tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45086641783741333552024-02-20T22:13:21.300-08:00Tina's Talking PointsTina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-31683285959486586722011-11-26T10:52:00.000-08:002011-11-26T10:53:06.764-08:00Kounting on Kohn<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">I. Trouble with Rubrics (Alfie Kohn)</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Rubrics Are All I Know:</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"> As someone who remembers rubrics being used when she was in high school, I can’t say that I wholeheartedly agree with Kohn’s argument. As a student and as a teacher, I actually really enjoy using rubrics for grading. I mean, I guess I fall victim to that whole idea of rubrics being a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">handy strategy of self-justification during parent conferences.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> To me, rubrics are the clearest way possible to justify a grade. What you have to remember is I barely remember school WITHOUT a rubric system, both within my own personal experiences and as an educator. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, I do not use rubrics for everything; I use rubrics for probably about 2-3 assignments a quarter. I mean, some people use rubrics for everything, which can definitely be an overload for our students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I actually do not like our school-wide rubrics; I prefer to make my own with specific directions so the students know what I am looking for. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Classroom v. Policy:</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">I understand that Kohn makes the point of how rubrics provide the opportunity to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">get a bunch of people to agree on what rating to give an assignment as long as they’re willing to accept and apply someone else’s narrow criteria for what merits that rating.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> But, what do we do as teachers when we are being TOLD to use school-wide rubrics that have graduation expectations and grade span expectations embedded throughout the columns? My high school is up for NEASC accreditation in March of 2012, and they are grading us using a rubric system. My principal has told us that part of the accreditation is asking us how often we use rubrics. So, now what? </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">All About the Grades: </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kohn seems to be adamant that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“all bets are off if <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">students </span>are given the rubrics and asked to navigate by them.”</i> Part of our evaluation system (not so sure how this plays into the new evaluations) is “teacher provide the student with a rubric.” Ok, now rubrics are not only the way I am expected to grade my students, but<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> I</i> am being graded on whether or not I provide the proper grading tool?? AHH!! So, when we are evaluated at NPHS, the evaluator will take off points if no rubric is provided AND we are expected to read over the expectations during our lesson. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, do rubrics limit creativity on the student end? Maybe. However, I teach heterogeneously grouped classes or inclusion classes at NPHS. I feel like my population of students need that scaffolding. Actually, my teacher’s assistant for our American History/ Civics I class just told me how one of our students claimed I was tricking to “trick the class” because I asked them to write an opinion essay! I mean, I guess this particular student falls into Kohn’s fear of students <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“who </i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">have been led to focus on getting A’s rather than on making sense of ideas.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> How can classes, in some instance, not be “all about the grades” where federal funding is based “all about the grades”? I can’t stand the hypocrisy…..</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">II. The Case Against “Tougher Standards”(Alfie Kohn)</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ummm… What About The Kids? </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So, when talking about the societal changes in the 1800s with my history class, I bring in a graphic organizer that asks them to look at the ways in which modern society views the mentally ill, those with special needs, educational policies, and literature with the view from the 1800s. Education is the topic I focus on most. I do an assignment called “take a line and walk with it” (yeah Maureen and Morgan!) where I give them two quotes from Deborah Gist and her view of education from the Providence Journal.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-size: large;"><strong>“Parent involvement is important, and supportive, engaged parents are important partners in a child's education. Fortunately, we know that great teaching can overcome those instances when children have parents who are unable to provide that level of support. I don't blame teachers, but I do hold them accountable for results.” </strong></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><strong><br />
<span style="color: #b45f06;"></span></strong></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";"><span style="color: #b45f06; font-size: large;"><strong>“Schools and teachers should do everything they can to engage parents and to help them support their child's learning. However, every educator is responsible for student success regardless of that child's background or family support. In fact, children whose families struggle to support them need our help and a quality education more than anyone.” </strong></span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> I ask the kids to reflect on the quotes. I didn’t know where this assignment was going to go, especially because the quotes were a little controversial. We literally had a 45 minute discussion on the idea of how the education system makes no sense and adults are blaming all the wrong people. One of my students asked, “how come no one asks kids what they think would be helpful for us?” which, of course, Kohn directly points out in his article – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Left out almost entirely is the point of view of the students themselves, and the impact on their learning.”<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></i></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Who Makes the Rules:</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Kohn writes- <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Today, it is almost impossible to distinguish Democrats from Republicans on this set of issues -- only those with some understanding of how children learn from those who haven't a clue.”</i> I cannot tell you how many times I have talked about this issue with my students. Last week, I engaged my students in an activity to get them thinking about the setup of the Declaration of Independence. I asked them to get into groups of four, gave them chart paper, and asked them to list at least four rules that they did not agree with and come up with a compromise to solve the issue. They then had to sign their names (their “John Hancock”, if you will) at the bottom. One rule my high schoolers came up with was no recess and their compromise was a 15 minute break period right after lunch before class started. We got into a whole discussion of the reason why kids don’t have recess or study – obviously, the reason why kids aren’t learning is because there aren’t ENOUGH subjects in a school day and that studies are a waste of educational opportunities. It’s like how Kohn pointed out that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the idea that if something isn't working very well -- say, requiring students to do homework of dubious value -- then insisting on more of the same will surely solve the problem..”</i> Like the kids need more school to motivate them. Riiiight…. I told my kids the other day, I had half hour recess from kindergarten to eighth grade THEN I had an hour and a half of study every other day from ninth through twelfth grade. Well, I think I turned out ok. I mean, some institute of higher education told me I earned a piece of paper that says I can teach kids. Like, why don’t people who are actually in the classroom get to help make the rules about education?? Oh, cause that would make sense…..<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></b></span></div>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-77232141791861732652011-11-19T11:33:00.000-08:002011-11-19T11:41:10.296-08:00Kliewer: A Personal Experience.. A Lifechanging Exchange...<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My Life in Special Education: Personal Recollections </span></u></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Reading <u>Citizenship in Schools: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome</u> by Christopher Kliewer really made me reflect on my own personal experiences. After graduating from URI in 2007, I found that the education job market was completely saturated with history teachers. Thirty history teachers graduated from my program at URI that year alone, and I can only imagine how many others from different colleges and universities as well as those who have been subbing in the system for years were vying for those coveted public school teaching jobs in Rhode Island. My mother suggested applying through the diocese, but because I have unfortunately become a “cafeteria Catholic” (you know, picking and choosing what I want and don’t want from religion), I felt uncomfortable asking my parish priest (who was there when I was baptized) for a recommendation. I lasted three months subbing in the West Warwick public school system. It wasn’t the kids that turned me off from the job; it was the inconsistency in hours and lack of health insurance. I decided to look for anything that involved in the education system. I came across an advertisement for a teacher’s assistant where the description was handling children with “developmental and behavioral disorders.” Well, I’ve never worked in special education before, but I applied anyway. Within a day of faxing over my resume, I received a phone call to go on an interview at the Sargent Rehabilitation Center Day School- a school designed specifically for students with severe and profound special needs. Now after going on a successful interview with the hiring director, I started in a “high school classroom” with children ranging from 14-21. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I absolutely loved my two years I spent at Sargent. Honestly, I would have stayed there but I knew ultimately I wanted to at least give public school a try (to this day, I credit my experiences at Sargent with the reason why NPHS hired me in the first place, and I always request the inclusion classes at the high school). I worked with a population of students who I would have never gotten a chance to work with had I been able to find a teaching job right out of college. I was a teacher’s assistant for about a year until I was promoted to reading/ literacy teacher of the entire school of about 40 kids. As Kliewer states from Judith Snow, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“how absurd to be judged by others at all, especially by those who have never experienced a disability or who are unwillingly providing us with support or who don’t listen to the voices we have.”(72) </i>I worked with children who were verbal and non-verbal, so I got to figure out ways to communicate that involved other methods, such as tech-talk devices, sign language, writing on paper, spelling, or simply reading body language. I worked with children who were severely on the autism spectrum, traumatic brain injury, and literally other disorders I had never even heard of because of their rarity. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was complaining one day at Sargent how I still made minimum wage at my 20 hour a week job at the YMCA despite my four year college degree and the fact that I was working with the Y for over two years at that point. I was then introduced by a co-worker at Sargent into an agency that specializes in HBTS (home-based therapeutic services). I applied for the job where I literally made double the amount of money and had more flexible hours. I quit the YMCA, and for the first time ever in my life, I had two jobs that BOTH focused on a severe/profound special education population. I started working with a young, 14 year old girl named Wendy* (*names have been changed) who has a disorder so rare that it is a 1 in 200,000 chance both parents carry this recessive gene and it is only a 25% chance a parent who has one child with this disorder (her older brother) would have a second child with the same genetic issues. Wendy will be turning 18 this month, and I still work with her (over three years now) despite being enrolled in this master’s program and working as a full-time teacher.