Education is Politics

In the reading this week, “Empowering Education” by Ira Shor, she argues that classrooms should have a more democratic environment. The issue that the education system has now is that students are brought up in a traditional classroom environment. Students are forced to spend 12 years in school. Hypothetically speaking, if they were to spend all 12 of those years sitting in a classroom with a teacher standing in front of them, where they needed to raise their hand every time they wanted to speak, it’s only natural that students get sick of school and also sick of authority. If people are only taught the power of authority, rather than what it is like to live in the society that school is supposed to be preparing them for, then are we really prepared for when we graduate from high school to step out in to the real world in a democratic society? Seniors in high school, eighteen years old, are still being expected to ask before they go use the bathroom or step outside of the classroom. That seems a little bit absurd to me. Classrooms aren’t formed around democracy the way that our society is. The classroom should be made in to a more enjoyable thing, because it’s such an important thing. Why does education have to be something that is made negative because of the way that many classrooms are set up and students have absolutely no freedom? A lot of times students are placed in classrooms are expected to sit for hours on end and just listen. Because students learn in all different ways, it’s not realistic to expect that form of teaching to get through to all students. Students should be able to have more of an engaged learning environment, because most times that’s the best way of getting information to stick. It’s a lot easier for most people to learn if they’re involved than if they’re sitting there with thirty other students trying to retain hours’ worth of information that the teacher is spewing at them. It just seems as if there has to be a better more enjoyable classroom setting than many of the ones we have.  I selected the following video because he discusses the things that are important about education and how students learn best.

 

Social Justice Event

         For my Social Justice Event, I attended the presentation “From Belly Dancers to Burqas: Media Representations of Muslim Women.” This presentation focused on what our opinions of Muslim women are from an outside standpoint, versus what they are like in reality. In the beginning of the presentation, everyone was asked to write down words that they felt described Muslim women, and then they read the list of words to all of us. Some of the words that were used were, “covered up, oppressed, religious.” We then discussed the different ways in which Muslim women are depicted, and it was addressed that Jasmine from the Movie Aladdin is a Muslim Princess, yet in the movie she is dressed more like a belly dancer. She isn’t wearing what we typically see when we think of Muslim women.  Muslim women often wear burqas or some sort of veil which hides their hair and eyes, or just their hair depending on their religion. There were quite a few images shown in the presentation, but the one that stood out the most to me was this one:

            When we were asked words that we all thought described Muslim women and the word "oppressed" came up, it's shown here that just because that's what those of us who aren't Muslim women feel, doesn't mean that that's the reality. Just because to some American's it may seem unusual to us that they cover so much of their bodies, it might seem just as unusual to them that we cover so little of ours. The veils that Muslim women wear is considered a sign of privilege, not a burden. It got me thinking about SCWAMP and how no matter if women wear too much clothing, or too little, it's still thought that we are doing it for the satisfaction of men. Muslim women are looked at as oppressed because they cover so much of their bodies, yet we live in a country where the total opposite is happening, and that's considered to also be for the satisfaction of men. The point of the presentation was to prove that the stereotypes of Muslim women aren't in fact true.  

           I connected this presentation of the video with Tim Wise as the speaker, "Between Barack and a Hard Place". In his speech. Tim Wise discusses how we unintentionally categorize black people, or any people who aren't like us. He uses the phrase "Some of my best friends are black" and says that many people claim they aren't racist based on this fact alone. He also tells about a story when he gets on an airplane and realizes the pilot is black, he felt a little bit nervous, and then he caught himself realizing how ridiculous it was. I thought this really related to the presentation because the whole point was saying how Muslim women are stereotyped. We might not even know any Muslim women, and we just put them in to the category of "oppressed" or "controlled by men". They get put in to these categories in peoples minds just because they aren't the same as what is considered "normal" here. I think it's an unintentional thing that some people do, just like what Tim Wise says.

               I also connected this article to "Aria", because in Aria Richard Rodriguez talks about coming to the United States, speaking no English, and having to adapt to the culture here. He talks about his entire journey from not accepting that he wanted to speak English, and then really only speaking English. His comparisons of what it felt like, reminds me of how I would likely feel if I moved to another country, and it was something way outside of my comfort zone. I think of what it must be like to be a Muslim woman coming to a country like this one where there aren't as many Muslim women. Muslim women are depicted in a certain way in the media which leads people who don't have an understanding of them to form stereotypes and judgments.

           Another reading that I connected this to was "Unlearning The Myths That Bind Us" . Linda Christensen argues in this article that we have been manipulated by children's media and advertising. Disney princess are portrayed in a certain way, and made to most likely be pretty, wealthy, and white. I made this connection because in the presentation we discussed Jasmine and how she is dressed in belly dancer clothes for the movie of "Aladdin" even though she is Muslim woman. It seems as if the way a Muslim woman who is a belly dancer was changed because "Aladdin" was directed at an American audience, and it seems like they picked her outfit based on what would appeal to Americans.

