Courtney's Blog

“He’d ask a question or make a casual observation, then repeat each comment and hang on to it until a link could be established to a previous statement. He and the children were constructing paper chains of ideas, factual and magical, and Bill supplied the glue.” (Paley, 1988) I think that this is an important thing that I have learned as an educator. We may not realize that we are expecting children to respond and react in a “correct” type of fashion. If we are searching or fishing for a particular answer/behavior, this limits the children. They may not end up saying what we expect them to which can hinder the learning process and potential ongoing conversation. “I paid attention only long enough to adapt their words to my plans.” (Paley, 1988) By doing so, it halts the discussion and keeps it within certain boundaries that you as an educator have set. I believe it takes a lot of practice, time and self reflecting for an educator to make these types of changes within their classr...

There are certain things in the world that are very controversial subjects, education is definitely one of them. With so many varying perspectives, expectations, guidelines and approaches, it’s no wonder that people clash and differ in their thoughts. I have used Pearson products for schooling in the past but I never really looked into details about the company. It’s interesting that they originally started off as a construction company and then began to branch off into many other areas. I think that making the decision to invest and expand within the education field was a very smart business move for Pearson. Things such as education, medical and food will always be in high demand by people everywhere. As the video mentions, it’s easy to sell toothpaste but education is something that people really care about and have all kinds of strong opinions towards. It’s pretty amazing that Pearson has expanded so much over the years. They have “developed a vertical” and became involved w...