HW 51

School has drawbacks and advantages just like everything else in life. What makes school so hard for many if not most people is the fact that school is a requirement for twelve years. Furthermore this requirement is so difficult because it comes at the age when people have the shortest attention span and the biggest ambitions. School’s most damaging affect is to ambition; school makes you focus only on what they are teaching which usually isn’t very interesting. Everybody has that one favorite teacher that taught that one cool class because for most people all the other classes are boring too tolerable with little past that.
The American educational system has basically zero relation with everybody’s life. All teachers say about that is “well you have to learn to tolerate things you don’t like that’s part of being an adult”. Well if being an adult means doing something you hate for eight hours a day five days a week then why would any reasonable person want to be an adult? The answer to that is people have been pretty successfully manipulated into feeling that they should just deal with something instead of actually doing something about it. It’s almost as if the people running our schools just resent their time in school and think that everybody else has to deal with it. One would think that given the politics of the 1960’s and the entire baby boomer generation that there would be a desire to reform our education system to apply the core knowledge and at the same time make things engaging for the students. However virtually nothing has changed.
The education system also doesn’t take into consider the differences that people experience geographically. I think that even though our system is equally bad for everyone that there should be some changes in curriculum to catch everyone up. Because as much as the education system gets legislated there’s no way to legislate how people raise their kids and where people grow up. For example anyone who lives in a suburban environment or just has a lot of experience outside of an urban atmosphere wouldn’t find an English regents test particularly difficult or out of the ordinary but for someone who doesn’t know about that culture their performance on that test would be highly impacted.
I guess my point is that in our culture there isn’t an equal playing field. It’s impossible to have one because of our culture or lack thereof. We come from immigrants (or forced immigration); given this multiculturalism we can’t have one single curriculum that dominates our education because with that single curriculum we force people out of their own culture and into a fake culture that really only appears on paper. Our sense of nationalism is only really channeled through violence and a Teddy Roosevelt desire for imperialism. What we don’t have is a face or a religion that represents this country. So in conclusion my simple point is that we need to respect every background for what it means and from there educate around their limitations to expand and integrate.

HW 50

#1 Gatto Against school 6- In this essay Gatto gives a history of mandatory and secondary schooling in the United States and talks about alternatives to what he describes as boring and unecessary. Gatto outlines the Prussian origin of the American education system and while doing that highlights the totalitarian nature of mandatory schools. Also Gatto seems to believe that children that are homeschooled have the potential to become far more inttelectual and develop into individuals instead of brainwashed consumers. Finally he lays out points for parents to prevent their children from becoming brainwashed. For example he says that parents should teach their kids to think critically, have an inner self as not to be bored, and take on material not often covered in school.











Overall I agree with Gatto's view. However I take issue with his view on modern day home schooling. One thing that school provides that can't be found anywhere else is an opportunity for children to socially grow up; to develop skills that aren't found in a university level economics book. As far as comparing historic figures that did not attend schoold to today is not comparable. For one thing many of these figures came from rich families that could afford a private tutor for all subjects and today those people would probably be at a bording school in Connecticut. However I do agree with Gatto that parents should play an active role in encouraging their kids to think independently and take an initiative for their own education.











# 2 Paulo Freirie wrote in his piece about the difference between the "banking system" of education and the "problem solving". First of all by distinguishing the common practice of memorization, teacher oriented homework notes quiz ect, as the banking system establishes that Freirie doesn't approve of it. The "problem solving" method which entails working in small groups and the students figuring things out on their own. Freirie also likens the banking system to oppresion and seems to believe that the standard Prussian system of education steals thought from the students. On the other hand Freirie is a big fan of the problem solving method and talks about how students learn best when they are put into small groups and figure things out on their own. Basically Freirie is what many what consider a member of the "groovy side" of education.





Personally I agree with Freirie in that students learn best on their own and hammering facts into peoples head doesn't make great minds, but on the other hand if the strict ideals of memorization and short term education seem to produce greater statistical results. I think that it's a matter of choice between learning and memorizing. Someone can be at college level when it comes to history but if the discipline to sit down and do the work isn't there then the odds are that the person that memorized the material will do better in class. I think that it's important to learn but it's also important to know what to do with the knowledge you gain. In other words someone can only go so far with just knowing stuff, there comes a point when we all have to buckle down and do work we don't want to do.





#3 Lisa Delpit interview: in this piece Lisa Delpit talked about her career as an educator and specifically what she's done with Children of color. One of the main themes of the interview was that the arts is essential in encouraging typically low performing students to become involved in things such as poetry and theater and other language based activities. Also the summary before the interview talked about how Delpit feels that there is often a disconnect between middle class white educators and lower class urban youth, particularly Afican Americans. She seems to feel strongly about the teacher student relationship and how that can serve to raise the student to new levels. Therefore she seems to be part of the wanna be jesus crowd.

