-Paulo Fiere --> Memorization, students not really learning.
Growing up, ever since I was a small child, school has always been like a jail or a system of keep us in line. From chinese schools to americanized schools they all have a similar goal. I have always been told to never marry a white man or a "Gweilo", get good grades in high school to go to college and get many degrees as I can so I can live a happy life because I will have a good career and be rich. It seems as if there is already a time line set out for me. So far I have only successfully completed two. I can never see my self with someone who is chinese so that is crossed off the list and because I am looked down upon by dating someone who is not chinese I have to bring myself up by being a super student. I am more americanized so I have a great passion to shove it in everyone's face that I have the ability to do good in school because many people do not think I have what it takes. Right now I get fairly good grades and I am on my way to college. Take that.
When I tell my family and friends about my A's and B's and how I have gotten into college they congratulate me and tell me how intelligent and hard working I am. At times I feel sort of guilty (which is really weird) as if I actually didn't earn these grades or that I did not work hard. I think it is because I know I play it by the rules and most of the time I am never really expanding my knowledge and abilities to learn. It is easy to be a "good" student which is like conforming to what is expected in school and getting a A.
All my life I have been told how school is suppose to effect my life and how significant it is. It's said it teaches us how to be respectful, and helps us have a successful future. This is what is mainly focused on in Obama's speech. He tells students how nothing would matter unless we took the responsibility to take school extremely seriously. He even talks about his struggles for education when he was our age, which seem to be a strategy to make us feel grateful for our eligibility to be in public school. Although students are suppose to be grateful like we are told most of the time we are the complete opposite probably because of all the things education lacks.
For one thing public school seems really similar to jail. Every time we step into school we are told what we are allowed to do and what we are not. We are suppose to respect and listen to our teachers who have the most authority and who seem to be seen as higher then the students. The students are just scum. This can be reflected a lot in many movies such as Blackboard Jungle. The students are always seen as a nuisance and hopeless in life. The teachers are great intelligent people who are meant to "save" students from there meaningless lives.
In reality most teachers are not really "saving" students and teaching them life longing skills. They seem to just be teaching what they are being payed to teach. In six lessons by John Taylor Gatto he writes about his lessons about his curriculum or how he teaches. Although it is stated as 6 lessons it seems to be more like 6 rules or guidelines. Many of his lessons seem unemotional and robotic. Some lessons include what he expects from his students; the students have to drop whatever relates to the class if the class is not in session, to sit quietly and obey rules. Which sounds much like a lifeless jail. The six lessons article really shows how maybe many teachers are not really teaching anything significant. Everything seems like it is taught from a book which the majority of the time is probably the case.
Instead of learning, according to Paulo Fiere, students seem to be more like objects that suck in information and memorize it. The teachers are the knowledge givers. In most cases students never really learn anything, and if they do it is not significant enough to remember so students tend to forget right away. This is extremely true for probably math and science classes. When taking a test or studying, students try to cramp information into their head, remember what way to write it down exactly on homework or tests. In this case this is not learning but memorizing numbers and letters.
In many cases we are always looking at our future, we are always doing things in the present that will benefit our future. Although I feel that there is no such thing as a past or a future. The past is a memory and the future is the present. We are told that school benefits our future. It is branded into our brains that it prepares us for the professional world. School is "to prepare you for society, to help you cope with different personalities and set you up a future in the professional world." Alicia Proto states in a interview about school. It seems a lot of the materials that we learn in class are not significant to our daily lives. Instead we should be focusing on things that will help us through life such as how to cope with getting old, how to communicate with different types of people, or how to budget things. None of which we actually learn. If teachers and the educational system actually took the time to design a system for individual learning needs and interests learning would probably be a better experience and maybe even fun for students.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Video I found about "Unschooling"
Here is a video about a percentage of families that believe in something called "Unschooling." It is somewhat like home schooling accept the parents lets their kids do whatever they want. REALLY. No rules, chores, discipline, time outs, text books. I am not quite sure what to think about it. Its a little bit bias I think towards it being negative but it does give you a interesting thought.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/health-15749655/extreme-parenting-radical-unschooling-19218933
http://news.yahoo.com/video/health-15749655/extreme-parenting-radical-unschooling-19218933
Hw 50- Stuff
Against School
This was long so i read like a half to 3/4 of this. First it started out with the idea of bordem. Which is the main cause to faulty schooling. Students may seem like the mass amount of people who are the most bored, this is because they see school as unimportant. More specifically is the classes, they see that class is unimportant, not fun, that the work did not make any sense,basically what the teacher is not doing. But not only the students may seem like to be the ones that are bored during school hours, teachers seem to be getting bored of classes as well. And the reasons for the teacher's bordem is because of the student's lack of motivation. This guy also writes about some of his experiences (I am guessing he is really old as he retired teaching when I was just born) and some history about how public school teaching got it's philosophy which is primarily based around making good citizens.