 

Citizenship In School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome

I felt as if this reading had a lot of really good information in it, so I decided to choose three quotes that I felt were important to work off of.

 

"Dewey promoted democracy as a way of life in which community both establishes and is derived from each individual’s recognition of the value of every other individual."

 

This article discusses how students with disabilities are in special education classes, separated from other students, and they aren't offered the same classes. They are generalized as being all the same because they have a disability.  This quote points to the fact that as an individual, we should be recognizing the value in all other individuals. By separating students based on their abilities, we are taking that away from them. I try to look at both sides of this argument, and I understand why students are separated because every student learns differently and there are students who need extra attention from a teacher. The good thing in having special education classes is that those students are given extra attention from a teacher that they might not receive if they were placed in a classroom with more students where the teacher had more students to focus on. However, on the other hand, I think that the most important part of this argument is that students with disabilities need to feel like an equal member of a community. It's impossible to create a sense of community if there are people who are treated as less than other people, and this quote particularly points that out.

 

"Judith Snow holds that the dialogic of democracy is ultimately a set of values based on respect, humility, and creative listening."

 

I selected this quote because it again discusses democracy and what is expected in a democratic society. When we put all individuals in a group based on a disability, it is undermining their abilities. People might see someone with down syndrome and not recognize that there is so much more to an individual that their disabilities. I'm putting in this video of two boys from my high school who have a dream to write a teen zombie movie. They're trying to raise the money to do so, and as of right now have already raised $68,936 dollars! It's amazing what they're doing!

 

 

"Shayne Robbins did not hesitate in her response when asked why she devoted so much energy to creating a classroom community where all were afforded citizenship. “Don’t think,” she told me, “that those special needs kids drain anything. That class would not be half what it is if any one of those kids got segregated. We’re all together in here.”

 

This quote was from Shayne Robbins, the teacher in a school that's goal was community. Their classes aren't segregated and she's supporting this type of classroom environment. It just goes to show that the most important thing in education, and even in every day life should be to not make any individual feel as if they are less than anyone else. Regardless of what their circumstances are, or if they're considered disabled, or anything for that matter, schools should always have a sense of community where everyone feels equal.

Literacy With An Attitude

Jeannie Oakes talks in her writing, "Tracking: Why Schools Need To Take Another Route" about the ways that tracking students is setting them up for failure. She compares it to keeping the rich, rich and keeping the poor, poor. Students are placed in classrooms based on their academic abilities. There are students placed in honors classes and students who are placed in remedial classes. By doing this, schools are giving better teachers and more opportunity to students who are considered honors. The students who just might be slower learners are placed in classrooms where they aren't given the same opportunity or education. They aren't forced to push themselves, and aren't nearly as encouraged as students who are honors. We've all see it growing up. I was a very average student, and as a result I don't feel like I was ever pushed to my full potential. That's what school is supposed to be all about. Students are supposed to feel like there are teachers who believe in them enough to push them and think than they can do better than even how well the student thinks that they can do. It's not fair that we have different students who are being pushed, and taught differently based on how they test. Every student has the same ability to succeed if they're given the right tools and education and I firmly believe that. I don't think it's fair the way that tracking students sets certain students on a pedestal and makes the students who aren't placed in these honors classes believe that they can't do it. Every student should have the same opportunity to succeed and it isn't something that should be taken away because schools are using the "tracking" method. Oakes discusses alternatives to tracking, and she says that in order to do so, "The most important and difficult task for those who would change tracking is to confront deeply held beliefs, such as the belief that academic ability is fixed very early and is largely unchangeable or that achievement differences can be largely accounted for by differences in ability." She's arguing that the idea that academic ability is fixed very early needs to be changed and I completely agree. If students are being tracked at early ages, and they remain in these same classes where they are placed for their entire academic career, that's not fair. Students change as does their academic ability, and students who are placed in remedial classes might be a lot more successful if they were just pushed a little bit harder.

Becoming Something Different

In the reading, “Becoming Something Different: Learning from Esme” by Colleen M. Fairbanks, Penny Mason Crooks, and Mary Ariail, they follow a Spanish speaking Latina, Esme Martinez, from when she is in the sixth grade, all the way through eleventh grade when she moved away. I summarized briefly what each year was like, to show the ways that’s he changed and developed through the years, both socially and academically.

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Sixth Grade – Teachers positioned her as needing help. She made it clear that she wanted to learn but she wasn’t receiving the one on one attention that she needed and the teacher was explaining things to her as if she was supposed to understand, and it frustrated her that she didn’t.

Seventh Grade –placed in resource language arts class to assess her difficulty in reading. She enjoyed the more direct help from the teacher and thought it was helping her to have slowed down a little bit. She felt she was being taught the important things she needed to know in order to be successful. By the end of seventh grade she felt she had become a little bit more of a stronger student.

