HW 51

Schools are institutions that create a false image for teachers, parents, and students. Teachers believe that they can teach the students life-connected knowledge, parents and students believe that going to school will ensure success in the future. However, the students' savior teacher film, Freire, Sizer, Hirsch, and Ms. D contradicts this claim. All or some of them believe that schools are not teaching students the right information and that schools are just dumbing students down.

Section 1's savior teacher film suggests that students cannot be saved by teachers because the teachers themselves need to be saved. The film portrays the teacher ignoring the papers he was holding, texting on his blackberry, and falling asleep on his desk. He dreams about his "perfect" self teaching a bunch of rude students. The next day, the teacher goes around and insults some of his students after being woken up by a student. He walks around like he was drinking and storms out of the room, leaving the helpless students behind. Some teachers might not know what is best for students and might just teach students that are required from the government. Not all teachers can be a savior, hence the teacher did not do anything to save them; he was actually influencing them in a bad way by drinking.

Freire, in the second chapter of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, uses the analogy of banking to show that schools are not teaching the students as they claim to be. The teachers are depositing information into the students' head while the students obediently sit in classrooms and wait for the information to come. Students are so focused on collecting and storing the information that they forget about critically analyzing the information. Freire describes the students' heads as "containers" and "receptacles" that are ready to be fill by the teachers with information. Because students are being filled with information, they do not process and take the time to understand the information. By just depositing information into students, schools are not allowing students to develop critical thinking skills. Schools need to overcome this education model in order to save students from becoming robots.

Sizer believed that education should be focused primarily during the high school years so students can develop critical thinking. To succeed, one must understand some of the basic knowledge but also set goals for one to achieve. Education should not be shaped by the federal and state administrators but by the students who are getting the education. Test scores do not reflect a student's serious education and in fact proposed to drop the grading system, testing system, and conforming students by age.

Hirsch believed that students should know the basics, i.e., memorizing the presidents of the United States. He emphasizes education more during the early years of school, during elementary school, when students first learn their numbers, how to write, the basic history and sciences. Test scores best reflect how students are doing and how much of the information they memorize; portfolios are too subjective. In order to read college leveled texts, Hirsch recommends knowing basic information because knowing how to tackle college passages are useless; students need to know the basics to connect with the passages. Many schools follow Hirsch's view; they have their students memorize information and then assess their ability to memorize. Only a few has adopted Sizer's ideas and allowed their students to develop critical thinking, allowing them to become more humane than other students.

Ms. D, a teacher at one of Sizer's schools, finds it difficult to connect with every student she teaches. Without this connection with students, she lowers the chances she has to save her students from their problems outside school. Her curriculum consists a mixture of her opinions on what students should know and the standard curriculum. She was required to teach the play Antigone one year but she also decided to teach about world literature to widen her students' knowledge on literature. Although she cannot have that deep connection with students, she tries to save them indirectly by adding in her thoughts on education. She used to assign two essays a week, spent hours grading them, and gave only a few sentences for feedback. To ensure her students were getting the best out of their education, she assigned less essays but spent the same amount of time grading the papers and wrote letters as feedbacks. Ms. D feel obligated to care about her students but she cannot be like a counselor and pass her limit. Her ability to save her students is once again circumscribed. Teachers try to save their students but because they cannot reach out to every student, it makes it harder for them to save the students.

Section 1's film portrays teachers as clueless people who are not teaching the students the right information. Freire describes the classroom as a banking system, in which students do not think about the information they are receiving. Sizer and Hirsch have contradicting views and most schools follow Hirsch's ideas that includes having the students memorize. Ms. D, like any teacher, wants to teach students the important things so the students can use them. However, because of how the schools are set up, schools are not shaping intellectual students and teachers are not really helping the students.

HW 50

"Against School" is about the fact that schools are not helping the students and are in fact harming them. They are boring the students by making the students do meaningless work and if students get bored the teachers cannot get anywhere either. Success is also possible to those who do not go to school and going to school does not guarantee success. Schools are turning students into slaves for the economy by dumbing them down and depressing them. Gatto, in the end, suggests some alternatives that will better educate kids than to send kids to school.