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I could not help but think of Wendy throughout this entire Kliewer reading. I am sure taking one look at Wendy and her brother Peter*, ordinary people would just see their disability. Physically, Wendy is only about 4 feet tall, and her older brother uses a stroller to be pushed around in. So, when Kliewer talks about how John Dewey believes that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“democracy is a way of life in which community both establishes and is derived from each individual’s recognition of the value of every other individual.” (72)</i>, he is essentially saying that humans need to find the value in ALL humans, not just the ones that looks or act the same way we do. I find that Wendy has impacted my world just as much, or even moreso, than I impact hers…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sometimes it is the little things that we need to appreciate. When I am out in public with Wendy, Peter, and their mother, I get angry when I see people stare. It’s inevitable, but I wish I could go up to parents who are screaming at their kids for touching groceries and say “you should be grateful your child has the ability to help you.” When describing a student named Lee, Kliewer writes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“People see him. They see mental retardation, whatever you want to call it. That’s what they see, but they wouldn’t be seeing him. Do you know what I mean? Because Lee is Lee, and anyone who knows Lee knows.” (84)</i> This is what I want to verbalize when people see Wendy. I wish people knew her for her, and not just her disability. The way Wendy and I interact may seems as odd to those who don’t know our relationship, but I find communicating with her, despite the fact she is non-verbal, to be relatively easy. She loves power tools, and sometimes we spend 15 minutes mimicking the sound of a circular saw or a lawn mower. She loves singing and playing “follow the leader” around the house. We read books together, despite the fact she cannot read at all but merely holds on to my finger as I read each word to her and she smiles. Her receptive language far supersedes her expressive language; she can point to various objects in the house and knows exactly where they are. She loves ice skating, despite the fact she’s never been on ice. She loves snow, and we listen to Christmas music no matter what time of the year it is. Yes, she may be different, but she is who she is. When I first met Wendy, I saw her as a child with a severe disability. Now I see Wendy as a typical teenager more and more every day. She wears skinny jeans, sweater dresses, and knee high boots with fur. Her love for dancing is evident at every school dance. She always hogs the radio when we are in the car and sings incoherent sounds to the melody at the top of her lungs. When Kliewer quotes Shayne by saying, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“So what if you don’t fit exactly what you’re supposed to?” (77), </i>I ask the same thing to those people who have never experienced working with a child who needs more assistance than normal. Don’t judge before you know them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wendy attends Meeting Street school, which at her level is not inclusion and she has never experienced being socially around typical kids her age ever in her life. When she was in elementary and middle school, educational policy was the segregation that Kliewer fights so avidly against in his article. I think it is great that Vygotsky, a well-respected theorist in child development believed that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the culture of segregation surrounding people with disabilities actually teaches underdevelopment of thinking through the isolation of children from socially valued opportunities.” (83)</i> It is utterly disappointing that Wendy, because she is non-verbal, was placed in a classroom for other non-verbal children. How could Wendy’s life have been different if she only heard other voices of her peers while growing up? How come Wendy talks to me? Oh, it’s because I force her to, engage her in conversation, and talk TO her (not AT her). How come I was able to get Wendy to stop signing the word yes (shaking your fist up and down) to say the word “yes” out loud. She says “Hi Tina” (I mean, she SPOKE my name! It took 2 ½ years, but she finally said my name!) It is important to remember that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“school citizenship requires that students should not be categorized and separated based on presume defect.” (85)</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">While closing this personal account, as is evident, this is a topic that is close to my heart. I want to conclude with a quote from Kliewer. Please, remember as an educator that, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“a sense of reciprocity or shared value exists in relationships in which individuals, including those with the most severe disabilities, are recognized as thinking, feeling, caring human beings with personalities of their own.” (88) </i>Wendy has more personality than some mainstream students that I know. I wish everyone had the ability to work one on one with a child who has a disability just to appreciate patience. Just to appreciate the little things. Just to appreciate success in situations that seemed like there wouldn't be success. And really, just to appreciate.</span></div>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-36794865851217125542011-11-12T09:24:00.001-08:002011-11-12T09:24:30.895-08:00Sneak Peek: Language and Power Presentation<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hello SED552,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Seth and I will be your facilitators on Tuesday, November 15<sup>th</sup>, 2011 for our graduate course at Rhode Island College. The theme of the class is “Language and Power”, according to our syllabus, and we look forward to analyzing the two required texts for class through using some strategies/ games that you can hopefully bring back to your classrooms to use with your students. So, please make sure you all read the two required pieces (both from the book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tongue Tied </i>(2004):</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Aria” by Richard (Ricardo) Rodriguez</span></b></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Teaching Multilingual Children” by Virginia Collier</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As far as the content of Tuesday’s seminar, we just wanted to point out some aspects of both pieces that will be discussed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1. Aria (Rodriguez)</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The idea of “private” versus “public” language:</i></b> Rodriguez really makes this point a theme of this passage. He opens up the narrative by calling Spanish (his native language) a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“private language”</i> (34) When beginning to learn English in school, Rodriguez’s teachers come to his home and ask his parents to speak English in the home to better acclimate Rodriguez and his sister to America. At first, the speaking of English in the home is almost a game. In fact, Rodriguez recalls <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“After diner each night, the family gathered to practice ‘our’ English. Laughing, we would try to define words we could not pronounce.”</i> (35) However, once Rodriguez and his siblings became more confident in English, it seems like their worlds were changed. Rodriguez admits that there was<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> “a new quiet at home” </i>and that he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“no longer knew what words to use when addressing [his] parents.” </i>(37). So, once his public world and private world collided, this course of action forever alters his life and view on bilingual education.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The “sounds” of a language:</i></b> Rodriguez discusses how it isn’t necessarily <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what </i>the person says, it is how it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sounds</i> to us; the same way in which French, Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian are known as “romance languages” because of the pitch, tone, and accent. Rodriguez specifically states the various sounds he heard in English versus Spanish and how those sounds resonated with him. Upon news of the nuns demanding English at home, Rodriguez laments that his parents <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“in an instant, they agreed to give up the language (the sounds) that had revealed and accentuated our family’s closeness.”</i> (35) He describes the English language, initially, as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“gringo sounds”</i> and how those sounds <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“startled”</i> him.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>(35) Eventually, as his English becomes more and more prominent, he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“stopped hearing the high and low sounds of los gringos.”</i> (36) Rodriguez continues to acknowledge, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“a more and more confident speaker of English, I didn’t trouble to listen to how strangers sounded speaking to me. And there simply were too many English speaking people in my day for me to hear American accents anymore.”</i> (36) Unfortunately, as his English became better and better, his desire to speak Spanish (that private language) dwindled. As Rodriguez looks back on his youth, he describes how hearing Spanish, he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“continued to be a careful, if sad, listener of sounds.” </i>(38)</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Language and Family:</i></b> Rodriguez seems to have an extremely strong relationship with his family when Spanish is the predominately (and sometimes only) language spoken. However, as his English increases, there seems to be a disconnect between parent and child. He describes his family as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“a loving family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness.”</i> (36) </span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Silence:</i></b> There seems to be many a night in the Rodriguez household that was spent in silence after the children were required to speak in English.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2. Teaching Multilingual Children (Collier)</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Techniques and Strategies</i></b>: It seems as those this piece is more of the academic piece, whereas the Aria piece is a memoir. Collier attempts to provide ways in which teachers can help those students who are multilingual. She asks teachers to be aware of how children learn and that literacy in a native language helps promote second language literacy, not hinders it. She also discusses how the idea of “code switching” (the ability to speak two languages in the same sentence), actually is beneficial to an English language learner. I guess people used to see code switching as the inability to process language (almost like confusing the two) but actually, code switching shows a higher intelligence because the person understands language placement in both languages.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Opposite Views: </i></b>Collier and Rodriguez have opposite views of how second language acquisition should function in public schools. Rodriguez seems to be in favor of English immersion only whereas Collier believes bilingualism should be promoted in the classroom. Dun dun DUNN!!!<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Come with Questions: </i></b>This article will be where the bulk of our discussion will lie, so please come prepared with questions and your game faces on!<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After a delicious dinner at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twin’s Pizza</i>, Seth and I are pretty pumped about Tuesday. I hope you guys are too! Yeay!! GOOOOOOOOOO TEAM!!</span></div>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-51056649313336952632011-11-05T19:02:00.000-07:002011-11-05T19:03:31.657-07:00Remember, Remember the Fifth of November... (Promising Practices)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWsxaLyVaSiQk92LF9NUeprg0_kKO1fucqN6x0OofsTo9tVRbdWQ-90IuErX9QNDA5NgrnqLaia9bIaATcZJTZaJHlsKicgClVvTA5_zxlYBDyNh23-LxVSuZqqNMR_18xKeQRWdt9r70/s1600/logo2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWsxaLyVaSiQk92LF9NUeprg0_kKO1fucqN6x0OofsTo9tVRbdWQ-90IuErX9QNDA5NgrnqLaia9bIaATcZJTZaJHlsKicgClVvTA5_zxlYBDyNh23-LxVSuZqqNMR_18xKeQRWdt9r70/s1600/logo2.gif" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I really enjoy going to professional developments. I actually try to attend at least one a month (and I’ve been successful since my second year of teaching). I’ve been to some really good PDs and some pretty boring PDs. I must say, today’s seminar at Rhode Island College was overall organized and informative.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><b><u><br />
