Watch This!! It is amazing and unbelievable

This video is unbelievable. Tissues may be needed, it is very touching.

Interesting Point

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/80cD1W/fc08.deviantart.net/fs46/f/2009/215/6/c/I_am_a_good_person_by_PaMikoo.jpg

Empowering Education - Ira Shor

“In classrooms where participation is meager, the low performance of students is routinely misjudged as low achievement. Bur the actual cognitive levels of students are hard to measure in teacher-centered class-room where students participate minimally. An accurate picture of what students know and can do is possible only when students really want to perform at their best.”

I really liked this quote because I agree with it. There were some kids in my old high school that very rarely participated. Yet when it came down to it they were some of the smartest kids in our class. They either didn’t have the energy or feel the need to participate or they were just always 5 steps ahead of the class so what was taught at the time was boring for them. So in many cases participation does not reflect the knowledge of the student.

“The students in that media class learned subject matter through student-centered problem-posing in a critical dialogue, not through my lecturing them in a banking fashion.”

I think this way of teaching is a more hands on approach. I know that I work better as a student when I am discovering things on my own. When it comes to a lecture I do learn but it is more difficult for me to remember the facts. It is easier for me to really gain knowledge when I am working towards answering my own question with some help from the professor. I find that I don’t memorize facts when I learn that way, I know the facts.

“Situated, multicultural pedagogy increases the chance that students will feel ownership in their education and reduces the conditions that produce their alienation.”

I think that when it comes to learning a student that feels alienated will not be able to go far or achieve much. There is more of this sense of work rather than enjoyment. On the other hand a student that is strongly involved works hard and is actually finding an interest and immersing themselves in the education world. It feels more as if they are doing it for them.

Dolphin's Tale - An upcoming movie that is based on a true tale

This is an upcoming movie that tells the true story of a dolphin without a tail. I found this interesting since we speak about how to survive in a human society but when it comes to able-bodiness it is even tougher for animals. This is where survival of the fittest comes in. In order for an animal to thrive in it's society it must be fit and be able to survive the elements. I just found this video to be very interesting since were talking about the effects of able-bodiness.

Schooling Children with Down Syndrome-Christopher Kliewer

The writer quotes Judith Snow, “[Community] requires a willingness to see people as they are-different perhaps in their minds and in their bodies, but not different in their spirits or in their willingness and ability to contribute to the mosaic of society.”

I really liked this quote and for me it really summed up what community should be about. People should be willing to listen to others and appearance or even uncontrollable mindset should not impact the ability of others to speak out. Who allows us to make the choices for others? This also reflects what happens in schools. Who gives us the right to tell someone right off that they are not good enough for this class? Shouldn’t all children be given the opportunity to branch out and shine? I think that this relates back to the idea of detracting. We should allow students to discover their own pace and their own place within the school. As many of the kids said there are a various types of smarts that students can have. Appearance or mindset should not affect a child’s ability to discover themselves within their school.

The author quotes Shayne of saying “So what, if you don’t fit exactly what you’re supposed to? You know, it’s not like I fit many people’s idea of what a teacher’s supposed to be like.”

I totally agree with this quote and the community aspect that was discussed before hand. Although there is this mold of the perfect student and perfect child it rarely gets filled, if ever. No one is perfect and no one is the ideal. By allowing the children to work as a group to put on the production she was allowing them an opportunity to shine. Their strengths were shown. And they also developed this sense of community. I think that bringing out a project that all the students need to work on together allows children to form new relationships. They start to see that their peers are not what they seem to be. That everyone has strengths.

“Fundamental to constructivist teaching is a respect for each student as both an active agent in the learning process and an essential member of the learning community.”

Every student is important to the classroom. And each student brings forth certain strengths making them an essential member of the classroom. I think that children should be allowed to express interest and broaden their interests within the classroom. But this depends on the teacher. Each teacher should show respect for each child. A teacher who singles a child out presents an opportunity for the students to do the same.

From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work -Jean Anyon

“The four fifth grade teachers observed in the working-class schools attempted to control classroom time and space by making decisions without consulting the children and without explaining the basis for their decisions.”

