Critical Issues in Education

Mental health is a major concern for all people, as it is just as important as physical health. This week, I researched seasonal pattern depression and its symptoms, treatments, and how we as teachers can help our students who suffer from it. Seasonal pattern depression is a subcategory of depression that only takes place during 1-2 seasons throughout the year and repeats yearly. It is usually due to the lack of sunlight during the darker winter months, but can occur during spring and summer as well (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2021). Seasonal pattern depression typically attacks women more often than men. It also tends to impact more people living in the north than the south, as northern areas face harsher, darker winters (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). While medication can be used to treat seasonal pattern depression, natural sunlight can also be a great remedy. Getting our students outside is quite difficult during the school day, especially with the colder weather of the win...

Bhatt, H. (2022, October 24). How can online platforms stop cyberbullying? AI Content Moderation for Trust and Safety. Retrieved February 16, 2023, from https://www.spectrumlabsai.com/the-blog/how-can-online-platforms-stop-cyberbullying  Whether we like it or not, technology has taken over almost every facet over our lives in the current era. In the home alone we have smartphones, smart watches, smart TVs, smart refrigerators, smart robots that can tell us the weather, turn on our lights, and play us our favorite music, and so much more. Technology adapting to our every need begs the question of: how do we use it properly? Kids nowadays practically come out of the womb knowing how to use the internet. What they fail to learn, however, is how to regulate what they post. It is incredibly difficult to comprehend the fact that once it goes online, you can never get it back. As Matthew Johnson, Director of Education at MediaSmarts, said in the film Dark Cloud: the high cost of cyberbull...

  Enrique Lavin | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com. (2018, February 16).  More than 17 cartoons about the shootings that'll make you cry, cringe, call a congressman . nj. Retrieved February 12, 2023, from https://www.nj.com/opinion/2018/02/more_than_17_cartoons_about_the_shootings_thatll_m.html   This week's module being school violence is very fitting, as nearly five years ago the lives of so many high school students were changed for the worst. On February 14th, 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida was under attack by a teenage gunman. 17 lives lost, but too many affected to count. As a high schooler at this time, this was the strangest, scariest, most realistic phenomenon to come over our school. The day after the shooting we had an assembly to discuss violence in schools and mental health; two days later, we had machines to scan our IDs when we entered the school to ensure every person was a student. While our security measures were certainly not...

Wamsley, L. (2021, June 2).  A guide to gender identity terms . NPR. Retrieved February 5, 2023, from https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/996319297/gender-identity-pronouns-expression-guide-lgbtq  In first grade, I had a friend who had two moms. To me, this was the coolest thing ever... I love my mom, so why not have two? But for my friend, this was far from cool. This was the reason that many kids were not allowed to go to his house. A year later, he and his moms moved across the country and we never spoke again. I really hope their new location was much more accepting. Aside from this family, I never had the opportunity of discussing the LGBTQ community in my childhood. I know this is a shared experience among my peers. But why does this matter? As future teachers, we must create an inclusive, safe classroom for all of our students. However, many of us can be unsure as to what is welcoming and what is not. Therefore, education about various LGBTQ topics is necessary. Without educ...