I'd like to introduce the visitors of my blog (mostly CakePHP people being linked from the mailing list these days!) to my new personal blog site, http://jbenner.net.

I felt like having technical blog entries next to personal picture galleries and such a little out of place. That plus the fact that this was the first Drupal site I ever set up... I felt I needed to move to some new digs... with every intention of posting more regularly with technical and non-technical articles alike.

Stay tuned!

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I passed the PRAXIS II! Now to apply for PA Certification.

Josh and I saw a report on channel three at 11pm. The report was on Chiropractic as a possible alternative to medicine for people with ADHD. They interviewed a teenage girl who tried this instead of ADHD medication. After going a few times a week for a month, she was able to concentrate on school work and became more dedicated when practicing guitar.

This approach appeals to both Josh and I as the psychiatrist who tested me said that I had taught myself so many coping skills and have such perseverance that she did not feel medication was necessary. I was relieved by this, not knowing how the medicine would have effected me.

Not being on medication, however, has definitely made tasks harder. I constantly find my mind drifting or preoccupied with other things besides the task at hand. I always get my work done and done well, but everything takes me a lot longer than the average person. I am a slow reader and a day dreamer. I like working with my hands but cannot seem to focus on any given hobby for a prolonged period of time. This drives Josh crazy because I get bored easily and want to do something else. If I could have a hobby, it would be hanging out with people. I love socializing, but what I need is a "stay-at-home" activity. Unfortunately, everything I do, I feel needs to have a rhyme and reason. If it does not, it seems like a waste of precious time, because everything I do takes so long.

The news report said that insurance covers this chiropractic service. If so, Josh and I think this may lessen my every day ADHD frustrations. Maybe then I will be able to find a hobby that I can focus on.

I am a teacher with learning disabilities. Most importantly, I am a student with learning disabilities. I was diagnosed in my junior year of college. It was both a frustration and the biggest relief. Going through my teaching courses at Philadelphia Biblical University, I learned a lot about student's learning styles and disabilities. I learned a lot more about myself and why I am the way I am.

I have never been good at rote memorization or timed tests. Pop quizzes doomed me. When a teacher announced a pop quiz and stated that the scores would tell them who studied and who did not, I wanted to run out of the room and hide. I had studied. I had always studied. I would spend hours trying to read the required pages. It would take me from the time I arrived home to the early morning hours to read a few pages. I wanted to understand what I was reading, but I simply could not. Students were only alloted a certain amount of time for the quiz, then it would be collected whether it was finished or not. I would get my quiz back with most or all answers crossed out in red ink. Or better yet, the teacher would have us grade each other. Then I knew my teacher would assume that I was lazy and that I did not take that subject and learning seriously. This assumption could not be further than the truth. My high school life was studying. I had no life besides it. I had no time for anything else. Even still, I received awful test grades. I depended on doing all of my homework, and going above and beyond to get good grades or in some cases, just a passing grade.

There are several stories I could tell about teachers who said and assumed certain things that were not true about me and I am sure other students. These are teacher, “no no's.” In my seventh grade math class, I purposely sat in the front of the class to try to focus on the teacher's instruction. Other students called me the teacher's pet because the teacher would point out that I always did my homework. One day, this teacher asked me to answer a math question that had been in the previous night's homework. That was the one question that despite my efforts, I just could not figure out. I told the teacher I did not know. All of a sudden, his face went from pleasant to angry. He yelled at me and demanded that I go sit in the back of the classroom for the rest of the year with the rest of the slackers. He denounced me as his favorite and announced a new successor. I wanted to cry. I had a hard time paying attention the rest of the year and did not do as well. I was scared to ever ask him a question from that time on. If I did not understand something, I took that bad grade rather than trying to talk to him and taking the chance of stirring up his wrath.

In eighth or ninth grade, a history teacher had all of his classes come in, sit down, and start copying outlines off of the overhead. We would have a reading assignment every night, and would be tested on the material at the end of that unit. There would be an occasional pop quiz. I remember, again purposely trying to sit up front, copying the notes as fast as I could off of the overhead, then he would pull the overhead off and put on another before I could finish. I then would raise my hand and tell him that I was not finished. His response was always, “Then you should not have been fooling around. Pay attention.” It would frustrate me knowing that I was copying the whole time as fast as I could, my hand hurt and all I was left with at the end of each class was word that had no meaning. I could not even study my notes because I was writing so quickly that I could not read my own writing. Not like they made much sense with the endings of each overhead missing from my notes. There was no homework for that class but reading, which was assessed by the tests. Not a fair assessment, I say.

