Blog Post #10 - Education is Politics (Quotes)

          Several quotes stuck out to me as I read "Education is Politics: An Agenda for Empowerment" by Ira Shor. The first was "The teacher brings lesson plans, learning methods, personal experience, and academic knowledge to class but negotiates the curriculum with the students and begins with their language, themes and understandings." I believe this to be true because similar to "Literacy With An Attitude", education takes both the teacher and students to work together in order to learn. I though this quote summarized that idea pretty well. The teacher brings knowledge to the classroom but first starts on the same level as the students.

          "Only by active learning could students develop scientific methods and democratic habits rather than becoming passive pupils waiting to be told what things means and what to do." This quote summarized the article pretty well. This article has a political ideals in it, and this quote summarizes those ideas. In order for the student to grow into a successful citizen, they must first take charge in the classroom and become active there first. These will build life goals that will help them later in life.

          "To [Bowles and Gintis], schooling supports existing power and divisions in society by sorting students into a small elite destined for the top and a large mass destined for the middle and bottom - an educational policy also studied carefully by Spring (1989) and by Oakes (1985)." This too reminded me of "Literacy With An Attitude." One of the main ideas from that reading was the study that was taken to see how schools of different economic backgrounds treated their students differently. This statement coincides with their findings. The rich schools allow students to think for themselves and give them a great schooling experience while the poorer schools care less for their students and only accept the correct answer. This quote reinforces that ideal, that students' futures largely depend on where they go to school.

This article shows several strategies a teacher can use to become a more successful teacher.

Blog Post #9 - Literacy With An Attitude (Reflection)

          I found "Literacy With An Attitude" by Patrick Finn very interesting primarily because of the study found within it. This study looked at several different schools and studied student's lesson plan as well as the teacher's and student's reactions to the curriculum day-to-day. The schools that were studied had differing economic incomes, based on the parents of the children attending the school. What I found interesting that was found from the study was that schooling changed dramatically based on how much income a student's family sees.

          In the Professional-Affluent school for example, teachers come from everywhere in the state, students are encouraged to be creative in their responses, and discovery and experience is more important than "getting the right answer." This school's parents earned the top 10% of income based on the study. This is shocking when compared to the middle class student experience. Teachers yell more often, they are more encouraged to get the "right" answer, and most teachers live somewhere in the area. When one takes a step back and looks at how differently we teach children, I believe more can be explained as to how people fall into certain categories and find it difficult to remove themselves from these categories, negative or otherwise.

This article explains how where you live can determine your educational experience.

Blog Post #10 - Citizenship in School (Reflection)

          In "Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome", author Christopher Kliewer gives insight into several different student's lives that are afflicted with down syndrome. One class that was focused on was Shayne Robbins' classroom. Shayne struck me as an excellent teacher. Robbin's school sounds like it truly cares about educating its students. It is a parent-run school that helps children in small classrooms. One of Shayne's students, Isaac, is afflicted with down syndrome. This label did not stop Shayne however, she still taught the class and treated everyone as equals. I enjoyed that the class as a whole acted out Isaac's favorite book, "Where the Wild Things Are." This is a very special book to Isaac and it must have made him very happy to not only read it in class, but later act it out as well by starring as the main character, Max. Shayne's ability to treat all of her students as equals was remarkable. This clearly had a large impact on Isaac's ability to learn and participate in class.

          The main idea that I took away from this article was as a teacher, you should treat all of your students equally, regardless of any background they may have or how high they scored on a standardized test. You should treat them like you would treat anybody else, because they are their own person, not just a test score. I aspire to be more like Shayne in my classroom one day.

This article was an interesting read on teaching children with down syndrome and their teacher's ability to help them.

Blog Post #9.5 Oakes (Quotes)

In "Tracking: Why Schools Need to Take Another Route" by Jeannie Oakes, several quotes stuck out to me. The first had to do with ineffective teaching and learning strategies. "Learning tasks consisted most often of memorizing and repeating answers back to the teacher." This stuck out to me because I have always felt that the majority of high school for me was exactly this: blindly repeating definitions we have memorized the night before in order to pass a quiz or test. I remember a teacher saying once that this strategy was ineffective because if you were to ask that student a few weeks later those same words they could not do it.

"Unless teachers and administrators believe and expect all students to learn well, they will be in likely to create school and classroom conditions where students believe in their own ability and exert the effort it takes to succeed." Many people forget that school is not only the effort of the student as well as the effort of the teacher. Most people assume that if a student is failing a class that it is the student's fault, while it could just as likely be the teacher's inability to reach or teach the student. Teachers need to come in with a positive mindset as well as the students in order for everyone to achieve.

"... there is considerable evidence that even the very best students make stronger intellectual gains while working with students of varying skill levels than when they work alone." While the majority of the article spoke of group projects and students working together, this quote wrapped up the entire notion pretty well. If the mind of a student is engaged on several levels: interacting with one another, problem solving, and abstract thinking just as a few examples, their mind grows much more in these group projects than learning by themselves.

This article from Starting Point shows some pointers on assigning group work and different roles students can use to complete a certain project.

Jeannie Oakes:

Blog Post #8 - Becoming Something Different (Quotes)

          "Becoming Something Different" by Fairbanks, Crooks, and Ariail was a very insightful piece. Researchers follow Esmé from the sixth grade until the eleventh grade and note how she reacts to different components of school. "Corson (1991) has argued that ELLs have been systematically marginalized in school because of language domination, a process by which the dominant culture not only fails to recognize the value of linguistic diversity but also circumscribes the use of students’ first languages." I picked this quote because it shows how difficult school can be for students that speak a different language. They not only have to learn English, they have to be taught in a second language, read books in a second language, and write in a second language. Many teachers are unaware of this difficulty meaning that many children are discouraged from learning and school in general. This is a terrible fact and I enjoy that this reading brings this point forward.

          "At the end of seventh grade, she thought she had become a little bit stronger student. I think it’s because I’m getting a little bit more help ’cause they changed my schedule, right? And so they gave me a reading class, a lower, a reading class [at] my level." This was good to see, the school was working with Esmé in order for her to understand her work. I was glad that the school understood that she was having difficulty and placed her in a remedial class in order for her to gain the skills she needed to continue with school. I'm sure this helped her self-esteem as well.

           "Esmé’s struggle with writing and grammar usage was a reminder of her status as an English language learner and her ongoing acquisition of academic English." This quote stuck out to me personally because I wish to become a high school English teacher one day. I want to treat all my students as equals and will hopefully realize when a certain student is having trouble with certain skills. I don't want any student leaving my class discouraged because English is not their first language.

This video shows an interesting immersion program in which students learn both English and Spanish as one at a young age.