Word

I found the word from my Ed Psych class today, now that the lecture slides are on WebCT. It's pathognomonic. This confuses me, since the definition of the word is a symptom that defines a disease. For instance, a malignant tumor is pathognomonic of cancer. The list of criteria the lecture slide gives for a "pathognomonic" teacher is this:

Learning problem located within student
Role of classroom teacher narrowly defined
Refer to special education for help outside the classroom
Provides little or no instructional accommodation or modification
Tends to work alone

I guess, now that I look at this list outside of class, it's not the list that I match, it's my prof's description of it. That and the fact that I don't particularly fit the other end of the spectrum, called Interventionist and described as this:

•Learning problems are result of interaction between student and environment

•Role of classroom teacher broadly defined

•Seeks out resources and supports to use within the classroom

•Provides many instructional accommodations or modifications

•Works collaboratively

I especially don't agree with the first point. Then again, I have a much narrower definition of "learning problems" than my prof seems to. It seems that, in this class, the definition of "learning problem" is something that does not allow a student to learn a concept when taught in a traditional manner and amount of time. I'm picturing an older woman with a yardstick and lots of memorization requirements. Learning differently doesn't mean having a problem. If you're a visual learner or an auditory learner or a tactile learner, that's all fine by me and I intend to include all of those types in my teaching approach. By learning problem, I mean something like an IQ below 60, or being deaf (which isn't always a disability, but in Music and Drama...), or suffering from autism or something along those lines. I'm talking about people who can't be taught the curriculum along with other students because of different capabilities. I'm worried about the educational experience of the majority of the students being negatively affected by the adaptations made for special needs students. And by that, I don't mean kids being uncomfortable around someone who might not have the best control over their speech, I mean a class where a teacher spends 40% of his/her time on one student. Espeicially in classes like Music and Drama, where it's almost always required that the instructor work with the entire class for the whole period, that wouldn't be fair.

Anyways, what got me thinking that I fit the description of the evil teacher was my prof's description of a teacher like that, talking about what they do more than what they believe. They would send a special needs student out with the special ed people. I think I just explained my position on that. They prefer to work alone, implying that they have a way of doing things and require control to execute and maintain that way. My prof said that these are often the teachers who have paper or posters convering up the window beside the door. Except for the paper part, my reply to which is that I've never had a classroom, the working alone thing really does fit me. If I know what I'm doing and I'm doing it properly, then I say leave well enough alone, rather than having extra factors (ie, people) thrown into the mix that I'll have to rethink everything for. Keep in mind, though, that the something I'd be doing is teaching, and doing it properly means that all the students learn well. So it's not that I'm a narrow-minded bitch, it's that if I need help, I'll ask for it, so go away.

Ok, so I can't be entirely nice about that one. But at least I would be not entirely nice to other adults, rather than students. ^_^

But, you know, after all this, I still have no idea why my prof used the word "pathognomonic." Are bad teachers the symptom that defines the disease? What's the disease? I thought difficulty succeeding in school was the disease. If anything, I'd say that failing students were pathognomonic to that. But, then again, I would say that a girl with no thumbs shouldn't play the saxophone, so I'm evil.

Metricumalation

At school. Classes have been all right so far. Long, though. I think my shortest class, except for a couple of labs that I only two of per semester, is two hours. The others are two and a half hours. *sigh* Oh, well. It helps me to focus when I'm not expecting a wind-down for another hour and a half.

My EDSE 322 Drama class that leads into my student teaching is actually pretty good. The prof is totally Francine from American Dad, both in looks and voice. And in sunny disposition, though I'm not sure if she's psychotic underneath yet. I was actually playing "Yes, Let's!" with some energy yesterday morning. Not really with any enthusiasm, but, given that I hate that game with a firey, firey passion, I'd say that energy is impressive enough. Plus, there's a coffee maker in our room that the prof intends to use for us. :-)