Even in college, a professor who had taught me never to belittle a student, but instead to see the student with dignity, belittled me. On the first day of class, a professor jumped into the lesson assuming everyone had prior knowledge of what was being taught. I did not have such prior knowledge. This professor wrote two words on the board, drew a line down the middle and asked me which I was. Baffled, I quietly stated, “I do not know.” The professor got upset and replied, “'I do not know,' is not an answer in this classroom.” Later on, I received my diagnosis of my learning disabilities and handed this professor my IEP. This professor later apologized saying, “I was not aware of this earlier.” It is not important when this professor found this out, it is the fact that this person is a teacher. Teachers should not just be teaching information but should be observing and listening to their students, and offering them extra help so that they may understand that which they are having a problem understanding.

I am not telling this story about my teachers and professor to make anyone think poorly of these teachers, my professor or my University. I went to an excellent high school and an outstanding University. I have the utmost respect for this professor and all professors at my University. I do not think I could have gotten a better education elsewhere. Their teaching has made me the effective teacher I am today and the teacher I will continue to become. They have taught me to be a life long learner and to encourage my student to do so as well.

I am telling this story as a warning to myself and to other teachers. Please take this advice. Never assume the worst of people. Do not judge. Have patience. Try to understand. Get to know your students. If you think they may have a learning disability try to get them help. I wish someone would have suggested I get tested before my college years. An IEP would have helped drastically. If a student needs help, give them your positive attention. If you are exasperated because the student still does not seem to be getting it, do not show your frustration. They will get discouraged in turn. Explain the concept in different ways, using manipulatives, pictures, and anything you can do to try to help the student better understand what is being taught.

Be exemplary teachers. Make a difference. Watch your words. Even a word said in frustration can damage a student's philosophy of education and self esteem for years if not the rest of their lives. I thank the Lord for showing me the bigger picture and learning from the mistakes I have seen other people make. I will make mistakes in teaching. I will probably say things out of frustration by accident. I am confident that remembering what my professors have taught me and remembering my own experiences can only make me a better teacher.

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I am currently working as the Toddler teacher at a local Preschool. I make observations of each child and make my lesson plans from my observations. By observing the children I am able to learn a lot about them. I learn each child's learning style, interests, what he/she is good at and can build on and what areas each child needs improvement. Using this method has improved the children's behavior toward learning, others, and themselves. It has been one month since I started at this Preschool full-time. This is how quickly this method of teaching has changed their behavior for the better. I cannot wait to use these methods teaching in an elementary school. I just have one more of the PRAXIS II tests to take. Before I leave, I want to continue to flip this classroom right side up and hopefully inspire the other teachers to be willing to do the work it takes to be an effective teacher.

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Well I've just finished installing the new site. It ended up taking longer than I expected (I should probably be in bed right now), but everything seems to have gone well, and I didn't want to stop while I was on a roll! I've been doing a lot of work recently on Everyday Liturgy, so I felt in the web-site-admin mood, and this is a project I've been considering for a while. That combined with my desire to start publishing some articles on some of the stuff I'm doing in PHP and IT stuff in general to help others who might be trying to accomplish some of the same things.

This web site is going to serve as a center for a number of activities. Part of the goal is to replace and update the old site, while also implementing some new things, not least of which is blogging capability. Soon I'll be moving our gallery over here as well as all the other content pages -- I'll probably stick them in some sort of section about our wedding or engagement or something.

I've worked with a decent number of the various Open Source CMS packages out there: PostNuke and some of its cousins, Mambo family (mostly Joomla), Wordpress, a some dabbling in the others while evaluating them. Of all the systems I've used or played with, Drupal has easily stood out of the crowd. We chose it to power the PBU Intranet a few months ago, and my experience working on that with the other guys in the IT Department has been nothing but positive. Drupal comes with a great set of standard features, and has a module available for just about anything else you'd like to do. Many of the other Open Source CMS solutions were either unnecessarily difficult to configure (*Nuke), came with too few standard features (Mambo/Joomla), or offered only marginal (or MEAN) communities to draw from (remain nameless for their protection!).

For instance, while working on Everyday Liturgy, which is powered by Joomla (my favorite CMS when we started the site), I was reinforced in my love for Joomla's configurability -- but over time, I've learned that this can be a negative as well. Not only is it configurable, but anything you want to do requires customization! At this point I've got Everday Liturgy so customized that upgrading to a more recent version of Joomla (or many of the various extensions) is almost out of the question, due to the number of changes I would have to RE-do. Drupal, however, has allowed me to get everything just how I want it with (nearly) no customizations that exist outside of the settings found in the administration interface.

Now to be fair, Joomla is getting set to release 1.5, which as I see it, stands to be almost more of an application framework/platform than just a CMS. On the other hand, at PBU, we're using Drupal/Drake/CakePHP to develop custom applications very successfully.

Anyway, the site is up, and I'm very happy with it and my hosting company (Bluehost) right now. Everything has been smooth, and I've been able to accomplish everything I wanted (relatively) easily.