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

In-class Excersise: Drafting

I was fifteen years old, still shy and reserved in the presence of strangers, when  first I walked into Mrs. C's sixth period Chemistry class, a large drafty room nestled in one corner of my High School's main building. There were counters around the edges of the room and a large chimney structure in one corner, a odd contraption we called the hood, which you could enclose completely in case of  dangerous chemical vapors or an explosion. I used to secretly wish for some catastrophic disaster, just so I could have the pleasure of heroically tossing the volatile liquids  into the pit and closing the hood good and tight.

My first impression of Mrs. C was not necessarily a good one, mostly because I refused to allow it to be one. I'll admit I was already biased to dislike her, due to some minor horror stories of mistreatment I'd heard from brother in law regarding his time in her class. I felt that I had a familial obligation to dislike the woman my sister's husband disdained.
 Thus, I found her charming Coney Island accent grating, grousing silently over the way she pronounced the word fifty as "fity," annoyed by her clever, sarcastic jokes and her easy familiarity with students. Everything she did, I was determined to dislike, from the innocent way she asked students about their older siblings--her former students--to the way she excitedly paced before the blackboard and made broad motions with hands arms and sometimes even her feet. Even the way she conducted the class grated on me, and I would spend hours at home complaining to my parents about how she never explained anything and she simply expected us to know things.
Fortunately for me, even my determination to hold a grudge was no match for Mrs. C's enthusiasm, humor and high expectations. After the first quarter, I had already started to warm. I was no longer swallowing down my laughter, determined to be surly, no longer complaining to my parents. In fact, soon enough I retelling tales of her antics gleefully to classmates and laughing with my parents over her unorthodox methods. I started to relish the challenge of the assignments she gave us. I didn't need her to explain--all I need to do was use my own mind, think it through, and do the very best that I could. Somehow, somewhere, Mrs. C had tricked me into enjoying chemistry, and--goodness forbid--thinking. I had been transformed into a enthusiastic, intellectual and independent student, quite against my own will.

Teachers Rough Draft

Education and the individuals who oversee such learning—teachers—can have a powerful and profound affect 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 defines good teaching from bad? From experience, I have learned that the best teacher motivates you to think on your own and hone your own skills, rather then conforming to a strict regimen of stale learning. A good teacher shows you how to hold on to your independence and originality, no matter what the world throws at you.

            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.”  (Ward, William) This is a powerful summation of the essence of good teaching. A good teacher must go beyond a simple impartation of knowledge; they must help a student to build self-confidence and hone skills. They must inspire students to seek learning on their own, and above all, impart on a student a love of learning itself. One teacher who exemplifies these features is my high school Chemistry Teacher, Mrs. C.
            One of the most powerful aspects of Mrs. C’s teaching was the way she pushed her students toward independent thought and discovery. One 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. Being required to write their own labs led students to a new 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 thought; 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 she inspired independence was the way she conducted in-class time. Where many teachers would dedicate in-class 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 then 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.” (Dead Poets Society. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Robin Williams. 1989. DVD.).  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 and unwilling to work with her methods, by the end of the year, most had embraced them. They 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. And 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 stifled independence. For example, Ms. H always taught directly out of textbooks. Every student has 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 dutifully regurgitated it into another. These method 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 smothered independence 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 should have—and likely 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 an individual 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 unjust 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 that way.  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 almost the exact 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.” (J.K. Rowling, author). 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 their students and helps them think for themselves, and that of the bad teacher, who weighs them down and discourages the synthesis of original contemplation.