Education is Politics

Argument

In this book, Ira Shor is arguing that often in classrooms students are not given material that is related to the real world outside of school and this can often cause acting out in class by students that sabotage lessons. Shor argues that a lot of the lessons taught in school should involve students as a very big part, as well as making the teachers find new and creative ways to get students interested in learning and wanting to do the work. Shor addresses the politics involved in education and how it appears the United States is stuck in an old style of education that is obsolete, and even states that starting off a school year questioning the school system may be extremely beneficial.

I completely agree with Shor that is seems like America is stuck in an out of date education system. My only schooling experience I would mainly describe as less than interesting and today with all the research and resources on different ways to engage students, there is no reason why school should feel like a complete chore. Shor also addresses something that Finn had addressed in another article, and that is that is seems like currently the wealthiest of communities and schools seem to be partaking in the type of education that truky engages, when the other seem to be preparing students for an assembly line. My question to you is "Did your school seem like it was preparing you for an assembly line, or the CEO?

also speaking of the different resources for fun activities I found this LINK to some

MOVEMBER!!!

 Here's the Link to my MOSPACE

NATE'S MUSTACHE

If you could, any amount helps and also don't forget to remind the men in your life to get an annual check up, it's never tough to ignore your health.

and if you know anyone interested in attending the dance party, here's the facebook event

Mustache Party

The two djs are some of my close friends, one a resident dj for DGAF at the Colloseum, and the other was a resident dj for SHAKE, the former indie dance night at the Colloseum, so it's gonna be a great time!!!

Extended Comments

For this I will be using Kaela's Blog

"She's really doing well. People come to her for advice on what movies to get, on what's good, what's current. She knows it all. She's doing really well." Beginning with the simple act of listening, Shayne created not only a valued community role for Anne but one that the young woman relished."

I think Shayne did such an amazing job with the situation with Anne. People often forget that even though a person has down syndrome they still have aspiring dreams just like you and me. She took the time to get to know Anne as a person looking past her disability and helped find a job that would make Anne happy. Like Shayne said, it might not be Hollywood but its a lot closer to something she enjoys.

I completely agree that Shayne did something great there. I often feel people are often just clumped together because of certain aspects, instead of listening to the person and trying to accomodate  the individual. This whole text was about working with someone on an individual level and not just labeling them as a certain way.

"To value another is to recognize diversity as the norm. It establishes the equal worth of all school children, a sense that we all benefit from each other, and the fundamental right of every student to belong."

Van der Klift and Klunc hit it right on the nose with this quote. If you are going to be a teacher or any decent human being you have to realize that diversity is what makes us special. Being different is what makes learning and living fun. Once you accept that, the possibilities to learn and to teach will be endless. 

I completely agree and had addressed this in my observation of your last quote. The individual part of us is the unique and most important and what makes us, us. And since everyone is different, we need to recognize this in everything we do. Not every student will learn the same way, and not every student has the same thoughts or mindlessness that traditional schooling seems to assume and assert in today's society.

"Lee is, in a sense, in a way he's branded. People see him. They see Down syndrome. They see mental challenge, retardation, whatever you want to call it. That's what they see, but they wouldn't be seeing him. Do you know what I mean? Because Lee is Lee, and anybody who knows Lee knows, and this includes all the kids, they know he's gifted-in how he solves problems, cares about others, reads, loves math. So I guess what I'm arguing is that if you did pick Lee out, you wouldn't be seeing Lee. It's not Lee you're picking out. It's your stereotype, your mind-set. It's you, and it has nothing to do with Lee. But if that's how you choose to see him, I don't know that anything I could do, we could do, I don't think there's anything Lee could do to change your mind."

Reading this part made me think of the saying "Don't judge a book by it's cover". Yes on the outside Lee would be very easy to pick out in a crowd and he might not do everything the same as other "normal" children but he is smart. He learns and speaks and tells stories in his own way and if you try to get to know him or any child with a disability you will find their strengths. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and some may be be easier to point out but that will never take away what they do know. People should focus on the good, not the bad.  

