Ranking

1. Large--Character
2. Gilyard--Art and Curiosity
3. Hooks--engaging study and teacher connection
4. Boyce--Emotional nurturing
5. Aronson-- involvement with school management

Large, Boyce, Gilyard & hooks

      hooks      hooks asserts that teachers need to learn to asses the emotional awarness and intellegence of a class room. She reasons that this is important because:

• teachers need to be able to determine what the students need to know
• interacting with students beyond the surface builds positive energy

           hooks also talks about the importance of teachers encouraging the inner voice of all student. She belives this is important because:

•  it engages the hearts and minds of students
• creates a space where everyone can speak
• creates an environment where all voices can be shared
  
  lastly, hooks highlights the overall value of engaged pedagogy, saying that it:
  
• empathizes mutal paticipation
• forges meaningful working relationships in the classroom
• establishes integrity in the teacher
• encourages students to work with integrity 
  
  Gilyard
  Gilyard discusses the importance of the arts within schools, saying that they are:
  
• vital to the process of shaping the critical and productive citizens we need
• for the common good
• a linkage between potential and achivment
• expands perspective
  
  Aronson
  Aronson says that teachers must become engaged and active in politics in order to
• ensure the best for the students
• get educated, experienced voices out into the school board environment
• protect students from bureaucracy and misinformed information
• help students excel
  
  LargeSchools need to nurture character and 'grit' because
• it helps students to suceed
• helps them handle stress
• promotes optimism, self-control, curiosity and soical-intellegence
• gives the example of the two extremes--too many rules and stress at KIPP and too little motivation and challenge at Riverdale

Small Group: Chalk vs. Authors

Small group blog post: choose one scene from chalk and use it to show one of the concerns that each of the writers (Freire, Gatto, Rose, and Black) have about education.


Freire talks about how our education system uses teachers just as a machine to relay information to students who temporarily memorize it for a test. In Chalk, there's a scene where Mr. Lowrey is having all of his students simply repeating what he says; no thinking, no learning, just memorization.


Black talks a lot about unqualified people working at and teaching at schools. Mr. Lowrey is a perfect example of this, as he is completely new to teaching, and he's teaching History as a former Engineer. He goes to the Library and looks to check out a book about simply controlling his class, because he's completely new to teaching and doesn't know how to maintain control in his classroom.


Gatto talks about how students are isolated and separated by titles and how teachers treat them, saying "Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes." The student in Chalk who is kicked out of class by Mr. Lowrey is an example of this idea; he is kicked out of class not just because of his cell phone, but because there's a "mutual disrespect" between them. Mr. Lowrey labels him both as a distraction and as disrespectful.


Rose says that one of the main goal in reforming out education should be "To have more young people get an engaging and challenging education." In Chalk, Mr. Stroope talks to some of his students after class, and tells them to stop using such big words and stop being smarter at history than him during class. To these kids, their education is not at all engaging or challenging

Black vs. Rose

To be honest, I found these two very difficult to compare, because Black seemed to give less concrete examples of error or solution. Black seemed more interested in outlining comic and satirical examples of the stupid ways people seek to 'cure' education, as evidenced by his statement that "I went to school in an empty carton of Paul Mauls," while Rose outlined concrete examples of what he considered could be actual solutions, for example highlighting a real problem by saying " Just when you think the lesson is learned – that the failure of last year’s miracle cure is acknowledged and lamented – our attention is absorbed by a new quick fix."
Both Rose and Black seem to be of the opinion that our educational system is broken. As Black says eloquently, "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand our schools are broken--which is good, because none of us are," and Rose affirms that the reason for his resolutions is due to the "troubling developments and bad, old habits of 2010," indicating he considers past years an example of bad schooling. Another similarity between the two is their general disdain for the ignorant behavior and meddling of the press, Rose asking to "have the media, middle-brow and high-brow, quit giving such a free pass to the claims and initiatives of the Department of Education and school reformers." and Black mocking NBC , saying "NBC: a week for education, 51 weeks for incarceration,"

What Is School For?

