Oops, forgot the bibliography

Works Cited

Ehrich, Lisa C. and Hansford, Brian. “Formal Mentoring Programs in Education and

Other Professeions: A Review of the Literature.” Educational Administration

Quarterly. October 2004. Web. 14 July 2011.

<http://eaq.sagepub.com/content/40/4/518.full.pdf+html>.

“Helping Children Overcome Test Anxiety.” American School Counselor Association.

n.d. Web. 14 July 2011.

<http://www.schoolcounselor.org/content.asp?contentid=283>.

“Lack of Sleep Affects Schoolwork.” Neuroscience For Kids. 14 December 2005. Web.

16 July 2011. <http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/sleept.html>.

Lewin, Tamar. “Many States Adopt National Standards for Their Schools.” NY Times.

21 July 2010. Web. 16 July 2011.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/education/21standards.html>.

Pennington, Mark. “Why Round Robin and Popcorn Reading Are Evil.”  Pennington

Publishing Blog. 30 September 2009. Web. 13 July 2011.

<http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/why-round-robin-and-popcorn-

reading-are-evil/>.

Embedding Issues

My Timeline Link

Timeline

Socialization or Learning?

In The American School's chapter 9, the section on John Dewey touched upon the founding of the Laboratory School. The idea here is that social imagination is "the habit of mentally constructing some actual scene of human interaction, and of consulting that for instruction as to what to do." Furthermore, it highlights the concept of pragmatism, stuffing all of it under the umbrella of progressivism. As the book explained, pragmatism is "associated with the school of philosophy, means in its simplest form that humans should adopt those ideas, values, and institutions that best work in a particular social situation." In my opinion, I think that the schools (and those behind the organization of these schools) really wanted to discipline children and conform them - then they came up with the rationale that students needed to be socialized anyway. So it may have started as a way to get a large mass of people to conform to the rules and laws of the country but then expanded to shape individuals. I think that students need to have extracurricular activities to be able to explore themselves and the world. But, I'm not so sure that we should have the idea that anything we teach these children is going to be ingrained and become the norm - because it can surely be used for negative purposes.

Paradigmatics

Article I mentioned in class!

I liked the exercise of substitution the institution of education for the topic of "morality" in the article we read for Thursday. It was a really helpful way to develop insight in a philosophical sense and see how much philosophy is really integrated into our societal institutions. During class, I really liked the observation that: the process of subject formation, engaging at a certain level, yet punished for misbehavior or failure to learn based on the institutional practices instilled. In other words, students will feel they cannot possibly give any more and say they'll only do the minimum to continue on and their conditions are ultimately fearful. However this didn't just happen overnight. We perpetuate this through our neglect of this process of subject formation that is ultimately shaped by our environment. I also wanted to include a really great quote from the Saar reading:

"But most social and cultural institutions and practices shape and guide human conduct and self-identification and in that way leave traces in the way human actors are constituted by them. So what Nietzsche has done for [morality], can easily be done for less visible forms of (not only moral, but cultural, political, bodily, economic, etc.) "self-making'" (Saar 302).

Also, as I had mentioned in class, there is a trend of "assisting" students to obtain better grades on standardized texts. This assistance ranges from erasure parties to leaning over a student's shoulder as they mark in their tests. I found this article particularly interesting because it also points out the greediness of the teachers in their efforts to better themselves, not the students. What is the better option here? For the teacher to try to save their job? Is teaching to the test taking over the minds of teachers? I just don't know. It's back there in my mind, but if you're a great teacher and you have the right activities and teaching methods, you should be developing students who are able to critically think and indeed perform well.

Starting My Timeline!

Here's what I have so far!

After our class discussion, or rather analysis of the articles, I started thinking about what Dr. Shutkin said at the beginning of class in relation to the readings. He said, "We are suggesting that curriculum is not a thing, but an action, an experience of what is studied in school. It is about getting curriculum into the heads of our students - like chopping heads open and pouring knowledge in." At first, I was a bit confused during this lecture. I started trying to make sense of the analysis and realized that our teachers are the one who engage us and initiate the grasping of knowledge. If a teacher merely feeds the material to students like a scantron test into a scanning machine, not everyone will grasp it and not everyone will be challenged to achieve more.

I immediately flashed back to one of the first moments of realization in my educational career: my first grade teacher showering me with books for grades 5-7. I was a bit accelerated at the beginning of my childhood; I learned to read and write at an early age (um, what happened to that?!). I was able to read those books within the next calendar year. I was pushing myself, learning ways to ask for help and figuring out new tactics for understanding these books. THAT is what children need to learn to do: learn different ways to learn. I started working on my timeline with that initial event in mind. It was interesting that it is my first memory of a teacher pushing me to be something other than the curriculum. She triggered the idea that I need to understand the curriculum and material, but learn several different ways to get to mastery and discovery.

"suggesting that curriculum is not a thing, but an action, an experience of what is studied in school" - getting curriculum into the heads of our students - chopping heads open and pouring knowledge in

Ebonics

Today in class our group had an awesome discussion about the chapter "What Should Teachers Do?" The chapter was very interesting - it really exposed the issue of "Standard English" and how the dialect that students speak that enhances their personality and their culture (otherwise known as Ebonics). It's important to realize that language is a comfort zone - the way you speak at home is typically ingrained as "normal" to younger children. When they are confronted with a reason to change and to forget who they are (so to speak), students face a decision. There are students who will refuse to change and become deviant as a result. And there are others who want to conform and start to resent who they are and hate their culture. 

Our group had a great representation of that repressed feeling: although not all of us necessarily speak in dialect deemed as “Ebonics” we all felt that we have had to hold back a part of us in order to fit in, whether it be with peers, job interviews, in classes we’ve taken, and in our every day lives. Stephen brought his grades as his prop, proving that he is nearly a 4.0 student, yet he is unsure if he will be able to land a job after he is done earning his license and degree. What was interesting is that our entire group empathized with Stephen in our own different ways. We feel as if we must hide who we are in certain situations to gain entry into this world we are about to be in (or already are!). It’s frustrating to see that we are feeling this pressure to conform underneath it all.

The article was an excellent way to expose this issue of Ebonics and how it truly can be detrimental to students when teachers handle it the wrong way. It can cause students to curl up and never want to participate or develop a hatred for school. We all have our own unique way of being an individual – it is crucial to keep that individuality alive in our future students!