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</u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Clarke Science 106 – Using Visual Images to Promote Inclusivity and Reduce Bias<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I am a visual learner. The vast majority of my students are visual learners. Therefore, it made sense to me to attend a breakout session focused on my other love besides teaching – photography. I absolutely adore taking photographs. In fact, the majority of my PowerPoints that I make for my classroom contain photographs that I have taken. I show my kids places I’ve been to if it relates to a historical topic; this comes fairly easy for my colonial American history units seeing I focus almost completely on Rhode Island history from Native Americans to the Industrial Revolution. Kathy, Shannon, and I were in attendance at Workshop C early this morning:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Workshop One: Analyzing the Inclusivity of School Environment Through Photographs<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Marissa Weiss and Rita Nerny were the presenters for this workshop. They discussed with a group of roughly 25 participants the study of <b>visual anthropology</b> which, according to Collier, is the ability of a person to “remove façade from organizations and look directly at the contents of the culture.” I interpreted this study as a detailed analysis of photographs where the viewer looks for messages. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Weiss and Nerny gave the participants a <b>“Photograph Classifications in Taxonomy for Equity Climate” </b>rubric. This rubric dissects the picture into four categories: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">1. Type of Artifact (sign, graffiti, architecture, art)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">2. Equity Parameters (gender, socio-economic status, religion, race, physical, sexual orientation, ethnicity)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">3. Message Content (roles, safety, belonging, equality)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">4. Equity Approach (transformational/social action, contributions/additive, negative, null) <o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We had the opportunity to analyze photographs as well as view the pictures taken in a <b>campus ecology</b> (analysis through physical attributes of a campus) study. Nerny took us through her photographic study of Rhode Island College. Most interesting, she took a picture of a cubicle in the library where the phrase “welcome to one of the many places on campus I masturbate” was written (URI’s library had an issue with “glory holes” when I was there, so I guess the library is the cool place to get it on...)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Like I said, I love taking pictures and I think I have a pretty good eye for photography. I have always wanted to assign a <b>photo narration</b> project where my students had to buy a scrapbook and take pictures of street signs, items, buildings, or whatever it may be that reminds them of what we have studied in class and write paragraph captions describing the significance. For example, I live on Smith Street; a student could take a picture of that street sign and write a caption about John Smith (founder of Jamestown colony) or Venture Smith (an African prince brought to America as a slave). I just always thought it would be so cool for the students to see how much history is in this little state (actually, 25% of EVERYTHING on the national historical registry is located in Rhode Island!)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">The background of my blog is a picture I took of the ceiling at the Bellagio in Vegas. Here is some more pictures from my photo narrative (just for fun):</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5u6-b1VWqsNcnRnf3Xr7cm88_QuYe2Ic0q9iz0SXnsunHP6gkN3ZpOeyv7dVwbrY7a0Hj5AYTSp1VwjqnJbFbybO5yJA1hX6l5ApEi8nghDgzId9DI_GcgWJJ6RcB5naklEMsVvjQVtA/s1600/BlackandGoldGame+037.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5u6-b1VWqsNcnRnf3Xr7cm88_QuYe2Ic0q9iz0SXnsunHP6gkN3ZpOeyv7dVwbrY7a0Hj5AYTSp1VwjqnJbFbybO5yJA1hX6l5ApEi8nghDgzId9DI_GcgWJJ6RcB5naklEMsVvjQVtA/s320/BlackandGoldGame+037.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Workshop Two: Building Confidence in Islamic Students<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Mary Bell Hawkins was the presenter for my second breakout session. I’ll be honest, I had NO idea how the topic of this workshop was going to fit into my classroom. However, the majority of what I learned can be easily implemented into my Western Civilization course. Hawkins started out the presentation by debunking popular myths about people from the Middle East such as being “oppressive to women”, “oil rich”, “terrorists”, “living in the Middle Ages”, and “taking multiple wives.” So, when studying Mesopotamia, if my students were to bring up current day issues in the Middle East, I now have some solid background on how to combat issues of stereotypes, whereas before I may have been inclined to simply ignore the question or move on.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWPGLpR40rQ5PqOBb7wO-J08TXBojSyLyKdJXT3bOFMmsWyvhBjR43L6VEuHM1QjZ34i3spgRQcXMhUSwJXTUVapiVqi2Tv38m0AasDqVmRkL0VPeaDSyX_bW5o8Uovisz3aCr5khJqBM/s1600/Mary-icon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWPGLpR40rQ5PqOBb7wO-J08TXBojSyLyKdJXT3bOFMmsWyvhBjR43L6VEuHM1QjZ34i3spgRQcXMhUSwJXTUVapiVqi2Tv38m0AasDqVmRkL0VPeaDSyX_bW5o8Uovisz3aCr5khJqBM/s200/Mary-icon.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Halos are Turkish origin</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWK7KhsG_nF3iB-K6gp5u5w1IErMKtvGet03WiDq4xKQZZBdgmJYe_LZCaobxh3pDG6UYijCVBe8JAdRevFWk0ooHRFNWCv9KMSWDU68MoL4Sxv3Cw7BHGB2gYZ4487kBLlJKeyJMxsf4/s1600/300px-Sanzio_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWK7KhsG_nF3iB-K6gp5u5w1IErMKtvGet03WiDq4xKQZZBdgmJYe_LZCaobxh3pDG6UYijCVBe8JAdRevFWk0ooHRFNWCv9KMSWDU68MoL4Sxv3Cw7BHGB2gYZ4487kBLlJKeyJMxsf4/s200/300px-Sanzio_01.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>School of Athens </i>-Raphael Sanzio</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I also learned about the extreme cultural and scientific revolutions that were made in the Arab world, even BEFORE the Italian Renaissance that Europeans hold so dear. I learned that Arab people were the first to invent checks, separate courses in meals, the process of courtship, algebra, chemistry, batteries, astronomy, pharmacy, and cures for STDs. Even Renaissance art has influences from the Islamic world. For example, the halos found around Mary and Jesus in paintings are Turkish influence. There is something called “Kuffic script” that is found inside the halos that are found on Turkish trays. In Renaissance art, there are people wearing Turkish costumes, there are Persian/Turkish ornamental rugs, and there are Turkish tents found throughout a majority of paintings. In Raphael’s famous piece of art, <i>The School of Athens, </i>there are numerous Greek and Roman philosophers and great thinkers. Included in this painting is a man named Averroes, an Arabic “great thinker.” I honestly did not know how influential Arab people were to the Europeans, except that we use Arabic numbers, not Roman numerals.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b><u><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Teen Empowerment<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Lastly, I was able to meet up with my entire SED552 class as we all went to Gaige Hall to listen to a group of young people talk about their experiences with <b>Teen Empowerment</b>: an after school group set in Boston that focuses on three key points:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">1. Youth have the ability to make real and meaningful change in their schools and in their communities.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">2. To make real change, youth need access to adequate resources to implement their ideas – need to ACT, not just SPEAK!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">3. Most effective forms of youth and adult leadership are facilitative rather than command in nature – youth are naturally rebellious; don’t just tell youths, you need to show them, build experiences, and make them feel responsible.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I really enjoyed the icebreaker games (and I cringe at icebreaker games yet make my kids do them) like “Stand Up and Move”, “Bean Bag Toss” (great for vocabulary review!), and “Where the Wind Blows” (great for topic discussion and analysis.) What else really impressed me was the maturity and eloquence in which these kids spoke. I mean, they were all from rough neighborhoods and got into trouble, yet they understood how a teacher who makes connections with his/her students can be all the difference in a child’s life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-68864705597534862622011-10-30T06:17:00.000-07:002011-10-30T06:41:29.973-07:00... with Liberty and Justice for ALL! (Meyer)In today’s society, there seems to be an ever-increasing amount of bullying amongst the pre-teen and young adult population. The situation is ever so exacerbated through social media websites such as Facebook, where students feel as though they have ultimate power in using hateful words. At schools, teachers are so quick to defuse a situation where students are using derogatory words or racial slurs. However, teachers and other personnel may be apprehensive about intervening in scenarios where hurtful language in the context of gender and sexuality is proclaimed. Elizabeth Meyer, author of <u><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Gendered Harassment in Secondary Schools: Understanding Teachers’ (Non) Interventions</span></u>, delves into a school system to see how often and under what circumstances teachers intervene in situations that promote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“name calling, jokes, gestures as well as physical and sexual assaults that are sexist, homophobic, or transphobic in nature.” (2)</i> <br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/uEpBYKOs3ys?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><span style="text-decoration: none;"></span></u></i></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Why Don’t Teachers Intervene?</u></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Meyer makes an excellent point in her research; there are a multitude of reasons as to why teachers do not intervene in gender harassment situations. Meyers cites evidence from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“not feeling supported by their administrators and believing that oftentimes the discipline meted out for instances of sexual or homophobic harassment was not sufficient” (7) </i>to feeling <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“great pressure from their administration to cover the required amounts of curricular material and the stresses placed on them by large classes and demanding course loads caused them to ignore certain behaviors.”(8) </i>So, it seems as though many teacher would like a stronger and more supportive administration to help them intervene in these scenarios.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWVD3TPfaTlzlQB7-_OgkjxmG1_b3iGq2Vg-dptdgHO2lTbom6qrHJMHTlTsL61zUuoeCA7if2KcYHwIJHRVwlxkAZm-onj4nuUocOYPgYa75bsx-0rpF-Wy_UhMnd_Hsm6pLtX0Piy88/s1600/teacheroverwhelmed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWVD3TPfaTlzlQB7-_OgkjxmG1_b3iGq2Vg-dptdgHO2lTbom6qrHJMHTlTsL61zUuoeCA7if2KcYHwIJHRVwlxkAZm-onj4nuUocOYPgYa75bsx-0rpF-Wy_UhMnd_Hsm6pLtX0Piy88/s320/teacheroverwhelmed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Educators and staff persons also <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“felt that their teacher education programs did not sufficiently prepare them to address incidents of harassment or bullying.” (9)</i> Not only did these teachers feel inadequate in their preparation, but they also felt they couldn’t pursue additional professional development because <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“since they were encouraged to do professional development primarily in their area of instruction.” (9) </i>To me, this is a complete disservice to those teachers; this type of training could be another tool for the proverbial teacher toolbox. As Welsch pointed out in his last article, it is kind of useless for a teacher to lecture about everything they know seeing we can look up information so quickly on the internet. As much as I agree content professional development is important, so are social and behavioral techniques as well.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwIuGMD9Ulv5DgNFgrBNZn6PJxdforTloH1dA6OeiV3WQKdoGdD2edSzDW1gwibwHX_62sBsuPZdiA_bmrSDNkD-zJXUBfQ6iwNLpHeBiunWPSknioQ-uyv0MuK5I69gF993kSnTe-qiI/s1600/Student-Debt-Cartoon-Big.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwIuGMD9Ulv5DgNFgrBNZn6PJxdforTloH1dA6OeiV3WQKdoGdD2edSzDW1gwibwHX_62sBsuPZdiA_bmrSDNkD-zJXUBfQ6iwNLpHeBiunWPSknioQ-uyv0MuK5I69gF993kSnTe-qiI/s320/Student-Debt-Cartoon-Big.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Again, thinking about Welsch, my four year college degree did not prepare me for what I would encounter in the classroom. He mentioned how students need to be asked questions, given hands on scenarios, and real-life problems to figure out. Besides perhaps three undergraduate education courses, sometimes I ask myself, “what skills did my $56,000 education truly get me that I couldn’t have learned in a hands-on training program?” Even student teaching didn’t really prepare me – I started halfway through January (when all the classroom norms and protocols were established). So, wouldn’t intervention strategies these teachers that Meyers was studying be more beneficial than more and more content?