Peer Pressure

My groups focus is on peer pressure and how can teachers help students make good decisions when it comes to matters that peer pressure often influences. Now there are all sorts of things that a young person can be talked into. Many young people are experiencing a real need for group worth. One member of my group is focusing on gangs, another on the DARE program. I figure gangs and drugs are covered. What else is there? Well it's either sex or rock and roll. I choose sex and sex education. More specifically how to teach students how to make good decisions regarding relationships, their sexuality, and sex in the general. I've got quite the assortment of books, a kit, and some curriculum guides to back up my presentation. However, I have had a bit more trouble finding good peer-reviewed sources. I will need to focus more time and effort to that area. Overall, teaching sex education is a bit pervasive and I found it weird that the newest curriculum guide from MPS in our library is from 1985. I would be curious to know if this guide is still in use at the schools seeing as how it was made when i was less than a year old. Surprisingly the guides and books are pretty progressive. Almost every item touches on homosexuality, abuse, and sexual deviance in a educated smart manner. It just goes to show that educators are years ahead of their times. I might have some time summing everything up for the presentation and getting my peer reviewed source in but otherwise I think my group and I are trucking along nicely

Middle School VS Junior High

I have always kind of wondered why districts switched from K-5 6-9 10-12 schools and all the other options out there. I grew up in a K-5 6-8 9-12 district although it switched from a junior high to a middle school only a couple of years before I got there. Chapter 9 especially focuses on this issue. I had a few disagreements with the article though. For starters I'm not really sold on the switch. I mean it's already done but it smelt like a fad in education to me. I kind of see this happening now with block scheduling. The middle school I student teach at has block scheduling...the middle school. Because of the scheduling my teacher has to teach both science and social studies even though her certification is in science only. It seems kind of messed up that I could teach science if I wanted to in a middle school even though the only science classes I took was for my GRE's. Anyway, it would almost make more sense to me to have a K-4 5-8 8-12 school. The author complains about it taking 20 years for changes to happen in education but my response is that it is hard for a school district who's schools are already built to reconfigure space and grades though them again. If you wanted to go from an elementary school having 5 grades and gave them 6 where would they put the extra grade in the building if it was already full? Yes, there should be a buffer school between elementary and high school and the author makes a good argument for that...but wasn't the junior high school achieving that also? Maybe I totally missed something here...