My first Ed Psych class wasn't quite as pleasant. It's 301, and it's called something like Inclusive Education and focuses on students with disabilities. The prof has her head a little too far into her own subject, which, as I have said before, leads inevitably to it being up her ass. There was an overhead of a continum of teaching approaches to disabled students, the "best" of which was Inclusionist, the "worst" of which was a word that I've been having trouble remembering. It starts with P and ends with ognomonic. I fit the description of that approach almost to a T. Except that I have a desire to know everything, so if I encounter a disabled student, I'm going to want to know about their disability, even if I can't accomodate them. They way I see it is that, unless your needs are pretty simple, like a wheelchair ramp or some ritalin, it's not practically feasable to include disabled students in regular Music or Drama programs. If it's a class of disabled students, that would be fine, but a normal curriculum for Drama or Music cannot be run to include all types of students. It's just not physically possible in a lot of ways. I don't want to disclude disabled students from these subjects, I'm just saying that they need an approach to them that cannot be done in a curriculum-based environment.

And, to annoy me further, I accidentally bought the wrong textbook for the course--apparently, there are different texts for different sections.

My EDPS 310 class this morning looks like it'l be a lot of work that I won't want to do, but will be overall quite interesting. It's called a Policy Studies class, but it's title is Managing the Learning Environment, or something to that effect, which means that I get a nice little course on what makes students tick, but without the condecention and impracticality that Ed Psych courses offer. The prof is a Scottish woman with an accent. I can understand her just fine, but I noticed today that when she says the word "fair," it comes uot sounding like "fear," so there were lots of times where she seemed to have said "You can't do that--it's not fear." That made me giggle. ^_^

I have to keep a journal for the Drama course. Naturally. My prof said that someone had put it perfectly in that you can't fart in the Drama department without being required to reflect on it. I was considering having my opening entry mention that I am a bad person. I'd avoid terms like Jungian Shadow and go instead for simply stated ambiguity of the sardonic variety. But I like my prof in such a way that means that I don't feel the need to make her wary of me. Her name's Gail. My stage manager friend Lester hadn't heard of her.

I'm half an hour into a five and a half hour break. I'm gonna eat lunch and hang, then go back to the bookstore, then go home and shower before my EDPY 303 class at 3. I'm dressed unusually today because I can't find some of my clothes. I have a hoodie and a cardigan that I can't find. They're not in the wash, nor anywhere in my closet or dresser. I am confused. But when I go home, I won't be in such a rush (I woke up an hour late this morning), and I'll therefore be able to pick out clothes that aren't so hodge-podge. Because it's all about looking cool.

Lemurcoons!

It is Saturday night and I have good fresh pizza and Dr. Pepper. This makes me happy.

Lemurcoons also make me happy. :-)
I haven't gone to get my picture CD back from Wendy yet, so I can't post any of the pictures that I took myself, but that's ok, since those didn't turn out well and I found some great ones on Google Images. Here is what a lemurcoon, aka coati, aka coati mundi, looks like:

Now, this picture doesn't look all that cute, but it gives a good idea of how "coati" could be mistranslated into "raccoon," despite not looking all that much like one.













This picture is rather cuter, and shows the lemurcoon in what has come to be its natural habitat, acquiring food in what has come to be its natural form of hunting. Seriously, these things are all over the garbage cans. They may subsist primarily on insects, but they won't turn down an empty Coke bottle.


Now *this* picture showcases their cuteness, especially where the flexible nose is concerned. This is a young coati, of course, and I have no idea what kind of animal its looking at. Maybe a lemur. ^_^



So that is my post for the day. I hope you have all come to appreciate these things as much as I have. ^_^

Note

Just a note to reiterate that I hate Ed students. And stupid first years. And also to say that stupid first-year Ed students have been filling my inbox with ridiculous worries about orientation. *grumble*

Squee!

Since Peter has not yet decided to put up a post here, I figured I might as well do so for the purpose of exclaiming my happiness at my new "toy": House Season 2 on DVD. ^_^ I have yet to watch it, but oh, I will. :-)

In other news, I'm home, as you may have guessed. Our new house, however, is not ready to be moved into. *sigh* October fifth is the current, somewhat tentative, possesion date. Yee. Oh, well. We went to look at it yesterday, and it's looking pretty nifty, despite lacking things like flooring and countertops and whatnot. I was hoping to get the moving done with before school started, but I guess that's just not going to happen.