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>… And Then They Came For Me</u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">I took one special education course in college, but it was my two years at Sargent Rehabilitation Center where I learned skills to aid students with severe and profound special needs. I have spent the past three years working in home-based therapeutic services (HBTS) with a teenager that goes to Meeting Street School. I learned behavior modification skills and interaction techniques that I was not taught in the four walls of a classroom. The special education population is my favorite group of kids to work with; every year I request to teach an inclusion class. So when Meyers mentions that teachers’ <em>“personal experiences with discrimination and marginalization that made them particularly sensitive to these issues in schools” (17),</em> I can'thelp but whole-heartedly agree. In my classroom, students are not allowed to say the word retarded because of my past history working in special education. Every year I always explain to my students why that word is inappropriate, and the use of the word actually does dwindle in my classroom (and when I shoot the kids a dirty look for saying that word, they instantly apologize and change their original statement.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzjsdbM_afVFvdHG3CnWJTCtdvLM4G82RaKrF5cQxusm8rAjors5EsdQt0Uqvp3Z6VOcysnk4e6ZJpjkqlSknUfGTQVI6bMqx3npjVx5lL4wIl-EuN_ymRkynZfMgE3LG-Xw1Z0rcPqcQ/s1600/bishop%252Bhendricken.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzjsdbM_afVFvdHG3CnWJTCtdvLM4G82RaKrF5cQxusm8rAjors5EsdQt0Uqvp3Z6VOcysnk4e6ZJpjkqlSknUfGTQVI6bMqx3npjVx5lL4wIl-EuN_ymRkynZfMgE3LG-Xw1Z0rcPqcQ/s1600/bishop%252Bhendricken.gif" /></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also try as best as possible (although I admit not as often with the word retarded) to intervene with homosexual terms. Maybe I should tell the story of my best friend in high school who went to Hendricken and only came out to a few close friends by his senior year (because he was afraid of what would happen to him at an all-boys schools.) Maybe I should explain to my kids that when he got to college, no one cared whether people were gay, straight, had three kids already, slept through your classes, or were from a different country. Maybe college is a whole different ballgame, but I want my kids to know that those words can hurt. As Meyers explains, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Anti-gay epithets are commonly used as insults in schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These may be used with no actual connection to one’s sexual orientation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As many scholars of masculinity have argued, these terms are often used because they are seen as the worst thing you can call a boy.” (4)</i> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Common Sense? Thanks, Thomas Paine!</u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjToMMpF2sBHkV-vaEXrkICmHOMua78ta3ypGeJRutF1OI_3zp1dLcAMP02mz867yS8sqcX5k4QejMhIKyirY9Y64vDnuNFMPrpf-K9OFPNM7cYKdZVufsxFKJOwSiLrJC7YayFUEtDiKY/s1600/Thomas_Paine_Common_Sense.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjToMMpF2sBHkV-vaEXrkICmHOMua78ta3ypGeJRutF1OI_3zp1dLcAMP02mz867yS8sqcX5k4QejMhIKyirY9Y64vDnuNFMPrpf-K9OFPNM7cYKdZVufsxFKJOwSiLrJC7YayFUEtDiKY/s200/Thomas_Paine_Common_Sense.jpg" width="138" /></a>Ever hear the phrase “as cruel as school children?” Why are kids to mean to each other? I tell my students (and I truly mean it), I would never want to be a kid today. I was teased enough in middle and my early high school years without the invention of the internet. I can’t imagine what these kids go through on a daily basis. Technology is great in some ways, but in others, it’s not. What if we offered a course to our students on internet safety? Not a one hour in school assembly (where the kids are more focused on which class they are missing), but an actual course that maybe lasts a semester? When I went to the National Writing Project convention March of 2011 with three representatives from the Rhode Island Writing Project, I attended a workshop from <a href="http://www.commonsense.org/"><span style="color: blue;">www.commonsense.org</span></a> called Digital Citizenship. It is a free online curriculum that could be perfect for anyone who teaches advisory (add this one to our Prezi, Maureen!!) or perhaps a similar course. I use the privacy issues when talking about the Fourth Amendment.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge1-fdhw-p1JW0tv5tXaBgP0c3niMRXtiLu3bnDKXX-xMSCFSbOVfZw2feOL9se-4DJCcU3x-ZyWyChJwAVHcXcqUkoENUQ2sHYEg2isRCy-P4fyhXVgCH427GO2Ydk36r9nW1OufDRiM/s1600/NWPDC_270.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge1-fdhw-p1JW0tv5tXaBgP0c3niMRXtiLu3bnDKXX-xMSCFSbOVfZw2feOL9se-4DJCcU3x-ZyWyChJwAVHcXcqUkoENUQ2sHYEg2isRCy-P4fyhXVgCH427GO2Ydk36r9nW1OufDRiM/s320/NWPDC_270.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Four RIWP representatives in Washington, DC: March 2011</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">As Meyers focuses on the issues of gender and sexuality, maybe we all need to use our own common sense skills when dealing with these issues in our classrooms. Why isn’t a social justice course mandated for ALL undergraduates in college (really, this could extend to business courses, public relations, and any major that directly deals with people.) I would much rather have taken a course like this in the University of Rhode Island education program than “educational measurements” – a course I learned nothing relative to my career, but I remember it because it was my only B- in college…</div>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-71923699244257350112011-10-22T11:24:00.000-07:002011-10-22T11:24:19.226-07:00Connect the Dots. La. La. La. La. (Welsh)<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Make it Real and Make it Matter</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Michael Welsh, author of <u>Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance</u>, could not be more on point with his opening statement of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“students – our most important critics – are struggling to find meaning and significance in their education.” (5)</i> Welsh further elaborates by pointing out the fact that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“meaning and significance are assured only when our learning fits in with a grand narrative that motivates and guides us.” (6) </i>How many times have you heard in the classroom “why do I need to learn this” or “when will I ever use this in real life”? For whatever reason, it is absolutely important for our students to find a purpose in their education. Students opt to quit school, maybe not because of the difficulty, but perhaps for the <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSWapLsIB0jN66MuCPG9bPz208EIzrKA3NbMd7LRr5zkDUUIDYoUEAm6LClXRAap8sXymsOF2cxeLFzCRwnS5I27v6E1uFk-8THH4KHvUHhXRDZu8NonVgOCuWchiiZCGESt_6NsOkn_8/s1600/bored-students.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" id="il_fi" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSWapLsIB0jN66MuCPG9bPz208EIzrKA3NbMd7LRr5zkDUUIDYoUEAm6LClXRAap8sXymsOF2cxeLFzCRwnS5I27v6E1uFk-8THH4KHvUHhXRDZu8NonVgOCuWchiiZCGESt_6NsOkn_8/s200/bored-students.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="188" /></a>inability to see the purpose behind the curriculum taught in the classroom. I know it is rather challenging to justify subject matter on a daily basis. However, it is absolutely imperative that every so often we remind students why they are in school in the first place – to receive an education that will provide them with skills and social opportunities needed for the professional workplace. I went to a history professional development a year ago. One of the speakers was a Brown University professor named Luther Spoehr. His major message was to “make history real and make history matter.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every opportunity I get, I always emphasize this phrase in my classroom. Just recently, my class learned about Rhode Island’s major role in the slave trade- we drew a visual for a quote by a middle passage survivor (Odaluah Equiano), read the narrative a young African boy brought to Rhode Island as a servant (Venture Smith), watched a clip from the movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Amistad</i>, and learned about two prominent Rhode Island families (Brown and DeWolf) who made money off the slave trade. This entire unit was structured in a way so that slavery and the slave trade became real to my students, not just a sad story read out of a textbook. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A Vision of Students Today</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Before even reading Welsh’s article, I viewed the video “A Vision of Students Today” as part of a media literacy piece in a Northern Rhode Island Collaborative grant I am a part of called “Teaching American History.” Not only are northern Rhode Island history teachers of any age group taught relevant content for our subject matter, but we are also provided with training on how to incorporate more technology and social media into our classrooms. Before we even began our training, our professor from Drexel University told us a story – <strong>“If Paul Revere was brought back to life, he would be absolutely petrified. He would see cars, skyscrapers, and people in exotic dress. However, the one place he would feel safe would be a school, because the physical structure has not changed since he was a young boy.”</strong> That’s a pretty scary statement if you think about it. So, as part of this grant that dealt in part with media literacy, we were trained in how to use blogs, Glogster (a website where you can create a collage poster of yourself), and EModo (an educational Facebook for teachers to connect with their students). Unfortunately, my school has all these sites blocked (which is something we have to battle with as teachers). For those of you who have not seen the video, it is extremely powerful:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I know I have wasted money on textbooks I’ll never use again. Or never opened in the first place. Then, when I would go return them, I’d get 20 bucks or I was told the school is getting a new edition and mine was outdated. Awesome.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Socrates</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Diane and Jim’s Socratic seminar last class really sheds light on Welsh’s idea of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the only answer to the best questions is another good question.” (5)</i> Socrates really challenged his students to become better thinkers, not by supplying them with the answers, but probing and asking continuous questions to enable his students to gain critical thinking skills. Sometimes it’s hard as the “expert” in the classroom to not jump in with our knowledge, but I guess this is why most lessons begin with essential questions (again, like Diane and Jim’s presentation last week). I think Socrates would have been pleased!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Connect the Dots</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hopefully, as educators, we can continue to connect the dots and fill in the holes for our students to make sense of their education. Students, especially at the middle and high school level, struggle to find meaning in their classes. It is our job to help our students <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“recognize their own importance in helping shape the future of this increasingly global, interconnected society.” (7)</i></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://3.gvt0.com/vi/qt9EFc_7Wq8/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qt9EFc_7Wq8&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qt9EFc_7Wq8&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-70488730734943340502011-10-13T17:25:00.000-07:002011-10-13T17:46:21.816-07:00Keepin' It Rizz-eels (Tha Carter)<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong”</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As soon as I heard the title of Carter’s <u>Keeping it Real</u>, the first thought that came to my mind was a skit from Dave Chapelle’s comedy show. This segment is called <strong>“When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong.”</strong> In this particular sketch, Chappelle plays a black man named Vernon who works for a well-to-do company. The skit begins with a back story on how Vernon graduated valedictorian of his class, won scholarships to college, and beat out a cycle of drug addiction that plagued his family for years. However, an interaction with a white co-worker presents itself with a confrontation that allows Vernon to lose his composure in an office meeting….. (It’s only two minutes)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Typically, what makes comedy funny is the underlying truths behind the joke. The reason why this sketch makes people laugh is because there are certain codes of behavior that are put in place in our society, and this skit acknowledges those actions. