Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Quotes from "The Shame of the Nation" by Jonathan Kozol Chapter 6, "American Education" by Joel Spring Chapter 2, and "Educational Foundations" by Alan S. Canestrari and Bruce A. Marlowe Chapters 7 and 16

Kozol Page 141

“Some people blame these racial differences primarily upon the values systems of black children and their parents.”

The values of a child are usually generated from their parents or because of their parents.  They may not necessarily have the same values when they are adults, but they are definitely generated from who they grew up with.  It’s unfair to not accept a child into a good school because of the child’s values or even the parents’ values.  If a parent is trying to get their child into a good school, regardless of their race or values, they want what’s good for their child.  If the values of a parent aren’t 100% what a school wants or expects from said parent, should it even matter?  If it’s really the values of an African American parent that is not allowing a child into a good school, then that is simply ridiculous.  Parents usually want their children to live a better life and that’s why parents are trying to get their children into good schools so they can start them off right.  Right away, that’s discriminating others and this is why Stuyvesant has such a low percentage of African American and Hispanic students.  If people are saying it’s most likely the values, clearly something is going on in the interview process where the school is turning away these parents that just want what is best for their child.  Isn’t that enough, to want the best?  I don’t think anyone would want to be turned away from anything for this son or daughter because of their values.

Kozol Page 144

“If other choices did exist, she said, they were not mentioned.  Nobody had told her that the problems here were every bit as grave as those from which she thought that she had rescued him.”

This mother was trying to keep her son safe and transfer him to a new, better school so he can succeed without having to ever worry about getting beat up.  The district office didn’t give her any other choice than to transfer him to this school in Harlem which is just as unsafe as his last school, if not worse.  Why didn’t the district office give this mother any other options?  Did they just assume she didn’t have the money to pay for a better school or did they simply not want her son to attend another school because of who they were?  Elio was a “promising and happy child” when Kozol met him at the age of six.  Now, this child is going to a middle school where the children are held like prisoners it sounds like and there are constantly fights going on in the school.  Elio’s original school was shut down, so his mother had no choice but to transfer him to the Harlem school because she had no other options.  The school district should have given every single option available to that mother no matter where she lived or came from.  This mother wanted something better for her son and this school district dismissed her and her son’s life and completely changed his future most likely for the worse.  If the school district is acting like this, how does any expect to have integrated schools and have children with equality? 

Kozol Page 148

“”Lunchroom Hell,” as another New York student once described these periods in which they’re herded down for squalid feedings in the basements of their schools, does not come up too often in those intellectual deliberations on the reasons for collapsing motivation among students in these schools.”

I was appalled to hear of such a fiasco that happens every day during every lunch period in this school.  How can anyone expect a child to get a great education and behave in school if simply feeding the students lunch is like a feeding frenzy at a zoo?  First of all, the first lunch wave begins at 9:42 and the last at 2:19?  9:42 is breakfast and 2:19 is nothing more than a snack at that point!  The children that are forced to eat their lunch so early in the morning most likely get hungry during the middle of the day and have to deal with no food until they go home.  The children that eat the last lunch wave of the day have to deal with no food all day, it’s disgusting.  This school has such a large population that they had no choice to break up the lunch wave like this and yet every lunch wave still has an abundance of people.  A school cannot expect students to be well behaved during the day if they can’t even feed them properly.  I know I wouldn’t be able to eat lunch at 9:42am and not eat anything else, yet work on homework and class work.  I would lose focus just as a lot of other people I know would.  Are there even any ways of going about fixing something like this?  Of course, added onto the building or moving students to another school, but there’s most likely no money for an add on and the other schools are jam-packed as well. 

Canestrari and Marlow Page 67

“Deven’s new way of understanding April’s behavior—that “lots of people need to move around in order to learn”—drew on Deven’s previous knowledge of multiple intelligences.”