Eighth grade – She felt as if her resource classes were moving a bit too slowly. She expressed that she helped another student in her class and she transitioned from helper rather than the helped. She became more confident in her academic success and saw herself as a different kind of student than she had before.  

 Ninth grade- Placed in remedial English, but was placed in honors classes for geography, algebra, and biology. Over the course of the year she elected to step down to taking all regular classes instead. She spoke with a counselor in order to do so. This shows a change in Esme because she likely wouldn’t have taken that initiative in middle school.

Tenth Grade – She joins the cosmetology program at her school. Through this she participated in school and community activities which showed her desire to be a normal high school student. Her biggest change in her school trajectory was her enrollment in the cosmetology program. This took up three class periods, and she made the first cut at the end of her tenth grade year. She learned cosmetology through a hands on approach. This was her way of achieving the larger goals she had.

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When her family moved away, she hadn’t passed the TAKS which was a graduation requirement. Even though she hadn’t passed the TAKS, she had established herself as a successful student. She was involved in Student Council, as well as doing cosmetology. She had even been placed in honors classes for a time. Esme was clearly a good student both at home and at school. She showed great progress through the years both socially, and academically. Focusing this reading on the standardized testing aspect of it, it makes you question the validity of these testing policies in our schools. It’s hard to understand how a written test can be a true guideline to see if a student is eligible to graduate from high school. A lot of different things can impact test scores, and all students are different. Not to mention, English wasn’t her first language which goes back to a lot of things that we have discussed in class. Yet despite this, she made her best effort to be as successful as possible, and I don’t think that a single test should be able to decipher who we are as students, and what we know. Standardized testing isn’t really a test of all that we know, but a test of if we know what’s on the test. That’s not always a fair way of determining student’s academic abilities.

 

Between Barack and a Hard Place: Challenging Racism, Privilege, and Denial

Tim Wise opens his discussion talking about how we use the line "Some of my best friends are black" to make it seem as though we can't be racist. He compares that to having no true validity because that's the equivalent of saying that all heterosexual men aren't sexist because they're married, or they're attracted to women. As we all know, sexism and racism are still very much so happening in our society every day, and it certainly isn't only homosexual men who are sexist. This really struck me, because I've absolutely heard people say that line at different times, "I'm not racist, my best friend is black." or "I'm not racist, I dated a black guy." and hearing it in the terms of comparing it to sexism really made a lot of sense to me. He later talks about a time in his life when he got on to an airplane and saw that two black men were flying the plane. He says that he thought to himself, "oh dear god, can these men fly this plane?" and he says that he instantly was able to defeat the thought and once he sat down in his seat and could think about it, that he realized that it wasn't a logical thought, and more likely than not these men flying the plane had to go through a lot more in order to be qualified to do so than white men would have had to. His point in this however, is that even though he was able to defeat the thought it still popped in to his head. He makes a comparison here between programmed thought and counter conditioning. He says that we operate on a lot of subconscious things that we are programmed to think, but it's how we think of them after that and how we condition ourselves. Later in his presentation, he talks about privilege and how white people could benefit from better equity. He says, "Privilege softens you to a point where you can't deal with set back." He also says that privilege is dangerous in this sense. I could really connect with that because I know that there have been a lot of times in my life when I've looked at people around me and really not understood how they overcome something tragic that happened to them. I can't imagine how I would handle certain situations that I've seen friends of mine go through, or how I would be able to find the strength in myself to get through them. I think a large part of that is because I'm softened to the point of not necessarily knowing how to handle certain situations. He compares this to The Great Depression when the rich people were killing themselves meanwhile, poor people were standing in line to get soup from the soup kitchen. He talks about how rich people couldn't cope with being poor, but poor people knew how to handle the stock market crash. I took a lot away from his speech and I feel like he really hit the nail on the head in his discussion.

"In Service of What?" Kahne and Westheimer

This article talks a lot about the difference between charity and change. Teachers and educators who have their students participate in service learning projects take two different approaches. There are the teachers like, Mr. Johnson who was an example given in the reading, who take the approach of charity. His goal for his students was to help those in need. On the other hand, there was Ms. Adams who advocated change. Mr. Johnson's students were required to do things like volunteer work, and help those who were less fortunate. Ms. Adam's students did a lot more analyzing of the issue. They chose to focus on homelessness and they had class discussions, and really focused on the issue rather than focusing on just helping the issue. There is a table in the article that describes the difference in the two. It is shown here.

 

 

 

 

I completely agree with the over all idea that service goes hand in hand with learning. I think a lot of times students just get put in a classroom and are expected to learn the material by sitting and listening to a teacher talk. I don't think that's a realistic way to learn because we all need to do hands on activities and have a better understanding of life outside of the classroom. I've definitely taken a lot more out of a class when there was something that was required in the means of service outside of the classroom. I felt like I learned more about things of importance than I would have just sitting and listening to a teacher.