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Acting White + Thinking White = Success in Society</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I couldn’t help but think of the students in Carter’s article that feel as though they have to “act white” in order to get ahead in life. What does it mean to act white? Well, acting white carries along the “stigma” of listening to authority, being compliant, doing well in school, so therefore, there will be a job opportunity awaiting those who listen to mainstream society. Maintaining the status quo – engaging in white cultural preferences – is what will ultimately reward individuals in the end. In fact, Carter encounters a young group of people who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“normalized the cultural experiences of White youth and adults, unconsciously equating behaviors that they associated with Whites with normality.” (59)</i> Is white behavior really considered normal? Carter describes these types of individuals as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“cultural straddlers”</i> who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“balanced their cultural practices, displaying knowledge and facility with ‘white’ styles and with the styles they shared with their peers.” (64) </i>It is interesting that young adults like Adrienne felt that, in order to get ahead in life, presentation was a key to success. Adrienne seems distressed when she spoke of how people called her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“white girl cause of the way [she] talks.” (58)</i> She further expresses concern when she makes the valid point of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“how you can distinguish between a Black person and a White person talking because of the way they talk. They’re just talking. A Black person has to speak stupid in order for you to know they’re Black?” (58)</i> I find this point to be particularly striking, especially when it comes to comedy. Have you ever heard a black man make fun of a white guy? The black comedian will straighten up their posture and talk properly. Is that supposed to be an insult? Whereas, if a white comedian makes fun a black man, it’s always “yo, yo, yo” this and “what’s up” that. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Kozol and Carter have Commonalities (like that for alliteration?!)</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Language seems to play a pretty powerful role in life. The way a person speaks demonstrates their knowledge. For example, I knew Gerri August must be an extremely intelligent person because she has an extensive vocabulary. A person’s speech could be what determines what job s/he receives or what college s/he goes to. Look at the story of Lawrence. Although described as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“quiet, studious, and respectful” </i>he<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> “has brought to his elite, predominately white graduate school a style of baggy jeans and oversized sweatshirts, popular among urban Black youth, as well as a tough or ‘hard’ demeanor that includes limited eye contact with his professors.” (65-66)</i> Educated college professors seemed to judge Lawrence, not on his obvious academic ability, but his style of dress and attitude. What about the fact that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“statistics show, on average, at least half of Asian and White students in a particular school were likely to be in the high tracked classes, while Black, Latino, and Native American students were more likely to be in the general tracks.” (73) </i>I believe this is definitely the de-facto segregation that Kozol referenced in his article <u>Still Separate, Still Unequal. </u>We have schools that place students of certain ethnicities in higher classes (probably because of their cultural attributes such as style of dress and behavior). Carter even goes as far to compare segregated classrooms with segregates neighborhoods. He makes the bold statement that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“college prepatory, honors, and advanced placement classes have become known as classes for Asian and White kids. As just as adults choose neighborhoods because of their demographic and social compositions, students often select courses based on who is likely to be enrolled in them.” (53)</i> White students may not choose “those classes” that contain ethnic minorities due to their perceived nature of African-American or Latino student stereotype of not taking school seriously.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Code Switching</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I learned about the concept of code switching when I was becoming ESL endorsed at Rhode Island College. Code switching is what English language learners do – moving from one language to another in the same sentence OR choosing a language that is appropriate for contextual settings. Sometimes people call this Spanglish (with our Latino population). However, when a young girl named Loretta <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“admitted she spoke both ‘black’ and ‘white’” (60)</i>, I had never thought about black vernacular as an entire separate language from standard English. (Although, some schools actually offer “Ebonics” as a language course: <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/1997-01-17/us/9701_17_home.speech_1_ebonics-black-english-speech?_s=PM:US">Ebonics Taught as 'Home Speech' in Georgia School</a></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wrap It Up, B</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Carter’s take on Black America. Students of minority background really seemed to feel a true divide between whites and non-whites in the school system. Some students recognized that white students are typically offered better classes and therefore will typically succeed in the real world. Bettina Shanks blamed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“her poor school performance to parent-child conflicts” (62) </i>while Rayshina attributed her lack of motivation in school on bad teachers. She emphasizes teachers who need to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“inspire students”,</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“teach them in creative ways”,</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“not bog themselves down in ineffective pedagogy and repetitious facts and classroom exercises.” (72)</i> I mean, as teachers, we can’t everything. Even Carter acknowledges that teachers are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“underpaid civil servants expected to produce literate populations”</i> who are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“asked to serve as entertainers, child psychologists, surrogate parents, and confidants.” (71)</i> However, it is our job to aid those who truly want help and promote a place of positivity – where all students can learn no matter what the skin color may be.</span></div>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-18835931816823738212011-10-08T06:28:00.000-07:002011-10-08T06:28:53.460-07:00You Have Your Own Brain (August)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I must say, out of all the texts we have read thus far, Gerri August’s <u>Making Room for One Another</u> was a text that I struggled deeply with. This wasn’t a struggle on a moral or political level, but strictly on an intellectual level; there were parts that I literally did not understand because of the highly sophisticated vocabulary. So, I apologize if my blog completely missed the mark of the excerpts we were asked to read, but I am going to try my best to make sense of the assignment. Please correct me if anyone had a different interpretation because I do not want to misrepresent the author’s ideas.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Progressive Era</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">From what I gathered in the various anecdotes throughout this article, the ZK seems to be a very liberal and progressive school. (Side question- Is the Horton School in Rhode Island? I tried googling it, but couldn’t find anything. The reason I ask is because there is a reference to Pawtucket when Cody has Zeke recant the story of the doggie adoption.) I like the whole ideas of celebrating diversity in the classroom (and not in the generic “hey-let’s-throw-up-a-picture-of-kids-with-different-skin-tones-in-a-clasroom” diversity. Because, is that really and truly diversity? Check out: <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/07/02/viewbooks">Viewbook Diversity v. Real Diversity</a>) </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://sas.guidespot.com/bundles/guides_ii/assets/widget_cGwQB73WLcEipe2VVqKY-P.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="161" id="il_fi" src="http://sas.guidespot.com/bundles/guides_ii/assets/widget_cGwQB73WLcEipe2VVqKY-P.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Zeke really seems to try and foster a classroom of respect and appreciation for differences at a very early age (I mean, to read a book like “Who’s in a Family?” to kindergarteners seems like it could have it’s fair share of controversy, especially depending on what state people live in). Maybe he is taking his logic from Delpit, in the sense that the more explicit an educator is, the better student results would be. In other words, if Zeke explicitly educates children on the vast differences among one another, maybe those children will not be apt to bully or exclude others in the future based on those differences. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">August used the word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“otherized”</i> (10) to describe children who are left out of the dominant culture circle. She explains that children can become otherized due to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the sexual orientation of his parents, his language, his color, or his clothing”,</i> which can result in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“disorienting powerlessness.”</i> (10) I think the last thing we want, as educators, is for our youth to feel powerless. What if the youth of the Egyptian Revolution 2011 felt they were powerless? Would Egypt be changing the way it is today? Or what if Deamonte, the young boy who helped all those babies while emergency personnel rescued others, thought that because he was just a kid he couldn’t make a difference or act “like a hero?” Youth need have some sense of power, and the process of otherization alienates instead of empowers.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Monologicality vs. Dialogicality</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Zeke seems to welcome in an intellectual discourse with his six year olds that some teachers at the middle or high school level may not even begin to discuss. However, Zeke seems to pick up on the innate curiosity of young children in the classroom. Therefore, the “dialogicality” of his classroom makes sense. To me, dialogicality has multiple layers of meaning. It could simply refer to the ability of a child to engage in a dual conversation with either classmates or an adult. However, this concept could go a step deeper in the sense that the word “logical” pops out at the reader. Not only is the child trying to engage in a discussion where there are various sides, but the child is trying to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">make sense</i> of the conversation. August describes this concept as the ability to push <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“voices out from the normative socio-political center, promoting diversity among utterances.” </i>(7-8) Dialogicality is an academic jump from monologicality. Monologicality, to me, seems like a one-voiced conversation in which there is no room for intellectual discourse amongst those who are listening. I hope that there are not many teachers out there who solely promote monologicality, because it seems as though this rationale of thinking does not really allow knowledge growth; it does not provide for those critical thinking skills that students need to be competitive in the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Kids Say the Darndest Things</span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The story entitled “Yes is Winning”, in which Trinity keeps track of how many children are excited about the exhibition, provides insight into the power of the dominant culture. Whether intentional or not, August was absolutely right her interpretation that, Trinity <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“enjoyed the security that is associated with majority status. Her social safety offered a platform for her verbal campaign to launch a competition, one that she was sure to win.” </i>(137) So much so in our daily lives, we are comfortable with talking about scenarios in which we know there is a vast dominance of agreement. Myself in particular, I hate getting into discussions where I know I will be adamantly disagreeing with someone because I hate confrontation. But it’s interesting, because in my classroom, I actually like it when the kids don’t agree with each other because I want to see what arguments my students can create and how they provide evidence for their case (because history is all about perspective!) As Zeke put it to Cody, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“You have your own brain.”