Education is Politics by Ira Shor

Three quotes that stuck out to me from Shor's "Education is Politics" are as followed:

1. A curriculum that avoids questioning school and society is not, as is commonly supposed, politically neutral. It cuts off the students' develop­ment as critical thinkers about their world. 

-I like this quote by Shor. I completely agree with how schools should focus on teaching their students the facts about the society we live in. Instead, talking about politics in school is considered inappropriate. We are teaching our youth to ignore politics and injustices in our society. And by trying to keep the youth ignorant to these injustices, schools are making a political statement. 

2.  If the aim of intellectual training is to form the intelligence rather than to stock the memory," Piaget wrote, "and to produce intellectual explorer rather than mere erudition, then traditional education is manifestly guilty of a grave deficiency"

-Shor is quoting educational philosopher Jean Piaget, who believes that schools measure intelligence only based on memorization of facts. Schools also view those who are dubbed intelligent as more superior than those who are viewed as not intelligent. Piaget argues that intelligence should be based on a persons enthusiasm for learning about the world around him or her, and their critical thinking abilities. I agree with Piaget on how there are many different ways of measuring intelligence, but I think that the best way of measuring a person's intelligence is how open-minded they are to other people and culture's outside their own. 

3. Social and economic values, hence, are already embedded in the design of the Institution we work in. in the "Ideal corpus of school knowledge "we preserve in our modes of teaching and in our principles. standards, and forms of evaluation.

-This quote should be very obvious to anyone who has ever been involved in the education system. The education system is extremely biased to those who are in a higher social and economic class. Especially in recent years with the price of college tuition skyrocketing at the same rate as the need for a degree to get a job with a living wage. 

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED538236.pdf

Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome

The reason why children with Down Syndrome and similar "disabilities" tend to be kept separate in school is because our education system is catered to one way of learning. If a student learns in a different way, he or she is labeled as "disabled" and is kept separate from the kids who are thought to be smarter than them. I really like what Kliewer says at the bottom of the 5th page of the article,

                 "Schools have traditionally taken a narrow position when defining and judging student intellect. The presence of a thoughtful mind has been linked to patterns of behavioral and communicative conformity associated with competence in logical-mathematical thinking and linguistic skills. Assessments of how well a student conforms to expectations (measurements through which students come to be defined either as smart or as lacking intellect) tend to focus teacher attention on the child's adeptness at responding to classroom-based math and language tasks. These evaluative instruments supposedly measure either a student's understanding of a transmitted knowledge base (hence, a preexisting one) related to math and language, or the student's ability to discover the knowledge base through carefully contrived activities. "

         One part of the article described a classroom in which was a student who struggled with Down Syndrome. One of the things that enabled him to flourish creatively and intellectually was by making a play with the other children. The children wrote the play, memorized the lines, and created the scenery, costumes and props. I like what Kliewer describes of this idea for the children,

 "The Wild Thing production was not an add-on to a preexisting curriculum. It reflected Shayne's unique approach to building community through the process of learning. Within the web of activities, Shayne and her co-workers systematically developed opportunities for their students to engage with literacy and numeracy skills, problem-solving, and critical thinking processes, and interpersonal capacities. Though the children may not have been aware of it, learning was always of central concern."

This approach to inclusive teaching uses methods that all different types of learners can benefit from. The kids were having so much fun creating the play that they didn't even realize they were learning without the frustrations of sitting at a desk and memorizing facts.

Another quote I like from this article addresses mathematics education and how it teaches students to view the world: "Mathematics teachers report that students are nearly always searching for steps to take in solving the problem-"how to plug the numbers into the equation, how to follow the algorithm." The more closely the ordering of words in a problem parallels the order of symbols in the equation, the easier the problem is to solve and the more the students will like it. Seeing mathematics as a way of understanding the world, of illuminating a phenomenon, as a kind of conversation or enterprise into which even a young person can become meaningfully involved is a rare occurrence. And yet, how can genuine understanding ever begin to come about with such an attitude?"

What do we learn about the world when we are taught that there is a right and wrong to every answer? One way to think? "abled people" and "disabled people?" some interesting food for thought.

This is an article called "Why Mixing Student's With and Without Special Needs is a Good Idea.": http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/06/25/special-needs-inclusion-good-idea, on this page is a cute video about a girl named Tessa who has trouble with her focus and behavior at school. It starts out with her talking about how she doesn't like school, until she enrolls in an inclusive special education program, and then concludes that school is fun.


