Welcome to my blog.

I have used Weebly before as a blog. For PME 811, I will use Blogger. A bit about myself. I am a teacher in the Toronto area and I am completing my Professional Masters of Education. Sports are my passions and I love to do any physical activity.

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Thoughts on Philosophy in Education

Philosophy of education is something that shouldn't be taken for granted. As educationalists, we should be in the middle between two opposing viewpoints and help our students think critically. We need to start promoting students to think about the whole instead of thinking in segments. There's been a heavy focus lately, on science-based thinking or different thinking styles that can produce quantifiable results. This is creating a space where the education system is producing similarly minded individuals. The issue comes, in the fact that we are suppressing innovation and creativity if we all are trained to think the exact same way. Socrates said, “a life that is not examined continuously is not worth living”. Educators need to promote philosophy. A philosophical debate should be seen as a fencing match, where every attack is followed by a defense. Another thing we need to start promoting in the education system is for educationalist to challenge everything in a constructive wa...
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Reflecting on developing literacy for early readers.

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I have started to read a lot to support students that are early readers. One thing that I have learned is that exposing students to a variety of texts and strategies supports literacy development.  Very important factors to supporting early readers are learning how students learn to read words. Information from Cain, K. (2010). Learning to read words. In K. Cain, Reading Development & Difficulties (Ch. 4, pp. 67-94). Toronto: Wiley. Sight word When a reader sees a familiar word on a page or a computer screen, a word that they have read several times previously, their memory for that word is activated. Phonological When readers see an unfamiliar word, they can try to read it by sounding out the individual letters and blending them Analogy To read by analogy, readers use information from similarly spelled words that they know in order to pronounce unfamiliar words, for example using knowledge about the pronunciation of a familiar word such as table to pr...
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Is one style of schooling the answer?

A question was asked to me by a friend: if we had education credits would it make a difference? (education credits we are speaking about are from Illich concept of an alternative to the current public school's system. Instead of students getting one style of school, there are free credits to spend, and you get to pick your school) My response: I honestly think schools would start popping up because of the money to be made. This would also allow for specialist schools (example trade specific schools) in areas that have a high demand. I do believe the credit system would put pressure on the current system to change. If there were more options for people to choose, I believe the whole system would improve. If you really hated a certain type of school, you could choose a different style of school (public vs Montessori).  When ever these debates around schools come up, I usually ask the same question. If not everyone fits into "regular" society (we have institutions...
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