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.