Here is a chart that better defines inclusion, compared to exclusion, integration, and segregation.

Literacy with an Attitude: Educating Working Class Children In Their Own Self Interest by Patrick J. Finn

I found this reading to be very interesting. What Finn is saying again and again throughout the chapter is that we are holding all students to an upper class standard of education. This reading reminded me a little bit of Becoming Something Different, because of how Esmé's school assumed she wasn't taking her education seriously and ultimately kept her from completing her degree. It also reminded me of Will It Help The Sheep, because many teacher's from this reading, according to Finn, just handed down their difficult student's to lower levels instead of trying to figure out how to get them more engaged and excited in their education. I was also reminded of the scene in Freedom Writers where Erin says "these kids know they're being given these [condensed books] because they know we think they aren't smart enough." Finn's question is, how do we get working class students to be excited about their education? Finn's answer to this lies Paulo Freire's work in Brazil. The poor and the illiterate of Brazil did not understand why they should need an education, and almost resented it as the rich and educated contributed to the inequality of wealth in their country. When Freire showed them how an education could help them get out of poverty, they became determined to learn how to read, and granting students the will to learn is winning half the battle.

Here is a link to Paulo  Freire's work "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"
http://www.pedagogyoftheoppressed.com/author/

Here is an interesting map showing literacy rates by country:

From Belly Dancers to Burqas: Media Representations of Muslim Women

Today at RIC, a very intelligent woman named Dr. Afshan Jafar gave a lecture on Media Representations of Muslim Women. Dr. Jafar grew up in Pakistan herself, and now is a Sociologist working at Connecticut College. Her lecture was very interesting, I really enjoyed it. She spoke of famous media representations such as Jasmine from Aladdin, and the famous Steve McCurry photograph "Afghan Girl" that is an iconic image on the cover of a 1985 issue of National Geographic. She spoke of how the photographer of "Afghan Girl" never learned her name or her life story, and it reminded me a little bit of Esmé from "Becoming Something Different". Esmé's teachers and guidance counselors at school took one look at her and her ethnicity and assumed that she best belonged in remedial and ELL classes, instead of classes that would ultimately lead her to graduation. This is how many people saw the portrait of "Afghan Girl" with no identity besides her middle eastern ethnicity, just how Esmé's school couldn't see past her Mexican ethnicity.

Dr. Jafar compared how Muslim women dressed in coverings are seen by many Americans as oppressed, Muslims seeing Americans dressed very immodestly, for example, at the beach, could be seen to them as American women being oppressed and exploited for our bodies. Another comparison that opened my eyes was at the beginning of the lecture. Dr. Jafar asked us to finish the end of the sentence "Muslim women are...." on a piece of scrap paper. Many of the finished sentences ended with words like "oppressed" "controlled by men" and "silent." She then explained how when she asks groups of people to finish the sentence "Christian women are.." there are a million questions asked to clarify what type of Christian women. In this exercise, all Muslim women were generalized. This made me think of the reading White Privilege by Peggy McIntosh, because the less we know about a cultural group, the more we generalize them and think we understand that culture.

The third reading I connected to this lecture wasn't a reading, but the media representation presentation we did. Dr. Jafar explained to us how in Aladdin, the villain was made to be more stereotypically arab and "barbaric", while Aladdin looked and spoke more stereotypically American. This representation of muslim stereotypes in disney movies was a topic we covered in our project.

Attached I have an article explaining the identity of "Afghan Girl" more fully:
-http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2002/04/afghan-girl/index-text

I also have an article from the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee about stereotypes in American media:
-http://www.adc.org/education/arab-stereotypes-and-american-educators/

This is another link debunking common Muslim stereotypes:
-http://teachmideast.org/essays/26-stereotypes/38-stereotypes-of-arabs-middle-easterners-and-muslims

This cartoon was also displayed in Dr. Jafar's presentation, it compares the judgements that both muslim and american women face based on what they wear and how that correlates to their oppressive culture:

Here is the famous "Afgan Girl" photo, the girl's name was unknown for 17 years until National Geographic tracked her down in 2002:

Becoming something different, Learning from Esmé by Fairbanks, Crooks, and Ariail

