Having gone through college where I received my bachelor's degree in English literature, I never had the motivation or inspiration to create a blog. I thought blogs were for "nerds" or people who were REALLY obsessed with writing and being creative on the "interwebs." I must admit that for a second or two over the course of my knowing of the existence of blogs, I had considered making one, but I simply was not motivated to even try. However, now that I am going to start my first experience of student teaching, I wanted to share my thoughts and reflections on that. And alas, now that I am not an English major in college anymore, my supply of fellow book-obsessed, coffee and tea drinkers has seriously dwindled. This results in me wanting to write about what books I am reading, and what I think of them...but do not worry, I will not lapse into literary analysis- just my own personal response to texts, or even movies that I have recently experienced in addition to my thoughts about education and teaching today. 

That being said, I just read an article in the New York Times about the city closing down 12 schools. One of these schools is a charter school that is failing its students. This article greatly intrigued me, as I recently saw "Waiting For Superman" and have just completed a course during which I learned a great deal about the cost/benefit of charter schools. In this lower-Manhatten school, apparently only 26% of the children passed the state reading test passed and only 33% passed the math test. This school presents a contradiction to those schools praised in "Waiting for Superman." The problem that I see with charter schools is, that we need to fix the public schools to be more like the charter schools, and not give up on public education-at least that is my own personal opinion. Not all charter schools are a success, and the ability of those schools to run as they do is only because they do not have the numbers of students to deal with, the pressures of the policy-makers, nor as many of the problems with individual students as public schools have. Sending all children to charter schools is not the answer. However, applying the same principles of higher standards for education could be the answer to saving the failing public schools that our country is facing today.