Daniel O'Connell Blog on EDU 2650

  For any school district it is crucial to develop a good home/school connection. This is important because it allows for parents to feel more comfortable with the way in which their child is being educated everyday. As future educators we need to take it upon ourselves to make sure this connection between the school and the home is perfect and every parent feels satisfied with the way their child is being treated. For me if I was a parent I would be annoyed I was in the dark on my child's education.  Part 1 When looking at the ways in which school districts communicate with the home, the main way would have to be Board of Education meetings. I have recently taken the time to attend a Board of Education meeting held by the Plainview-Old Bethpage school district on April 3rd 2023. It was quite an interesting experience, as I have never attended one before. The board spoke on issues within the school district and the best ways to fix the issues. I am from Hicksville and attended

  Social media has grown to become one of the most prevalent things in modern day society. Becoming known by every generation. The question is are they causing destruction to our schools and society. I have started to notice how social media can be harmful to individuals, as I have started to take note of how I can scroll for hours on end. This is not a good thing as it can get in the way of tasks I need to complete.  Personally I do not believe young people should be on social media. I think it causes the attention span of young people to diminish as they constantly want to move on to the next video. Tik tok has created a system where you can watch 100’s of videos in an extremely short amount of time. This is hurting the school system as I believe students will eventually not be able to sit and take an exam for an extended period of time. This lack of attention to the topic at hand could possibly contribute to unmotivated students that will lead to unmotivated workers, causing somewha

  Addiction has been a huge concern for adolescents throughout history. Trying to limit exposure of harmful substances to the youth of this country is essential in containing the amount of overdoses in this country. As future educators this is something we need to take seriously as drugs and alcohol can lead to students underperforming in the classroom and letting their bright futures fade away. Growing up many kids will want to be rebellious and think that drinking underage or smoking weed is cool, but we must implant the idea that it is not, and can possibly ruin their mind and future.  When reviewing  the website, Lesson Plan and Activity Finder from the National Institute on Drug Abuse I decided to focus on one of the lesson plans “Mind Matters: The Body's Response to Marijuana”. My reasoning behind choosing this topic is because growing up I noticed a lot of kids first experimenting with marijuana in high school, and since I plan on being a high school history teacher I wa

  Mindfulness has become an essential part of teaching in the modern classroom and it is needed in order to properly engage the classroom. Mindfulness is a way in which an individual can properly gather their thoughts before blurting out whatever is on their mind and negatively hurting someone's feelings. This can be used by both teachers and students in the classroom. Mindfulness is essential to teachers nowadays to make sure we are properly addressing all students, for example by the proper pronouns. In the modern world people have started to take offense to being misgendered so we want to make sure as future educators we practice mindfulness and take everyone's feelings into consideration. Mindfulness can also be valuable in addressing students who are misbehaving, these types of students can easily aggravate the teacher but by practicing mindfulness we can best address the situation as we seek fit rather than having an outburst and making the situation worse. I have previ

  Poverty is something a child can unfortunately be subjected to and as future teachers depending on the school district we are most likely going to come in contact with a child who is less fortunate than others. This is a sad reality that comes with being a teacher. The possibility of homeless students is even a possibility which I was surprised to learn about. The challenges these students face is unfair as every child shouldn't have to worry about the next time they are going to eat. Some more recent challenges homeless students have had to face was online learning during the pandemic. I couldn’t even imagine the challenge that must have been trying to join zoom calls when you probably don’t have enough money for a laptop to join zoom with. Just the fact that it was called “AT HOME LEARNING” and they didn’t even have a home is extremely sad.  During the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition to remote and hybrid learning, homeless students faced tremendous challenges as they s

  Mental health is one of the most important things that you need to take care of as a human. Our minds are very complex and due to that if something is bothering you mentally you need to attempt to seek out help. As future educators it's important that we instill this importance into our students as they need to know that it’s okay to speak out about situations that are going on inside their head. The main reason that they need to voice their feelings is so they don’t attempt to cause harm to their own body. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental disorder that is triggered by terrifying events. Events such as warfare, sexual assault, and child abuse are just some of the possible causes for PTSD to develop in a persons mind. “PTSD symptoms are generally grouped into four types: intrusive memories, avoidance, negative changes in thinking and mood, and changes in physical and emotional reactions. Symptoms can vary over time or vary from person to person.” (Mayo Clinic) Knowing