I think that that purpose of school should be, first and foremost, education. We need to know our history and learn how to affect out future. We need to be taught how to fit into todays society and be successful. But there are certainly other important aspects of it. For example school should be to help people explore their interests and discover where they want to go in the working world and what they want to pursue. It should also be about teaching students how to live in the modern world. Finances and economics are an extremely important aspect of  day-to-day life, and as is evidenced by the levels of debt and foreclosure in our country, the recent generations are not well educated on the subject. In the same vein, the real-life application of many of the subjects we learn about is not well explored. Much of student boredom in school can likely be attributed to the fact that well, the curriculum is boring but also to the fact that few students can discern any real reason for them to learn what they are taught. I would like to seem more of these aspects in school, as well as more exploration of individuality, creativity and independence.  

My School Expereince

In Gatto's "Against School," one of the main components he discusses is that of boredom. This is the aspect that I can most easily identify with. I'm one of those kids who genuinely loves to learn, so school should have been a fantastic experience for me. Unfortunately, for the most part, it hasn't been. Like most school students, I became well associated with boredom at a very young age. My biggest struggle was in my English classes. As a kind my parents read me the classics—instead of TV, we’d all gather around and listen to C.S. Lewis. Instead of video games, we’d do book trivia. Sound like a bore? Maybe, but we didn’t know anything else and we loved it. When I got older, I read on my own obsessively, all the time, everyday. I also wrote.  By the time I was in middle school, I was miles ahead of curriculum. English class soon became an intense staring match between me and the closest clock, accompanied by bored compositions of the finger-tapping variety. I knew the material. I could dance around the material. I wrote essays in minutes and tested at a college level all through sixth grade. But the thing I soon realized was there were no options for me—or very few. Attempting to get me in an advanced placement English class was a long, hoop-jumping ordeal for my parents and me. By seventh grade, I ended up in a group of overflow AP kids. The official AP class was full, so our regular English teacher would give our group a random ‘AP’ assignment and send us outside of the class to work on it in the hallway or the library. The only good thing about those assignment was since we were basically ignored, I could make up random stipulations to make it harder and more challenging me. All through high school the boredom persisted. Soon it bled over into my other classes. I wasn’t engaged, I was bored out of my mind, and eventually I had trouble figuring out why in the world I should even bother with any of the schoolwork. My grades started to slip because my boredom grew into apathy, as it is bound to do. The thing I learned from all this? Well, people always talk about ‘No Child Left Behind,’ and assert the importance of not letting any child fall behind in school. But the curriculum that has been created by that movement has created a new negative; I was in the upper percentile of grades, ability and intelligence, yet I was the one slipping though the cracks.

Chalk : Notes

• ·         50% of teachers quit within first 3 years of teaching
• ·         The students seem really bored, all of them seem amused by the little exercises the teachers make them do
• ·         Mr.. Lowrey seems very unsure, awkward and his students seem to know he doesn’t have a handle of what he is doing
• ·         Mrs. Reddal is AP, and her ‘best friend’ Ms. Web is relived about her new position
• ·         Mr. Shroope has to go over ‘goals’ from last year, no sarcasm, more cleanliness, earlier lesson plans
• ·         “Don’t be their friend,”
• ·         Mr. Shroope tries to show the students he ‘cares about them’
• ·         Mr. Lowrey has no control over his class
• ·         Mrs. Reddal  gets home from work late every night, after 10
• ·         Ms. Web talks to one of the teachers about ‘not honoring the system’
• ·         Mr. Lowery’s class plays with him and mocks him, asks if they ‘even need to learn this stuff’
• ·         Mr. Lowery gets books on classroom management
• ·         Ms. Web and Mrs. Reddal get in a fight because Mrs. Reddal is always busy and working
• ·         Mr. Shroope talks to students who are upstaging them
• ·         Mr. Lowery works to make his class more fun for students, integrating jokes and humor
• ·         Mr. Shroope talks to all of the teachers about ‘integrity’
• ·         Mr. Lowery mentions that teaching takes up so much of his time he can’t imagine having time for personal life
• ·         Mr. Lowery gets angry at a student and kicks him out of the classroom
• ·         Teachers get together and joke about the students
• ·         Mr. Shroope really wants to be teacher of the year
• ·         Mr. Lowery goes to the home of a student and his mom teaches him how to speak to students
• ·         Ms. Web and Mrs. Reddal ave difficulties with their friendship. Mrs. Reddal feels that her friends use her new position to manipulate outcomes
• ·         Mr. Shroope loses teacher of the year
• ·         Mrs. Reddal realizes that she wants to still be teaching
• ·         The teachers all compete in a slang spelling B—Mr. Lowery’s students coach him
• ·         Mr. Lowery wins the slang B
• ·         Mr. Lowery is unsure about whether he will return
• ·         The teachers reflect on their year and their interactions with others.
• ·         Overall, students often felt bored and confused as to why they were in the classes and learning the designated curriculum.
• ·         Teachers had difficulty with each other, and administration. Teachers didn’t always know how to correctly interact with the students. Some teachers, like Mr. Lowery, realized teaching wasn’t for them

