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.