Since schools are dumbing students down for the sake of the economy, students are being compared to the products of a factory. School is like central factory that produces workers to function other factories that run the economy. Schools make things too easy for students, therefore not allowing the students to mature through struggle. This leads to longer years of education which continues to make things easy for students and the students still cannot mature. It is a cycle; an unbreakable cycle created to aid the economy. Parents are advised to have their kids "learn to enjoy their own company;" I feel that this will drive kids to seek company later on in life. Everyone needs attention so if kids do not get it early in life, I think they will seek the attention later. Even if one can stand being alone, one would have difficulty developing social skills; limiting the chance to learn from others.

The second chapter of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire uses the analogy of banking to describe his view on schooling. The teachers deposits information into the students who are sitting there waiting for teachers to deposit something. Students who are so caught up in storing information leaves no room to think critically about the information handed to them. They are like "containers" or "receptacles" ready to be filled with information pouring from teachers. Because they are being "filled" with information, they do not get to process and really understand the information.

Students accept the idea that they are empty ones, thus giving purpose to the teachers so that the teachers think that they are the ones teaching. Teachers do not know everything; there are some things that teachers do not know and that students know. School, beside the fact that it is a place where kids meet and hang out, should be a place where people learn from each other. It should not be just about the teacher teaching because students also have insights to offer. "The more the oppressed can be led to adapt to [a] situation, the more easily they can be dominated." This makes me wonder why colleges and bosses require applicants to be able to adapt to changes. Is it because colleges can better control the students and it is easier for bosses to control the workers? Is being able to adapt a bad thing or do we want to be able to work things out?

Delpit does not fully agree with the progressive approaches to pedagogy but also does not fully agree with the simple "basic skills" approach. The progressive approach worked for some students but not for others and the "basic skills" approach do not encourage critical thinking. Delpit believes that basic knowledge is needed to learn how to pronounce words like "me." Her solution is for teachers to teach materials related to the students' lives and to explicitly explain the purpose of the lesson so students do not feel they are being lied to. In an institution, the ones in power are the ones benefited and everyone else do not matter.

In order to teach the materials related to the students' lives, Delpit suggest that "each classroom incorporate strategies appropriate for all the children." I find this difficult to achieve since everyone live a different lifestyle. For example in Freedom Writers, the teacher was unable to solve everyone's problems in one classroom sitting. The teacher needed to track every student down individually, figure out the problem, and then solve it. For a teacher to develop a curriculum that incorporated materials related to all students is nearly impossible.

Ms. D finds it very difficult to connect with every one of her students. Her curriculum consists of mixture of the standard curriculum and her opinion on the student's education. For example, the standard curriculum required her to teach the play Antigone but she also decided to teach world literature. She used to assign two essays a week and spent hours grading them, providing little feedback for students so she decided to decrease the frequency of essays, allowing her to write her feedbacks in the form of a letter. Ms. D feels obligated to care about her students but there is a limit; it is hard for her to be a counselor because she cannot have that deeper connection with students.

Ms. D is not able to save every one of her students because she cannot connect with all of her students. Even so, she tries to give the same chance of being saved by assigning less essays and analyzing students more. She cannot have that deeper connection with students without it looking like something else. If teachers cannot have that deeper connection with students, the student definitely cannot be saved by teachers. However, her ability to tweak the curriculum so that she can adjust it to fit her ideas will aid her students to save themselves and help them solve their own problems.

HW 49

Initially, I was confused about whether the teacher in section 1's film was thinking about his day or he was dreaming. I figured it was a dream because it was portrayed with his head on his desk and his students did not look out of control the next day. One way I took the film was that the teacher was afraid that his students would one day disregard his wisdom and act out of control. But since there is not enough information to support this, I thought that the message of the film (and I can be totally wrong about this) is that teachers are the ones who need to be taught. The teacher in the film ignores the papers he was once holding, picks up a blackberry to text, and falls asleep on the table due to boredom. He dreams about his "want-to-be" self and the rude students but the next day, we see that things are the other way around. After a student wakes him up, he walks as if he was drinking alcohol, starts insulting the students and walks out the room.

This is different from Freedom Writers, Blackboard Jungle, and Dead Poets Society. It related more to the parody that we saw in class; in both films, the students were the ones knowing what they were doing and the teachers were the clueless ones. While the students in the other films walked into class disrespecting the teacher, the students in section 1's film came into class and waited for the teacher to start class. And when the teacher was still sleeping on his desk, a student went to wake him up, hoping he could enlighten them. Instead, he continues to be hopeless, starts yelling at the innocent students and leaves them behind.