Two educational researchers track a young Mexican immigrant in a primarily Latina/o community from the time she was in 6th grade until the time she was in 11th grade. What we learn after reading the whole article through, that despite her participation, intelligence and most of all strong will to do well in school, Esmé didn't graduate high school. Since being an English Language Learner placed her in remedial classes, she never learned the material necessary for her to pass the standardized test she needed to graduate. On page four, the authors reference works from Gonzalez, Valencia, and Valenzuela, "Researchers argue that perceptions of Latina/o students as lacking English proficiency, adequate motivation, and parental support, combined with the school's devaluing of cultural practices different from the mainstream, too often position Latina/o students as deficient."

When reading the article we learn that Esmé was a very good student, she attended class early, did her homework, she was active in extracurricular activities, she was well behaved and made friends with peers who were also striving for academic achievement. We learn a very important lesson from the article, when a student does not graduate high school, it isn't always the student's unwillingness to learn, the system can fail certain students. If, for example, her guidance counselors had encouraged her to take on more challenging classes instead of writing her off as "deficient" because she was an English Language Learner, perhaps she would have learned the material needed to pass the TAKS. Perhaps if the school had seen her potential in the way the researchers interviewing her had, she could have the bright future she had dreamed of.

Here is a link that reviews some of the problems that English Language Learners face: http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/ELL_Policy_Brief_Fall_08_(2).pdf

A Particularly Cheap White Whine

For this post, I chose to read "A Particularly Cheap White Whine: Racism, Scholarships, and The Manufacturing of White Victimhood" by Tim Wise. Which I think is a very clever and funny name. The reading basically debunks the statement by the President of The College of Republicans at Boston University, who stated that "race-based scholarships for people of color are the worst form of bigotry confronting America today." 

What the students who agree with this statement don't understand is that "The reason is simple: namely, ongoing economic disparities between whites and folks of color, have left the latter in for worse shape, in terms of the ability to pay for college, than the former." Wise then fires off a series of statistics that prove why students of color have a harder time paying for college than white students, and also states that there is not enough race-based scholarships to help those who have been affected by the institutionalized racism that is embedded in our society. 

I agree whole-heartedly with Tim Wise. What I think needs to happen to stop these ignorant statements from coming out of anybody else's mouth is we need to educate privileged people on what it is like to be underprivileged. Since, statistically, in today's world, privileged people are the ones who have the most power, will also have the most power to change things. In dominantly white and middle class public schools, like the one I attended, we learned nothing about institutionalized racism or prejudice and how it affects people of color, and benefits the privileged. 

This isn't to say that their ignorant comments are not their fault. It is up to you as a decent human being to recognize other human beings regardless of race, gender, class, or sexual preference as equal to you. If these ignorant racists had any experience being marginalized, they would keep their mouths shut. Their ignorance disproves their point in itself. 

Here is a link to a creative and hilarious buzzfeed post: http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/the-conditions-upon-which-one-may-claim-reverse-racism

Here is a very clever comic on the idea of "reverse racism":

In service of what?

This article explores the method of education through service learning. Kahne and Westheimer specifically examine two classrooms, one seventh grade and one twelfth grade class. Student's in Mr. Johnson's twelfth grade class did a variety of individual service learning projects, while those in Ms. Adams class focused on homelessness as the main topic. All the students had to do in terms of course work was to write a reflection at the end of the course.

Personally, I find service learning projects to be extremely effective in learning a subject. Service learning not only gives you experience in the field, but also gives you practice dealing with other real world practices, such as working with coworkers or the public. I have done two service learning projects within the field of education, and it has taught me so much about classroom control, how to keep a classrooms attention, creating a lesson plan and so much more.

I think doing service learning projects dealing specifically with working with the public and those in need is educational in a way that is different than academic and will expand your mind in a much broader way. A lot of people never have experience working with and forming relationships with people in need. This causes many people not to see the human behind the drug addict, homeless man, or teen mother, and causes them to be ignorant and think of these people as though they are in a different tier of humanness than them. It is so important to educate people on social issues and the larger societal issues that may cause these perfectly lovely and capable human beings to slip through the cracks and wind up homeless, for example.

Below is a chart that shows retention rates based on teaching styles.

