Education is Politics

“Aim of intellectual training is to form the intelligence rather than stock the memory”

It seems as though this mind set is ignored in some school systems by the teachers or professors. In FNED I actually learned things that were surely make me a better member of society, I learned to be more open-minded and understanding of other lifestyles. We didn’t learn these things by simply reading a book or watching a YouTube video, we dissected readings and videos and the media and talked with each other about almost everything. Over time this has become the best class I have taken in college just because of the people in it. I think we actually have a good time in class. I have taken a lot of the reading material and discussions, filtered them a used them in everyday situations including the VIPS program. While this method of teaching may not be usable in every subject I feel as though there are way too many classes that focus on repetition and memorization for a good grade. This isn’t learning necessarily this is remembering and in most cases I forget the information the following semester. I am currently in a History class and I’ll be honest I don’t ever go to class because the teaching seemed a little off and the work was all online, there is no reason why I should be passing yet I have an A in the class simply by doing busy work and showing up for the exams. I have used the time period of the class to do work for other classes that I feel are actually important. If this class wasn’t all about remembering vocab words but focused around discussions and involvement I would be there every day even if I was getting a C in the class because after all what are grades, they reflect what the teacher wants but not always the knowledge you have gained, I’ve learned a lot more from classes that I have received an B or C in than an A. Then there are the classes that an A is important to you because of the work you put in and the knowledge you have gained in doing so.

“In a participatory class where authority is mutual some of the positive affects which support student learning include cooperativeness, openness, and concern about society”

Like I have said before the classes in which participation and discussion are valued as important aspects of the class are generally more effective. In a classroom where the students have some power I feel as though the lesson plan runs much more smoothly. From classes such as this I have learned to be more open-minded about other people I even few the media differently. If students actually were seen as valued members of the class they would be less reliant on someone of authority telling them what to do. Students begin to feel that a correct answer is all that’s important and not the steps in between the question and the answer. Does it really matter if your answer is yes or no if you have nothing to back up what you’re saying? In active classroom students enhance their social skills in a way that will affect them throughout their lives whether it is in the classroom as a student or in society as an adult.

“Students study their own culture and that of the other students different from them. They undertake a cross-cultural study of the other groups in the community-white, Black, Hispanic, Asian-and all students learn English and Spanish. Further, this curriculum is thematic rather than fact-driven. The classwork revolves around cross-cultural themes, among them Our Roots in the Community, Native American Experience. Peace Education and Global Awareness. The teaching methods include cooperative learning, democratic discipline, and students' participation in peer groups and in decision making”

In today’s society the importance of cultural diversity is vital. When I was growing up it seemed as if cultural integration wasn’t as important as it is today. I’m not saying it was as important as it is now but it just wasn’t seen that way. When the classroom in which students learn and grow involves lessons about different cultures and lifestyles, it allows for students to make their own opinions and not those tarnished by their family or the media. In many cases the only information you obtain about something is false especially in school with children. Some of the things I learned in middle school and high school are so far-fetched I’m actually embarrassed I believed them. Thankfully schools are making a turn for the better this is after all a revolution in the education system, across the nation people are beginning to understand the true importance of educating the young so that they flourish to be respectful citizens in society. Thankfully we have college classes that allow us to focus on subjects such as this one in order to help us in educating the generations below us.

'GENERATION RX' Extended Trailer

Kliewer

Peter Siner

Kliewer

“It’s not like they come her to be labeled…”

This quote goes on to say that it is important that we work in groups, also that students don’t come to schools to be set up to fail. In the school systems it seems as though people   don’t have the right to determine a child’s life. If a child comes into the school system and in first grade is categorized as special ed, the education received is most likely not going to be up to the same standard as the other children in the normal classroom environment. How does one ever emerge from this cycle of moving from special ed to special ed classroom each year? The children go to school to learn in order to survive in the outside world and be successful however this goal in nearly impossible due to the restrictions placed on the children in some situations. They don’t go to the schools to be labeled and considered hopeless and to do this is simply unfair.