Maybe there is no way schools or teachers can help students, or not all teachers can save students, or not all students can be saved. Each student have their individual and different conflict, which makes it hard for the teacher to save each and every one of them. The teacher in the film did not do anything to save the students and in fact, influencing them in a bad way by drinking in class. Some teachers themselves may be too out of it to teach their students about life. The students might just have to teach themselves on their own and this might just be the alternative to school.

Treatment for Savior/Teacher Movie

Ken Walker = teacher
Kim Steelie = student
Principal Staremann = principal

Ken Walker walks into the classroom to find Kim Steelie with a film so he took the film from Kim and went to return the film to the principal. Kim comes storming after Ken, demanding him for her film back. Ken ignores Kim and keeps walking which pisses Kim off even more so Kim starts throwing a fit. Kim smacks Ken on the back of his head which causes Ken to stop walking. Kim takes a few step back cautiously and then everything stops at that moment; Kim is staring at the back of Ken.

After a moment of awkward silence, Kim uses the book she was carrying and throws it at Ken. Ken, infuriated, picks the book up and throws it back at Kim. Kim, with amazing athletic abilities, dodges the book and the book hits Principal Staremann as the principal walks by. Ken flinches in fear while Kim looks away from the principal as if nothing happened. The principal slowly looks away from them and keeps walking. Kim smirks and starts to head back to the classroom while Ken stands there dumbfounded.

All the other teachers stare at Ken but does not say a word and continues heading to the classroom. Ken chases after Kim to demand for an explanation but walks into the classroom to find students with tattoos, students violating the school dress code, and students reading comic books. The chairs are out of place; some students are throwing papers and pencils around. Ken stands at the doorway, trying to absorb in all of this chaos. Kim, after settling in her seat, stares at Ken and waits for him to do something about the class but Ken just stares off into the distance....

Credits to Jia Min H.

Research and Writing

International Lessons about National Standards compares and contrasts the standards in different countries and comes to a conclusion about which aspects the Unites States should follow. It focuses its studies on education standards and testing in Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, and South Korea. These countries suggest to create independent institutions that will ensure the development of national standards. Although the independent institutions will make sure national standards exist, they should not be the ones creating them but to provide the encouragement and resources in creating the standards. The United States should develop coherent, focused, and rigorous standards involving English, math, and science. Then, test students during their 4th, 8th, and 12th years in school with some open ended questions to reflect the coherence. Whether the students do poorly or excellent, the students themselves, the teachers and the schools are responsible.

International Lessons about National Standards is the first step towards creating a better education system for the United States. Not only does the study covers China but it also covers nine other countries for additional options for improvement. It first mentions creating an institution that will support the creation of the education standards. Countries around the world emphasize on the knowledge of English, math, and science. To prove their learning in these subjects, students are tested during or a year before they move on to the next school. Having students themselves, teachers, and the schools held responsible for the students' learning puts pressure on all of them to provide the best education for the students.

I think this study and the results of this study is leaning towards Hirsch and his ideas. This study suggests that students learn the basic knowledge of English, math, and science but does not mention anything about preparing the students to be open minded and to think on their own.

"Having so many topics in the curriculum as the U.S. does means that each topic is covered superficially— and, often, repeated grade after grade" (Schmidt, et. al 24). If schools could go in depth in each concept, the topics would not be repeated every year and middle school math would not be "a repetition of the arithmetic topics covered in grades 1-5" (Schmidt, et. al 25). And if topics can be fully covered before high school, students can start to develop their own way of thinking that is aside from lecture and regurgitation.

Hirsch also believed in testing, but why should knowledge be questioned with a number 2 pencil and bubble-in answer sheets? Why not allow the students teach each other on topics that were taught?

Class film preparation 1

• one problem the teacher should overcome is getting a student to re-attend school after deciding to dropout.*
• students should have tattoos*
• violate dress codes*
• disrespect the teacher
• wise but rebellious student*
• students make fun of the teacher
• the teacher should have some kind of secret that students have to figure out
• students should give their teacher a name to show the resolution of the plot*
• students should read in class
• others see the class as hopeless and thinks the students will not graduate
• there should be war in class
• the teacher should visit students' homes