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Teaching Project Outline The group selected for the project are ten high school kids from the predominantly Spanish neighbourhood of city Meriden, Connecticut, usually referred to as the projects. The gender ratio in the selected group is 5050. Each member of the group knows one another, which suggests that the risk of spreading the addiction to cigarettes, within the group, is much higher than if it was consisted of randomly picked individuals. I used interactive method to determine the learning needs of this group. It was being accomplished through the personal communication with every individual student. This method is the best, when it comes to the teaching projects, where its effectiveness is very closely related to the teacher's ability to find the proper emotional approach to the students, while giving them ideas.
All the children in this group are of Hispanic background, namely Puerto-Rican. Their native language is Spanish, although they can also speak English. The families, from which they come, live below the poverty level, yet they find such existence quite comfortable, as the government pays most of their bills and provides virtually free housing. The cultural influences on this group are limited to the loud Puerto-Rican tunes, which can always be heard in the area, regardless of time. 3 boys and 4 girls, within the group, are clearly overweight. This will greatly diminish the effectiveness of the learning process, as it is based on the assumption that environmental factors play the most important role in shaping up the individual, while in fact, it is the genetics. According to Piaget's theory, the selected children's intellectual development is within the stage of Formal operations.
Yet, this theory only operates with the factor of age, which gives us a distorted picture, when applied to the children of different racial backgrounds. It is quite obvious to me that these children's' perception of surrounding reality is of purely sensual nature, with their ability to think in abstract terms greatly impaired by their genetic predisposition. Thus, it would be more correct to consider that the intellectual development of selected children lies well within Pre-operational stage. As it is being said, the realities of Spanish neighbourhood greatly diminishes the effectiveness of the learning process, therefore, in order for these kids to be able to apply received knowledge about the dangers of smoking to themselves, they need to learn how to mentally dissociate from their own living realm. This is why, the learning process should be associated by children with something different from what they experience on the daily basis. Also, under no circumstances, should these children be allowed to think of the project as just another pathetic attempt, on the part of adults, to instill them with the idea that right is actually cool.
Therefore, the main idea of the proposed teaching project is based on the principle of intellectual honesty. Yet, the effectiveness of the project is depended upon the strength of its emotional appeal. On the subconscious level, the selected children associate their own culture with smoking and drugs, this is why it would be a big mistake to try appealing to their rationale by making an anti-smoking brochures available to them in Spanish. It appears that the best way to insure that the learning process might have any effect, is when it takes place afar from the projects. But if lecturing will take place at school, the kids can be at risk of being ridiculed as geeks. Therefore, I would suggest that the best place to teach kids about the dangers of smoking is local community center, which is equipped with gym and pool.
This is because it is important for the children to be able to associate the healthy lifestyle with actual pleasure, rather than with the set of boring lectures. Throughout my interaction with the selected children, I learned that the half of them smoked at least a few cigarettes a day. For the other half, it is only the matter of time, before they would start smoking too. Therefore, the measurable characteristics of my teaching method would be the percentage ratio between smokers and non-smokers in my group. In its turn, the success can be measured in two different categories quitting smoking and staying away from smoking. For one student who quits smoking, my teaching project gets 2 points and for the one, who firmly decides, after the end of course, to never light up a sigarette, I get 1 point.
This way, the effectiveness of my teaching method can be easily calculated, using a simple math. My teaching plan consists of 5 lectures, each of them 30 minutes long: How the Evil of Smoking Evolved, The Horrors of Smoking, Who are Responsible for Promoting Smoking and Where to Find Them and The World Without Cigarettes Paradise. After the completion of course, I will show kids the documentary Healthy Living, equipped with subtitles Sigarette is Death! , which only appear for the split of a second every minute, thus insuring that the message will be remembered by children on the level of reflexes. Also, in order to help kids to maintain their aversion towards smoking, some free anti-smoking reading material will be distributed among them for at least once a week. In these lectures I will emphasize on the emotional aspects, which will insure the highest possible degree of effectiveness of my teaching project, as such that deals with impressionable audience. The reasoning alone will have no effect at all, given the fact of children's cultural background.
Due to the teaching methodology, used in my project, it is quite impossible to set a certain prevention level. Nevertheless, it is highly likely that no kids, within the group, would smoke for at least a week, after the second lecture. Still, the phenomenon of smoking is too complicated to think that a set of lectures can prevent person from lighting up, in the long run. This is why the goal of my project is not to insure that the selected kids will never smoke again, but to make sure that they will relate their first impression about smoking to the emotional disgust, they experienced during the course of the teaching project. In my opinion, the proposed teaching project has the best chances of reaching the educational goals, as it is designed with the consideration of the latest socio-political trends in America.
Bibliography: Battle. C. (2006). In the Loop: Students and Teachers Progressing Together. Education World. Retrieved March 12, 2006 from web Ginn, W. (2003).
Jean Piaget-Intellectual Development. Technology. Retrieved March 12, 2006 from web Lal. V. (May 7, 2005).
Witch Hunts in the Academy. Academics for Justice. Retrieved March 12, 2006 from web Why Should Someone Quit Smoking (2006). MedicineNet. com Retrieved March 12, 2006 from web
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Research essay sample on Dangers Of Smoking Puerto Rican