For more information on service learning visit: http://www.dropoutprevention.org/effective-strategies/service-learning

Unlearning The Myths That Bind Us

In "Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us", we learn about the different ways the media controls our minds from a very young age. The large majority of young children watch cartoons on TV and display to them messages about standards for women, men, people of color, and people of low income. This article points out that there is a subtle bittersweetness to discovering the flaws to our once beloved cartoons that we watched over and over again as children. This is brought up more than once during the article, the question "why bring up the negative?". In examining the past we can gain insight into how to handle the future. One student, Justine, made a very wise and beautifully written comment that stated, "True death equals a generation living by rules and attitudes they never questioned and producing more children who do the same." So why should we bring up the negative? Why not remain ignorant and accept these racist, sexist, classist insensitivities as innocent cartoons? The answer lies in Justine's statement, to change people's minds, and to raise a new generation of people who will be more sensitive and accepting of people who are different from them. Many of the people in this class alone changed there minds drastically on the subject. " Before, I would have just walked into the toy store and bought them something I knew they wanted- a Nintendo or a Barbie. But this time, I went up to the clerk and said, 'I want a toy that isn't racist or sexist'." These student's minds have been changed drastically in the course of one class, imagine what just a little bit of education can do to change our society into a more accepting environment. 

Link: http://mic.com/articles/68219/6-disney-films-that-are-undeniably-racist-and-sexist

Speaking the Unspeakable in Forbidden Spaces: addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in the primary school

Just the title of this article alone says a lot about how sexuality is viewed in the school system. What is so "unspeakable" about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender sexualities? Why is a primary school a "forbidden space"? I suppose that talking about it in school seems inappropriate to some people because it has to do with sex. However, sex in heterosexual relationships is a topic that is avoided, yet the heterosexual relationships themselves have never been banned from discussion. Teachers don't have to think twice about mentioning their girlfriend or wife or boyfriend or husband if they are in a heterosexual relationship, but for a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender staff member to come out, it is an emotional declaration of self affirmation.

It is also important, and it is mentioned a lot throughout this article, is how to change homophobic language on the playground. When words like "gay" or "fag" are used as an insult, it reiterates the idea that identifying as gay is undesirable and will make others not like you. How the school in this article handled it was to simply talk about the subject in class, as well as after school clubs through resources like books, and teachers talking about their experiences. This school equated using "gay" in a negative connotation to using racial slurs like "paki", and talked about how it may make someone feel if they were called that word. A quote from this article I really liked was on page 322-3, which reads, "Arguments suggesting that LGBT teachers refrain from discussing their relationships within the school fail to acknowledge that children themselves might benefit from the openness of LGBT
role models for a variety of reasons: because they may identify (or eventually 322 A. Allan et al.identify) themselves as LGBT or just ‘different’, because they have gay or lesbian parents (Letts and Sears 1999; Kissen 2002) and because one of the duties of school is to prepare all children to live in a diverse society." I think that last bit is most important, even though there may not be children who identify as LGBT either in the present or future, or who don't come from LGBT families, every person can benefit from an education on this topic. It prepares us to open our minds and to be successful and happy in a diverse society.

Link: http://www.change.org/p/pepperdine-overturn-your-decision-to-deny-recognition-to-lgbt-students. This is a petition for Pepperdine University to recognize LGBT equality in their institution.

Below is a parental recognition map, The green states have laws that create legal ties to both parents for children born to same-sex parents in a legally recognized relationship, while the white states lack clear mechanisms that create legal ties to both parents for children born to same-sex couples via donor insemination. 

Why Can't She Remember That? by Terry Meier

Reading this text reminds me of when I taught a French lesson once a week to pre-schoolers last year. Pre-schoolers have very short attention spans and it is not always easy to keep them interested in the lesson. It is definitely true in that keeping the children engaged will keep their attention. Some of the ideas in this article to keep children's attention spans are useful! Using puppets and dolls to interact with the story keep story time from being a teacher talking at you, but it is also important to choose books that represent different children's culture and identity. "Books are not meaningful to children who do not see themselves represented in them", states Meier, on page 247. I recently read about a girl whose little sister of Indian descent did not see herself as beautiful because so many "princess" portrayals in children's media do not represent her cultural group. This alarmed her older sister, who was concerned about her sister's lowered self-esteem at such a young age. Below, I have added a book of words from a vintage Golden Book. As you can see, all of the children in the illustration are white, and there are very stereotypical gender roles as well. The girls, are doing the more delicate tasks, dancing, reading, playing, while the boys are doing more traditionally masculine and physical tasks, building, working, and running. Some food for thought about how diversity is portrayed not only in books, but in all children's media. I have also added a link to an NPR article called "As Demographics Shift, Kid's Books Stay Stubbornly White." http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/06/25/193174358/as-demographics-shift-kids-books-stay-stubbornly-white