John Gatto's 'Against School' -- Group 6, "Basic Functions"

In John Gatto's "Against School," he discusses the 'six basic functions' as outlined according to Inglis. 

1. The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
• An example of this kind of a function is in the way challenges, such as disagreeing with, speaking against or questioning a teacher is responded to with punishment. From the time you are in elementary you learn that such behaviors are 'rude' and 'disrespectful,' and are reprimanded for such actions. Questioning a teacher during class is a great way to earn yourself a lecture or detention
  

2.      The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

o   All students in public schooling receive the same regiment of information—we learn the same things, from the same or similar teachers and are tested in the same way and graded on the same scale. This kind of inflexible environment can easily create students who know the same things, believe the same things and often think in the same way.

3.      The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

o   The way that students are tested and categorized, dividing students up based on performance, holding some back and promoting others based not necessarily by true ability but by the way they test and grade is a good example of the diagnostic function.

4.      The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal bes.

o   This is exemplified by formulaic school progression: requirements of a certain list of credits, with required core curriculum and limited electives controls learning and advancement

5.       The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

o   People don’t care so much about grades anymore but conformity or lack thereof can isolate and differentiate social standing of students effectively

6.      The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

•    Observe political attitude

English Paper #2: Teaching

            Education and the individuals who oversee such learning—teachers—can have a powerful and profound effect on a student. A good teacher can help inspire you to learn, help you get excited about furthering your knowledge and deepening your understanding of the world. A bad teacher can make learning distasteful, even hated. But what makes a good teacher? What differentiates good teaching from bad? From experience, I have encountered good teachers, such as my chemistry teacher Mrs. C, and bad teachers, such as my English teacher Ms. H. From my experience with these teachers I have learned that the best teacher motivates you to be independent, think on your own and teaches you to love learning, while a bad teacher does the opposite.

            One of America’s most quoted authors of inspiration maxims, William Arthur Ward, once said of teachers, “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires” (Goodreads.com). This is a powerful summation of the essence of good teaching. A good teacher must go beyond a simple impartation of knowledge: they must inspire students to seek learning on their own, and above all, impart to a student a love of learning itself. One teacher who exemplifies these features is my high school chemistry teacher, Mrs. C.
            One aspect of Mrs. C’s teaching was the way she pushed her students toward independent thought and discovery. An example of this was her general method of teaching, in which she would rarely give students a concrete outline of in-class labs. Instead, she would tell her students what she wanted them to achieve and then require that the students create, write, and execute their own labs in order to achieve that goal. As she would often say, a gleeful glint in eye, “Figure it out!”
Being required to write their own labs led students to a realm of free thought. No two students had to do the same lab—if one student considered one method to be best, they could explore that method, while another could explore their favored method. It helped students build confidence in their own original ideas. They were no longer constrained to a single process, and that bred freedom and inspired students to discover new systems of achievement and learning. Another example of how Mrs. C inspired independence was the way she conducted in-class time. Where many teachers would dedicate such time to study, Mrs. C used class time for lab execution and expected students to study on their own time. This forced students to become accountable to themselves. Without the teacher to check if they were studying, it was their decision as to whether or not they did. This taught students to independently seek the knowledge they needed to do well in class, leading them to free learning and discovery.
            Another aspect that made Mrs. C a good teacher was her ability to help students love learning. For example, Mrs. C would draw students in and connect to them by giving explosive—literally—demonstrations of scientific concepts. She would combine chemicals, light reactive metals on fire, anything to get a big, exciting reaction that would animate students. Students would laugh, jump and applaud the unorthodox examples, enjoying the show. This helped students get excited about learning and science. Rather than boring monotony, reading through textbooks or filling out worksheets, they were able to see and experience science, and it was fun!