And for a third time I agree with your point. At my work there are a number of kids with down syndrome, but mostly low on the scale. Still, those kids often do their own thing and I find myself most often the one to ask them about what they are doing and think the way they are thinking. One for example likes to lick everything around at least once, such as doorknobs or staff. Last night there was someone from the state running a training at my organization and i found myself trying to use the interests he has to appeal to him so he would stay away from where our guests were. It was a little comical due to his short attention span and adventurous mind, but I would never think of it as a burden or try to oppress his curiousness and individuality.

I loved reading this article. The way students with disabilities are treated is one of the many reasons why I want to work with kids with disabilities. I want to be a teacher like Shayne and Colleen and help others find the good in all children. I want to figure out which ways of teaching works for the children so they can become the best they can, without being judged. I will probably definitely hold on to this article for future reference to look back on. 

I also found this article to be quite interesting and enjoyable to read. I was laughing through most of it because I know may kids like this and I was thinking about some of the things that only they would do and how I would not change any of their behaviors for anything because these kids would not be the same kids if they did not have those features.

Also, exploring Kaela's link for the National Advocate for People With Down Syndrome, I found this intersting resource for expecting parents. Very interesting and pleasing that there are resources like this out there Expectant Parents

Promising Practices

       I got really excited for the Promises Practices event and I was looking forward to learning about all different elements to youth development. I went with a goal in mind and that goal was to find ways to not only serve those children that I will be teaching in the future, but also how I could better serve the kids I work with now and I was hoping to find some different activities I could maybe do with them.

      The keynote speaker, Dana Fusco, looked at how public schools while all trying to serve and educate the public are not all equal. She spoke about how certain communities are able to have schools that better serve students than others. This relates directly to the article by Finn that we had read that looked at how working class public schools are not equal to white collar schools. Also, Fusco spoke on an issue that hits close to home, and that is the closing and cutting of budgets of after school programs in areas that truly need it. She showed some videos that showed students protesting about the cuts to their programs. This keynote speech was very enjoyable and opened up my wonder for the day.

     The first session I went to was a session that discussed different ways to prepare children for college programs and classes that would engage them in a different way than their high school and middle school classes did. At this session, there was a panel of different people who represented different programs that are available for underprivileged Rhode Island students. The people on these panels, some of them success stories that went back to work for them, discussed the many different things they did to engage the students that they had in their programs. Some of the names of these programs were Upward Bound and Summerbridge. They spoke about some of the things one of the programs did this past summer where they wrote letters to Bank of American about the foreclosures and even went there to see someone in charge. This session gave me a lot of ideas that I could use with the teens that I work with to better help them prepare for college, something that the cards are against them to even have the opportunity to go. This session could have been compared to Kozol’s work on how things are often not addressed which these programs seem to be helping kids prepare for their college classes where they are going to connect what they learn to their lives. Here are sites for the two programs mentioned Summerbridge and Upward Bound

       The second session I attended was a lot smaller and possibly more interesting. This second session was presented by the Save the Bay organization which looks to educate people on the environment in Rhode Island and the preservation of the water ways. This session was something I was really looking forward to because at my work we are constantly looking for different ways to introduce environmental protection to the kids, especially since our building is located right on the Blackstone River which empties into the Narragansett Bay. During this session we did an activity where we examined a water shed and saw how this could drag pollutants into the bay which is very detrimental to the environment. After the session, I stuck around to speak to the two instructors about different ways I can engage the kids I work with about being better informed about the environment. They told me about these different places that we can get tours from that are free, which is great when you work for a non profit organization. A couple of these ideas were a trip to the Johnston landfill and learn about what happens to our waste, or to the water treatment plant to learn about the different ways waste water is cleaned before going back into the bay. I have already put the wheels in motion for trips to these places during the spring break that the schools in my city have. Here is a link to the Save The Bay site Save the Bay. And here is a video about water sheds.

          At the close of the event we were given a presentation by the A.L.L.I.E.D. group which spoke of the ways that people often get shut out or treated differently and how this can often be a deterrent to learning, this even came along with some examples of people leaving classes when feeling like they are all alone. This tied very closely to the GLSEN website that we had examined in our class.

          Overall, this entire conference was quite enjoyable and informational and I hope to go to more like it in the future because of how valuable all the information and activities I learned were.

