Empowering Education

Empowering Education-“Education is Politics”
Ira Shor

Argument:

So, after reading Ira Shor's first few chapters in "Empowering Education" I've summed it up as a pretty decent way to end our reading selection for the semester. There are so many voices, opinions, and ideas that pop into my mind from the pieces we have covered this semester about what we must begin shaping our education system to be in order to keep our students engaged!
Shor suggests that schooling is a prominently social experience for children this mostly means that although children are learning about history, English, science and math, they are most intently learning about the society they live in and their role in it. The system we have in our schools now is pushing students away from asking questions about the world and wanting to learn. We have begun duplicating genetically formed kids to think, act, and dream a certain way in order to fit in.. As Shor says "curriculum is one place where dominant culture can either be supported or challenged, depending on the way knowledge is presented and studied" and I believe it's time to challenge the norms and begin using the creative and innovative methods to keep our children engaged and curious!

Tracking

Tracking: Why Schools Need to Take Another Route
by Jeannie Oakes

Argument and quote discussion:

"Since so much of importance was omitted from their curriculum, students in these low-ability classes were likely to have little contact with the knowledge and skills that would allow them to move into higher classes or to be successful if they got there."

This article discusses how “tracking” students by their academic ability level is detrimental to their learning experience. Student who are tracked as “high-ability” have access to a richer education, better teachers, the importance of development of problem solving, critical thinking, and are expected to do more class/ homework. These “low-ability” children supposedly get a duller education, average educators, and are taught to focus more on life skills. These students are disciplined more often and greatly focus on socializing, class routine more than academic learning.

This topic is definitely a controversial topic because there are two sides to every story.

I do believe that certain aspect of learning are altered when you "track" or group children together by academic ability. As the facts show there are disadvantages, but I've become interested in the advantages of grouping children by academic need. I view ESL as a form of tracking, and these students are all put into a classroom under one impression; Spanish is their first language. SO these students are all clumped into this one classroom.. But is this not beneficial to the kids to be in a classroom full of students who struggle in the same ways? Are their needs not better met in a classroom that specializes in the education of a student whose learning English as their second language? Do the students in these types of classroom not learn because they are considered lower-ability based off of their background? I see an exponential amount of one on one work with teachers, TAs, and mentors, and as our research has shown and Kahne and Westheimer discuss, students strive in these kinds of environments. So in my eyes is see this controversial topic as just that, there are advantages and disadvantages in grouping children and who is to say if this is right or not?

In the Service oh What? The Politics of Service Learning
by Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheiner

Argument:

Service Learning
Joeseph Kahne and Joel Westhemier suggest that learning and service reinforce each other and have benefits when used hand and hand. It has been know that Educators and legislators insist that this service provides rich and educational experiences for students at all ages, meaning it it good for the students who are servicing and the students who are learning. The main purpose of service learning is to point out the various ideological, political, and social goals while promoting self-esteem, the development of higher order thinking skills, and making use of all abilities in order to provide an authentic and wholesome learning experience.
Kahne and Westhemier also suggest that students who are interracial or lower-class need this service the most. School is a place where ideas and interests should grow independently and mixing in mentors who are young and actively showing compassion, interest in academics, and social matters acts as living prof that there is more to the world than what your parents preach.

Citizenship in School: Re-conceptualizing Down Syndrome
Going to School: Ir a la Escuela: Youtube Video

Down Syndrome, so what?!?

This week, we are orbiting around the idea of the inclusion of all students in classrooms no matter their abilities is necessary as well as beneficial for all students involved. 

Quotes 

                               "I don't think, that those special education kids drain anything. That class would not be half of what it is if anyone of  those kids got segregated. We're all together in there." 

-Kliewer

"When she enrolled in a regular public high school as a freshman,Christine's Individual Education Plan was passed on from her segregated school; it suggested that she had extremely poor motor control, low-level cognitive skills, low-level communication skills, a lack of adaptive skills,
 and aggressive "acting-out" behaviors. In the general curriculum of the regular high school, however, these images of defect were dramatically transformed "
-Kliewer

"'Now we know that people with disabilities can learn and have a full, rich life. The challenge is to erase negative attitudes about people with developmental disabilities, get rid of stereotypes and break barriers for people with disabilities."
-Kliewer

Points of discussion:
I found this website called Kids Together Inc and they're an organization whose mission statement is "To promote inclusive communities where all people belong" and on the site I found some benefits of inclusive education for both mainstream students and those with special needs. The evidence is as followed:

Benefits of Inclusion for Students With Disabilities

1. Friendships
2. Increased social initiations, relationships and networks
3. Peer role models for academic, social and behavior skills
4. Increased achievement of  IEP goals
5. Greater access to general curriculum
6. Enhanced skill acquisition and generalization
7. Increased inclusion in future environments
8. Greater opportunities for interactions
9. Higher expectations
10. Increased school staff collaboration
11. Increased parent participation
12. Families are more integrated into community

Benefits of Inclusion for Students Without Disabilities

1. Meaningful friendships
2. Increased appreciation and acceptance of individual differences
3. Increased understanding and acceptance of diversity
4. Respect for all people
5. Prepares all students for adult life in an inclusive society
6. Opportunities to master activities by practicing and teaching others
7. Greater academic outcomes
8. All students needs are better met, greater resources for everyone

