Empowering Education

QUOTES:
1."Participation is the most important place to begin because students involvement is low in traditional classrooms and because action is essential to gain knowledge and develop intelligence." The author goes on to explain that people are naturla learners. They question the whys of things around them. School needs to be more of give and take between the teachers and the students; letting the students form the purpose of thier education. Instead education today teachs students to be pasive and non-parciptory about thier education
2. "To help move students away from passivity and cynism, a powerful signal has to be sent from the very start, a signal that learning is participatory, involving humor, hope, and curiosity. A strong participatory and affective opening broadcasts optimistic feelings about whose voices are worth listening to, whose minds can carry the wieght of serious intellectual works, whose thought and feeling can entertain transfoming self and society." Studnts need to FEEL good about school. They need to know that thier opinion is valued, that they are valued. This will lead to students particpating more, to them acually getting excited about thier education, and tho them carring.
3."Situated, multicultural pedagogy increases the chance that students will fell ownership in thier education and reduces the conditions that produce thier alienation." This qutoe is SO right. We have been talking about this all semester! Includeing everyone in education makes people feel like they belong and like they are part of the bigger whole. It helps them relate to the material. We all want to make sure no one is maginalized or alienated. Taking simple steps like having a multicultural curricualum and having students disscuass materials rather than memorize it will help.

Comments:
What a great read for the end of semester. I felt it summed up everything we have been taking about nicely. These last few weeks we have been really hitting this issue of critticall inquary in classrooms, with the Oaks, Anyon, and Kahne and Westheimer readings. We have been disscussing having these open classroom settings were students can learn and learn how to think for themselves. Learning the why's and how's of something is the transformantive part not just memorizing facts that you will later data dump.
I also liked the whole socialzation portion; how schools are not just places to aquire knowledge but a place to become socialized. To learn what is expected of you in sociaety and how to cope in that society. This could go back to Deplit; we need to learn the culture of power and the rules of that culture and how to use them.

Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome

Christopher Kliewer Quotes:

1. ". . . society itself is hurt when schools act as cultural sorting machines - -locations that justify a competitive ethic that marginalizes certain students or groups of students . . . that legitimize discrimination and devaluation on the basis of the dominant society's preferences in matters of ability, gender, ethnicity, and race . . . and endorse an elaborate process of sorting by perceived ability and behavior." The author is taking about children with down syndrome and their right/need to be able to participate in school and the community. If we separate them and devalue them we will not get to know what they can bring to the community. Other children will not get the benefit of getting to know and have meaningful relationships with them. He goes on to say this is not setting up our children for the real world in which they must get to know how to work with everyone. So by separating them its unfair and hurting all in the end. This is soo similar to what we talked about in de-tracking. When all students get to work together it comes out to their benefit. We all learn is different way and have different opinions.


2. "Schools have traditionally taken a narrow position when defining and judging students intellect." The author gives examples of teacher who have inclusive classrooms. They do not label any of the students, they realize all students learn in different ways so they change the way they teach to them. The brake out of the traditional methods, which enriches the lives of all the students. This directly relates to last weeks readings (and most of the course for that matter). We need to change that way students are taught and break these barriers of "intellect". All have the ability to learn...just in different ways.


3. "perceived" This is a powerful word. Loaded with all sorts of connotations caused by our dominate cultural. It means to become aware of something -to realize-to understand. How can we believe we understand or know something or someone that we have not had personal contact with? It is our society that gives us the guidelines on how to judge this. We "perceive" things the way the dominate culture wants us to. If this is not a perfect word for this class to dissect I don't know what is. Perception is all relative. It is laced with cultural meaning. What we think we know may not actually come from us..... we are just primed to think that way. As in the way people think about down syndrome. This article shows that our perception of this is wrong.

Comments:

This article had some great points. It was a little dry but poignant. Children with disabilities are often lost in the system. They are labeled and thought of as their label. Everyone can learn. Everyone can be a productive member of his/her community -----if given the right opportunities. I loved how Shayne taught her classroom. She threw out the old curriculum which was one size fit all and tailored it to her students. Why don't more teachers do this???