Speaking of school, I have been out buying clothes that say "Respect my Authorita!" Apparently my friend Maura has been doing the same thing. See, we're both doing student teaching this year, and, while I'm certainly not early '90s grunge, I do own a pair of ripped jeans and other such clothing that would not be suitable to wear to an evaluation. I found a spiffy black twill blazer that's not too formal. And some grey pinstriped pants. I feel like giving out detentions all ready... ;-p

I stopped in at work today to give my manager my September availability (which is when I picked up my DVDs), and I was given (drumroll, please)... a nametag! I've only worked there for six months... ^_^ I guess they ordered a whole bunch, though, because Lindsay Coulter just got hers, as well, and she's worked there longer than I have.

That's about it, I guess. I've seen people since getting back, which has been fun. For all of you who are curious, the flight back (or, I should say, the four flights and one busride) was/were fine, for the most part. US customs is a bitch, especially after that scare recently, but I had cold medicine that allowed me to sleep, even if I was only allowed to bring one dose of it with me. Without water. *sigh* But I'm home now and caught up on sleep and back to eating food that actually contains fibre and nutrients and whatnot. ^_^ And now I'm going to go watch my House DVDs. :-)

*sings Teardrop*

...

It is Wednesday and I am going home tomorrow. I guess that means that there won´t really be anymore updates on the goings-on down here, since Peter doesn´t blog. Maybe I´ll give him my account password anyway, just in case he feels the urge. Which I doubt he will, but you never know... ^_^

Did I mention that I was sick? I don´t think I did. On Saturday I woke up with a sore throat, a sore back and the sniffles. The sniffles are the only thing left now, and my sinuses seem to be draining, but it seems that this little bug will stick around just long enough to make my flight home that much more annoying. Stupid not being allowed to take cold medicine...

Peter is off at one of the University buildings right now meeting with the woman he was put int contact with as a Uruguayan historian. He hopes that she´ll give him the names of some books he can get ahold of down here, as well as a clue as to where to start in his search for relevant primary sources. (Sidebar: The ´a´ key on this keybord is sticky. It is annoying. Or, as I originally typed, nnoying.) This meeting kicks off the nose-to-the-grindstone portion of his trip down here. While I´ve been down, it´s mostly been sightseeing, but now the poor boy actually has to get some work done. *mock pout* You know, for that Masters Degree and all...

We went back to the ¨tango bar¨ for dinner last night. They do good parilla, and we saw a small orchestral ensemble playing tango music. There were about 20 of them, around the age of 16, mostly string players with some Bb and bass clarinets, two oboes, a flute and a french horn. They played La Cumparsita. Or I think that´s how you spell it. Something about killing yourself for the evening. No, wait, that´s different...


Oh, hey, the Spanish word for ¨template¨ is ¨plantilla.¨ Speaking of vaguely confusing Spanish words, I tried to leave a comment on your blog, Angela, but everything was in Spanish and I kept getting error messages. Sorry. Also, I´m sorry if they actually worked and you got multiple comments from me. ^_^

Hey, look, that was the first paragraph of this post that didn´t end in an elypsis (sp?). Or an emoticon following an elypsis. Ok, so I´m bored. I guess I´ll go back to the hotel now where I´m not charged for use of the computer.

ETA: Kaitlyn, I haven´t heard back from my family yet. Family, get back to me. Oh, and Peter and I went to see the place where Artiogas´ remains are kept. It was scary. All dark with two guards at attention. Peter gave the very apt description of ¨An art deco distopia.¨ I couldn´t bring myself to go in. Peter went in a few steps and snapped a picture. Like I said, it was creepy...

Homecoming

For all you Edmonton folks: It is now official that I will be getting back into town Friday night. I´m pretty sure that I will need to sleep a great deal on Saturday, but, after that, I would love to see people. I would love it even more if you´d help me move boxes! ;-p