</i> (138)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong><u>I like it that each person has their own brain.</u></strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/wOKK8mAkiUI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-87810812770889277662011-10-01T08:37:00.000-07:002011-10-01T08:53:21.886-07:00Teachers Are Not Kryptonite!<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: center;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";"><u><span style="background-color: #6aa84f; color: black;">Then they came for me, and there was no one left....</span></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";">As a history teacher, I always try to tie in current news and/or specific historical events in relation to Rhode Island throughout my curriculum. Therefore, it is no surprise that in Stan Karp’s December 2010 presentation entitled <u>Who’s Bashing Teachers and Public Schools, and What Can We Do About It?</u>, my attention was initially drawn to his section referencing Central Falls:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";">A good example of how federal education policy has gone off the rails is last February. when the President and his Education Sec. Duncan hailed the firing of an entire staff of a high school in Central Falls, RI because it had low test scores. They said it was a “courageous” act that was “right for kids.” A model of “accountability” that the Administration wants to repeat in the thousands of schools over the next few years. (4)</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKYlERWfkeOXe-8kwG3xK7KsoT4dVmlTXjTy2mCYIWiREmbZy619x1_BGQWd9cJ7HXHDgrQqaxW4cTnpDkb0CIWMAf6nZXyrTJ5j9m0eMyZ1F0qOhhiDGid2EbJh7hhs26Gm-PTcN2Ak0/s1600/IMG_1435.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKYlERWfkeOXe-8kwG3xK7KsoT4dVmlTXjTy2mCYIWiREmbZy619x1_BGQWd9cJ7HXHDgrQqaxW4cTnpDkb0CIWMAf6nZXyrTJ5j9m0eMyZ1F0qOhhiDGid2EbJh7hhs26Gm-PTcN2Ak0/s320/IMG_1435.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walking into the Teacher Rally- February 2010</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";">Now, the Central Fall teachers rally occurred in February 2010- my first year as a public school teacher. I decided to go to the rally after receiving a notice in my school mailbox describing how teachers should be in support of one another. North Providence provided two school buses to transport us to and from the rally, due to the fact that there would simply not be enough room for private transportation. As I was gazing out the window of the bus, I noticed a small child running around with his small child friends in the streets of Central Falls. The young boy tripped and fell, scraping his knees. His small friends, about five total, circled around him to console and wipe away his tears. The first thought that popped into my head was, “Where are these children’s parents? Why are they playing in the streets? They can’t be any older than seven or eight and it’s 5:00pm in the middle of winter!” Upon arrival at Jenks Park, I noticed the hundreds of teachers, speakers, and news staff present. There were students who eloquently (and not so eloquently) provided testimony that their teachers pushed to help students succeed. The President, as Karp explained, forget to mention that<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> “parents, students, and alumni loudly protested the plans to fire the whole staff.”(4) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>Overall,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>it was a pretty powerful protest, and I am glad I attended. I have since been to one more rally (to support Providence teachers last year), and I intend on going to more. This is a brief 23 second clip of those who came to support teachers in Central Falls:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwWBj7AgP6Eosm7LI10VfetKORi06mewkBb8iSuqIwwxRMFzJ7ZTYQ3bMbN5wjR0FjVQYs3nXj8YoVJfGgEyg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";">So, I found Karp to be absolutely right that the media solely focused on dropout rate and test scores. No one seemed to mention that <em>“the school was the only high school in the poorest city in the state.” (4)</em> This statement is even more profound to Rhode Islanders today due to the fact that Central Falls just recently declared bankruptcy. Besides Central Falls and its financial issues, look at the demographics of the city. As Karp stated, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">65% of the students were English Language Learners” (4)</i> which can also explain the gap in state testing scores. There is a great debate amongst professionals that these so-called “standardized tests” are created with a cultural bias. Think about it. If you live in Manhattan and there is a story that involves life on a farm, more than likely that child will have no frame of reference for the comprehension questions that follow. What if a six year old from Miami had to answer questions relating to the feelings in a blizzard, even though that child had never seen snow? (Let’s put it this way- my junior year of college, a transfer student from California told me the only thing he brought for the New England winter was a windbreaker! Here’s an interesting article from USA Today that focuses on how states try to tailor their tests to be culturally sensitive: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2004-06-28-standardized-tests_x.htm">Standardized Tests Take on Shades of Gray</a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";"><u><span style="background-color: #93c47d; color: black;">Now Everyone's an Expert...</span></u></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";">I also enjoyed how Karp presented the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“now familiar buzzwords” like “charter schools, merit pay, and test-based accountability” (3)</i> to express how every single person (except apparently teachers) are now an expert on public education. It’s kind of like how my students think that because they are awesome at the video game <u>Call of Duty: Black Ops</u> that they’ll make excellent military personnel. It’s absolutely frustrating hearing from the common public that teachers are overpaid babysitters who <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">only</b> work five days a week for six hours in a day (technically four if you include prep and duty) and enjoy the luxury of holidays and a summer vacation. What the public doesn’t understand is all the take home work (both mental and physical) that is a part of teaching. As I try to explain to my corporate friends, your job stays at your job. I take home papers, call parents, prepare lessons, research topics, and buy supplies for my in class activities. I use the book about ten times in a school year, which means the vast majority of my lessons are coming from supplementary resources. So, for those people who think teachers read the newspaper while the kids work out of a textbook are completely misinformed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";">I found Karp’s presentation to be frustrating. I agreed with a lot of his points, which is probably why I was so agitated by everything. I hate the idea that the general public seems to believe that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“public education is failing because of bad teachers and their unions and that charter schools are the solution.” (3)</i> Are there bad public schools? Absolutely. Are there bad teachers? Of course. But I really enjoyed how Karp referred to the charter schools featured in the documentary as<em> “highly selective, privately subsidized schools that have very little relevance for the public school system.” (10)</em> He even further demonstrates his point by stating <em>“it’s like looking for models of public housing by studying luxury condo developments.” (10)</em> Obviously, when a school is able to hand pick students through a lottery system, require that parents have a committed involvement with their children, and class sizes average about 18 students per class, there is a very high chance that school would be successful. Something that I learned from Karp was that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“only 17% of charter schools had better test scores than comparable public schools and more than twice as many did worse”</i> (10) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“as many as one in four charter school teachers leave every year, about double the turnover rate in traditional public schools.” (11)</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";">Another piece that also frustrated me was how Karp points out that people like Bill Gates are going around the country <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“proposing that schools save money by increasing class sizes, ending the practice of paying teachers for advanced degrees, closing and consolidating schools, and replacing live teachers with online computer programs.” (7) </i>Hmmm… now, why on earth would a person like Bill Gates want to promote computer programs as educators?? Geeze… I bet it has nothing to do with personal gain and self-interest to benefit Microsoft Corporation…. It MUST be because this is what’s best for our children….</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";"><span style="background-color: #93c47d; color: black;">I Don't Mean to Be a Debbie Downer...</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQKl-SdLVnDMw6GfWClRoO-2ijOIObquZEWkLP8Tl5ymZjz51rdyhI9pZFtgJ6hZXN74eZXsqKIttiu6-j0vk9lCS40ahJL-rr30qlpPffFGMkSNw4io6Io4Cuv7eKDVzBj5g1ZjtiEXs/s1600/debbiedowner.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" kca="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQKl-SdLVnDMw6GfWClRoO-2ijOIObquZEWkLP8Tl5ymZjz51rdyhI9pZFtgJ6hZXN74eZXsqKIttiu6-j0vk9lCS40ahJL-rr30qlpPffFGMkSNw4io6Io4Cuv7eKDVzBj5g1ZjtiEXs/s200/debbiedowner.bmp" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";">I apologize for my blog to sound so cynical and negative. Here is what you have to understand. I am in my third year teaching. I have NEVER seen the positive affection towards teachers. I am not able to reminisce with older colleagues who talk about teaching “back in the day” and how this used to be a respected profession. Thank goodness my administration and co-workers are supportive of each other because all I have witnessed is the general public bashing, berating, and blaming teachers for every problem in today’s society. Thank goodness for comic relief, right? Comedian Jon Stewart provides an amazing news segment called “Crisis in Dairyland” that focuses on teaching in America and how the general public is ignorant about life as a teacher. It’s definitely worth the watch!</span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-3-2011/crisis-in-the-dairyland---for-richer-and-poorer---teachers-and-wall-street?xrs=share_copy">http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-3-2011/crisis-in-the-dairyland---for-richer-and-poorer---teachers-and-wall-street?xrs=share_copy</a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 3.4pt; mso-outline-level: 2; text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";">I also wanted to look around the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">notwaitingforsuperman.org</i> website for something positive about teachers. On the main page, I stumbled across this NY Times article: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/opinion/blow-an-ode-to-teachers.html?_r=4">In Honor of Teachers</a> which actually circulated through my school’s e-mail system. In summary, the author Charles Blow provides a personal account of how people should be “forever indebted” to the hard work and effort teachers provide. He discusses how he lived in tough areas with not a lot of family support and suffered from depression. However, it was his fourth-grade teacher named Mrs. Thomas who inspired and nurtured him to become the person he is today. This article is an example of what we need more of. We need more people to promote education, not vilify it. Sorry <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Waiting for Superman</i>, but teachers are not Lex Luther. Teachers are not kryptonite.</span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-79109893201363314152011-09-21T19:03:00.000-07:002011-09-22T12:26:50.481-07:00Are We Still Living in 1896? (Jonathan Koloz)<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigh8VsUGHAZbg5mPu3cyG7HetySrT5hPhCwL4dOQFgWmbV-xJVBHruBWlng1vwl5jHPkccGWpmMoSig4AP-2S9Bvs54Bm-Piifn0KJdzEae-k_ZvY2Cc_tumF4ddFkfgI9ApawCXuNwxY/s1600/NCLB1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><u><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><span style="color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Separate… but Equal?</span></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">When teaching my sophomores about the “changes” that came about post-Reconstruction that heavily affected the way in which Americans portrayed race in society, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plessy v. Fergeson</i> is a landmark court case that is always discussed. The concept “separate but </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">equal” as a policy dictated by government decision does not make sense at all. The idea of segregating schools based off of race, but portraying these institutions as equals, does not work in practice. Realistically, who would have the better buildings? Whites. Who would have more recent textbooks? Whites. Who would have the more qualified teachers? Whites. Is it possible that, according to Jonathan Koloz in his article <u>Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid</u>, that the American school system has not progressed past this 1896 Supreme Court decision despite the efforts made by Thurgood Marshall and other influential participants of the Civil Rights Movement to put the effects of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brown v. Board</i> into action?