Her philosophy on education reminded me a lot of the teacher savior movies that we watched. In particular Freedom Writers. I thought of that because she was educated at Harvard had the opportunity to go anywhere but choose to go into the urban atmosphere to try and save children of African American descent. Furthermore she also likes bringing art into the classroom and using it to make a point not only about caring more about school and getting better grades but to learn about themeselves and feel like they belong in a safe atmosphere. I think that in the type of environment that she teaches in she has a very good strategy. The reason I say that is because in that environment there seem to be a lot of outside factors working against performance in school as well as a lack of parent enthusiasm and teacher connection. Therefore to inspire the kids and create an atmosphere where the kids want to come to school and use school as a way to break free is quite an acheivement.

#4 S.O.F. educator Tim Manley: Mr.Manley seemed to have an interesting perspective on the schooling system. For instance he came from a very traditonal suburban school atmosphere and previously taught at a traditional "banking system" school but teaches in a very "groovy" laid back way. He said that he thought the most effective way to get kids to learn was to have them work in small groups and talk amongst themesleves about specific texts and so on. I think that for a subject such as English that is a very effective strategy. But on the other hand I don't think that you can implament that into a math or science class all of the time because there are certain skills that need to be established from the very begining.

HW 49

First of all I didn't realize that I sounded like that which made me very uncomfortable to say the least. I thought that even though the message got accross there could have been more done to emphasize the alcoholism and the sad undertones instead of the outward rage and indifference displayed to the class. Furthermore I wish that we had more time to show some of the personal lives of the students and theacher and the school atmosphere.
The message of the film is a little confusing to me. I'm not sure if it's trying to humanize the teacher and show how the teacher connects and then rebels against his students, or whether the movie is trying to point out how the students are either academically resilient or dependent on the teacher. Another possibility is that the film is mocking the "teacher savior" genre and trying to show through the plot the rediculous nature of the education genre.
The movie had some things in common with the films we've watched in class. For example the teacher when inspired to teach the kids was able to connect to the students and overcome the "badass" who's attempt to disrupt the class was overcome. Also many of the characters overlap. For example the bad kids talked about how the material the class is learning wasn't relavent in their life. The movie was different however in that the teacher ends up loosing it and the future of the kids in the class is unknown and not promising which is quite different then any of the teacher savior films we watched.
In conclusion I think that there is a clear connection between teachers acting as saviors and the students responding positively or quite negatively. I think that no matter where the school is or what the demographics are there are kids that for whatever reason need something extra to perform well. But something that these movies point out but in a very stupid way is that students want to be saved or inspired by someone they can relate to. The relation can come in many forms whether its racial, political or whatever overcoming that boundry I think is close to impossible for a lot of teachers because as much as someone can read about or live near a certain culture they will never be one of them.

HW #48- Treatment for savior/ teacher movie

The students walk into the class listening to their ipods, talking not looking particularly interested, meanwhile Mr.K stands at the front. He has tired look on his face, the kind of look that says "I haven't slept in days". As a kid Mr.K wasn't much of a student, he spent most of his time cutting classes and smoking weed in the bathroom. His logic in becoming a teacher was why not, summers off, a good union. However things had started going increasingly down hill. Only fifteen percent of his students passed his midterm and the board of education was on his ass for drinking on the job.

The class continued with its usual slow momentum everyone in the back making noises know-body paying him any attention as he asked the class to open up their text book to look at this and learn that. He tried to deliver a half hearted speech about how if they didn't pay attention they wouldn't pass and go to college and so on. What he didn't realize was in that area know-one in his class was going to college anyway and if anything his speech just turned him off even more, he saw the looks coming at him from students who were living below the poverty line who had never been north of Myrtle avenue. He moved on and went back to his lecture about the Korean war.

The next day K had a meeting with the principle Jack Fanook, he was what most people would consider an over compensator. After sitting down Jack immediately turned red, he had a bad habit of getting to worked up and saying things that most people would consider over the line and an attempt to seem like a macho alpha male. He screamed at K about the student graduation rate and how bad of a teacher K was. He told him that these kids weren't going anywhere, told him that he needs to set some realistic goals for his students and stop expecting so much from them and told him he was a drunk and a know-body. Worse of all he gave the news that no teacher wants to hear. He's calling the D.O.E. to have him rubber roomed. After that K walks out of the room go's to his classroom and writes on the board "listen to your heart". He then went ahead and took his own life.