Talking Points Finn

Literacy with an Attitude
Reflection

      Reading the chapters from Finn's work I couldn't help but look back at my own elementary school days and notice how my experience is identical to the working class schools that Anyon had described. But I also noticed that I had teachers that looked to try and help some of the more "ambitious" students. I use the term ambitious because I cannot think of a better word. I was always at the top of all my classes in elementary schools and sometimes my teachers would assign me special projects because I would be bored in class. When I got into 4th grade I was put into a program called enrichment where one day a week I'd spend all day in the library with a group of maybe nine other students and we did some pretty fun stuff like play a stock market game and even went often on trips to Boston and once to New York City. But this article made me curious on what exactly made me one of the people that did this. why were the other students not getting as good of grades as I did. While I went to a school that Anyon would have classified as a "working class" school, I had opportunity that seemed to coincide with the middle class and I am thankful for this opportunity because it taught me a lot.
      I just can't wrap my head around why I was successful where a lot of kids my age were struggling to just pass simple things like spelling and simple science. I had been with these kids since kindergarten and I was doing complex work that most of the kids in my class couldn't comprehend, but then I think about home life and I can honestly say all the kids that I was with in enrichment came from "solid" families, whom I saw at church on Sunday and the baseball and soccer fields, the other kids in my class seemed to have different home-lives. This is really the only difference I can think of.
    In a final thought, reading this article made me feel robbed. Why couldn't I go to a school where I would have been completely challenged and had all the opportunities that these other kids in the article had. I'm a person that always thinks I could do everything better, and reading this I feel like a higher class school would have put me in a position to obtain utter excellence. I was quite bitter after reading this article and I feel that definitely comes through in this rant of a blog.

Sam Jackson Video

Here's that Sam Jackson video I mentioned in class. I personally love this man.

Between Barack

Talking Points #8

Argument

The argument presented in the Tim Wise interview was that the election of Obama would be one of the most important happenings in America for black people and puts it in the same category as Brown V Board of Education. This court case removed racial segregation in America, but it did not eliminate racism. Anoter argument in the video that is made is one that there is still an inequality among black and white people in America. Wise speaks of how a mediocre white will get a position often that a black person would have to be absolutely exceptional in order to get. Wise argues that this is very wrong. Wise also goes on to say that by having a black president will be great for black kids in the nation. These kids will see different ways that they can excel in America and not just playing sports as a way to have a fruitful career when they become adults.

In my opinion Wise is right in his analysis of such pressing matters. His speech reverts back to articles we have read in class, such as the one about the invisible white privilege back pack. One of the features of the back pack deals with the previously mentioned aspect of not necessarily having to be great at something to stand out when a person is white which is the opposite for black people. This interview was very interesting as was the website we were linked to.

I hope everyone voted, here is a good tool to see how all the issues being voted on are going, including the famous question 3. HUFFPOST

talking points #7

Talking Points #7

Obama and Romney on gay marriage


Obama: Our nations president Barack Obama is a large supporter of gay marriage in America. In May, Obama made a large statement about his support for same sex marriage, but most recently has gotten behind the cause and is trying to help the cause in Maine, Maryland, and Washington state. This is the first time he has stood behind the cause of states that are trying to legalize same sex marriage. This shows how he actively supports the cause. One and see an article on this here  Here is a video of Obama's endorsement of same sex marriage this past May. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaV9UmDuqsI&feature=related

Romney: Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate in the 2012 presidential election is against same sex marriage, and his wife when on the topic often refers to her marriage as a "real marriage", saying same sex marriage is a sham. but in this election, gay marriage isn't really a big issue. Romney often alluding that there are more important matters on the table. This probably comes from the fact that many republicans are moving toward supporting gay marriage, or just not caring at all. Many republicans that support it are happy that it is not a focus issue in this years election. an interesting article can be seen here.

Wrap up: While gay marriage is an issue faced every day in our nation, it is an issue that has been put on the back burner for this election. While Obama will openly support same sex marriage, Mitt Romney and his wife often dodge the questions about it, presumably because of the split over it in the republican community where is seems like some republicans just don't care about the issue anymore.

