Do You Want My Opinion?

Abstract             Today’s students enter the educational system beginning with Kindergarten. Kindergarten is meant as a transition between beginning and regular school. Young students are taught that if they complete their work, then they can have play time, snack time or other rewards offered to them by their teachers. This practice is good as a transitional to real school, however, more and more often, the rewards system is being carried into our children’s regular schooling. Children are being taught to perform for rewards, rather than the knowledge that they have completed their tasks. It’s time for us to put a stop the rewards system and teach our children how to be motivated from within, or intrinsically. But how do we bring about that change? The answer is Choice Theory, an innovative new theory, invented by Psychologist William Glassner that teaches us that while we sometimes cannot control our circumstances, we can ...

Dear School Board's of America,             I’m writing with the express intent of informing you of the absolute necessity of keeping school art programs open in our schools. Art is a necessary learning experience for the following two reasons: 1) Art is the means to understanding the aesthetic experience and 2) Aesthetic values relate to all other values.             Art is the key to the aesthetic experience, an experience that as previously mentioned cannot be covered in any other subject. Think for a moment about your childhood art experiences. Perhaps you were in a classroom learning to paint with watercolors, or at home being taught by your Mother. Reflect on the experience of applying paint into the subject of something you loved. It might have been a rainbow, a house or an explosion. Art, or the aesthetic experience is the act of taking that thing, that emoti...

As I look back on this semester and the classes I have taken one class in particular sticks out to me the most—Art Methods. As I think about the time I have spent working on this class I’m astonished to find that I enjoyed (almost) every single moment of it. And what’s not to like, really? This class is all about delving into your major and experiencing a small taste of what it’s like to be a teacher. Who wouldn’t want to hash it out lesson plans with your group members, teach out-of-control sixth graders and write lesson plans so detailed they make your brain explode while you’re writing them? I don’t know about you, but I love those kinds of activities, although at first I wasn’t sure I would.             When I started Art Methods I had a lot of preconceived notions about teachers, teaching and what it really took to manage a classroom. Some of those notions may have come from my previous education course, Educational Psych...

I believe that the universe is an ever expanding and growing entity. It's watched over by a careful, tender and loving God who seeks to glorify his creations. The universe has to keep expanding, because we keep growing and will continue to keep growing for all eternity. If it were to stop growing we would be stuck, forever children of a God, but with no ability to move forward.  I believe that there is an afterlife. An afterlife where if we have lived worthily we can return to the presence of our God and his son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. In this life we have the chance to become Gods ourselves and to spend our time creating as well. I believe that our beings are comprised of two parts and together (and only together) they comprise our souls. A soul is what our God has. It is a perfected resurrected body combined with our spirits that have been going through tests and trials here on earth in order to perfect them so that when we return to God we can show him our growth. A soul is...