This article was interesting at first but got boring. His idea that his grandfather taught him that everyone's bordem is their own fault and your the only one that can make things unboring. I kind of agree with this, whenever I'm bored at home for example all I do is complain about how bored I am when I could obviously do something to entertain myself. Although I feel it's so much easier to just be bored, this has a lot to do with laziness. I think the reasons students (speaking for myself I guess) get so bored in class is because of our disinterest with what we are learning in class. Students can usually blame the teachers for being so uninteresting and having uninteresting classes. And although students or I can never really see myself forcing to be interested in something. If I am truly unmotivated and in class it's usually because I do not have a common interest in what the class is about. I have been particularly relate able to this especially in senior year when at times I feel like nothing is fun enough, everything is forced, fake, etc. I feel like being a teenager we get bored easily. In the beginning of junior year I started to find new teachers with new teaching techniques and new things to learn. It caught my interest but now in senior year I grew bored quite quickly.
Six Lessons
Six Lessons is basically the ideas that this guy known as John Gotto has about his teachings and school. I am not quite sure if he is being sarcastic in his writing but either way this article is kind of sad. He writes about six lessons which seem more like 6 rules on what he expects from teaching/being a teacher. A lot of the rules that he states is what he expects from his students, in a way it seems as if he teaches middle school or something.It seems as if he teaches not because he enjoys it but it is merely just a job, something he gets payed for, something that he is good at because he has a degree in teaching English. His expectations include the students staying in order not because he expects them but because the school says so. He expects students to obey is commands quick as he has authority. He only teaches the students on school hours, as soon as class is over or the next class begins he basically describes it as shutting down as he is not expected to teach after school hours. He also touches on the idea that he does create his own curriculum which helps to fish out the good kids from the bad kids in class. Good kids in his opinion are willing to conform to what the class is suppose to be doing according to his curriculum. Bad kids will try to resist from conform, trying to make decisions for themselves. And most importantly is that he shows his authority and that he is always in charge and watching the students. He demands respect and that students should always be judged by their work.
For some reason these set of "lessons" makes me sad. To me this guy seems to only teach because he gets payed to do it. He describes in the beginning how school is kind of like a business. At times I agree with this. I feel at times most teachers only teacher not because they enjoy it but because it is a easy career to them. They only assign what they are told to do assign the students, and whether the students enjoy it or not (most cases not) the teachers job is to force the students to enjoy it and to enforce what they are suppose to do. This makes me wonder how many of the teachers that teach me think in the same way as these six lessons.
In the Paulo Freire reading is basically about the teacher who is the narrator or the knowlege giver and the student who is the receiver and basically just listen to the teacher's narrations like lifeless objects. Instead of students really gaining knowledge or learning, students seem to be forced to listen and memorize what the teacher says. Students do not get the ability to search for any creativity and don't have any critical consciousness. Education oppresses students to adapt to the world as they are deposited information into their heads.
I think this theory is definitely true mostly all the time. This reminds me of how every time there is some big test I tend to be forced to study. Every time I study it is not really me learning but I tend to notice that when I look down at notes and worksheets I am just processing the information into my head to memorize. So when I do take the test I am just splurging everything in my head into the test. Although I feel like background information is significant, sometimes memorizing information is not the same as learning about background information. I feel as if in every class there is something lacking. For example in social studies I lack general knowledge about things but we are able to be creative and have an opinion. In math and science it is mainly about memorizing things and receiving information. It lacks the part where we learn things on our own. And in english I am never sure what goes on.