I thought this “reframing hyperactivity” process was a brilliant idea and April was a great example of the amazing things it can do.  If Deven had continued to dismiss April as he was and only think negatively of her, things would have only worsened throughout the year in the classroom and even as she moved onto higher grades.  He saw a positive light in her and gave her some options to help her and she understood and her good behavior increased dramatically.  If this process could be installed in every urban school for starters, that would be more than fantastic.  Every urban school I’ve been to, all I hear is screaming from teachers in the classrooms, in the office, in the hallways, etc.  Students are getting yelled at for things that can be solved with a small statement of even a whisper.  Students are getting screamed at so much that they don’t care to even try to behave anymore because, what’s the point?  Yelling at a student is the least effective way to get a point across.  Why yell when a teacher can solve the problem to it either stops or decreases overtime?  I understand that teachers get very stressed out in these schools and the yelling can simply come out of nowhere, but it is necessary to be all day every day?  Any parent who would be able to sit in their child’s classroom would be quite upset with how some teachers treat their students.  Just by simply talking to April and explaining what her options were, Deven didn’t have issues with her in the classroom again.  If this could be installed to schools in urban schools, the atmosphere would change tremendously. 

Canestrari and Marlow Page 166

“I found that letting the kids kind of give life to whatever the assignment was, even if it wasn’t initially the direction I had planned, worked so much better.  And it was really kind of exciting but also a little bit scary for me.  I remember coming in with these really structured lessons….But I had to incorporate the kids into them.”

This is something that a lot of teachers seem to forget and it’s unfortunate.  It’s hard to bring life into lessons that are only originally there because of “the test.”  Students will appreciate the hard work a teacher brings when going out of the box when making his/her lessons.  They will learn so much more and have fun at the same time.  Students love to learn about life and always have questions about it, but because of the way schools are today “life” is just shoved aside.  Who would want to sit in a desk and stare at the board listening to their teacher talk about how to do some math problem for the test?  After doing that, fill out dozens of worksheets for the rest of the day to see what they remember?  If the teacher isn’t having fun, the students are most definitely not having fun.  It’s difficult to make lessons all be fun and creative, but no one has to do that.  Just bringing some real life into the lessons can make them interesting enough for the students to stay awake.  Teachers also need to remember that just because it’s on their lesson plan, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.  They need to go with the flow of how things are working in the classroom and what the students can bring to the lesson.  Sometimes the lesson may even turn out better than planned, sometimes it may be worse, but that’s a learning experience for the teacher just as well as the students. 

Spring Page 52

“In fact, because of special funds for high-poverty areas, children going to schools with the highest percentage of poor children spend more per student than other schools except for schools with the lowest percentage of poor children.”

I thought this to be a very interesting fact.  Usually I just hear how schools with a high poverty rate have less money spent on their students than with schools with a low poverty rate.  It was interesting to see how they have more money spent on their students than all the other schools other than the one with the lowest percentage of poor children.  There’s special funds applied into that budget, but for some reason I would have never guessed it.  When comparing schools, the other schools seem to be better off in a sense than the school with more money going towards the students.  Is this because the schools had less to begin with and giving them this extra money they still don’t have much to show for it?  I feel as though that’s the only explanation I can think of to come to a conclusion of why these schools still seem below all the other schools even though they have more money.   How much money is usually given to a school when they start?  Maybe that affects with how the schools are today.  

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Quotes from "The Shame of the Nation" by Jonathan Kozol Chapter 5, "American Education" by Joel Spring Chapter 5, and "Educational Foundations" by Alan S. Canestrari and Bruce A. Marlowe Chapters 5 and 6

Kozol Page 110

“As damaging as the obsessive emphasis on testing often proves to be for kids in general, I believe that the effects are still more harmful in those schools in which the resources available to help the children learn the skills that will be measured by these tests are fewest, the scores they get are predictably the lowest, and the strategies resorted to by principals in order to escape the odium attaching to a disappointing set of numbers tend to be the most severe.”

In general, testing is one thing that’s slowing ruining the school system.  Teachers are now teaching to the test instead of allowing their creativity to take over and make school be what it should be.  It’s hard to be creative when a teacher knows his/her students have to learn to answer so and so questions by a certain date.  Students sit silently in chairs, hours at a time, and taking test after test.  I remember simply taking the DRP tests in fifth grade and to be quite honest, I did try in the beginning but the test was just so long I started filling in random bubbles on the sheet so I could just finish.  Why does a test need to be so excruciatingly long?  I can’t even take tests that long to this day without getting bored and practically giving up on it, what makes anyone think a 10 year old can do it!?  This is definitely way worse of a situation in urban areas as well because they are getting far less of an education in a suburban area, but are still required to take the same tests.  This is why schools all over the US are being labeled “failing schools” and teachers are being laid off left and right, and schools are closing down.  It’s getting quite ridiculous to be blunt and clearly, nothing it being done to stop it.  What can be done to stop it though?  Should we just up and drop the tests or change the tests or change what the tests actually entitle?  What about the students that aren’t good test takers and can’t just sit for hours trying their best like myself?  They simply fail and let their school down because no one can think of a better way to test these children?  A school should be getting a proper education with the proper resources before forcing them to take such a test. 

