ch. 31 likes and dislikes

I was very drawn to the Ch. 31 article. The initial description of the school, how small it was, how diverse the children were, etc. really intrigued me to read what would happen. One thing I questioned about the school was the four-pronged effort to achieve a fair and equitable school. The author suggests that they “recruited” Black and Latino students who were “academically proficient” to challenge the stereotype of white students being at the top of the class. For some reason I thought this was an odd first point for them to use. I think that they should have brought in minority students who were doing poorly and proved to those kids and society that they could succeed instead of brining in students who were already doing well.

Something I did like about the article was her use of the kids’ questions. I haven’t seen a lot of ‘scholarly work’ done that actually uses real world situations instead of theory. When the author explained a situation that probably happens in a dozen schools around the nation every day, I got a sense of legitimacy in her writing. It seems that her journaling what when on each day helped her reflect on what she and other staff members could have done differently. I think that journaling or keeping notes as a first year teacher in any school would be a really helpful and productive tool since, if I’m not mistaken, in our PDPs we will all have to reflect and explain what we want to achieve in the next years.

Symbolic interactionist

The quote, "To claim that knowledge is socially constructed usually means that the world we live in is constructed symbolically by the mind through social interaction with others and is heavily dependent on culture, context, custom and historical specificity. " (p. 409) really caught my attention. It describes, almost entirely, the symbolic interactionist theory of sociology. I have always been drawn to this theory because of exactly what our text said. The world is in the eye of the beholder. We each see different things from different points of view at every moment. It is impossible for two people to interpret a situation exactly the same because of this. We go through life and everything is a symbol, and each symbol has a different context based on our culture, customs, etc. It really is fascinating.

Media

Chapter 22 brought up an interesting point that "There is evidence that teenagers are now self-labeling at earlier ages than they did in the past..." The author goes on to suggest that this might be because of "secular changes in our society which allow more discussion of homosexuality, more public and media presentations of gay and lesbian persona, and more visibility of gay and lesbian people in all walks of life." (p.338) This all seems very correct from my point of view but I think that the media plays the most important role. It is not likely that grandparents and parents have become extremely open in discussing homosexuality (unless their child had come out to them). Teachers and schools are opening up to the discussion but also, there are some restrictions. Therefore the next greatest influence on adolescence would be the media. On the one hand, media displays of homosexuality is good for adolescence dealing with this issue but on the other hand, media is becoming (in my opinion) far too open about sexuality in general, both homosexual and heterosexual. There are FAR too many television programs that seem to allow if not advocate sexual promiscuity. Ad campaigns show half naked men and women oozing sexuality. I feel that adolescents are becoming desensitized to sexuality. They are bombarded with it in every aspect of life. As I explained above, this might be good for homosexuals going through an "identity crisis", but for morals in general I'm not sure this type of media is best for society.

Neutrality in teaching

As chapter 20 discussed, "rules are spoken about as inherently neutral, impartially exercised, and impervious to individual feelings and personal responses." (p. 313) I feel that school is in general talked about as a neutral thing. People often argue that everyone in American has an opportunity, that all children are given the right of education, but is that reality?

In public schools students are consciously or not divided into categories by their teachers, administrators, fellow peers, etc. To focus more on teachers as that is what we are all striving to be at this point, we can try to be as neutral as possible but it really can't be achieved. Every single person has had different life experiences that shape our thoughts and views. We were once cut off by a white woman driving while on her cell phone and inherently see a white mom on her cell phone drop her child off and think of her in a certain way. Maybe we were robbed by a young black male and that student looks kind of like him. It is impossible to be neutral! The main thing a teacher can do is strive to treat each student as an individual. As humans our brains generalize and categorize to save us time and energy but teachers need to consciously reverse this process. For example all football players cannot be categorized of as obnoxious and lazy in academics. It wont be easy, but it is something (among everything else we've talked about in this class) to keep in mind.

An "Aha" moment

A quote from the text that really struck me was in Erikson's piece but he was quoting William James.

"A man's character is discernible in the mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: "This is the real me!" - William James p. 245

I really felt that this describes identity and how you feel when you realize your identity. I immediately thought of the "Aha moment" commercials. Mutual of Omaha is the "Official sponsor of the Aha moment". They are commercials where people explain their Aha moment when they realized who they were going to marry, what they wanted to be when they grew up, etc. Essentially James is describing this moment when you realize who you are and exactly what you are supposed to be doing.

Of course Mutual of Omaha is a bank who wants to appeal to the public and use this as an advertising campaign to make more money, but I think it is a very good lesson on identity.

To listen to some of these "Aha moments" heres the website:
http://www.ahamoment.com/?gclid=CPioypqXqJkCFQquGgodbBoJqQ

Presentation: Social Awareness

Our group's presentation is about social awareness in the classroom. My specific part of this project is exploring how to bring social awareness and students' outside culture into all disciplines within the school. For example, I read an article where 'at-risk' teen mothers brought hip hop into their English class. They reflected in journals first.
Ayanna said, "Hip hop is more than music. It's also about dress. And hip hop is a cultural dance that started among young African Americans who expressed their feelings through their body movements. Hip hop makes me feel inspired. When I was a kid I'd make up dances and it was so inspiring. I'd express myself in a hard core way that wasn't dangerous."
This got the students thinking about their lives and how hip hop in particular fits into their real lives outside the classroom. Then they created their own verses to a hip hop song like Eminmen's Stan and Usher's "Confessions". The author of the article believes this allowed them to look at their lives through a social lens and apply songs to their lives. They were able to "promote change in their own lives as well as change in society" by seeing what aspects of the lyrics they did and did not like.
An interesting aspect of the article was to allow students to draw "on their 'real' voice by writing". They were bridging the gap between their real lives outside the classroom and their structured lives inside the classroom. So often teachers try to encourage students to leave what is bothering them from their outside life at the door and focus on school work. That is hard for adults to do, let alone adolescents, especially middle schoolers. This was a great example of a way to bring life into the classroom and apply skills they are learning to real world examples. These teen mothers are going to need an outlet for frustration. They have a difficult life ahead of them and using these writing skills in a practical manner such as keeping a diary may help them get through some tough times.

Middle schools and big business

What I found most interesting about this section of readings was the connection between middle schools and big business corportations. At the very beginning on page 152 the author says, "As the opening quotes indicate this section also addresses the role of corporate interestgs in a changing economy and the institutionalized goals of public education." We all know that schools are a social institution but I never realized how influencial corporations are in public education. Businesses reflect the current economy and schools are meant to train students for the business world so the indirect tie would be the economy shapes what is taught in schools.
Along these same lines, Chapter 10 was an executive summary from the Carnegie Corporation's Turning Point report of 1989. Carnegie was one of the first steel monopolies of America and was famous for building towns around his factories. He wanted every day life to be lived in the shadow of and for the benefit of the company. Clearly here, the corporation wanted schools to be for the benefit on the company and the economy.
This is true that schools should teach students the skills required to be productive in the economy they will be entering, but should they teach more than that? Should the focus be more on 'real world' skills or abstract thought and arts?