For the Lisa Delpit readings, I read the short interview mainly because it was short and good enough to get information from, I had a long work orientation and develop a huge headache so I do not feel up for reading a huge text. This interview starts off with her idea that tests do not determine a child's brilliance. Teacher's should not and should be taught not to judge a student by their test taking skills because if they do they will misunderstand a students true learning potential.
Instead of tests she states that in order to discover a students true potential can be found through a student's art and their behavior outside of school. Although this seems as if she may be talking about small children I do agree that teachers and educational system should not always be primarily based on tests and finals to discover whether a child is learning. This is the part that seemed more significant to me.
In class we weren't able to interview Mr. Fanning but we were able to interview Cope. Most of the questions and information we got from this interview was mainly his view/ goals when teaching students and his opinion about super teacher films. It seems his views of good teaching is bringing social justice. Each teacher has a different way of going about this. He personally likes to teach his students about different oppressed groups. Maybe by teaching students about oppressed groups in the past they won't think to judge groups that are oppressed now.
When asking about Cope's opinion about "saving students" which has a lot to do with super teacher films he responded with "from what?". Although he is a teacher, not everyone knows all the knowledge there is in the world. Being a teacher he finds himself learning more. For example he needs to keep updated with the news and whats going on in society. Although he feels super teacher movies are ridiculous, archetypes are ridiculous. He has though learned from many times of students, but saying that you saved someone is pretentious.
I think his teaching and learning ideas are more realistic, it was better to actually hear a real teachers opinions and teaching styles and goal than to watch it through some unrealistic film. I thought it was amusing for him to ask what students should be saved from. Although he does say that hopefully by saying he saved someone its better to teach a student to be better then some kid causing trouble on the street which is ideally more realistic. I don't think one single teacher can save a room full of students from their own personal lifestyles if it may be troublesome but it is more realistic to teach the students something worth learning depending on the teacher. For Copeland its more about not passing judgment, he does this by teaching history about the oppressed.
This was long so i read like a half to 3/4 of this. First it started out with the idea of bordem. Which is the main cause to faulty schooling. Students may seem like the mass amount of people who are the most bored, this is because they see school as unimportant. More specifically is the classes, they see that class is unimportant, not fun, that the work did not make any sense,basically what the teacher is not doing. But not only the students may seem like to be the ones that are bored during school hours, teachers seem to be getting bored of classes as well. And the reasons for the teacher's bordem is because of the student's lack of motivation. This guy also writes about some of his experiences (I am guessing he is really old as he retired teaching when I was just born) and some history about how public school teaching got it's philosophy which is primarily based around making good citizens.
This article was interesting at first but got boring. His idea that his grandfather taught him that everyone's bordem is their own fault and your the only one that can make things unboring. I kind of agree with this, whenever I'm bored at home for example all I do is complain about how bored I am when I could obviously do something to entertain myself. Although I feel it's so much easier to just be bored, this has a lot to do with laziness. I think the reasons students (speaking for myself I guess) get so bored in class is because of our disinterest with what we are learning in class. Students can usually blame the teachers for being so uninteresting and having uninteresting classes. And although students or I can never really see myself forcing to be interested in something. If I am truly unmotivated and in class it's usually because I do not have a common interest in what the class is about. I have been particularly relate able to this especially in senior year when at times I feel like nothing is fun enough, everything is forced, fake, etc. I feel like being a teenager we get bored easily. In the beginning of junior year I started to find new teachers with new teaching techniques and new things to learn. It caught my interest but now in senior year I grew bored quite quickly.
Six Lessons
Six Lessons is basically the ideas that this guy known as John Gotto has about his teachings and school. I am not quite sure if he is being sarcastic in his writing but either way this article is kind of sad. He writes about six lessons which seem more like 6 rules on what he expects from teaching/being a teacher. A lot of the rules that he states is what he expects from his students, in a way it seems as if he teaches middle school or something.It seems as if he teaches not because he enjoys it but it is merely just a job, something he gets payed for, something that he is good at because he has a degree in teaching English. His expectations include the students staying in order not because he expects them but because the school says so. He expects students to obey is commands quick as he has authority. He only teaches the students on school hours, as soon as class is over or the next class begins he basically describes it as shutting down as he is not expected to teach after school hours. He also touches on the idea that he does create his own curriculum which helps to fish out the good kids from the bad kids in class. Good kids in his opinion are willing to conform to what the class is suppose to be doing according to his curriculum. Bad kids will try to resist from conform, trying to make decisions for themselves. And most importantly is that he shows his authority and that he is always in charge and watching the students. He demands respect and that students should always be judged by their work.