The Silenced Dialogue

I would be interested to know the race of the author of this article. As a white person, it caused me to think differently about the way students of color are treated in the classroom by white teachers. Although Delpit acknowledges that these teachers are well meaning, they may not realize that their ways of teaching are enforcing a white standard of education. As described in the conversation between the teacher and student about a book that is written in a southern dialect, the student starts out saying that the way the characters in the book were speaking is a wrong way to speak. The teacher then asked the student “Who says it is the wrong way to speak?” the student replied “I guess the white people do.”

I liked the example in this article about teaching a group of Native Alaskan children the difference between “Village English” and “Formal English”. Neither term has a negative connotation to it. The teacher explained that neither form of english was wrong, they were just different and were more commonly used in different situation. She then celebrated the fact that the Native children had two ways to speak English, and made them feel special about it. This approach didn’t undermine the children’s culture while teaching them to speak English in a way that will make them successful in their professional lives.

As Delpit quotes, "Their language and cultural style is unique and wonderful but that there is a political power game that is also being played, and if they want to be in on that game there are certain games that they too must play." I think this positive outlook on culture and race should be adopted by all teachers to install a celebratory approach to multiculturalism, instead of pushing one idea of what being an American is.

Another important method of teaching that was touched upon in this article was the teachers’ use of authority in the classroom. Choosing “Put the scissors away” over “Is that where the scissors belong?” can make a huge difference. By posing what you would like your students to do as a question, it gives them the option to do the alternative. Authority also lets the students know who is in charge and what you expect of them so that there is no unclear guidelines that a student may unknowingly disobey. In school I have always felt that a teacher who has control over the classroom is much better at grasping my interest. I think a key component in doing this is consistency. You must stick to the rules you set, or the students won’t take them seriously.

In this article I have learned a lot of valuable advice on what it means to be a good teacher. It isn’t just about being nice and treating everyone equally. It is about understanding the backgrounds of your students and how it may affect how they learn. It is also very important that you gain control of the classroom and make sure that each and every one of them is learning and gaining knowledge.

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

   This week in FNED 346 we had the chance to read and blog about an article called "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntosh. What was interesting about this post is that she compared white privilege to male privilege, in that most of the time whites and males are unaware of the power that they hold just by having the sex or skin color they were born with.

       One quote that stuck out to me while reading was on the first page, where McIntosh states, "whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow “them“ to be more like “us." I agree wholeheartedly with her statement. Most white people in our society would never consider themselves to be racist, yet we may subconsciously classify cultural customs that are non-european with degrading words, for example, "ghetto" or "ratchet", instead of acknowledging the differences among cultural groups. 

        Next, McIntosh goes on to list daily activities that she, as a white person, does not think about having privilege for. For example, "I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed." Going out in public without the feeling that you are not trusted is a privilege that whites have that many of us do not think about. Another privilege that whites have over other racial groups is that history that is taught in school favors whites. McIntosh states on page 2, "When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my

color made it what it is." The US Education system widely overlooks the history and achievements of any other country outside of Europe or the post colonial US, which inhibits a white standard of education for every student in the crayon box of ethnicities in the US. 

This article made me ask myself, "in what ways am I privileged as a white person that I am not aware of?" I found some examples of privilege on whiteprivilegeconference.com, which states not only examples of white privilege, but male and heterosexual privilege as well. http://www.whiteprivilegeconference.com/white_privilege.html. 

Also, I found a funny and informative comic strip on the issue of white privilege and education and crime:

(I did not make this comment, credit to Jamietheignorantamerican.tumblr.com)

About Me

Hello! My name is Emily Crowley and I am a full time student at RIC. It is my second year in college, but my first at RIC since I transferred from a school in Colorado. I was born and raised in Sandwich, MA, and in my free time I like to travel, play with my cats, and go on walks.