schools need to step back and ask, what are we doing wrong that makes students feel that they must resort to cheating to find success?

-Becca

This article came as no surprise to me - I can remember my friends and even myself cheating on assignments, tests, and quizzes countless times. It’s hard to say why it is so common for students to cheat, though I have to think it in part has to due with how competitive the human race has become. People - and thus schools, states, and countries - are always trying to get one step ahead so it is only natural to use every possible advantage - at least to some. However, as teachers, we need to figure out ways of changing this. Being an English teacher makes it a bit easier, as in papers all we ask is that students properly cite all of their sources. The tips for assignments that are provided in the chapter and that Deanna previously mentioned should also be used.

- Dustin

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For me, I think the most important element for teachers to prevent cheating is to assign projects that call upon their creativity and higher-order levels of thinking. When students are required to come up with original concepts, it becomes much more difficult to copy a classmate (as opposed to leaning over and copying the answers on a simple Q&A worksheet). Also holding students accountable for the answers they have written might help in this area. It is easy to write down a neighbor's answer, but when students have the opportunity to speak with the teacher about how they came to the conclusion, it would force them to complete their own work. I'm also a fan of allowing a student to revise and improve their products, since I know the majority of my work the first time around is not at the level it should be. I witnessed many students cheating today on the MAP test, which confused me since we explained the importance of the test to students (their results help us assist them in areas they are struggling in and let us know what level classes they should be enrolled in). Sometimes, though, I think it's the nature of the 7th grade beast. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">-Lauren <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

Dweck, Carol. The Perils and Promises of Praise
Too often, teachers fail to recognize the effect that their comments and praise have on student achievement. I have read articles like this one before and they all seem to come to the same conclusion, it is better to praise student effort then it is to praise intelligence. As teachers, the last thing we want to do is limit student thinking and achievement. Therefore, we do things like praise their accomplishments to motivate them. I know for me this is a natural instinct and when a student gets an answer right the first thing I want to say is "Brilliant". But in reality I am just hurting the student, forcing him to take less chances and meet my standard of brilliance. Therefore, I began thinking of other ways to make students feel good about what their work but not hinder their desire to challenge their minds. A tool I find helpful is to take notice of the students work and point out pieces that stand out to me. For example, if a student is drawing a picture of a dog I might say, "I see you chose to paint you dog brown." This way I take notice of the students work but don't place intellectual judgment on it. This article generates a compelling argument and perhaps teachers need to re-think the way they respond to students in the classroom.

-Becca

Centered on the “Perils and Promises of Praise,” this article illuminates methods of how to praise students appropriately, and what effects praise has on academic achievement. Dweck writes about fixed or malleable intelligence, and what role either mindset has on teacher expectations as well as student achievement. Through evidence displayed in the text, we see that students who believe intelligence is malleable are motivated to achieve more in school and rise to face challenging curriculum when they struggle. Students who believe their intelligence is fixed believe effort and ability are not correlated, and these students have a tendency to decrease their efforts and feel defeated when they hit a setback. I think every prospective educator today has read an article revealing this information – we all know not to praise students for intelligence, rather, we need to praise them for their efforts. The most important thing for teachers to take away from this article is we need to take time to teach our students their intelligence is not fixed, but that they have the power to increase their intelligence and ability based on their efforts. If students believe their intelligence is fixed, when they do encounter a challenge, they often stop working in school (every teacher’s nightmare). In my classroom, I will start praising students who are trying and staying engaged, as opposed to congratulating a student for his/her intelligence.

-Lauren

This article was very interesting to me because I never thought about praise being detrimental to students. I was very interested in the differences between intelligence-praise and effort-praise. The study done was eye-opening and I now do believe that praising a child's intelligence can really deter them from trying and from succeeding in school and life. If a child is praised on thier intelligence they rely on it and when something gets too hard or challenging for them they quit because they do not want to fail because they would be seen as less intelligent or not intelligent enough to succeed. Whereas the students who were praised about their effort were more likely to try hard through the challenging tasks. I will definately make sure that I will try and use effort based praise instead of praising them just for a perfect score because they are so intelligent.