Kozol Page 120

“Pediatricians and psychiatrists may be disturbed to hear of schools where recess is truncated or abolished in the desperation to carve out a bit more time for drilling children for exams; but from the point of view of businesslike efficiency—“time management” and “maximizing productivity”—it may seem to make no sense to squander time on something that has no apparent benefit beyond the fact that it may be enjoyable and healthy.”

Picture an urban area with failing schools because the test scores are just terrible.  Kids are playing on the playground for 30 minutes a day?  That’s insane!  Why?  Because they can just completely skip that play time and work more of course!  The more they work, the better the test scores; in fact, let’s just take away summer to.  Sounds completely insane right?  That’s because it is and unfortunately this is what’s happening to schools around us every day.  Do people not remember having recess when they were a child and what would happen that ONE time a teacher took it away, if they ever did, because their class was being too rowdy?  Honestly, today students are probably failing tests and being rowdy in class because of the lack of recess they are getting.  Children need to run outside and get some fresh air to be healthy, to just breathe, to just forget about academics for half an hour.  When I was in elementary school we had a morning recess, middle of the day recess, and an afternoon recess.  I don’t quite remember the time frames of any of them, but hey, we had them at least!  Schools are just so focused on passing these tests and not becoming a failing school that they are forgetting the well being of the actual individuals that even make their school a school: the children. 

 Canestrari and Marlow Page 37

“Forcing speakers to monitor their language typically produces silence.”

The experiment that was done with the teachers and “iz” language was a great example of this quote.  Teachers just stopped talking or started talking in their own, normal language again.  Of course, not teach Standard English in the day and age of the US today will most likely hinder a child’s future.   But, this goes for all languages that aren’t Standard English.  It just seems more of an issue in this case because it’s so very close to Standard English compared to something like Spanish.  If a teacher were to sit down with a Spanish-speaking student and ask them to read a book given to them in English and the child reads in fluently in Spanish, that’s quite amazing in my book.  I couldn’t look at a Spanish book and read it fluently in Standard English.  If a child who speaks Ebonics can read a Standard English book in their own words and completely comprehend what is going on, we have a winner.  Why should we stop and correct said child constantly throughout the reading to correct them?  That’s probably the most annoying thing a person can do to another person.  I absolutely hate it when someone corrects what I say or how I’m explaining something, I would just keep my mouth shut if that happened to me all the time.  That’s not good though, especially in school because teachers thrive of students talking in class.  What kind of classroom would a teacher have if no one ever spoke up in class asking questions, giving comments, and sharing stories?  Unfortunately, it’s our society today and if we, as teachers, want our students to get the best from their future, something needs to either be done with language or society.  Clearly, language is the one that’s going to have to change because our society doesn’t know how to. 

Canestrari and Marlow Page 45

“Discrimination is usually based on prejudice, that is, the attitudes and beliefs of individuals about entire groups of people.  These attitudes and beliefs are generally, but not always, negative.”

These attitudes and beliefs, whether negative or positive, are stereotypes and our society is overflowing with them.  People are discriminating against a race or a culture or an individual when they say something, a generalization, of some sort to someone else or to themselves.  People don’t view this as discrimination though, so it continues; whether the stereotype is positive or negative though, it’s still wrong.  For example: white people are snobs and rich and have things handed to them.  This was something said about Caucasians in our class the other day while talking about stereotypes.  I’m Caucasian and I don’t see those stereotypes as a Caucasian applying to me personally.  It goes the same if someone were to say something along the lines of, if you’re Hispanic than you must be an amazing dancer.  Yes, it sounds nice, but what is that person really saying?  There are stereotypes everywhere and I feel as though they are never going to go away.  Why is there a need to harass someone because of what they like or because of their culture or how their hair is?  Is it fun and I’m just missing something?  Or do these people have honestly doesn’t better to do with their lives?

