Talking points # 10

Extended comments to Elyssa

"Education is Politics"

Ira Shor

Shor has some great points in his article, but you also have great points in your blog. To your first paragraph, I completely agree with Shor and how teachers should examine the matter of the subject and not just the facts. When students are learning a classroom subject I believe it is easier for the student to remember if he or she can relate to it outside of the classroom. If teachers just stand in front of a classroom and just blab out facts, students are bound to get bored because I know I do.

To your second paragraph, teachers do need to get students involved to get their attention and not just throw facts at them. I do agree with you that students need involvement because we do have first hand experience in the FNED 346 class. I also feel more comfortable talking with people I got to know and this is class that is not like any other class I have ever taken before. I also enjoy coming to FNED and learn more then any other. Getting to know experiences and what our classmates think or have experience is powerful and knowledgeable. Learning this way makes me what to be this kind of teacher and not one of those who just throw facts at students and bore them to death. The quote you have that Shor says is a powerful saying that stuck out to me as well. Its all about the students learning for their education and helping students see themselves of who they are.

To your third paragraph, it is true about just learning the basic facts for an exam, just memorizing them and forgetting all the information when the exam is over. When in our FNED class we go over things and talk about them throughout the semester, not just for a week then forget about it. For example, we are still going over Delpit and that was at the beginning of class. Another example for a “bad” approach, my political science class, he just blabs out facts and some stuff that doesn’t make sense. Then he will give us a study guide to memorize and by the time the exam is over I have no clue what I learned. Yes! We need to learn the real world and that does not involve memorization.

I found this video of how interaction teaching method is good:

Talking points # 9

"Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome"

By: Kliewer

QUOTES

Page 71

“I started to notice that I didn’t like the classes I was taking called special education. I had to go through special ed. Almost my whole life. I wanted to take other classes that interested me. I had never felt so mad, I wanted to cry”

For this quote I can relate to very much. Through out elementary and middle school I was in classes that was called special education, this was not because I had a disability. This was because I had scored low in all my test scores. I was mad that I could not be with my other friends. Being in this class in middle school with others who had low test scores I found that they were troubled students and getting into trouble a lot. I became friends with most of these students and started to get in trouble as well. By the time high school hit I just did not care enough for my grades that I still continued to score low and be in what my high school called “resource” which was the same thing as special education class. Just because it was extra help, did not mean it actually helped me. I think that all students should be in classes they feel comfortable in because I know I did not so I made the wrong friends. Finally my senor year hit and I brought my scores way up.

Page 87

“We will not recognize the diverse contributions of those who wear obscuring labels until we move out focus from the disability and look for the complexity and individuality we take for granted in ourselves. Only getting to know a person in all his or her multifaceted individuality can cause the “huge” disability (spread) to magically shrink and assume its real proportion only one small facet of a person. Only then we will find ourselves able to see and receive the variety and richness of possible gifts”

People do need to learn how to look past someone who has a disability and should not treat someone differently because of it. Everyone should be treated equally and it helps to getting to know someone. I work at a market and we have people with disabilities who work there. For me I do not treat them different I have normal conversations with them just like anyone else. I enjoy talking to my co-workers and getting to people. There is this one kid in my work who has Down syndrome and he is so interesting to talk to. He tells me about baseball and how he loves hockey. He tells me about his family and friends, and I love talking to this kid. The only thing that bothers me about my work is that he is always outside taking in carts and he never says no to anything he is asked. I personally think my managers take advantage of him and it bothers me. I have said stuff but no one listens, I even called my union on them.

Page 89

“Rather, the townspeople assumed John’s humanness, which led to community connections that further established his thoughtfulness, individuality, and community value.”

Just because someone has a disability should not mean you assume they are uneducated or not worth getting to know. This proves that just getting to know someone and not just assuming who they are, can lead to having friends and being a part of the community. Accepting is the main key to having a better society.

There are many disabilities, but everyone is capable of learning. See video below.