Kahne and Westheimer

Hyperlinks

The piece by Kahne and Westheimer titled, In The Service Of What?The Politics of Service Learning they look at the many different forms of service learning but discuss the different things that service learning should teach and develop in the human that is participating in it, and that is where the term "service learning" comes about, which is what we are doing in this class.

On this page, one can see the statistics of volunteer work in Rhode Island. These numbers of people and hours of volunteer work are great and show how people give their time to help communities. However, thinking about the article, I'm curious as to how many people really learned or developed from partaking in any of this community service.

Doing research on service learning I found this  website, which gives a lot of different activities and seminars to learn about service learning and different things you can learn through it and why those things are important. This website set up by the Corporation for National and Community Service, is a great resource and if you wanna learn more about them you can go to this link.

One thing I find interesting it there is a President's High Honors to the colleges that have the most community service numbers. Here is a listing of them. link

Reading this piece was interesting and it put into perspective why we do the service learning project and have journals to reflect on the different things that we have learned. It also makes me see why reflecting on the experience is crucial to learning instead of just doing the service and getting the paper signed.

talking points #5

argument

          In the work of Peggy Orenstein titled Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Orenstein addresses different institutions that influence girls and boys. She brings up things like American Girl dolls, Barbie, Bratz, characters on Sesame Street, and even some of the decorations in her child's school. She expresses feelings that even if you were to protect a child from things like the Disney princesses, that child will still learn about them and idolize them. And while those princesses may not contain the right ideas we want to place on children, they are still everywhere. Orenstein in this piece is saying that what society needs to do is address this and point out how these are not the values we want kids to have.
       Another big part of her work shows how girls toys are gender specific and they seem to often limit girls to certain things. She addresses how everything that is meant for girls is normally colored pink and seems to say that girls should be taught to identify with the color pink. She argues that this shouldn't be the case that we shouldn't limit girls or boys to what they can and can't play with.

       Orenstein's writing is very interesting and makes me curious as to where she pulls her facts from and I would like to explore wherever that is and see if I can uncover more interesting facts. To see some of the things she addresses in action, one can go to barbie's own website which has games and shows. barbie.com

Talking Points #4

Quotes

"Young people, unprotected by any intellectual armor, hear or watch these stories again and again, often from the warmth of their mother's or father's lap". (Christensen 127)

           This quote alludes to the main point that the text is arguing that all of the stories and cartoons that enforce bad stereotypes have become such a part of society that they are often viewed from the comfort of their own parents, who if they knew what was being subliminally taught, would probably not let their children partake in the viewing of it. This is showing how these images have invaded even the safest of environments.

"During a class discussion Sabrina said: "I realized  these problems weren't just in cartoons. They were in  everything - every  magazine I picked  up, every television show I watched, every billboard I passed by on the street." My goal of honing their ability to read literature and the world through the lens or justice had been accomplished at least in  part". (Christensen 134)

         In this quote, Christensen uses a quote from one of her own students that speaks of how learning how to read the messages in cartoons has lead her to read the messages that exist in every day life. Christensen mentions that this was her goal, to get her students to question everything of this type. That was the main goal of her educating and showing how it worked was the purpose of this article.

"But more importantly, students saw themselves as actors in the world. They were fueled by the opportunity to convince some parents of the long­ lasting effects cartoons impose on their children, or to enlighten their peers about the roots of some of their insecurities". (Christensen 137)

       This quote expresses the effects that giving students power might effect their approach on things. She states that since the things the students were writing to publications was about a serious issue and something they can help change made the students put their best foot forward. This supports one of the main points of her article, that if you show someone that they can help to make a difference, they will most likely try to help ignite the fire of change.



This article was very interesting and a very short read. I wish however that there was more analysis in it and less inclusion of the quotes of the kids. I'd rather read the words of a scholar instead of just being shown certain examples of enlightenment. Reading this stuff makes me think about a poet from Rhode Island named Denise Duhamel, and her poetry collection called KINKY in which all her poems are about some type of stereotypical Barbie. It is very interesting and comical. Here is a LINK to its google books page where you can look at a few of the poems in the collection.