Spring Page 118

“Working with social psychologists from Japan and China, Nisbett concluded that Japanese and Chinese students have a holistic worldwide view while U.S. students tend to see the world as made up of discrete categories of objects that could be defined by a set of rules.”

I’ve heard time and time again from various people in various places that U.S. students see very differently than the students around the rest of the world.  The U.S. is stuck in its on little world and we all act like this is all that matters and this is all there is.  That being said, that’s what we teach our children and our children’s children and this is why we are what we are today.  Students in Japan and China for example, have so much knowledge and so much empathy about the world because that is what they are taught.  Is this what we want for our children to only know where they are?  Yes, we have history classes and geography classes, but what do students really take from these classes?  Are we even teaching them right?   

Spring Page 129

“Reflecting on her teaching experiences, she writes, “White students…often struggle with strong feelings of guilt when they become aware of the pervasiveness of racism…These feelings are uncomfortable and can lead white students to resist learning about race and racism.”  Part of the problem, she argues, is that seeing oneself as the oppressor creates a negative self-image, which results in a withdrawal from a discussion of the problem.”

Throughout school experiences in history classes students learn about white people enslaving people of color for their own needs.  They also hear about the plenty of white people that were allies to the people of color throughout that time period as well and this is something that can help white students feel more comfortable about talking about racism.  Students may feel frightened that people of their own race is the problem so they may not want to speak of it and they shut down.  Is this something we should be talking about in schools, even in elementary schools?  When students are very young, they are more apt to speak with how they really feel rather than withdrawing.  If racism and discrimination and prejudice, if this is all discussed in elementary schools through high schools everywhere, would this help at all?  Would this be what is needed to knock out stereotypes and perceptions of others or will this be something that worsens it?  It seems like just a delicate topic to everyone, even the government who rarely speaks of it if at all, but is it really that delicate or is everyone just making it something difficult to speak about?

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Quotes from "The Shame of the Nation" by Jonathon Kozol Chapter 4 and "American Education" by Joel Spring Chapter 4

Kozol Page 93

“I wasn’t sure of what she meant by that—“no matter what you’ve done”—and asked her if she could explain this. “Even if you have a felony arrest,” she said, “we want you to understand that you can be a manager someday.””

It’s disgraceful to hear that principals in a school system are degrading their students at such a young age. Kozol even tries to ask the principal why only manager jobs were being given as opportunities, but he never received an answer because something came up. It’s very unfortunate that before these children even have a chance to live, they are being judged with how they will turn out. It seems as though because it is an urban school, the school system is in charge of making sure these children don’t run around like “hoodlums” before they even get a chance to do so. I’m not saying to give these students a chance to act like that, but why look at them in a negative aspect before anything negative actually happens? It’s really not fair to the students or the parents. How would you feel if you had a child and the teachers told you flat out that you’re child will be “trained” for the next few years to be a manager and nothing more?

Kozol Page 95

“Childhood is not merely basic training for utilitarian adulthood. It should have some claims upon our mercy, not for its future value to the economic interests of competitive societies but for its present value as a perishable piece of life itself.”

This, as well as the whole chapter, reminds me of a painting done in the education building at our school. It basically looks like children being manufactured in a factory by adults also known as these school systems Kozol is talking about. I always looked at that painting as a reflection of education’s future, as gruesome as it is, but now I see it as the beginning of the present. Teachers are educating human lives, not training them for a position to sell things in the future. Wouldn’t you want your child to have more of a say on their own life than just being a manager at a gas station? A child is a small piece of life, why make a path for it as soon as it comes to school? A child needs to explore, discover, be curious, wonder, succeed, fail, and so much more. Can this all be done if they are being trained from day one to basically do one thing and that one thing doesn’t even allow the child to try to succeed beyond a management position?

Kozol Page 96

“Learning itself—the learning of a skill, or the enjoying of a book, and even having an idea—is now defined increasingly not as a process or preoccupation that holds satisfaction of its own but in proprietary terms, as if it were the acquisition of an object or stock-option or the purchase of a piece of land.”

