Flying over the alpes

Over-head of the Alpes

Mountains in the morning

Hidden Valley

Just Ice over the Alpes

Coloums of alpes



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Clouds rolling over Alpes

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Clouds rolling over the Alpes

Alpes and clouds

Lone Mountain

Trip to Italy!

I am actually so excited im going to Italy for the next 10 days and want to let you all know that I am going to take 100's of pictures and post them here when I get back. I'm going with my school and the History program there so it should be really entertaining. I honestly never thought 10 days would be that expesive but I had to pay $3200 already (see ya later College Funds)!

Starting off life in dept!

The education system in Canada has become way to corrupt and the government should be interviening mor with universities. The average person spends up to $4000/year on tuishion and not to mention the price of residence being over $15,000/year plus the money that it costs for food and other necessities. You could be thinking about over $80,000 for just 4 years of education. The government pretends to care by allowing you to take out loans called OSAP (where I'm from) but that means coming out of universities with a boat-load of debt and no source of income.

Students then are left with finding part-time jobs just to pay down their debt and to find themselves a job that requires their degrees. Then for the next 5 years of having your big fancy adult jobs you are left with no desposible income because all the money you make is going straight into the governments pocket. While our countries government is going on about there social programs, when we are still trailing behind most European countries.

Why has the Canadian/American governments failed to take action on these problems? Well that can be explained by one; the one thing you never hear the government stop complaining about.... Money! Yet with most countries in Europe being in a large recession, they still find enough money to help there citizens out of this unavoidable cycle. Even Ireland has a social program that helps students go through school. Why has our governments abandoned us? Why aren't we taking action? Well there is only one explaination; people these days are to lazy to take action, even I am not taking action. We need to go out and protest! Show the government who actually runs the world; The people and not the governments.

Technology In schools

Everyone has probably heard the term "the ADD generation" before, well that was a concept made to explain my generation and our lack of attention span. I always see in the hallways at my school people with there faces pressed up to their blackberrys and it kind of makes me scared. I don't want to live in a world where all people do is text eachother rather than talk face-to-face, I never text and I don't plan on it in the near future. People always say that I am "leaving myself out of the loop" but I say that I am leaving myself with a clear conscious mind.

In schools around Ontario teachers are apparently even going as far as taking cellphones away from students if they see them texting in the halls. The idea isn't so crazy, but you always have the one kid trying to inforce the rule "I heard that teachers can't take away a possession over night" but in fact it is written in most school handbooks that they can in fact take possessions.

The idea of a generation that is knee deep in electronics is a very frightening one, yet by the day we are seeing more and more of these teenagers. This reminds me of the movie "Wall-E" because the people in the space ship never looked out the window or even away from there little screen. The one moment that sticks with me the most is when the one male character turns around and exclaims "WOW! We have a swimming pool?" even though the pools is located inches away from the line of traffic.

My history class is racist!

Today in my class called The West and the world we were discussing what countries should be considered part of the western world. We discussed a few of the more obvious one like the US, Canada, Australia, France, Germany and some others; then we got into the topic of Mexico which the class said was not a first world country because of the lack of a prominant middle class, I was alright with this. Then some other controversial countries came up like South Africa, which in my opinion is western, and others like Japan. This was my first huge disagreements; the class believed that due to cultural difference that Japan was NOT western! I strongly disagree due to the fact that they modern their government off of the west, I brought this up and the class disregarded me.

Then we got to Greece which because of the model of democracy originating from Greece the class said that it was western, but I said "wait a second, you people disregarded Mexico because of their failing economy but just because Greece was the start of democracy it is a western country! That doesn't make any sense!" but the class again disregarded what I said. Then the teacher asked "well how about Turkey?" The class said that due to the lack of wealth they were also not Western! I then stated "Why is ireland a western country as their economy is worse then Turkey's?" someone accused me of being Racist. so I responded "WHAT DO YOU MEAN RACIST I'M IRISH!!!!!" the student bit his tongue and said nothing more.

The class argued "because Ireland Has a rich history" in which I replied "You people should retake grade 11 History as you would have learned Turkey was a world power up until WWI!!" the class did not have any retort, but continued to say that countries like Turkey were not the West. I have decided that the people of the west aren't richer then other people they are only ignorant enough to label a country as better not on a basis of wealth but rather on a basis of Ideology and race! The reason Ideology is a factor is that they only said that countries with a mostly Christian heritage were west whereas countries that are Muslim like Turkey and other "lesser" religions are not priviledged enough to be concidered Western.

I have decided that rather then teaching racism and bigomy to students I will try to convince students about equality. There is no West and East in a class that I teach just seperate Nations all which are equal. These students are going to grow up to be racist bigomists but no student under my watch will be as such!

Iceberg Teaching

Teacher's work doesn't stop at the end of the day!

When you look at a teacher you see a person standing in front of a class speaking about whatever subject it is that they teach. But you don't see all the other things that go into creating that lesson writing down all the information that is being taught. We only see the tip of the iceberg, we don't see what is going on underneath it all. Think of it as an Iceberg we see about 30% of what actually has been done; the other 70% is done in private to make the other portion presentable.



The other part of the Iceberg includes many the parts listed above including;

• evaluation of a previous lesson
• Established routines and procedures that ensure the lesson goes as planned
• preperation for the lesson
• planning lessons in which the students learning progresses
• Personality- including the teachers ability to maintane control of the class and establish their authority
• Professional judgement developed over time
• Subject knowledge
• Professional knowledge about effective teaching and learning

You will often witness teachers performing lessons but you will develop the ability to see through the actual lesson and see what actually goes on beyond the lesson.

What makes a good teacher?

You may be asking yourself what will make you a truly good teacher. The success of a teacher should not be based on the students marks because some students even with the best help cannot pass, while others are exceptional at learning on their own. The only way to tell how well a teachers performance is by evaluating a few points;

1. Is enthusiastic and optimistic, while forgetting past failures!

2. Becoming aware of each students separate strengths and weaknesses to the best of their abilities.

3. Makes sure to as well as criticize students work, compliment them on what they did right.

4. Creates lessons that will cover every students needs as well as relates to their interests

5. Makes sure to address students in private when needed, to avoid humiliation.

6. Adjusts their lessons to incorporate the students questions.

7. Demonstrates respect and trust for students that they, in turn, spread to all the other students.