Talking Points #3

GLSEN blog

Reflection

      The article I read on GLSEN.org is titled "GLSEN Releases Groundbreaking Study of Bias, Bullying and Homophobia in Grades K-6". LINK This article broke down some interesting facts of a study that made up another article titled "Playgrounds and Prejudice: Elementary School Climate in the United States". This breakdown of the article gives reports of percentage of children's understanding of different lifestyles, and what teachers do to make kids aware of these things. It also looks at the way hateful words are used by young elementary children who don't seem to fit gender roles exactly. One may immediately think it not probably that a 3rd grader would call someone "gay" but I know from my own personal experience and having an older brother, that I started using words like this to express not liking something when I was young. So when I read the fact that 49% of elementary school kids have used it I believed it. Even now today when I work with kids, I often hear sometimes 1st graders saying a television show is "gay". And it's no surprise that some kids who might have homosexual parents may feel uncomfortable in an environment where something bad is said to be gay.
      Some of the facts and numbers presented in this overview are completely striking, especially in a society where we often see elementary school aged children as innocent and don't think they can really say things that are mean, but that is not the case with the number presented of children who do not feel safe at school. I remember when I was in 7th grade there was a female cancer survivor in my class and she was in the process of growing her hair back and would leave school some days crying because of other boys calling her "dyke" and other mean phrases thrown at lesbians. And while I was out of elementary at the time it wasn't by much.
     What this article was trying to do was show that we need to do some educating at a young age to teach children that these words are not appropriate and that people who live different lifestyles are not different people and should not be treated as different. One thing I found cool on this site was a link to a website about something called the No Name-Calling Week, here is the link to that. LINK

BLOG #2

Richard Rodriguez- "Aria"

Connections

       This piece title "Aria" by Richard Rodriguez is one that connections to a lot of the texts that we have been reading in class, but one I really connect it with is "The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children" by Lisa Delpit. I connect it with this piece because the Delpit piece is all about the culture of power and how we need to help those that are not part of the culture of power join it. However, "Aria" is the first person perspective of someone joining the culture of power and how that culture in a way erased what their old culture had meant to him and his family, almost completely removing his father's interactions with him, due to a new cultural barrier. One quote from this text I find very powerful reads, "At last, seven years old, I came to believe what had been technically true since my birth: I was an American citizen". (Rodriguez 36) In this quote we see how the narrator finally feels apart of the society he lives in, but one is directly brought to think "at what cost?". Following this he mentions how his family, becoming more American lost something, "But the special feeling of closeness at home was diminished by then". (Rodriguez 36) He no longer has his "secret language" at home that mad his family close, and it seems to be kind of a shock to him. In the end it is clear that Delpit is right and the culture of power needs to be taught, but what this article is saying is that the previous culture of the personally newly introduced should not be completely erased, and there should be something left to fortify it.
      Being from an inner city, growing up I was friends with a lot of ESL students and I decided after reading this article to do a little bit of research into ESL in the U.S. and I found this site that had just a little bit of number information on ESL students. This is a very large number and it makes me curious how many of their stories will match the Rodriguez piece.

Jonathan Kozol- "Amazing Grace"

Argument

     In this piece Kozol argues that the way New York treats it's poor and destitute is almost as if it is throwing it into a junk drawer and ignoring it. While not explicitly stating this, Kozol represents it through a series of quotes from people who live in these areas, facts about these areas, and his own experiences. Some examples are how they move the homeless into the housing projects, and the incinerator that was to go into a wealthier area, but fought against do to the burning of chemicals. There is also mentioning of people just dumping their "trash" in the streets, treating this area as a dump. Another argument that Kozol features here is  one against the common idea that the people in these areas got their on their own accord and must have done something wrong to be in such a circumstance. He shows this to be very fictitious when outlining the life of his good friend Mrs. Washington who has always tried to rise above but her skin color and origin have repetitively held her down, proving that it's not all drug addicts and people who have messed up. He also takes a look at the kids that grow up being bombarded with the images of suffering and violence, needing to grow up at such an early age. Those children have done nothing wrong to get stuck in these awful human dumping grounds.
      As a side note I was also curious about the part he mentioned about people handing out clean needles and I have heard about it, but never really looked into it, so I decided to see if R.I. does this at all. Instead I found a NY Times article that is contemporary to the Kozol piece and it tells how illegal giving needles to addicts is. It is very intersting.