Jackie Lawrence
Reflection Paper #3
EDF 2085
To me, paradigms are frames of reference we develop from our daily experiences with the outside world. We are naturally inclined to watch others’ behaviors and actions and form a biased opinion. Paradigm shifts are changes in our former ways of thinking about a certain subject matter. I know I definitely experienced multiple paradigm shifts throughout my life. Believe it or not, the most important one was related to my education. For years after high school, I swore I would never go back to college. I made plenty of money as it was, and furthering my education didn’t guarantee a higher salary or a better future. However, those long hours of running around on my feet caught up to me, and at some point I matured. Healthcare, a 401K, and pension suddenly didn’t seem so bad. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, but I have finally recognized what my future will hold if I continue to work in smoke-filled bars until four in the morning. Once I made my decision to go back to school, I was TERRIFIED. I didn’t think I could afford it, I wasn’t sure if MDC was worth the money, and I was worried about multitasking the bills, school, and work. This is my last semester here at Miami Dade, and it’s been the best two years of my life. I truly feel exactly like a butterfly that’s just learning how to fly. My reframing has assisted in furthering my goals. Today, I am determined to receive a Doctoral Degree in Psychology and Education. I do not care how much it costs or how long it will take me. And along my journey, I’m sure I will experience additional paradigm shifts. Through internships, dissertations, and employment, I will further expand my mind and develop my purpose here on earth.
I believe, even as educators, it is easy to become stuck in our schemas, and ultimately find it difficult to reframe and make sense out of some experiences we may encounter. Society’s changes will parallel technology, diversity, and politics, and our classrooms will reflect those changes. It is of ultimate importance that teachers adjust and remain ahead of their students in these changes. For instance, how would it look if a 5th grade student was more technologically inclined than their teacher with over 25 years of experience? As you can see, teachers must make their jobs a priority, and aim not only to succeed, but to exceed their own expectations of what they hope to accomplish throughout their careers.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
EDF 2085 Reflection Paper #1
Jackie Lawrence
Reflection Paper # 1
EDF 2085
I cannot imagine living without all the necessary technologies that are utilized on a day to day basis. Cell phones, the internet, cars, planes, and even microwaves make life much more proficient and effective. These technologies were discovered and created by motivated, determined, and intelligent human beings. According to the article, fire may have been discovered by accident because of wildfires, but prehistoric humans soon realized how beneficial they were for cooking and warmth. 300,000 to 400,000 years, ago, humans were actively controlling fires to improve their nutritional content, which ultimately was progressive in the development of the human anatomy and brain. Tools such as the wheel empowered humans to live more effectively. The development of writing improved communication and give historians today a firmer foundation of the past. I believe we were asked to read these articles for a variety of reasons. First, as educators, it is necessary we are knowledgeable in a plethora of subject matter. Even if we plan to be math teachers, we should still have some information available to our students about the beginning of the human race. Also, I believe these articles were meant to reinforce how important creativity is for knowledge and progress to cultivate. If humans never thought to invent the wheel, fire, or writing, we would be living in an incredibly different world today. As educators, we need to encourage our students to soak in as much education as humanly possible. It is easy to float through life by making just enough money to live on and never challenge or reevaluate ways of thinking. But how will society flourish if we all act in this manner? Human beings are the only species on the planet blessed with a mature, complex brain. I feel so incredibly fortunate and grateful on a daily basis to have the power to expand my mind, be open-minded, and experience the beauty of learning. I hope to one day make an impact in this world as significant as those who have discovered fire, the wheel, and the beauty of art and language. Society is based on a time continuum, and it is up to us, especially as educators, to aspire to thrive and prosper in the future. If we instill these values in our students, we can influence and create the next Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin Luther King Jr.
Reflection Paper # 1
EDF 2085
I cannot imagine living without all the necessary technologies that are utilized on a day to day basis. Cell phones, the internet, cars, planes, and even microwaves make life much more proficient and effective. These technologies were discovered and created by motivated, determined, and intelligent human beings. According to the article, fire may have been discovered by accident because of wildfires, but prehistoric humans soon realized how beneficial they were for cooking and warmth. 300,000 to 400,000 years, ago, humans were actively controlling fires to improve their nutritional content, which ultimately was progressive in the development of the human anatomy and brain. Tools such as the wheel empowered humans to live more effectively. The development of writing improved communication and give historians today a firmer foundation of the past. I believe we were asked to read these articles for a variety of reasons. First, as educators, it is necessary we are knowledgeable in a plethora of subject matter. Even if we plan to be math teachers, we should still have some information available to our students about the beginning of the human race. Also, I believe these articles were meant to reinforce how important creativity is for knowledge and progress to cultivate. If humans never thought to invent the wheel, fire, or writing, we would be living in an incredibly different world today. As educators, we need to encourage our students to soak in as much education as humanly possible. It is easy to float through life by making just enough money to live on and never challenge or reevaluate ways of thinking. But how will society flourish if we all act in this manner? Human beings are the only species on the planet blessed with a mature, complex brain. I feel so incredibly fortunate and grateful on a daily basis to have the power to expand my mind, be open-minded, and experience the beauty of learning. I hope to one day make an impact in this world as significant as those who have discovered fire, the wheel, and the beauty of art and language. Society is based on a time continuum, and it is up to us, especially as educators, to aspire to thrive and prosper in the future. If we instill these values in our students, we can influence and create the next Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin Luther King Jr.