</span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">To be honest, the statistics that Koloz provided did not seem to surprise me. Inner-city schools, such as those found in Detroit, Chicago, and New York, have a disproportionately high African-American and Hispanic population. However, to hear from a teacher in the South Bronx that she has been <em>“teaching for eighteen years”</em> and it was in this year she had <em>“the first white student” (3)</em> she ever had truly puts into perspective the large number of minority students found in large cities (well, is it even appropriate to say ‘minority’ when clearly this population is the majority?). I have always assumed (and I hope this isn’t me being naïve) that schools which are named after prominent black leaders (Martin Luther King, Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Rosa Parks, etc) are heavily populated with people of color. However, what I found to be absolutely insane is that when a school named after Dr. King was placed inside <em>“an upper-middle class white neighborhood”,</em> many white students opted not to attend and it instead became a <em>“destination for black and Hispanic students who could not obtain admission into more successful schools.” (4)</em> As Koloz put it, this particular school is <em>“one of the nation’s most visible and problematic symbols of an expectation rapidly receding and a legacy substantially betrayed.” (4)</em></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><u><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><span style="color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Can Money Help Buy a Good Education? Uh, Do You Breathe to Live?</span></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My hometown of West Warwick is known for not having a very productive school system. Actually, I think West Warwick has one of the highest dropout rates in the state. When I would have begun elementary school in the early 90s, my parents opted to send me to Catholic school for my entire thirteen years of education. This didn’t come without a price. My father worked three jobs, totaling about 90 hours a week, for a good 20 years of his life. He felt a quality education for his children was his biggest priority. So, to me, when Koloz talks to these (let’s face it) hypocritical parents who send their children to <em>“Baby Ivies” (9)</em> yet ask questions like <em>“Is it really the answer to throw money into these dysfunctional and failing schools?” (10</em>), the result is rather frustrating. Of course my parents sent me and my siblings to Catholic school because they wanted a better education than the public school of my town could provide. You think my father wanted to spend the majority of his life inside the walls of Stop and Shop/ truck delivery? Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can buy a whole bunch of other things, like supplies, technology, and a safe building with heat for students to learn in. Speaking of heat, the big joke in my classroom last year was that the heater hated everyone because it hardly ever worked. I mean, I literally held class in the room with students wearing gloves and jackets. However, looking at schools that have <em>“green fungus molds growing in the office where students went for counseling”,</em> classes with <em>“thirty-four kids and more”, “no outdoor playground and no indoor gym”</em>, and barrels to <em>“collect rain water coming through the ceiling” (7)</em> definitely make me appreciate the school I teach at. My school is relatively clean, there is hardly any graffiti (except on desks), and classrooms have bright colored posters and student work everywhere. There are beautiful art murals throughout the school painted by former students, and the custodians are always cleaning well-populated areas. The idea that children who attend under-funded schools feel as though they are <em>“being hidden” (5)</em> away and forgotten about is depressing. What kind of child benefits from learning in this type of gloomy environment?!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigh8VsUGHAZbg5mPu3cyG7HetySrT5hPhCwL4dOQFgWmbV-xJVBHruBWlng1vwl5jHPkccGWpmMoSig4AP-2S9Bvs54Bm-Piifn0KJdzEae-k_ZvY2Cc_tumF4ddFkfgI9ApawCXuNwxY/s1600/NCLB1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" hca="true" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigh8VsUGHAZbg5mPu3cyG7HetySrT5hPhCwL4dOQFgWmbV-xJVBHruBWlng1vwl5jHPkccGWpmMoSig4AP-2S9Bvs54Bm-Piifn0KJdzEae-k_ZvY2Cc_tumF4ddFkfgI9ApawCXuNwxY/s400/NCLB1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><u><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><span style="color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It’s All About the Environment</span></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Speaking of school environment, whose idea is it to have these Fascist salutes, rote lesson presentation, silent lunch period, no recess, forced electives like “hair braiding” and “sewing” when students actually want to take college preparatory classes, and Level Four achievement of excellence that Koloz describes from pages 13 to 18? I mean, students typically don’t like school to begin with; why give them reason to hate it even more? How come students who attend affluent school get to take electives like the history of rock and roll and future engineers of America “solar car building”? (Read more about these awesome elective classes that I wish I had in this <em>New York Times</em> article: </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/education/27electives.html?pagewanted=all"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">High Schools Add Electives to Cultivate Interest</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">) And what’s with this no recess thing?? I literally had half hour recess from kindergarten to eighth grade. In high school, I had an hour and half of study every other day. I got a break from “rigorous academics” every once and a while, and last time I checked, I think I turned out okay. At some point, don’t kids need a break? Is it because I went to school with an overwhelmingly white population (literally, there was a Philipino girl and a Spanish girl in my high school class comprised of 110 girls) that I was allowed this “privilege”? (Johnson and Delpit have got me really thinking about this word a lot…) Why can’t students with overwhelmingly large people of color populations have this same leisure period? Why are certain suburban schools run like resorts while certain inner-city or urban ring schools are run like prisons? Is this justifiable? Is this the de-facto segregation Koloz is referring to as the premise of his article?</span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I found the story that Koloz provided on page 15 to be absolutely ridiculous. A teacher who merely wanted to bring a pumpkin into school for a holiday treat had to academically justify her pumpkin with semantics?! IT’S A FREAKIN PUMPKIN!! Can’t learning just be FUN?! Isn’t that why kids actually LIKED elementary school?? Ya know, cause it was FUN! Speaking of pumpkins, schools seem to be killing fun the same way Lucy killed Linus's pumpkin in <strong>“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” </strong></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/j8G0lWNu3Og?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Why can’t some things in school just be for enjoyment every once and a while? Spirit week this week confirmed for me why I absolutely love the school I work at- students AND teachers engage in community building activities because it provides an opportunity for bonding! Kids are able to laugh with and at their teachers for getting so involved. And I work in an urban-ring district, so it's not like the students at my school are from afflent areas. It’s an amazing community feeling that I hope exists at other high schools.</span></span></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjokM9do9Fhu-5bbKVoRcFqVoDQB8N8N0wt1xF7oUV7J5KEfWJJLHCjvzAGr9DHwSZJf8iB3f1z9_H0F0H5GrL6ltxTXsEro8B2N9OT3s484q4zV5Yig2tw1uAw395ouc72LE5Kvo1vxcw/s1600/FallFun+012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><img border="0" hca="true" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjokM9do9Fhu-5bbKVoRcFqVoDQB8N8N0wt1xF7oUV7J5KEfWJJLHCjvzAGr9DHwSZJf8iB3f1z9_H0F0H5GrL6ltxTXsEro8B2N9OT3s484q4zV5Yig2tw1uAw395ouc72LE5Kvo1vxcw/s400/FallFun+012.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Members of the History/ English Department </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">at NPHS; I'm bottom left! :)</span></td></tr>
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</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><u><span style="background-color: #0b5394;"><span style="color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In conclusion…</span></span></u></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I thought about some of the questions from the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Teaching Tolerance</i> assignment we completed last week. In particular, I thought about the very first questions dealing with race and being color blind as a teacher. This article proved that, even if teachers are “blind” to color and race, apparently government official and educational legislators seem to completely recognize race as an issue. Throwing around the word “diversity” in a school despite it being 99.6% African-American (5) is a problem. Not providing proper funding or adequate Maslow needs to inner-city school students is a problem. Race seems to be a prevalent divide in our school systems, and Koloz really hit the inequality issue home with this article.</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigh8VsUGHAZbg5mPu3cyG7HetySrT5hPhCwL4dOQFgWmbV-xJVBHruBWlng1vwl5jHPkccGWpmMoSig4AP-2S9Bvs54Bm-Piifn0KJdzEae-k_ZvY2Cc_tumF4ddFkfgI9ApawCXuNwxY/s1600/NCLB1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-17844992899303709992011-09-15T18:18:00.000-07:002011-09-18T18:07:14.742-07:00Is Silence Really Golden? Not According to Delpit...<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: purple;"><span style="color: white;">Perspective, Perspective, Perspective</span></span></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Every year, when I pass out my syllabus, I always draw attention to the first rule of my classroom. The rule I point out focuses on the idea that history is all about perspective. I like to reiterate this fact with my ever-so-appropriate example of the Civil War. I explain to my students that, as Rhode Islanders, they learn about a (for the most part) Northern perspective of the war. However, I also explain that if they were sitting in a classroom in Georgia or Alabama, they would be learning about different heroes and different battle names for the exact same war because the story would be told from a Southern perspective. In fact, the Civil War itself has over 20 different names such as “The Brother’s War” and “The War to Suppress Northern Aggression.” Are either of these perspectives wrong? No, because it’s told through a specific point of view with detailed examples to back up that view. However, it is interesting to see what has been deemed as important in our classroom as far as curriculum goes. Delpit, similarly to Johnson, discusses this concept of “power.” An interesting example that Delpit brings up is this idea of <em>“the power of publishers of textbooks and of the developers of curriculum to determine the view of the world presented.” (24).</em> Think about it- how do we know about history? Well, it’s what has been written down. And who wrote things down? The well-educated. And who, throughout history, have typically been the well-educated? White males. So, it makes sense why we learn history from a white male perspective. I’m not saying whether it’s right or wrong, I’m just saying that’s why history is taught in this sense. Want to talk about perspective? The state of Texas has a huge determination factor of what curriculum is put in textbooks. Why? Because they are one of the largest purchasers of textbooks, and it makes sense for a publishing company to please their buyers as best as possible. What would be an example of how that power over curriculum is demonstrated? Well, despite the large Hispanic population that resides in Texas, the push for more Hispanic role models in textbooks was consistently shot down. No wonder why people of color seem to dislike history; it’s all about dead white people. If you are interested in other ways Texas controls curriculum, here’s an article from the NY Times: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html">Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: purple;">A Plea from a Parent</span></span></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Lisa Delpit, in her article entitled <u>The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy on Educating Other People's Children</u>, discusses how when she has traveled to other places, she is usually informed about <em>“appropriate dress, interaction styles, embedded meanings, and taboo words or actions.” (26)</em> This probably made her feel more comfortable in situations that could be deemed as uncomfortable if she was not informed otherwise. But what if we were to walk into a situation, such as school or work, where we weren't told the societal rules but instead were just expected to figure it out? I thought of a letter I had to read my sophomore year of college entitled <a href="http://geibtechforlearning.org/lvu/resources/WindwolfPlea.pdf">An Indian Father's Plea</a></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">. This article is written by Robert Lake in defense of his son Wind-Wolf, who is a Native American going to a white school. He explains to the teacher that she could learn from his child, instead of just labeling him a slow-learner simply because he does not know white methods of learning. Wind-Wolf has been to various ceremonial dances and has learned about nature at a young age. He was not taught “traditionally” (in the white European sense), but his father argues that the other children can learn from his son as well if the teacher could just demonstrate a level of respect for his son. Maybe we, as teachers, can learn to pull from our students’ strengths to provide a proper education.