For some reason these set of "lessons" makes me sad. To me this guy seems to only teach because he gets payed to do it. He describes in the beginning how school is kind of like a business. At times I agree with this. I feel at times most teachers only teacher not because they enjoy it but because it is a easy career to them. They only assign what they are told to do assign the students, and whether the students enjoy it or not (most cases not) the teachers job is to force the students to enjoy it and to enforce what they are suppose to do. This makes me wonder how many of the teachers that teach me think in the same way as these six lessons.
In the Paulo Freire reading is basically about the teacher who is the narrator or the knowlege giver and the student who is the receiver and basically just listen to the teacher's narrations like lifeless objects. Instead of students really gaining knowledge or learning, students seem to be forced to listen and memorize what the teacher says. Students do not get the ability to search for any creativity and don't have any critical consciousness. Education oppresses students to adapt to the world as they are deposited information into their heads.
I think this theory is definitely true mostly all the time. This reminds me of how every time there is some big test I tend to be forced to study. Every time I study it is not really me learning but I tend to notice that when I look down at notes and worksheets I am just processing the information into my head to memorize. So when I do take the test I am just splurging everything in my head into the test. Although I feel like background information is significant, sometimes memorizing information is not the same as learning about background information. I feel as if in every class there is something lacking. For example in social studies I lack general knowledge about things but we are able to be creative and have an opinion. In math and science it is mainly about memorizing things and receiving information. It lacks the part where we learn things on our own. And in english I am never sure what goes on.
For the Lisa Delpit readings, I read the short interview mainly because it was short and good enough to get information from, I had a long work orientation and develop a huge headache so I do not feel up for reading a huge text. This interview starts off with her idea that tests do not determine a child's brilliance. Teacher's should not and should be taught not to judge a student by their test taking skills because if they do they will misunderstand a students true learning potential.
Instead of tests she states that in order to discover a students true potential can be found through a student's art and their behavior outside of school. Although this seems as if she may be talking about small children I do agree that teachers and educational system should not always be primarily based on tests and finals to discover whether a child is learning. This is the part that seemed more significant to me.
In class we weren't able to interview Mr. Fanning but we were able to interview Cope. Most of the questions and information we got from this interview was mainly his view/ goals when teaching students and his opinion about super teacher films. It seems his views of good teaching is bringing social justice. Each teacher has a different way of going about this. He personally likes to teach his students about different oppressed groups. Maybe by teaching students about oppressed groups in the past they won't think to judge groups that are oppressed now.
When asking about Cope's opinion about "saving students" which has a lot to do with super teacher films he responded with "from what?". Although he is a teacher, not everyone knows all the knowledge there is in the world. Being a teacher he finds himself learning more. For example he needs to keep updated with the news and whats going on in society. Although he feels super teacher movies are ridiculous, archetypes are ridiculous. He has though learned from many times of students, but saying that you saved someone is pretentious.
I think his teaching and learning ideas are more realistic, it was better to actually hear a real teachers opinions and teaching styles and goal than to watch it through some unrealistic film. I thought it was amusing for him to ask what students should be saved from. Although he does say that hopefully by saying he saved someone its better to teach a student to be better then some kid causing trouble on the street which is ideally more realistic. I don't think one single teacher can save a room full of students from their own personal lifestyles if it may be troublesome but it is more realistic to teach the students something worth learning depending on the teacher. For Copeland its more about not passing judgment, he does this by teaching history about the oppressed.
49-Class Film
Okay so apparently our class doesn't have the abilities to produce a class film because someone lost our tape or something, so I have to use the class A film. Which means I obviously was not able to participate in any making of this film. Although I wish I did have some sort of part in the film, it would have been fun.