Blog # 8

Extended Comment to Kathryn Elizabeth Carr

"Tracking: Why Schools Need to Take Another Route"

By: Jeannie Oakes

With the first quote you chose I have to agree with you that it was interesting how teachers tend to praise students with higher ability. I also think that it is wrong and in my opinion it should not matter whether your high or low ability students should be praised for how well students do. Students should be praised on what they accomplished not how high the ability is or how fast they can do it.

The other quote it is true that some students do not get the opportunity to learn what they need to learn. It is also not fair but true that students who need more help do get less. I think this is because students who show how well they can do, teachers get side track to appraise them instead of concentrating on helping a students who really needs it. Some students also work faster then others too.

This leads me to the last quote about students learning in a faster pace then other students. It must be very frustrating and humiliating for those students who take longer with test or quizzes. I do not think its right when I teacher times a test and tells the students to hurry up because I know when I was in school I hated it. Not only that is it gets the students nervous to hurry and then they forget what they want to say or keep getting distracted which can also be from test anxiety.

Teachers do need to try different learning techniques to help all types of students in their classroom learn. Schools could also do for example, break students up into different classroom on the pace that they learn, this is what was done in my middle school. The video below is an instructional video that helps describe how to help children and understand them in your classroom. i found this helpful and further understanding the situation.

Promising Practices

Promising Practices

1.)    Describe: Coming into the Promising Practices, I did not realize how many people would be attending this event. When got there I found our class and during that time I stuck with them. When it was time to leave and go to our workshops, I was sad I had to leave our class and go off alone. When I got into the workshop I was surprised to see that I had a class of about fifteen people compared to all those people I saw when I first came to Promising Practices. My workshop was “Anti-Bulling- What Do Middle Schoolers Have to Say?” and “Empowering Youth and Adults to Become Proactive in Preventing Bullying and Hate Crimes in Schools and Communities. It began with two middle school teachers and how they have a project in there classroom to help stop bullying. The first video they showed us was disturbing, it had a bunch of children from when they were born to when they committed suicide due to bullying and pictures of these children, they looked so happy. I personally do not understand why bullying still goes on with all the deaths. These teachers make the students aware of what bullying can lead too such as suicide. They talk to their students and let them know they can stand up for themselves and others. At the end they ended up making a video and a song about bullying in their middle school with the children as there stars. They also talked about how the media makes an impression on students. Then towards the end of the presentation they had two of their students who where seventh graders talk about bullying and what they hear and see in there own classroom and it is sad especially coming from someone so young. This was powerful to me and I did enjoy the knowledge and awareness these people gave to me. The next part of my workshop was a woman who was from Nigeria and she came from a “hate crime” community. Her first story to the class was her niece was just recently murdered with her throat slit in Nigeria because she wanted to help someone out. Just hearing that I could not imagine what this woman had seen in her life living in Nigeria. She went on about how hate crime in our community. Teachers must instill norms for children. There is also a lot of diversity in our school system. Bullying can be from stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, hatred, not understanding, no respect, no tolerance, and no accommodation. For these things I named the women went into how teachers should try and prevent this from happening. The first workshop was more interesting to me and I understood it a lot better. After workshop all the people met in the Gaige auditorium for a presentation from Teen Empowerment. They through bean bags in a circle and played musical chairs, not to be mean but I did not understand the point of it. I guess it was to learn names but I did not find that part very interesting. Then there was lunch and during lunch there was the youth panel was a few people spoke. Once again I found our class to sit with so I did not feel lonely. I was distracted with eating and did not pay much attention to the youth panel I must be honest.  But they were talking about success and people helping to achieve your goals.

2.)    Make Connections: To the first part of my workshop where the teachers took control over the students and was in charge to help them with bullying situation, that would resemble Delpit. This is because the teachers took over the situation to help the students succeed. The first part of my workshop also goes along with Chritensen because they did compare media to the bullying at schools. They students were also asked to do a project to look up media and bullying. When the two girls talked about there project to us they said they were shocked at the information they came across. They also learned from media and other sources that they don’t have to stand back they can help by standing up and staying something like “stop” to a bully. This also goes along with Johnson and how power and privilege and cause or prevent bullying. Kozol went also with the second part of my workshop because this woman talked about Nigeria and how it was a poverty and high hate crime place. Also there were not much individualized choices because I mean her niece was murdered just to try and help.