EDF 2085 Reflection Paper #2
Jackie Lawrence
Reflection Paper # 2
EDF 2085
“When we reinvent ourselves, we take our life experiences and transmute these base metals into gold -- the truth about who and what we are and what we are capable of doing.” This quote is absolutely beautiful and has somehow managed to sum my entire life story into a nice little package. Transformation has been the core of who I am today and who I am proudly becoming. After high school, it was necessary to take years off and reinvent and renovate my soul. It was scary, and it was hard. Growing up, I was raised well. My upper-middle class family taught me values such as honor, loyalty, honesty and pride. My strong foundation encouraged me to respect those who were educated and hard working. I aspired to be that way one day myself, but somewhere along my path I became lost. Self-esteem and confidence were above me. After a lot of hard work, I finally began to learn that my base metals were still good enough to one day become gold.
Tolerance, acceptance, and compassion have, luckily, never really been an issue for me when it comes to young people and other cultures. The way I see it, I have been to the bottom and back, so who am I to be judgmental of others? On the contrary, it is now my life mission to help those in need. I have become passionate about working with high school students that are on their way to becoming lost. I hope I can one day be the positive influence for someone else I so badly needed at that fragile time. If this isn’t transformation, recovery, and renovation, then I don’t know what is.
However, in my place of employment, it has sometimes been difficult for me to display tolerance and acceptance. As a bartender for the past four years in North Miami dive bars, I eventually learned an important lesson: judging others is being close-minded; it only hinders your own soul. It is important to know the entire story before an assessment can be made. For awhile, at work, I would get frustrated with my older patrons and write them off as drug addicts and drunks who refuse to better themselves. I guess I thought I was above them because I had succeeded in that aspect of life. Today, I know in my heart that it’s possible to acquire some sort of wisdom from each and every person on the planet. Even if that wisdom only teaches you what you don’t want to become, it is still beneficial.
I now take every day as an opportunity to learn something from somebody. And I plan on continuing to do so once I become a school psychologist. It would be impossible to be helpful to students, or to myself, without an open-mind, compassion, and empathy. And in our extraordinarily diverse country, we can all create transformations for ourselves through embracing differences in others.
Reflection Paper # 2
EDF 2085
“When we reinvent ourselves, we take our life experiences and transmute these base metals into gold -- the truth about who and what we are and what we are capable of doing.” This quote is absolutely beautiful and has somehow managed to sum my entire life story into a nice little package. Transformation has been the core of who I am today and who I am proudly becoming. After high school, it was necessary to take years off and reinvent and renovate my soul. It was scary, and it was hard. Growing up, I was raised well. My upper-middle class family taught me values such as honor, loyalty, honesty and pride. My strong foundation encouraged me to respect those who were educated and hard working. I aspired to be that way one day myself, but somewhere along my path I became lost. Self-esteem and confidence were above me. After a lot of hard work, I finally began to learn that my base metals were still good enough to one day become gold.
Tolerance, acceptance, and compassion have, luckily, never really been an issue for me when it comes to young people and other cultures. The way I see it, I have been to the bottom and back, so who am I to be judgmental of others? On the contrary, it is now my life mission to help those in need. I have become passionate about working with high school students that are on their way to becoming lost. I hope I can one day be the positive influence for someone else I so badly needed at that fragile time. If this isn’t transformation, recovery, and renovation, then I don’t know what is.
However, in my place of employment, it has sometimes been difficult for me to display tolerance and acceptance. As a bartender for the past four years in North Miami dive bars, I eventually learned an important lesson: judging others is being close-minded; it only hinders your own soul. It is important to know the entire story before an assessment can be made. For awhile, at work, I would get frustrated with my older patrons and write them off as drug addicts and drunks who refuse to better themselves. I guess I thought I was above them because I had succeeded in that aspect of life. Today, I know in my heart that it’s possible to acquire some sort of wisdom from each and every person on the planet. Even if that wisdom only teaches you what you don’t want to become, it is still beneficial.