I am not quite sure exactly what the message of the play is because I wasn't in the class but from watching the video it seems a little bit similar to the direction of what our class film was suppose to be like. Where the teacher is the one that seemed to be "saved". The teacher seemed to start out sad and depressed, he was drinking what I think is probably alcohol and it begins in some sort of dream sequence. In his dream he talks about poets, kids around him are laughing and goofing around but he seems to be able to get there attention by joking with them and relating what he was teaching to their lives. The fact that he was dreaming of this seems as if he wishes he was able to teach his class like this or maybe it is a memory of how he use to teach his class.
When woken up by a student asking if they were going to have class he brushes her off. This goes back to his real life, where his teaching skills don't seem to match up to his teaching skills or motivation in his dreams. And instead of trying to relate and teach to his students it seems as if he gave up. He has no more will to teach and just determines the faith of all the students based on their archetype. After insulting each of the students he completely gives up and walks out. None of the kids seem to care, probably because he didn't really try to make an impact.
If comparing this to a typical teacher film it seems that the first part of the short film where he was having a dream would be how a real typical teacher film would be like. Where at first the students would reject his authority but then the teacher gets their attention by kind of targeting the rebel or the most popular students. After that he kind of gets most of the students on his side.
When he wakes up the next day in the second sequence it kind of showed the opposite of a super teacher film. Instead of him using different tactics to relate to the students and start bonding with them he seems to gives up. It feels like he has a steaming hatred for the students and kind of tells them their path they will end up in. In most teacher films they are made aware of what their life can turn out in but the teacher is usually the one to let them know how they can "be saved". It seemed like this was like a harsh and probably unaffected way of doing that. And because the teacher gives up, and the students are made aware of their possible future, in the end the students just carry on not caring.
Well for one I am not sure if a teacher would ever get drunk and do that in real life, although I should say that cause you never know. There are some strange things that happen in school that I probably never know about. And I think if a teacher would go up to a student's face like that and insult them and tell them they were nothing they would probably talk back and say something. Although it depends on the teacher, if a really quite and mellow teacher were to one day just snap and tell a student that they were worthless then it would definitely be surprising and make some awkward silences.
Something that didn't happen in this film is someone being educated or realizing their true potentials. Students are kind of seen as roaches and pests. Kids who don't give a crap about their future. In most films the teacher and being in school is suppose to prevent teenagers from being total failures, at least that is what students are taught. By the teacher giving up on the students in the film it basically shows how the students have affected the teacher into being a drunk and not caring, while the students are just left to be failures in their lives. Education seems to always show that people need to be in school and pay attention or they will ruin someone's life including their own. Although I'm pretty sure this is not always true. :/
I am not quite sure exactly what the message of the play is because I wasn't in the class but from watching the video it seems a little bit similar to the direction of what our class film was suppose to be like. Where the teacher is the one that seemed to be "saved". The teacher seemed to start out sad and depressed, he was drinking what I think is probably alcohol and it begins in some sort of dream sequence. In his dream he talks about poets, kids around him are laughing and goofing around but he seems to be able to get there attention by joking with them and relating what he was teaching to their lives. The fact that he was dreaming of this seems as if he wishes he was able to teach his class like this or maybe it is a memory of how he use to teach his class.
When woken up by a student asking if they were going to have class he brushes her off. This goes back to his real life, where his teaching skills don't seem to match up to his teaching skills or motivation in his dreams. And instead of trying to relate and teach to his students it seems as if he gave up. He has no more will to teach and just determines the faith of all the students based on their archetype. After insulting each of the students he completely gives up and walks out. None of the kids seem to care, probably because he didn't really try to make an impact.
If comparing this to a typical teacher film it seems that the first part of the short film where he was having a dream would be how a real typical teacher film would be like. Where at first the students would reject his authority but then the teacher gets their attention by kind of targeting the rebel or the most popular students. After that he kind of gets most of the students on his side.
When he wakes up the next day in the second sequence it kind of showed the opposite of a super teacher film. Instead of him using different tactics to relate to the students and start bonding with them he seems to gives up. It feels like he has a steaming hatred for the students and kind of tells them their path they will end up in. In most teacher films they are made aware of what their life can turn out in but the teacher is usually the one to let them know how they can "be saved". It seemed like this was like a harsh and probably unaffected way of doing that. And because the teacher gives up, and the students are made aware of their possible future, in the end the students just carry on not caring.
