York EDFE 1101 Adolescent Development and Health

Image sourced from:  http://www.wanderings.net/notebook/Main/IfDriversEducationWereTaughtLikeSexEducation This comic addresses the fact of how many people, myself included, were taught when it came to sex ed. According to the logic of the teacher in the comic above, since seatbelts and airbags don't always work in preventing injury, the best way to be safe is to not drive. This logic seems quite irrational, as it rules out the option of using common sense like "use your seatbelt and follow the rules when driving to ensure your safety." Sure, this still doesn't stop someone else from driving recklessly and causing harm to you on the road. Should we just stay locked up indoors then? Should we live our lives in fear? Since I will eventually be a teacher in the Catholic school board, I'd like to address things from a Catholic point of view. First of all, I believe that abstinence could be both a bad thing and a good thing, depending on the context. If studen...

Link to article:  https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/sarah-desjardins/ontario-sex-ed-curriculum_b_6760792.html Reflection I chose this article because it focuses on a topic that I feel strongly about: sex education in Ontario's schools. While I can agree with some of the things that Desjardins (2015) mentions (like the fact that parents these days are much busier and hardly have enough time to speak to their children about anything), there are other points that I disagree with (that everybody must share the author's core beliefs when it comes to sex ed).  Similarly to Desjardins, I was raised in a Catholic household, and I learned most of the core values of my faith through my parents and through catechism classes in church. With regards to sex ed, I remember that the "Fully Alive" book was used in class, and we started learning things like body parts and how sexual intercourse works around grade 5 or 6. My initial reaction was "that's disgusting!...

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIJ1D5SpLDw One of my favourite shows I used to watch everyday when in high school, Everybody Hates Chris is a TV show that I can relate to in many ways. In this episode, it begins with Ms. Morello giving the class an assignment to help someone in need. I think this is a great way for students to get involved in their community and to help the homeless. If it were voluntary, even with the best intentions, I'm sure that very few students would commit to helping an individual living in poverty. But to introduce this activity as an assignment is extremely effective, as it gives students incentive to go outside of their comfort zone and make a difference in somebody's life. I mentioned towards the end of my previous post, that all homeless people are looking for, is time. Time to be valued and respected by their community around them. At the end of the video above, we can see that Chris volunteered to take Killmoves (the ho...

Link to article:  http://homelesshub.ca/YouthWithoutHome Reflection I found this study on youth homelessness very interesting. I remember when I used to work at Mr. X (the animation studio) downtown, I would take the TTC every day to and from work. Regardless of the weather, I would regularly see homeless people in and around the subway, on the bus, walking about on the streets, and even sleeping on the sidewalk (just imagine doing this in the winter with nothing but a sleeping back to keep you warm!). Regarding the homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk--it was a tragic thing to see passersby not even bothering to look in his direction as he slept on the sidewalk in his sleeping bag. The level of indifference exhibited by each person who walked by was outrageous. There was a coffee cup beside his head, and as I walked by I noticed that the cup was completely empty...not even a single coin was dropped inside of it. Unfortunately, I didn't carry change and so I felt helples...

My name is Nathanael Xavier, and I am currently enrolled in a two-year consecutive program at York University: Bachelors of Education in Technological Education (BEd in Tech Ed). Upon my completion of this degree in 2020, I hope to work in the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) as a Communications Technology teacher and music teacher. Why teaching? To backtrack a bit, I have had two passions in my life--music and animation. I started playing the piano at the age of six, and I started to teach piano when I was in high school. This teaching wasn't too serious, and I didn't commit to it, but I learned to enjoy it because I had the opportunity to share my knowledge with somebody else and help them to become a better musician. Fast forward a few years: after high school, I pursued an undergrad in animation (B.Sc. in Animation) at Manipal University (located in Manipal, India) and I completed that degree in 2014. I came back to Toronto and started to work in the anim...