- Deanna

This was an interesting article, and like Deanna, I had not really ever thought about the idea of praise being detrimental though I have thought about when praise would be appropriate. And I can relate to the idea that often times students only seem to want to do something when they know there is a reward or a punishment... such as a grade. I also quite like the idea of "keeping students focused on the process of achievement," as the author writes at the end.

- Dustin

Summary

The primary point of this essay is that praise can be both helpful and damaging depending upon an educator’s approach. When students are praised on intrinsic abilities—their intelligence—praise tends to be damaging. However, when students are praised for extrinsic reasons—they worked really hard—praise does wonders. The author explains that, when teachers praise a student’s intelligence they are sending the message that their abilities, achievement and intelligence are fixed—that working hard doesn’t apply because one either has the ability to do something or they don’t. Instead of inspiring the student to achieve, they have created a fixed mind-set, which tends to be incredibly vulnerable. This type of mindset has a number of downfalls: a student, when told they are very smart starts to believe that he/she doesn’t have to work hard, when they fail at something they feel that, because their abilities are fixed they cannot improve, they do not new learning opportunities as a chance to improve their skills and succeed at a challenge, but rather as a task that will either reveal their competence, or more importantly, their incompetence. Learning becomes a threat of embarrassment for those who believe intelligence is fixed. When a student is praised on hard-work, however, or perseverance/improvement at a task, learning becomes a chance to do better. They have nothing to prove and everything to gain. They are motivated by their efforts and the rewards, not daunted by how their work may look to others. This kind of growth mind-set encourages students to work hard because their abilities are not fixed, they are growing.

The essay then outlines a study that supports these theories and outlines an intervention that instills the growth mind-set. I will not go into them.

Response

In my experience so far, I am finding that many students are plagued with thoughts of “I’m stupid. I’m in the slow class. Is this because we are retarded?” These students in my 3 Tri English course have a misconception of why they are there. They are there because they need a little extra time and a little more help to do their best work. They think they are there because they’re “retarded”. This mindset of theirs really bothers me. I have read much of this research about praise strategies and how extrinsic motivators (praising effort over ability) is much more effective then intrinsic motivators (“you are so smart”) in my Psychology courses. The research, as presented here in the article is quite strong. Not only do students who have growth mind-sets achieve more, get better grades and have more positive attitudes, they also have more confidence in themselves, their autonomy and are much more likely to take on new tasks, seek learning opportunities and set reachable goals for themselves. I want to bring this up to my students. I can certainly make a conscious effort to cultivate a growth mind-set in my students by strategically praising effort over ability, by making it explicit that success and achievement is not based on exclusively on intelligence, that abilities are not fixed and that there is no way to success other than through hard work and resilience. They must become their own motivators and I will try to get them to that point. -Alex

Everybody is a winner! Right? Today's society tells us that praise, warranted or not, is the ultimate factor in success. This article, however, tells us that praising effort, and not performance, is much more important. The everybody is a winner scheme is fine if everybody truly put their best effort forward, but that is rarely the case. Also, everywhere else in society tells us it pays to be a winner and that when it comes down to the brass tacks, performance shows true success. So do we eliminate praise? I feel that praise is extremely important for teachers, especially those who teach in areas where there is not a lot of quality adult time given to the students, where praise is needed. I think that even as teachers, we need praise. So, then, how to we approach it? I believe that praising effort and success is a good thing. The article implies that praising performance does not do much good, and sometimes does bad, but for those who are rarely praised at anything if they do one subject or area well, how proud they would be if somebody praised them! Praising effort is still more important, but we must not forget to praise performance as well, just not as often. Children need to understand they have certain strengths and weaknesses, and I think that when they understand that struggling and messing up is a good thing for learning, then even if they were praised for performance they will be less likely to cheat, lie, or stop trying. -Luke