“The presence of a thoughtful mind has been linked to patterns of behavioral and communication conformity”

I feel as though society has put a title of what is right and what is wrong without allowing for much room in between. Conformity in the school system seems to be encouraged without allowing students to feel as though they can do something that isn’t like the others. Why is it that being open minded and straying from the norm is considered success, in higher education such as college classrooms, the idea of analyzing and producing individual ideas is what is encouraged and I think this mind set should be present throughout a child life to influence a more diverse future.

“Curriculum emerged from her students daily lives in which they together gave meaning to classroom experiences”

This teacher moved away from the idea that a curriculum should be simply based on an age group or a school agenda. This idea of allowing the curriculum to be subject to the students involved makes the most sense, it’s almost strange that this isn’t the norm, if you think about it why wouldn’t the way you teach be based upon the children you’re teaching. Being able to somewhat determine the way our FNED course flows and the content we provide in class through discussions is what draws my attention to the class. While I generally play devil’s advocate, the ability to hear all sides of the discussion and not just professors makes for a very good classroom environment. It also allows for personal progression in the classroom environment rather than listening to a lecture and worrying more about memorization that the actual material. This idea of allowing students to be the leaders of their future makes the most sense.

Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work

Peter Siner

Talking Points

From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work
JEAN ANYON

1.“In a sense, some whole schools are on the vocational education track, while others are geared to produce future doctors, lawyers, and business leaders.”

This generalized concept seems to be quite broad considering the study was done using only five different schools out of the thousands in the United States. The author doesn’t really note the school locations as far as state or even city or town. I am personally very skeptical that school boards base their agenda off of what they want their students to be especially considering most of the concepts and regulations are state wide and not restricted to one individual school. If this study were to be taken more seriously they probably should have broadened their horizon and studies a few more schools in states across the country. Another factor that is not put in detail is if the elementary schools are private or public and which is which.  These schooling methods don’t necessarily have to be linked to the occupation of the parents but the average family income the children have in the different schools. Obviously a student in a poor family with laborers as parents, in a poor neighborhood, and attending a poor school is going to have a different life than a student coming from a family of doctors, living in a rich neighborhood and attending a private school. It seems as if a lot of these studies try to focus on linking two aspects of something that don’t necessarily exist.

2. “In the two working-class schools, work is following the steps of a procedure. The procedure is usually mechanical, involving rote behavior and very little decision making or choice”

“In the executive elite school, work is developing one's analytical intellectual powers”

Just the way the author words these two very different schools, the first having manufacturing/laborer parents and the second with parents with affluent professionals. The first reads that the students follow steps while the second describes the children as developing analytical intellectual powers, kind of a strong set of characteristics for a child? In many elementary schools the way students learn is very “to the book” and not all schools allow their children to free flow. This is after all elementary school; if it were high school or college these two very different descriptions of the school would make much more sense.

The school district requires the fifth grade to study ancient civilization (in particular, Egypt, Athens, and Sumer). In this classroom, the emphasis is on illustrating and re-creating the culture of the people of ancient times.

The students that have parents that are doctors and lawyers etc. seem to have a much more extensive workload. In the fifth grade this particular school was teaching their students about ancient civilizations and recreating the culture of the people. This seems like quite a bit to ask for from fifth grade CHILDREN. However this might make a little more sense if the doctor and lawyers parents were paying tuition like bill for their children to be in the schools, which would make sense if the families are so wealthy. A private school that charges for enrollment and is in charge of educating the children of the rich is not going to be performing as well as the school in the city that instructs their fifth graders to read 10 pages a night. It only makes sense that a school like this would out-perform an average public school. It seems once again there are flaws to the study done. It isn’t hard to find cases of extremity in anything if you search hard enough for it. The question for me is what is the biggest factor? The correlation between the parent’s occupations and the school lesson plan, or the correlation between the areas income and the school plan?

Single Sex Schools...

Peter Siner

“Foley Intermediate School began offering separate classes for boys and girls a few years ago, after the school’s principal, Lee Mansell, read a book by Michael Gurian called “Boys and Girls Learn Differently!” After that, she read a magazine article by Sax and thought that his insights would help improve the test scores of Foley’s lowest-achieving cohort, minority boys.”

I thought this was a little strange how the principal could change the entire system of the school based off of a reading that she had done.  I also find it strange that there wasn’t a complete uproar from the parents of the children, generally when something changes, people have a problem with it. I thought that fundamental changes in a schools system had to be done by the superintendent not the principal.

