Being a wise consumer....

In this first class it was really surprising to me how much introduction was needed before beginning to learn about education psychology. This is a very important topic on the road to becoming a teacher so knowing the different aspects to watch out for in order to be a wise consumer of information about education psychology. One of the aspects that really struck a chord with me was the first aspect discussed:
1. Be cautious of what is reported in the popular media.
I have seen many news programs where they do studies on how children learn and the effective and ineffective ways that teachers can implement in their classrooms. Because the programs were on the news I had assumed that they were completely true and questions could not be asked of them. However after learning about traps that can hinder the consumption of proper information I have learned to be wary of what is presented in the news. Now this does not necessarily mean everything in the news I will research but as a teacher in training, I believe it is important to investigate every possible aspect before attempting to implement it in one's classroom. The video watched in class about the teacher who implemented an exercise program into her classroom seemed very unbelievable to me. Some reasons that made me doubt the validity of this program were:
1. It only showed one study.
2. It over generalized: Because it worked for her students it would work for everyone.
Not to say that exercise would have no effect on children in the classroom. The kids seen in the video were running or completing some form of physical activity in their clothes that they were to wear all day. I cannot see how kids would be excited to wear the sweaty clothing for the rest of the day. The teacher also commented how the students sat still for longer period of time. To me this seemed like common sense. If you exercise you are going to be tired and therefore will not have as much energy to disrupt the class. It was presented that the exercise affected the brain, and in turn made the students more willing to focus and complete tasks asked of them by the teacher. This may seem like a very pessimistic view of this experiment, however after learning of common traps that the public fall into concerning the mass media I think it is a fair judgement of this video.