Authors Map

My version of the Authors Map 

Separation is keeping us Unequal

562: The Problem We All Live With
Separate and Unequal
Separate is Not Equal

Argument through the use of Quotes

On May 17, 1954 Brown V the Board of Education the U.S Supreme court created a law which dissolved any constitutional sanctions for segregation by race. This means that by law no school could refuse a student based on their race or ethnicity. Now, we know that just because a law is passed it does not mean that people are going change their change their opinion or mindset over night.... but i'd like to think that 64 years would be more than enough time to wrap our fragile brains around the idea of  social inclusion *rolls eyes*

562: The Problem We All Live With
"you gotta figure out, ok. How can I stand up for myself without proving to them(her peers and society) that Normandy is ghetto? That was going to be the hard part."
    I chose this quote out of the hour long interview between Ira Glass and Nikole Hannah-Jones because I believe it is the essence of the interview in it entirety. In this piece we talk about integration in today's school systems and how beneficial it has proven to be for students in low class/ low income demographic areas to matriculate into a richer school system. We are then introduced to two young woman who were given the opportunity to get out of their prominently black school and begin at a school whose occupants were more than 85% white.
   These girls talk about some of the pressure and ridicule they were subject to on a daily basis in order to be apart of a public school system. What I took away from this is something we have discussed in class before. These girls like many many others were forced to begin conforming to the dominant culture, in return they begin loosing a sense of their personal identity. This quote, given by Rianna Curtain said to me that Rianna couldn't even stick up for who she is and what she believes in because if she were to mimic the behaviors of her white peers then she would be viewed as barbaric and savage meaning that her peers had won.

Separate and Unequal 
"Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential patterns , housing discrimination, economic disparities and long held custom, they most emphatically are in reality"

Word Bank:
racial integration
equal
education/educated
poverty

demographic
Black and Hispanic
poor
school
segregation

   For this article I used a skill we have been working on in class, as I read and took notes on the article I noted the words that were used the most to gain a sense of Bob Herbert's point of view on academic racial integration. He speaks about how poor Black and Hispanic school are characterized by their high concentrations of poverty. In return with lower standards these schools get lower educated teachers who do less to meet state academic standards, in return affecting consistency in scores, and this creates a lack of want for academic success. By segregating the rich from poor schools we are clumping similarly characterized individuals together based on demographic. This does nothing to improve standards, and only punishes the lower income group because of their lack of opportunity to improve based on their standards.


Points of Discussion:

• Studies have shown that the race of a person does not determine a person's academic successes. Rather it is dependent on well trained/ motivated teachers(that's us!), lowered class disruptions, academic engagement and the presence of an adult figure.  
• What do we do as future teachers to allow social, personal, and academic success for our students?? 

How Influential is gender to the 2016 Presidential Election?

Donald Trump, Locker Rooms and Toxic Masculinity by Jill Soloway
Hillary Clinton Raises Her Voice, and a Debate Over Speech and Sexism Rages by Amy Chozick

                                                Power, privilege, and voting

This, the 2016 Presidential election, has to be the most talked about, argued over, and exploited election in all of history. Or if not in all history, then most definitely the most controversial in my life time. Which is saying something because in 2008 America's first black president was elected and held office for two full terms! He inspired many people by defying statistics and rising above expectations by challenging the image of who is eligible to be the president of the United States. Our track record of white, wealthy, well educated men, upholding the position of power was diminished when Obama proved that anyone despite their ethnicity, race, religion, or upbringing is eligible to be president.

So, although people are in uproar expressing their outrage about the first female presidential candidate this isn't far fetched from the progressive steps we took as a country when electing Obama. But why are people loosing their shit?!? Hillary has great potential as our next President, she is "able to string together paragraphs of complex policy talk off the cuff" and does it with grace all while being harassed by her opponent and the media about her lack of attractive appeal, how she speaks, and her credibility as a candidate. We have people coming out of the wood works to making statements like her voice is "loud, flat, and harassing to hear", stating that she choices to use a "decidedly grating pitch and punishing tone", meanwhile she is just trying to be heard over a crowd of misogynistic mean who feed off of toxic masculinity. Besides, in this election have you seen a debate where Trump did not raise his voice to a punishing tone, yell over, talk down to, and humiliate Mrs. Clinton? Yea. Me either.

I think the real problem is as a country we have never had to deal with gender such an explicit manner as a country. Lisa Delpit demonstrates to us in  "Other Peoples Children" that our society runs off of a set of silent codes and rules for participating in power, and these guidelines lay out exactly what type of person would be considered fit to be our president. And i'll give you a hint, it not a woman. Much like Delpit, Griner who introduced the acronym S.C.W.A.A.M.P to us also defines our societies dominant ideology as straightness, Christianity, whiteness, able-bodied-ness, american-ness, male-ness, and property/ ownership.
Trump is a wealthy, educated, established white man who comes from money and demands respect simply because he fits the concrete mold of what our society views as powerful. In Soloways article she discusses how Donald Trump, and men alike, consistently degrade, judge, and itemize woman publicly as a way to defend their masculinity and threaten their opponent. In Chozick's article she speaking in simple negative sentences, with lack of purpose. Often when pressed with questions based on his ethics(instead of taking responsibility) he will turn the prompt of his opponent and highlight their faults and disadvantages.
discusses just how many men have passed judgment on Hillary Clinton for not only political policies but for how speaks, her body language when she speaks, and her lack of sexual appeal.. The last time I checked every time Trump opens his mouth during a debate he is loud,


Points of discussion:

1. Why is it that when a woman raises her voice its shouting and shrill but when a man raises his voice it's considered enthusiastic? 
2. This debate is so frustrating and causes me so many anxiety.. I am not necessarily pro Clinton, but if Hillary becomes president then Trump will not be in office... and that is what is most important to me.... How about we have Obama and president forever!