“Sax estimates that in the fall of 2002, only about a dozen public schools in the United States offered any kind of single-sex educational options (excluding schools which offered single-sex classrooms only in health or physical education). By this past fall, Sax says, that number had soared to more than 360, with boys- and girls-only classrooms”

The change from coed schools to split boys and girls public schools in the US greatly increased. However I wonder if the change has occurred due to results in other schools or because parents and school committee members like the idea of it. I would think that parents would want the interaction between boys and girls inside of the school to help promote a more socially inclined individual. However I really can’t say from experience as whether or not being in an all-girls or boys public school changes things, and if it does how much it actually does.          

“early proposals was that boys should start kindergarten at age 6, a year later than girls, in order to ease the “sense of scholastic incompetence” that so many boys feel early on because they tend to develop later.”

This concept seems to be a little ridiculous. It seems as though we are making an extremely soft generation by saying boys should be going to school later so they don’t feel bad that girls are doing better. I went to a public school, and I went to kindergarten at 5, whether I thought girls were smarter than me or not at the age, it hasn’t affected me now. As a matter of fact the top students in my class of high school were mainly boys. The sense of competition between boys and girls at the elementary age seems to be almost vital. Interaction between both boys and girls I would assume is important to a child, friendships are built at young ages as well as a general understanding for one another.

“That certainly appears to be the case for single-sex schools. The data do not suggest that they’re clearly better for all kids. Nor do they suggest that they’re worse. The most concrete findings from the research on single-sex schools come from studies of Catholic schools”

If I were a principal or super intendant this statement would have scared me a little bit. While there are certainly schools that have improved due to the change there were also those that did not have the same luck. In these cases I am curious as to if the change in the school environment led to improvement or the actual change from the coed school to a single sex. It would have been interesting if studies were done to compare coed classes that had changes done to the lesson plans and the schools that changed to a single sex school and compare any improvements.

Wise A particularly cheap white wine

A particularly cheap white wine (Wise)

"White students are twice as likely as their african american or latino counterparts to be taught by the most highly qualified teachers and half as likely to have least qualified instructors in class." 

            I found this quote to be ridiculous, the way the quote sounds makes it seem as though whites have more qualified instructors because they are white. While this may be true in some cases there are probably cases in which black students have more qualified instructors. It seems as though the correlation between poor environments and black people living there is what  allows for the accuracy of this quote, therefore this would change the very approach the author is trying to make. If the statement read:  wealthier people have a greater chance to be taught by higher qualified students than the poor then this would not be associated to race but social status and the correlation between race and social wealth. In this case a few more issues arise, why do students with less wealth obtain lesser education, and how are there teachers coming out of college that are less qualified than the next. Lastly, where is the data being used by the author to make these statements?

“Special efforts to provide access and opportunity to such persons should be made not because they are black, per se, or Latino or whatever; but because to be a person of color has meant something in this country.”

This really is a great counter-argument to the idea that it is unfair for people of minority to have greater chances than whites in certain aspects. The author is right, color means a lot more in this country than some others and the negative connotations and inequalities sometimes in place should be countered by helping those of minority to overcome racial injustices in society. However maybe this boost given to some minorities doesn’t encourage equality but inequality by allowing help to very certain individuals, however it may also promote equality by allowing minorities with any disadvantage or just in general to be at the same level as the majority. I do not disagree with this statement however I wish the mind set was that color no longer held any inequalities and that our country, the country of freedom and tolerance would be better and stronger than our ancestors country.

“As for racism, it is typically defined in two ways, both as ideology and practice.”

The quote goes on to define both of these different categories, ideology racism as being a sense of inherent superiority while institutionally, racism effects policies, practices or procedures that cause inequality between races.

This quote definitely categorizes some of the ideas of racism that are present in both an ideological as well as institutional sense, however I do not think this completely sums up racism. Racism is ignorance, complete ignorance. Many people form uneducated opinions about other races, these ideas are not only in the United States it is present across the world.  I feel as though racism within political policies has greatly decreased over the years. In many cases minorities are given extra support in college or employment opportunities.

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