I now take every day as an opportunity to learn something from somebody. And I plan on continuing to do so once I become a school psychologist. It would be impossible to be helpful to students, or to myself, without an open-mind, compassion, and empathy. And in our extraordinarily diverse country, we can all create transformations for ourselves through embracing differences in others.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
EDF 1005 Reflection Paper#2
Jackie Lawrence
Reflection Paper # 2
EDF 1005
As an aspiring school psychologist, paradigm shifts, framing, and reframing are all extremely important terms I need to be familiar with. People’s perceptions are based on their experiences, and these experiences are processed by the brain and stored into their memory. As a generalization, most people can be pretty stubborn, and once they generate a belief, in their mind, it becomes a fact. Education majors must acknowledge that their classroom will one day be filled with thousands of opinions, which to the students, are factual. For instance, not to be disrespectful in any way, shape, or form…I was told you were TOUGH. My fellow classmates last semester mentioned your name quite a few times, and expressed how proud they were to have gotten through your course. One girl, who knew more or less my job obligations, took a look at my schedule, and exclaimed, “Jackie, you will not be able to do this! What are you thinking?” Of course, I was intimidated. But my dad has always taught me to challenge myself in every way possible, so here I am. Imagine if primitive humans never invented weapons. They would have all starved to death, caused a mass extinction, and none of us would be here today. Thank goodness somebody back then experienced that paradigm shift and realized they needed to eat to survive. Imagine if the wheel had never been invented, or the light bulb. We’d all still be riding horses to work and sitting in the dark, bored, at night. Technology today is expanding just about as fast as I’m typing these words, and that’s because people are out there reframing and trying to make the world a more efficient place. We can never know what we are capable of doing until we think outside of the box. As a future educator, I believe it is very important to stress creativity. Encourage students to investigate deeper into what they are told, and even into what they already think they believe. These students are our future, and we will need them to continue on the right path as we get old. I experienced an incredible paradigm shift after a rough couple of years. If I hadn’t had those bad experiences, I never would have learned from them, and I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Our experiences are what make us unique, and that’s what makes the world so interesting. If nobody ever reframed, there would be no art, no religion, no music, no opinions on all the questions of the universe that we all have. And what a boring world that would be.
Reflection Paper # 2
EDF 1005
As an aspiring school psychologist, paradigm shifts, framing, and reframing are all extremely important terms I need to be familiar with. People’s perceptions are based on their experiences, and these experiences are processed by the brain and stored into their memory. As a generalization, most people can be pretty stubborn, and once they generate a belief, in their mind, it becomes a fact. Education majors must acknowledge that their classroom will one day be filled with thousands of opinions, which to the students, are factual. For instance, not to be disrespectful in any way, shape, or form…I was told you were TOUGH. My fellow classmates last semester mentioned your name quite a few times, and expressed how proud they were to have gotten through your course. One girl, who knew more or less my job obligations, took a look at my schedule, and exclaimed, “Jackie, you will not be able to do this! What are you thinking?” Of course, I was intimidated. But my dad has always taught me to challenge myself in every way possible, so here I am. Imagine if primitive humans never invented weapons. They would have all starved to death, caused a mass extinction, and none of us would be here today. Thank goodness somebody back then experienced that paradigm shift and realized they needed to eat to survive. Imagine if the wheel had never been invented, or the light bulb. We’d all still be riding horses to work and sitting in the dark, bored, at night. Technology today is expanding just about as fast as I’m typing these words, and that’s because people are out there reframing and trying to make the world a more efficient place. We can never know what we are capable of doing until we think outside of the box. As a future educator, I believe it is very important to stress creativity. Encourage students to investigate deeper into what they are told, and even into what they already think they believe. These students are our future, and we will need them to continue on the right path as we get old. I experienced an incredible paradigm shift after a rough couple of years. If I hadn’t had those bad experiences, I never would have learned from them, and I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Our experiences are what make us unique, and that’s what makes the world so interesting. If nobody ever reframed, there would be no art, no religion, no music, no opinions on all the questions of the universe that we all have. And what a boring world that would be.