3.)    Pictures and links: www.trworkbench.com/jpirraglia/antibully - for first part workshop

www.census.gov/compedia/statab/2011/tables/1150318.pdf - for second part of workshop

The video below goes well with the first part of the workshop and how stadning up can prevent bullying.

Related to clas discussion today

This video shows a man going through what a women does.

Internet (gender and media) and Unlearning the Myths That bind Us (by: Christensen)

Blog #7

Connection (Media)

Media is all around from the television to magazines and even in children’s toys.  Gender plays a large role in this because male and females each have “priorities”. For males they have to appear brave and courageous, while women are gentle and weak. The media has made an image of what gender is “supposed” to look like. For little children there are dolls that are white, skinny, and pretty, this makes children feel the need to become what the media displays a “women”. This can lead to anorexia or bulimia or maybe just not liking themselves. The media must not realize how making people look a certain way affects everybody. For men they can not show sadness because that is a “sign” of weakness. Women are also the cook and cleaner, while the man waits around to be served. Another example is that mostly guy’s play video games and the girl are portrayed at big boobs, big butt, and little waist. Even color is a big deal, pink is for a girl and blur is for a boy and people still do it today.I could go on for a long time about what the media says. The video below gives a visual about gender stereotypes in the media.

Related to class discussion

This person has his own opinion on "his own world"

"Separate and Unequal" ( Bob Herbert )

Talking points #6

Extended Comments to Phil Kenny III

I agree with Phil when he talks about the article “Separate and Unequal”, and how poverty badly affects the good results in schools. They don’t have “good teachers” to help, because they avoid it. That said it is terrible because those are the ones who need the help. With lower levels of parental involvement, the students are more unlikely to succeed. Unfortunately there are many Hispanic and African Americans that are deal with this because of poverty.

            Even though schools are not legally segregated, they still are separated by where they live. This is why we have mostly Hispanic and African Americans in poverty schools due to their location of homes. There is law made for equal opportunities in education also known as the law of the land. With this law in effect there are still people being separated by poverty.

The video below is a helpful visual

In The Service Of What? The Polotics of Service Learning (By: Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer)

Talking points #5

HYPERLINKS:

The Article “In the Service of What? The Politics of Service Learning” was about servicing learning and how this can improve and help the community. All students can participate and it provides educational experiences. Also this can further educational goals for students. Service learning programs are supported statewide. There were two stories in the article one that they physically helped outside their classroom to those in need. The other one was students who helped inside their classroom. Either way is a good experience for students to work together and identity and responds to their issues. By doing the service learning program it was said in the article that the student values and beliefs would be transformed by these experiences. I think that service learning is a good experience and a good feeling in helping others. Everyone should be more involved in the community and schools to help others who don’t have the capability to even help themselves. Service learning programs can open childrens eyes and see that for example the neighborhood is not bad just because someone told you it was.  The video below shows how people can get involved and how people feeling. The example in the video is this like the seventh grade classroom talked about in the article. These children are also doing a food drive to help the homeless through their classroom. This also talks about how children learn through service learning programs.

Unlearning the Myths That bind Us (by: Christensen)

Talking points #4 

Reflection:

It was said in this article that children are manipulated by all kinds of media. 

When I read how all Disney movies give out a stereotype image, I never thought about it until I read "Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us".

 When I was a child I would watch all the Disney movies but it never occurred to me that they were raciest, sexist, and had stereotypes. I also did not realize until now that there were no African American princesses. But today they did come out with the princess and the frog and she is African American. They toys I had growing up, like the princesses Ariel or Belle, they were pretty, skinny, white, and rich looking with the gowns and accessories they came with. When you’re growing up feeing what they look like, you do want to look like them and be skinny and pretty, this also puts at lot of pressure on young girls. All the Princesses stories were all the same, they were finding their "Prince Charming". The prince is always a white male who is very good looking and everyone wants to be with. Also in these films the "villains" were dark and hideous at sometimes overweight. Now that I have read this article and I think back I do realize that these movies did create a stereotype in all the films I have watched.