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: purple;"><span style="color: white;">Demonstrating Diversity</span></span></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Delpit brings up an excellent point that <em>“the world will be diminished if cultural diversity is ever obliterated.” (39) </em>I mean, isn’t it cultural diversity that makes America so interesting? We live in a country where over 315 languages are spoken. Our history is built upon the idea that various groups of people have and will continue to come in and out of America. In some countries, that American dream is still alive and well (despite what the reality may be). Actually, what I truly enjoy is hearing about the blending of cultures. They say America has some very attractive people because of the different ethnicities that are found in an individual. I am amazed when people are bi-lingual. When I was becoming ESL endorsed, I met a woman from Senegal who spoke Walif (the native language), French (the language of school), and English (she used to watch Melrose’s Place in French subtitles but knew they were American actors.) I think it’s cool when traditional is blended with non-traditional. I mean, as teachers, don’t we all have different presentation styles? Don’t we look to see what other teachers are doing and combine different techniques? Isn’t that a kind of cultural diversity? I mean, I know it’s not exactly what Delpit is talking about, but it’s that constant blending of ideas that provides a new and fresh outlook. Without change, innovation, or appreciation for differences, life can get pretty stale and dull. I mean, sometimes people blend things I would never think could go together, but it works. Need a modern day example of this phenomenon? Check out this video clip from <em>Britain’s Got Talent</em> where the two performers combine Bhangra dance (from Punjab) and Michael Jackson (it’s really neat!):</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://1.gvt0.com/vi/Vc9_lFbqrbE/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Vc9_lFbqrbE&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Vc9_lFbqrbE&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: purple;"><span style="color: white;">Let’s Wrap This Up…</span></span></span></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Much like Johnson, Delpit tends to focus on this issue of power, whether it is in our classrooms or in greater society. She mentions how, because people <em>“act as if power does not exist”,</em> then life will<em> “ensure that the power status quo remains the same.” (39)</em> To me, this is reminiscent of Johnson’s ideas of how people need to acknowledge that privilege exists in order to become active in changing societal norms and notions. Besides, isn’t it the ones with power who get to tell the story?</span></div>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-22474367565968238812011-09-08T18:46:00.000-07:002011-09-08T18:51:00.755-07:00I Don't Mean to Go on a Rant Here... (Allan Johnson Article)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I believe we all, at some point, have taken for granted the social and cultural contexts of our school systems. We tend to teach from our own cultural perspective, ethnic background, sexual orientation, and specific gender. People engage in this behavior because, naturally, these characteristics are inescapable. Sometimes we do not even realize the privilege, or lack thereof, that is inherit within these aforementioned attributes. This is why I feel as though the article <u>Privilege, Power, and Difference</u> by Allan G. Johnson provides a solid foundation as to what this graduate course seems to be all about- understanding, accepting, and acknowledging the differences among each and every one of us. Johnson, within this article, argues about “the existence of privilege and the lopsided distribution of power that keeps it going.” (pg. 15) In a sense, he is reiterating the fact that if we do not acknowledge this existence of privilege, then humans will only exacerbate the problems that occur when power is unevenly distributed. He provides numerous examples throughout this reading that cite evidence of a “lopsided distribution of power.” The one-sidedness that Johnson refers to, he believes, tends to favor a society that “attaches privilege to being white and male and heterosexual” (pg. 10) </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An example Johnson gave supporting this white-male privilege is located on page 30 of the article, which states “whites don’t find themselves slotted into occupations identified with their race.” After reading this statement, I immediately thought of a commercial that aired on the Lifetime Network in support of a segment known as “real women.” This segment contained a brief interview with Christy Haubegger, the creator of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Latina </i>Magazine. In the commercial, she recalls a story of inequality about a time she was gathering ice in an expensive hotel to take back into her room. An older couple spotted her and asked if she planned on bringing ice back to all the rooms. This older couple, whether intentional or not, used their power and privilege to assume that because Christy was Latina, there was no possible way she could afford a room in the hotel and therefore must be a maid. (For more on Christy, here is an LA Times article on her backstory: </span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1999/feb/21/business/fi-10177"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Latina Young Founder Takes Aims at Women Just Like Her</span></a><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1999/feb/21/business/fi-10177"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">) This personal account of Christy’s life truly provides a real-world example of how people make assumptions based solely on the way a person looks. Also, it emphasizes the fact that despite how hard we, as people, may work to better ourselves, “it doesn’t matter who we really are. What matters is who other people think we are.” (pg. 35)</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Being the product of an all-girls high school, I have had teachers who pushed us, as young women, to become more than the gender stereotypes that followed women for centuries. We were told to explore fields in math and science, as well as pursue athletics and politics. Johnson mentions in this article that he found “men dominate virtually every major organization and institution, from corporations to government to organized sports and religion” (pg. 3), which is probably why my high school promoted the idea of women in these male controlled areas. As a baseball fan (I’m still attempting to learn as much as I can), I have tried to find ways in which career women participate in this sport. Watching FOX or MLB Network, I’ve noticed the broadcasters are all male, which is permissible seeing the vast majority of sports announcers have played the game themselves, so I’ll let that slide. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv4e2SOIr8bLwInyblyj4H5clgX0yN5Tar0Yd2qvfikjRiVPbmmRTvVgvHGdTXrc-lLSBgf7PVS4T9R2hhn2rruL1OJNxRyKSf832UNMam_Uf0F3jHj888-gwk_RkQ1TeYmsKCjnHyfhU/s1600/Asheville+353.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="150" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv4e2SOIr8bLwInyblyj4H5clgX0yN5Tar0Yd2qvfikjRiVPbmmRTvVgvHGdTXrc-lLSBgf7PVS4T9R2hhn2rruL1OJNxRyKSf832UNMam_Uf0F3jHj888-gwk_RkQ1TeYmsKCjnHyfhU/s200/Asheville+353.JPG" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Braves Game- 2010</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Yankees radio network is hosted by John Sterling and co-hosted by Suzyn Waldman. Sterling calls the game as it is in progress while Waldman is the color commentator (she is the third women in MLB history to have that position). Typically, when I find women in sports, they are used as the eye-candy reporter who seems to get just enough camera time to mumble something about whatever game they are covering and flash a pretty smile (cut to 2002 Miss California runner-up Heidi Watney from NESN or Erin Andrews, ESPN announcer voted by <em>Playboy</em> as “America’s Sexiest Sportscaster” in 2007 and 2008). When I went to a </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzKlDJyPlO5rvUFjx5HaxkYRVt29NjYhQUy8Kp24VFPQSvhhqec0TE8AZgjMw71q5fZgW2RIksikOGxiZ4iAcy7XzqduY5aLXnAviSc6of-xgDSxptvs1piabHJjLCTNWB0nZyDzq7lK0/s1600/heidi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="150" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzKlDJyPlO5rvUFjx5HaxkYRVt29NjYhQUy8Kp24VFPQSvhhqec0TE8AZgjMw71q5fZgW2RIksikOGxiZ4iAcy7XzqduY5aLXnAviSc6of-xgDSxptvs1piabHJjLCTNWB0nZyDzq7lK0/s200/heidi.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heidi Watney</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Braves game in Georgia, there were girls in booty shorts and Braves jerseys that merely had the job of greeting you as you </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN_XNZ6GOWyYRGKpJ9sYADaNlIThW9qzo2tDR87LyMiOhwIGh1LMlnTAhn2hUENItR3ZoQ-dLKHRDySinXzOOms7ZdNwtJwo3wAsex_0TDuwu67NL6U2Z-td7z3dKO46m30AxAlzT3R_U/s1600/erinandrews.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" nba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN_XNZ6GOWyYRGKpJ9sYADaNlIThW9qzo2tDR87LyMiOhwIGh1LMlnTAhn2hUENItR3ZoQ-dLKHRDySinXzOOms7ZdNwtJwo3wAsex_0TDuwu67NL6U2Z-td7z3dKO46m30AxAlzT3R_U/s200/erinandrews.jpg" width="171" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Erin Andrews</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">came in, dancing on top of the dugout, and helping the mascot throw baseballs into the crowd. Like Johnson points out in his article, “men don’t have to deal with an endless and exhausting stream of attention drawn to their gender (for example, to how sexually attractive they are.)” (pg. 31)</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Johnson, overall, successfully points out how we need to be more aware of this idea on privilege. The less we acknowledge it, the greater that power divide will become. Johnson provided numerous bulleted points that specifically cite in what ways whites and people of color, heterosexuals and homosexuals, and males and females are perceived in certain situations. I believe this powerful conversation will be brought to the forefront of this graduate class, centering around the theme of social and cultural awareness in not only our classrooms, but in our everyday lives.</span></div>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4508664178374133355.post-46943219400777353032011-09-06T16:34:00.000-07:002011-09-08T17:43:29.822-07:00First Day Frenzy- All About Me!<span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hello! My name is <strike>Chris</strike>tina Louth, but no one calls me that. So, just call me <strong>Tina. </strong>I am a third year teacher at <u>North Providence High School</u> in (guess where?!) North Providence, RI! I teach <u>history</u> (a subject which gets a totally bad rep for being <em>"boring",</em> <em>"dull",</em> and<em> "all about dead white people</em>"<em>)</em>, but I try to encourage my students to gain a <span style="font-size: large;">different perspective</span> and give history a try (it's really not boring at all!!). This year, I am teaching freshman <strong>Western Civilization</strong> (a class we refer to as teaching from Plato to NATO in 180 days) as well as sophomore <strong>American History/ Civics I</strong> (a course that begins with native people of the Americas and ends with immigration of the 1900s). I decided to enroll in the ASTL program after taking the <u>Literature Institute</u> through the <u>Rhode Island Writing Project.</u> Also, three of my colleagues who have completed this program highly recommended these courses for its practicality in the classroom. In my spare time, I thoroughly enjoy scrapbooking, photography, sleeping, and watching marathons of terrible reality tv. I also love to travel, and my goal is to go to all <strong>30 MLB stadiums</strong> (I've been to 12 so far!) </span>Tina Louthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06110954885664223477noreply@blogger.com0