Overall this sums up what was found in the working class schools. The children were always following a step to step procedure. They were not expected to be conceptual about what they were learning. The teachers weren’t looking for them to learn but rather to memorize these steps and follow the constant rules expected of them. I feel that this type of schooling is very constricted and doesn’t allow the children to branch out and fully enjoy and understand what it is that they are learning. It was not expected of them at all the teachers were not allowing their children to fully develop the learning skills taught to them.

“As one child said, what you do is "store facts up in your head like cold storage - until you need it later for a test or your job."”

I really like this quote because it sounds exactly like what my friends and I used to say all the time. I went to a middle class school so when reading this section I saw a lot of similarities that I could relate to. I even see it in the elementary school I volunteer at this semester. There is a lot of child participation and a child is expected to be able to explain what they have done and how they did it. There is the conceptual learning involved. Yet in the end it is the accumulation of children working towards a grade. I personally did not expect to use any of the knowledge that I had learned. Many times I would skip over something I loved in order to write about something that would give me the good grade.

“The foregoing analysis of differences in schoolwork in contrasting social class contexts suggests the following conclusion: the "hidden curriculum" of schoolwork is tacit preparation for relating to the process of production in a particular way.”

This quote is basically saying that the way education is taught to a child and the way the school system operates relates to the social class that they are teaching. Children are taught in the way that they will later live their lives. The way that they are taught relates to what they will face and will be expected to be like in later years. Whether they need to be very inferring or whether they need to be able to follow the basic steps perfectly without any questioning or full understanding. Like the other says later on there should be a completely wide research on all schools. Maybe they don’t all operate like this. There might be some slight variation.

Talking point

Teaching Boys and Girls Seperately
By Elizabeth Weil

"...Japanese researchers who found girls’ drawings typically depict still lifes of people, pets or flowers, using 10 or more crayons, favoring warm colors like red, green, beige and brown; boys, on the other hand, draw action, using 6 or fewer colors, mostly cool hues like gray, blue, silver and black. This apparent difference, which Sax argues is hard-wired, causes teachers to praise girls’ artwork and make boys feel that they’re drawing incorrectly."
I see this a lot when I work with children. Most girls tend to draw visual and real things. They use as many colors as they can to portray a flower or a butterfly. Many girls like to draw what we deem to be "girly things". The boys usually use darker colors such as black, blue or red. And they will draw action heroes and many action scenes. Most boys with the influence of video games wi draw comic books or action scenes with some small form of dialogue. Many boys will not draw anything colorful unless they are asked to. Boys and girls have a different imagination and creative energy. 

"Separating schoolboys from schoolgirls has long been a staple of private and parochial education. But the idea is now gaining traction in American public schools, in response to both the desire of parents to have more choice in their children’s public education and the separate education crises girls and boys have been widely reported to experience. The girls’ crisis was cited in the 1990s, when the American Association of University Women published “Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America,” which described how girls’ self-esteem plummets during puberty and how girls are subtly discouraged from careers in math and science. More recently, in what Sara Mead, an education expert at the New America Foundation, calls a “man bites dog” sensation, public and parental concerns have shifted to boys. Boys are currently behind their sisters in high-school and college graduation rates. School, the boy-crisis argument goes, is shaped by females to match the abilities of girls (or, as Sax puts it, is taught “by soft-spoken women who bore” boys)."
In my town and the surrounding towns the only schools that have a separation between boys and girls are the private schools. I think that today there is still division between boys and girls. Although most of it can be seen as stereotypical it is there. In fact in RIC's own honors program there is more girls than boys. My honors history class has only four boys while the rest of us are all girls. I think that this is enforced by expectations. Girls are expected to be school orientated while boys are geared my to sports and hands on activities. 

"Wylie says she believes she is a better teacher, and her students are better students, because they’re in a desexualized — or at least less-sexualized — environment. “Sure,” she says, “when they take pictures, they often present their backsides first. But I think I’m giving girls a better education than I could have if there were guys in the room. I’m freer. I’m more able to be bold in my statements. When I teach poetry and I talk about the sex in poetry I don’t need to be worried about the boy in the room who is going to chuckle over the thing he did with the girl last week and embarrass her. Which happened more than once in my last coed environment.”
I understand the when kids are separated by sex in classrooms there is a more comfortable air. The student is more at ease and finds comforts within his or her peers. But there are still advantages to being in a coed environment. I mean must of us turned out alright, right?