To the left the white handsome prince charming

In the middle, the skinny pretty princess

And to the right the overweight and hideous villain.

GLSEN article (Hyperlinks)

The article I chose from http://www.glsen.org/ was http://www.glsen.org/cgibin/iowa/all/library/record/1859.html?state=research&type=research.

"From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America: A National Report on School Bullying"

This article was a survey taken about bullying in public schools. Children go to school on a daily basis and are harassed all day. Students are being harassed because of what they look like, who they are, their race, gender, clothing, and who they chose to like. Talks about a school harassment policy, but just because there is a policy does not mean the bullying will stop. It was said in the text that students do not report to teachers because they feel they don’t have power. Well in two of these videos it tells how’s teacher do not do much to prevent it.
The following videos are about children and what they go through and what can happen with bullying in schools, hopefully it gives you more thought on what can happen.

                                       

This is a sad video of a thirteen year old's mother reading her sons suicide note. This is a horrifying way to look at what bullying can do to children.

Children speaking out of what they had experienced in a situation of being bullied or seeing it for themselves.

An example of how someone being bullied in school and what they go through on a daily basis.

How people can be affected by bullying.

QUOTES from "Aria" by Rodriguez

Quotes from Aria

Page 34 (Paragraph 2) - “But I would have delayed – for how long postponed? - having to learn the language of public society.”

- Although Richard would have felt better about being address in Spanish, it would not have made learning English a priority and he would have been far worse off if he delayed the “public society’s” language of English.

Page 36 (Paragraph 4) – “No longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness.”

- The public language of society that are taught in schools can separate children from their parents because they no longer can relate to each other. The very foundation that makes a family work, communication, is lost and so is the bond, the trust, and the sense of family.

Page 38 (Last paragraph) – “Today I hear bilingual educators say that children lose a degree of “individuality” by becoming assimilated into public society.”

-Assimilating into public society does make a person lose a sense of self ,especially if one is accustom to a certain way of life, there everyday life is a constant struggle to “get it right” in order to fit in and be accepted     

Comments - With the article “Aria” I found it to be very true. There are many families where parents and grandparents speak a language other than English. Children are often left out or feel unaccepted due to many difficulties in school and in public society. Language is not the only thing lost in these families, so are their customs, their history, and their culture. These are significant loses to children and their families.

Argument

Kozol argues in “Amazing Grace”, that people do not understand what others go through, and why people with little or no money get treated horribly different. For example, when it was said that people of higher affluence would go to the poor community and dump trash that they do not want, this was disrespectful to those people who to live there due to circumstances beyond their control.

Parker argues in his poem “For the White Person Who Wants to be my Friend” that people judge African Americans all the same, all of them like only soul music or only eat soul food and know everything "black". His argument is, don’t try so hard to prove that you do not see me as different from you, because when you do it proves how different you really see me.

            First of all, I agreed with the poem “For the White Person Who Wants to be my Friend”. People should not judge others the same just because they are the same color. People should not just assume anything about a person without getting to know them. When I read “Amazing Grace” I was disturbed at the conditions people had to go through and what the children had to see. It was said that children call heroin the “needle drug”, no child should know anything about this let alone live with it. Also many people were drug users, prostitutes, or had Aids and with all the murders, this reminded me of an episode of Law and Order because to me growing up the way I did, not exposed to any of this, it was surreal. I am so thankful for what I have and how I grew up not knowing.

ABOUT ME

Hi I'm Ariel and I am currently going to college to become an elementary school teacher. I have two years left and I'm looking forward to having the job i have always wanted since I was a child. I've already volunteer at schools, so I have a sense of what it is going to be like. I am excited for my new career and helping children build their education.