Book reviews and campaigns

The book review was ... interesting. I don't know about these Marshall Jevons books. I was reading it and thinking that it was just way too far fetched. Who uses economics in practically all their thought processes? Who applies economics to all facets of their lives? In the book I read, A Deadly Indifference, he said how he used the concept of utility to date his wife. And to that I said: Who would date this guy? This is ridiculous? I hope there's no real person who would actually do that.Kind of corny, kind of cliche, and it took two people to write it. Oh well.

Campains. Campaign proposals. Taxes. Campains and proposals are seriously interesting stuff. From my point of view candidates promise way too much, things that are unattainable, things they might not be able to do in actuality, things they might want to do but once in office it either isn't a priority or just doesn't happen. So, I guess what I'm saying is that I don't take too much of it seriously. Taxes, are so much more interesting, not really. There complicated, for my mind, I just don't deal with them. But they're there. And you have to pay them, whether you like it or not I don't see it as an option. And this whole marriage penalty/subsidy. I have friends who claim they don't want to get married because they'll be penalized in taxes. Seriously, suck it up. If that's how it works, that's how it works. It just doesn't seem fair to have people who are pretty much married, living together and such, be treated differently in taxes. There should be a tax law for that. If I were queen (president)...you get the drift.

class

So I'm totally a week behind, but that's what happens when you don't have the internet ... you kinds lose contact with the world and such (at least I do).
Class...Honestly, like I said before, everything would be so much easier if we were learning more economics stuff. I totally apprechiate that we have been covering more of it in class, but I really feel like I either don't know or don't remeber anything. So over my head. In doing the lesson plans I was dying for a text book. It would have been so much better than scrambling around looking for defenitions and such. Not really looking forward to the next one.

to Prof. Imazeki

thanks for covering more econ stuff in class

ugh...JA and stuff

So this Junior Achievement project...great idea in concept, but unfortunately it's not working out. Andrew and I went to our classroom last week and were informed when we went to the office to check in that our teacher no longer taught there! Seriously! We taught there before,we arranged it with her the week prior, and no one told us...ugh. So I don't know what's going on. It's unfortunate, because I actually enjoyed doing it.
My other 'ugh' is in regards to class. I really like all the ideas for teaching a class. But I don't like that I have no economics knowledge to back it up. In my other courses for teachers, i.e. history for teachers, we learned the subject and then the teaching aspect was a sidenote. In assignments we had to think about ihow we could teach it (like in book reports) and did lesson plans and presentations. I honestly prefer that format better. I don't know about other people in my Economics for Teachers class, but I really don't remeber what I learned in micro and macero econ. So how am I supposed to potentially teach it, either as an econ class or as part of a history course, if I don't know it?

first lesson plan and presentation

Ugh, the lesson plan. I've only done one before, and it was for a 2 week period and not that detailed, so needless to say I felt a little lost. I was originally going to do a lecture on scarcity and choices, but figured that might be a little blah. So halfway through I changed to property and resources ( for 12th grade econ)and decided to do an activity. I've said before that I haven't had the greatest experiences with active learning excercises so I figured I should give it a whirl. The whole thing was way out of my comfort zone. I'm not an economist. I haven't made lesson plans before. I'd rather listen to a lecture. But once again, it's an experiment. And seeing what other people did I would definately do things much differently next time. For me direction and structure goes a long way.

first JA

For JA (Junior Achievement)I went to this eigth grade class at Roosevelt Middle. The teacher, Ms. Noakes, is so nice and really laid back, which really helped a lot. As my first experience 'teaching' a classroom I feel it went pretty well. The students were great, I was surprised at how involvoled some of them were. There was about 8 or 10 kids that consistently participated. It was really nice, and I thought that maybe teaching might be the thing for me. The best part was interacting with the students. I was totally against teaching middle school before, but now it might be an option. The only downsides,some of the kids were genuinely bored to death and the lesson seemed to drag on in parts. The whole thing with talking about the jobs as a class, and then in seperate groups, and then as a class again - a little much. It could have been formatted differently and streamlining would most likely have cut the boredom. Overall it was a good lesson and I feel the students did get something out of it. But it's an experiement, and a pretty fun one.

active learning

okay, active learning...I'm sure that there is the ability to have successful active learning, but most of my experience says 'not so much'. I find that active learning, as in scenarios or activities, have the propensity to be a little cheesy or a waste of class time. Maybe it's just me, but I would usually rather have a tired lecture and feel like I actually spent the most of my 1, 2 hours of class time. PLus, I don't usually learn that much with those types of things and most likely forget what it was even supposed to teach. I totally sound pessimistic right now but it's just not my thing. That doesn't mean it's not worth a try though.