Well for one I am not sure if a teacher would ever get drunk and do that in real life, although I should say that cause you never know. There are some strange things that happen in school that I probably never know about. And I think if a teacher would go up to a student's face like that and insult them and tell them they were nothing they would probably talk back and say something. Although it depends on the teacher, if a really quite and mellow teacher were to one day just snap and tell a student that they were worthless then it would definitely be surprising and make some awkward silences.
Something that didn't happen in this film is someone being educated or realizing their true potentials. Students are kind of seen as roaches and pests. Kids who don't give a crap about their future. In most films the teacher and being in school is suppose to prevent teenagers from being total failures, at least that is what students are taught. By the teacher giving up on the students in the film it basically shows how the students have affected the teacher into being a drunk and not caring, while the students are just left to be failures in their lives. Education seems to always show that people need to be in school and pay attention or they will ruin someone's life including their own. Although I'm pretty sure this is not always true. :/
Thursday, April 8, 2010
HW 48
So in class it seems that the direction for the class film in my class is more of where the teacher being "saved" or taught more by the students. I guess I see the teacher as being kind of unmotivated, he most likely feels the way students do when they wake up for school in the morning. So I just imagined a morning scene.
Morning.
The alarm sounds, beeping and beeping. Bob (or whatever name we end up giving the teacher) opens his eyes. The sun shines from his window and glares straight into his eyes. He squints and grunts with annoyance as he covers he shades his eyes with his hand. He slowly pulls himself up and tapping the alarm clock off. Bob feels tired and unmotivated to get up. Thinking to himself why he really needed to get up for the first day of work teaching high school juniors.
Eventually after a few seconds of thoughts and staring at the floor he gets up and grabs a pair of jeans and a button down shirt from his pile of clothing and throws it on. He slowly walks to the bathroom sliding his feel against the floor. In the bathroom he splashes some cold water on his face to wake himself up. Everything to him feels and looks hazy. He looks at himself in the mirror, widens his eyes and sighs.
After spending some time in the bathroom he head to the kitchen. Grabbing a bowl and a box of Cinnamon toast crunch cereal (or whatever cereal) and pours some cereal into the bowl. He turns to the fridge to get some milk but sudden realizes there is a note stuck onto the fridge. He squints his eyes and takes a closer look. "Be home late tonight...xoxo" it reads. He studies the note, thinking how his wife has been home late a lot lately. He then turns around and walks to the living room to sit and watch television, crunching on his breakfast. He frequently looks at the time,trying to use as much time as he can till the very last minute he has to leave for work. He figures if he could leave at the very last moment, just making him on time for work he won't have to be early dealing with the new loud and obnoxious set of kids.
And that is my crappy part/vision a part of the movie so far i guess. Man i suck...
Morning.
The alarm sounds, beeping and beeping. Bob (or whatever name we end up giving the teacher) opens his eyes. The sun shines from his window and glares straight into his eyes. He squints and grunts with annoyance as he covers he shades his eyes with his hand. He slowly pulls himself up and tapping the alarm clock off. Bob feels tired and unmotivated to get up. Thinking to himself why he really needed to get up for the first day of work teaching high school juniors.
Eventually after a few seconds of thoughts and staring at the floor he gets up and grabs a pair of jeans and a button down shirt from his pile of clothing and throws it on. He slowly walks to the bathroom sliding his feel against the floor. In the bathroom he splashes some cold water on his face to wake himself up. Everything to him feels and looks hazy. He looks at himself in the mirror, widens his eyes and sighs.
After spending some time in the bathroom he head to the kitchen. Grabbing a bowl and a box of Cinnamon toast crunch cereal (or whatever cereal) and pours some cereal into the bowl. He turns to the fridge to get some milk but sudden realizes there is a note stuck onto the fridge. He squints his eyes and takes a closer look. "Be home late tonight...xoxo" it reads. He studies the note, thinking how his wife has been home late a lot lately. He then turns around and walks to the living room to sit and watch television, crunching on his breakfast. He frequently looks at the time,trying to use as much time as he can till the very last minute he has to leave for work. He figures if he could leave at the very last moment, just making him on time for work he won't have to be early dealing with the new loud and obnoxious set of kids.
And that is my crappy part/vision a part of the movie so far i guess. Man i suck...
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