The sense of community is a very important thing. I think all students need to be instilled with this. If they all had a more active role with the community and with the people in it I believe there would be more cohesiveness. Everyone would learn how to work together to better themselves and their community.

This article echoed the de-tracking debate. Integrated classrooms with all types of learners.

Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work

Jean Anyon QUOTES:

1. " . . . schools in complex industrial societies like our own make available different types of educational experience and curriculum knowledge to students in different social classes. . . . classroom behaviors that correspond to personality traits allegedly rewarded in the different occupational strata." This is what Anyon is trying to prove. She did a study of five schools with differing income levels of the students families. She made correlations to the class and the type of education students get. This was a very inserting article. While reading it it makes you wonder if this is still how things are playing out in education. Then thinking back on most of our readings, it becomes clear that education is still somewhat stratified; the rich get the "better" schools and the poor are left with underachieving schools.


2. "In the middle class school, work is getting the right answer. one must follow the directions in order to get the right answers, but the directions often call for some figuring, some choice, some decision making." Anyon goes on to explain that in middle class schools they do not analyze the material its is just presented and regurgitated. There is no connection making. its on the how or why, its the is. Is this not how "urban" of the schools are run now? We have read so many things telling us that the students need to become more engaged; the material needs to speak to them more. With this type of education system that will never happen.


3. " The "hidden curriculum" of school work is tacit preparation for relating to the process of production . . . emphasize different cognitive and behavioral skills in each social setting and thus contribute to the development in the children of certain potential relationships to physical and symbolic capital, to authority, and to the process of work." What she is saying is that the schools are working against meritocracy and keeping the children in their class by only teaching them to think in ways that are required for the types of jobs held by that class. This is how the "hidden curriculum" works. The hidden curriculum then is how they are teaching the students and how this develops their thinking skills.

COMMENTS:

While this article was very interesting I think it may be slightly out dated. I am not an expert but I think education has come far since 1979. I believe the working class schools have been done away with. BUT there is still defiantly a divide among our schools according to class. We have been learning about this all semester. Every reading further solidifies this; our personal experience tells us this is true. We can physically see the divide among the lower and the upper and middle classes.

The way Anyon described the middle class schools is how out lower class schools run. Information is given and right answers are what is wanted. I believe our schools now do emphasize a little more reasoning and creativity but no where near that of schools for the upper class. There is also, now, a big divide in the quality of the education given to students, in the quality of teacher, in the quality of schools.

Also while reading this I noticed that in the "work" upper two categories were much like the "work" in college. It was interesting. Those students were and are being groomed to go to college and are MUCH MUCH better prepared to go to college.

I would be very interesting to see a study like this done today. I wonder if the teachers would be as a mater of fact as they are in this study. I wonder what other kinds of difference we would find. What would be the ramifications?

School Stress

Lately, we have all been talking about how stressfull it has been with school lately; with having to take tests, write papers, and now signing up for classes. Well I have been feeling this pressure and the stressors of home life too, being a mom and wife. So, yeasterday I was supposed to sign up for classes but when I went on I found my advisor had no taken the block off my account and one of the classes I needed was full. Frustration and anxiety started to emerge. This morning I tried again, still a no go anf another one of the classes I wanted was full. Anxiety city! I emailed my advisor and he said he would take care of it. Then, I get an email that he can't "see" the block and my major says social work?! So i go to class and can not concentate beacuse of this advising/enrollment situation. How am I going to stay full time if all the classes I need ti take are getting full and I CANNOT enroll because of some computer error. To say the least I was ready to call my old boss and get my job back. Befor my last class of the day I went to OASIS to see if they could remedy the problem. After takingto several people I got it fixed or so I thought. Beacuse when I tried to enroll it was still blocked. So back to OASIS I went. Finally the block was off. I went to sign up for classes and some sections I wanted were full and I had to reconfigure my schedual. I was emotionally exsauated. And my anxiety was still quite high. So, instead of go to class late I just left campus figuring I would get the note form someone else. While at home some time later, I remebered that in the class I skipped there was an EXAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Really did I just forget about an exam???????? How can that happen? Who does that? Now what am I going to do????