EDF 1005 Reflection Paper #1
Jackie Lawrence
Reflection Paper #1
EDF 1005
I truly believed the answer to the question on Quiz #1 relating to teachers in colonial times was that they aspired to be “masters” of their lifelong career. Once I learned that a large amount of teachers were actually indentured servants paying their way into America through their short-term job, I was slightly surprised, to say the least. America’s first normal schools in Concord, Vermont and Lexington, Massachusetts provided only two years of teacher training. That is a great start, but schoolteachers were actually required to sweep and mop their classrooms! To me, the contract imposed on these women was disrespectful and almost ridiculous, especially for a meager salary of $75 per month. Why would anybody want to teach for a living? It was not until the 1980s that significant changes were made. In 1986, the Holmes Group and the Carnegie Forum issued reports demanding reformation in America’s education system. They fought for higher standards and longer training for aspiring teachers. Eventually, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was created, which recognized competent, over-achieving teachers. It’s a shame the cost to become board-certified is so high. Teachers that teach because they have a passion and a desire to feel fulfilled in life should absolutely be appreciated. To me, that’s about as professional as it gets. I was raised to always respect my schoolteachers, not just because they could fail me, but because they were my main source of knowledge and my outlet to a successful future.
In terms of preparing future teachers with alternative programs such as Teach for America, I agree with critic Linda Darling-Hammond’s outlook. I’m glad TFA has been able to recruit motivated and determined people, but I do not think a one to two year program is enough. I think a lot of teachers out there today are trying to take the easy way out. The biggest reason I want to become a school psychologist someday is because I want to make an impact and be a good influence for teenagers. The teachers out there just trying to make their pension and go on summer vacations cannot possibly be teaching for the right reasons. A better approach to make sure aspiring teachers become proficient, professional role models is to increase their length of training. And if the average teacher salary was increased, I can pretty much guarantee more people will put in the effort to work their way up to an exciting and fun career with rewarding perks.
Reflection Paper #1
EDF 1005
I truly believed the answer to the question on Quiz #1 relating to teachers in colonial times was that they aspired to be “masters” of their lifelong career. Once I learned that a large amount of teachers were actually indentured servants paying their way into America through their short-term job, I was slightly surprised, to say the least. America’s first normal schools in Concord, Vermont and Lexington, Massachusetts provided only two years of teacher training. That is a great start, but schoolteachers were actually required to sweep and mop their classrooms! To me, the contract imposed on these women was disrespectful and almost ridiculous, especially for a meager salary of $75 per month. Why would anybody want to teach for a living? It was not until the 1980s that significant changes were made. In 1986, the Holmes Group and the Carnegie Forum issued reports demanding reformation in America’s education system. They fought for higher standards and longer training for aspiring teachers. Eventually, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards was created, which recognized competent, over-achieving teachers. It’s a shame the cost to become board-certified is so high. Teachers that teach because they have a passion and a desire to feel fulfilled in life should absolutely be appreciated. To me, that’s about as professional as it gets. I was raised to always respect my schoolteachers, not just because they could fail me, but because they were my main source of knowledge and my outlet to a successful future.
In terms of preparing future teachers with alternative programs such as Teach for America, I agree with critic Linda Darling-Hammond’s outlook. I’m glad TFA has been able to recruit motivated and determined people, but I do not think a one to two year program is enough. I think a lot of teachers out there today are trying to take the easy way out. The biggest reason I want to become a school psychologist someday is because I want to make an impact and be a good influence for teenagers. The teachers out there just trying to make their pension and go on summer vacations cannot possibly be teaching for the right reasons. A better approach to make sure aspiring teachers become proficient, professional role models is to increase their length of training. And if the average teacher salary was increased, I can pretty much guarantee more people will put in the effort to work their way up to an exciting and fun career with rewarding perks.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Jackie's First Blog
I was born somewhere in Jersey on July 12th, 1983. Raised in New York, I moved down to Miami when I was 17 to attend the University of Miami. I absolutely fell in love with this city!! The weather, the diversity, and those beautiful palm trees... Furthermore, I was finally free of my parents' terrible divorce and all the high school drama!! However, my emotional maturity was not yet up to par with my peers. I partied a little too hard that first semester, and although I came out with a 3.92 GPA, I quickly fell apart in most other aspects of my life. September 11th, 2001 was the scariest day I've ever experienced, as most of my family lives in Manhattan. At the time, my dad worked in Grand Central Station, and those ten hours of not being able to contact my family was absolutely terrifying. In December 2001, I moved backed home. Three years later, I fell in love with a boy from Queens, became engaged, and moved right back down to Miami as soon as possible. Although my relationship eventually fell apart, I decided to stay and try to make it on my own. Two years ago I was rear-ended by a car while turning into my driveway on a motorcycle. The support of my friends during that tumultuous time was a blessing I will never forget. The six months I spent in a back brace, well aware I was lucky to be alive, taught me a priceless lesson. We are only here for a very short time, and I want to spend my time helping others. Currently, I work three jobs to pay the bills and put myself through school. I will one day become a school psychologist, and even if I only help one person, my time here was well worth it. To me, adolescence is an extremely fragile period, and a positive influence can sometimes be a lifesaver. I want to give what others have given to me during my fragile times; I want to be that lifesaver.
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