Chapter 20 (Week of 3/23/09)

I found that I disagreed with some of the points made in this chapter. First the author starts out by saying that school rules are designed to create a hierarchy. The result is that there are a few "gifted" students at the top, while the majority of students are failures at the bottom. While this may indeed be the outcome of some school policies, I highly doubt that when administrators put school regulations together that their intention is to alienate a majority of the student body. I don't necessarily agree with the Radical Schooling Theory as well. This theory states that "schools embody the class interests and ideology of the dominant class." This may be true in some schools, but I would hesitate to make such a generalization. Almost all of the educators I have worked with (granted, I haven't been in education very long...) have seen equality in education as a priority. Although the interests of the dominant class may occasionally be inadvertently taught in the classroom, more often that is not the case.

Another statement I struggled with in this chapter is that "Conformity to rules is treated by school adults as the essential prior condition for any classroom learning to take place." My initial reaction to this idea was to agree with it. I am teaching a couple of challenging classes right now in which the students struggle with classroom rules. I find it very difficult to teach and provide a positive learning experience for the students without them following certain rules. I struggle with keeping them under control almost every day. Then it occurred to me that even though the classroom rules are not always followed, the average grade in the class is pretty high. So there is an above average level of learning going on in that class despite the discipline problems. Therefore, maybe conformity to rules is not an essential prior condition for learning to take place in a classroom.

Chapter 18 (Week of 3/9/09)

I found some of the facts given in this chapter particularly interesting. For example, I did not know that the laws involving cocaine use were so prejudiced. The use of crack cocaine, which is cheaper and used more in communities of color, holds a higher penalty than the use of cocaine powder, which is more expensive and used more in upscale white communities. Laws such as this perpetuate the discrimination against minorities in our judicial system. Programs, such as housing projects, keep minorities contained in one area, which also perpetuates racial discrimination. I also found it interesting that reading scores are used to predict imprisonment needs. According to the latest scores, the need for prisons will increase in the future. The prison system itself is prejudiced. By removing libraries and educational programs, prisons are proving to be less about rehabilitation and more about punishment these days. These facts do not bode well for the education system. There is major inequality in education and it is the educators job to fight for equality in schools and also in society as a whole.

Standardized Testing

I found Linda M. McNeil's study on standardization to be particularly interesting. I have always been opposed to standardized testing and McNeil's findings have only cemented my feelings on the subject. She makes a good point when she says that testing widens the gap between the poor and minority students and those who are more privileged. The former is already at a disadvantage so standardized testing just exasperates this problem. The worse they do on the test, the lower quality of education they will receive from that point on. This is not fair. However, the problem is in finding alternatives to standardized testing. How do we determine if the state-mandated standards are being taught in the classroom without testing? There has to be some other way to hold teachers and schools accountable for the material that the state has determined should be taught to all students? I don't really have a solution here but there has to be a better alternative. Students who do not do well on the standardized tests should not fall by the wayside. They should not be treated as a lost cause. We need to concentrate even more on them. I'm open to suggestions...

Recommendations

Enora Brown provides us with the list of recommendations from the Turning Points report in 2000. While reading through these seven recommendations, I find that I agree with all of them. They are all great ideas and would improve the educational system in this country. The problem I have is that these recommendations are not followed up by any suggestions as to how an educator can implement these things on a day to day basis. This is a problem I have frequently run into during my short time teaching so far. My cooperating teacher complains of this as well. The district administrators will present ideas or recommendations for improving the education of the students, but will never tell teachers how to carry these ideas out in the classroom. We find ourselves sitting there and agreeing whole-heartedly with all of the suggestions presented. We will leave the meeting with a great feeling of accomplishment. But then the more you think about it, it becomes clear that you have idea how to achieve these goals. This is why I really appreciated Chapter 29. Eric Gutstein provides a specific way in which he used math to teach social justice in his classroom. Granted, I will not necessarily be able to use his exact ideas because I do not teach math. But those who do teach math could definitely take a lesson from this guy. I hope that more educators share their stories like this so that we can have ideas on how to better educate our students and implement new ideas in the classroom.