Beyond that, Mrs. C connected to students through humor and jokes. She was always poking fun at students, as well as making jokes at her own expense. This created an environment of comfort and enjoyment. It was hard for students to dislike a class in which they were always laughing. When you enjoy the class, you are not far from enjoying the learning that takes place there.
            In Dead Poets Society, Mr. Keating says to a fellow teacher, “I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself.”  Being in Mrs. C’s class taught students to do just that: think for themselves. While at the beginning of the year many were frustrated by her methods, at the end of the year most had embraced them. The students had learned to use their own brand of thinking to solve problems, found independence and built up skills of self-discipline, which in turn helped them construct confidence in themselves and their abilities. Most importantly, Mrs. C’s students learned to enjoy the actual learning process and were inspired to pursue their own interests and learning beyond the classroom.

            What good teaching is, in essence, can be illustrated through examples of bad teaching. By looking at what is classified as bad teaching, we can more clearly see what good teaching should be. One example of a bad teacher was my middle school English teacher, Ms. H.  Her teaching succeeded in stifling the creativity of students, forcing them to conform to rules, and making learning into a painful, boring task.

            In contrast to Mrs. C’s methods, which bred independence, Ms. H was strictly conformed to a stale method of teaching that taught her students conformity and constricted their independence. For example, Ms. H always taught directly out of textbooks. Every student had a textbook and an associated workbook, and all class time was spent reading one and filling out the other. There was no room for abstract or complex thought. Students downloaded the information from one book and obediently regurgitated it into another. These methods taught students a very strict way of thinking; textbook thinking. Students received information, but didn’t discover how they would be affected by it. They learned what others thought on subjects, but were never allowed to explore their own thoughts in the same realm. As pupils, they became dutiful; as thinkers, they became stagnate.

            Another example of how Ms. H restricted individuality was in the way she reacted to deviation from her methods of teaching. For example, in order to escape the monotony of the boring class, one group of students got together and created a mini writers club. When Ms. H caught wind of this plan, each of the students were punished for ‘wasting class time’ and given lunch detention for the infraction. Where a pot of creativity and originality had hatched, Ms. H sewed bitterness and frustration in its place. Students in the future were discouraged from similar exploits of the mind, and students of the time were reprimanded for something that would have been nurtured by a good teacher.  

An additional feature of Ms. H’s bad teaching was her interaction with her students, and the way she made learning unenjoyably through such interactions.

The punishment detailed above is one example of this feature. Students were punished not for disrupting the class or being disrespectful, but for deviating from what Ms. H considered to be the ‘proper’ method of teaching (and learning).  This kind of punishment breeds ill-will between students and teacher, and effective learning is very difficult when a student is in an environment with a person they consider unjust.

            Additionally, Ms. H alienated students by picking favorites. For instance, Ms. H had an extreme dislike for male students, and thus favored the females in the class. If a group of students got chatty, the males in the group would be reprimanded while the females would be overlooked. If a male and a female did a joint project, the female would get the higher percentage of the grade. It was an extremely biased and unfair environment. All the students, male and female alike, resented it. The females disliked seeing their friends get treated unfairly and the males disliked being treated unfairly.  None of the students wanted to be in the class, a great contrast to Mrs. C’s teaching which got students excited and inspired.
Overall, Ms. H’s methods worked to groom students into conformity, destroy their independence and obliterate their joy of learning.

The contrast between a good and a bad teach helps reveal good teaching. Mrs. C inspired, nurtured and helped her students. In contrast, Ms. H did the opposite. But that does not mean examining her methods is useless to those who wish to discover what good teaching is. In the words of famous author J.K. Rowling, “there is plenty to be learned even from a bad teacher: what not to do, how not to be” (Goodreads.com). Ms. H’s unyielding teaching methods, and the negative effects they had on her students helps to exemplify the importance of flexible and nurturing approaches.  Her attitude of favoritism and the way she created a negative learning environment shows how important it is for a student to connect with a teacher and be able to get excited about learning.  In the end, we are left with a clear picture; that of the good teacher, who elevates her students and helps them think for themselves, and that of the bad teacher, who weighs them down and discourages the synthesis of original contemplation.

Sources:

·      Dead Poets Society. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Robin Williams. 1989. DVD.

·      Rowling, J. K., author, Goodreads.com

·      Ward, William, author, Goodreads.com