Hillary Clinton Does Luther

On April 22nd, Hillary Clinton came to Luther to speak about her political viewpoints and why she wants to be the next president. She raised many interesting issues about childcare, the war in Iraq, the national budget, and many other things. One of, what I think, the most important issues she raised was that of the No Child Left Behind legislation. Hillary acknowledged that the intent behind the legislation was good, but that it has been implemented horribly and has been underfunded. This is extremely important to me as a pre-service teacher because I am interested to see how she plans to change the program to actually benefit students and schools. Hillary also addressed the idea of technology in school, reaffirming my attitude that schools today are exactly the same as they were 50 years ago, but that the world is a completely different place today. Technology has a place in the classroom, and funding is needed to make the numerous possibilities a reality. I am interested to see what other ideas Hillary has about education and how she plans to implement them, should she be elected in 2008.

Philharmonia and Cantorei Concert

I just returned from seeing the Philharmonia and Cantorei concert this evening. Although I am not involved in music at Luther, and am in fact completely lacking musical talent, I thoroughly enjoyed the show. Knowing very little about music, as I stated previously, gives me a narrow spectrum through which I can look at the benefits of music, but from an "outsiders" perspective, music seemed very important to the people who performed. Although personally I couldn't care less about whether or not music classes are offered in today's schools, I could see tonight that for some people music is more than just a hobby. I do not know any statistics about the benefits of taking music classes, but I do know that I could see the passion for music in tonight's performers. I also know that Luther would be a completely different place, not necessarily in a bad way, but nonetheless, removing the music program from Luther would drastically change the dynamic of the school. There is also the danger that by the time my children are in college there will be no music classes offered if they are all cut at lower levels. Music classes are a touchy subject in education today, but I think that for certain people music is necessary and vital and should be preserved for them.

PUSH

This past weekend I attended a performance of the original dance show PUSH that was written by my friend Siri Carlson. In the show the dance chronicles the struggles of a writer who is experiencing writers block. This is important to me as a future educator because it indicates many things that I need to be aware of in my own classroom, namely pushing students too far. There is always a line between placing a sufficient amount of pressure, and too much pressure for success on students. Rather than be the antagonist in the situation, I would prefer for my students to strive to do well out of a desire to learn, not necessarily out of a desire to meet some previously prescribed standards. In the end, the writer was successful in overcoming her struggle. This is significant because I feel that it represents the superiority of a students will and drive over that of the teacher.