English Only

I really agree with Donaldo Macedo's points in Chapter 25. An English Only policy is not in the best interest of bilingual students. Although I do think it is important for these students to learn English in order to function in society, I also believe it is important to cultivate their thoughts in their native language as well. If we concentrate on making them learn and use only English in the school setting, they may not develop critical thinking skills because they can not express their ideas as fully in English as they can in their native language. Our society is so Anglo-centric and it alienates anyone who speaks a different language. This can make young students feel like their language and culture is inferior. Especially in middle school, when students are vulnerable to begin with, we should not add to this by demeaning their background. Our curriculum needs to embrace a variety of cultures, not just American culture.

A quote that I found particularly interesting in this article is that "speaking English has not enabled African-Americans to change this society's practice of jailing more Blacks than even South Africa, and this society spending over 7 billion dollars to keep African-American men in jail while spending only 1 billion dollars educating Black males." That's a staggering statistic. What would happen if we put that much money towards education?

Recommendations for Transforming Middle Grade Schools

I thought the recommendations for transforming middle grade schools in Chapter 10 was quite interesting. While all of the suggestions were good ones, I highly doubt these will ever all be achieved in a middle school. As for the first recommendation, "Create small communities for learning...," this is a difficult thing to achieve. It costs money to put students in smaller learning communities. You need more classrooms, more teachers, and more resources in general. Money is a huge issue in school districts. Right now most districts try to cram as many kids into a classroom as they can. So I don't see that one changing anytime soon. Another money-related suggestion is "Improve academic performance through fostering the health and fitness of young adolescents, by providing a health coordinator in every middle grade school..." Once again, I doubt any district would approve this, especially when there are already phy. ed. teachers in the school. Another issue I foresee in these recommendations is the one that says, "Empower teachers and administrators to make decisions about the experiences of middle grad students through creative control by teachers over the instructional program..." From what I have seen through student teaching, administrators do not like to give teachers much power or creative license. Finally, the suggestion I found most important is "Staff middle grade schools with teachers who are expert at teaching young adolescents." I may be wrong, but I don't think there is really a specific program for those who want to be primarily middle school educators. Most people who go into the early adolescent - adolescent program ultimately want to teach high school. I feel like those who end up in middle schools end up there by default. This may lead to a low quality of middle school educators. I think there needs to be a program specifically geared to those who want to be middle school educators. They can focus more on the issues facing young adolescents and how to best educate this age group. All in all, I found these recommendations to be extremely insightful, but maybe not very attainable.

Teenagers

You can definitely tell that both articles written in Chapter 7 were written in the 1990's. I remember this media craze that painted an awful picture of teenagers. They were convinced that an entire generation was evil and was pretty much doomed. They would meet their demise via drugs, alcohol, sex, and violence crimes. But yet, that didn't actually happen. That generation is still kicking. I remember this media campaign against teenagers (I was probably in 4th/5th/6th grade at the time) and it was the first time that it occurred to me that the media might not know what they're talking about all of the time. What an epiphany! I looked around at the teenagers I knew and thought to myself, they don't seem all that bad to me. Sure, you have the bad seeds that do have some serious issues and need help. Like the article stated, they were probably abused as children. But for the most part, teenagers were teenagers. Some a bit rebellious, some a little hormonally crazed, but nothing too out of the ordinary. As we all know, the media likes to sensationalize things. They got a hold of some statistics that were not accurate and they ran with it. I think the reason they concentrate on teenage issues and crimes is because it is more shocking than when adults do the same things. When an adult murders someone, it's news-worthy but not necessarily shocking. When a teen murders someone, it's more alarming. The media eats this kind of thing up and then tags on the age-old phrase to the end of the report: "What's happening to the youth of America?" Stop generalizing like that! Anyway, I think things have gotten better in this decade. The youth of America doesn't get picked on as much as they did in the 90's. Hopefully it stays that way. We need to stop blaming teen problems on music, movies, television, and video games. It starts with the parents. If anyone is to blame, it's the parents, not the teens.