Children have to “sign contracts” saying that will complete a lesson and “negotiate” with each other to play with a toy. Whatever happened to the good old “do what the teacher says” and “share” techniques? Apparently, these aren’t good enough for urban schools because they are learning to be managers so they need to learn these skills in Kindergarten. What makes a child in an urban school different from a child in a suburban school that makes them have to learn different things in school? I was always told that I could be whatever I wanted to be when I grew up and I always had that option. It’s completely understandable that not everyone may be able to attend college or go to grad school or even finish high school given financial problems or even more. But, we need to be able to teach our children that they can have an open-mind and they don’t need to follow one path. If they want something bad enough, they can have it. Would you want to tell a class of 30 children that their future has been determined for them by a corporation?

Kozol Page 107

“Making a brief sarcastic reference to the prominent display of acronymic slogans that surrounded us, she said, “I envy principals in schools where children are encouraged to think independently.””

Would anyone want their child in a school with a principal that’s not happy with how it’s being run? If a principal is hesitant with their own school, how are the teachers in said school going to feel, the parents, the students? A principal should want students to come to the school to learn and be engaged in the teachings their teachers have to offer. They shouldn’t have to worry about their students’ futures because of how their own school is set up. It’s ridiculous to hear this is only happening in urban areas. While all of this information is great to know to prepare students for the future, it needs to be done differently, there needs to be more options, and it needs to be done with both suburban and urban schools. Students should still be able to think independently and not learn such extent options until high school.

Spring Page 103

“The majority population is often considered to be white; however, the U.S. Census Bureau projects that by the year 2040 the majority of school-age children will be members of minority groups.”

That is a very hard concept for me to grasp, but at the same time it’s not. I feel as though we have more and more people immigrating to the U.S. so that most likely has a large effect on the population. At the same time, I can’t picture that in just 30 years from today, the white population of today will be the minority group. It’s definitely not something that’s going to happen overnight, yet it will still be interesting to see how the school systems work then in comparison to today. Will all the schools then have these business-like programs that Kozol was talking about or will everything simply be flip flopped around?

Spring Page 109

“A major problem for schools is finding teachers who are trained to teach students who have limited English proficiency (LEP).” 

We have more and more students coming into schools who cannot speak English. Although, it should not be the teacher’s job to teach that student to speak fluent English, but there should be more teachers who do such things. Classroom teachers should also know some of the more dominant languages of school systems, for example Spanish. It should be a requirement to take Spanish for an Education Program. I took 5 years of Spanish myself from 8th grade to my senior year of high school and I honestly cannot have even the smallest conversation in Spanish. I think Education Programs need to express the need for teachers that are trained in LEP or that just needs to be an added requirement. A child who cannot speak any English at all entering a school in the U.S. is basically like a Kindergartener no matter what their grade level. They have no idea what’s going on and I couldn’t even imagine how scary that must be for them no matter their age.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Quotes from "The Shame of the Nation" by Jonathon Kozol Chapters 1-3


Page 21
“Visitors to schools like these discover quickly the eviscerated meaning of the word, which is no longer a descriptor but a euphemism for a plainer word that has apparently become unspeakable.”
In this day and age when someone speaks about a school as being diverse, it is automatically understood that a large quantity of the students are Hispanic or African-American or anything with a very low quantity of Caucasian students.  The word ‘segregated’ is being replaced with the word ‘diverse’ in what seems all segregated schools.  Why is that, especially since the two words have opposite meanings?  The fight for desegregation has been something long fought for and saying that a school is ‘segregated’ completely goes against the words from the past so ‘diverse’ seems to be the safe word in this situation.  Why the word ‘diverse’ out of all the words to choose from?  Maybe the intentions of the school is to be diverse, but ended up being steered in the wrong direction.  Maybe labeling schools as a segregated school will bring back the past far too much so we hide this by labeling them as diverse schools.  Yet, in a middle class suburban area where a school will most likely have a majority of Caucasian students we don’t say these schools are diverse.

Page 24
“If you want to see a really segregated school in the United States today, start by looking for a school that’s named for Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks.”
The unbelievable truth of this quote is astounding and quite distressing; it’s painfully humorous as Kozol would say.  Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall, all stood for the opposite of what’s happening with our school system today.  The schools that are being named after these admirable human beings seem simply dishonorable as the title “Dishonoring the Dead” states.  After reading about how diverse our “diverse” schools really are, they’re also being named after the people who would most likely contest these very schools if they were alive today?  To make matters worse, the students in these very schools seem to not even know who these people are or what they did to deserve having a school named after them.  Why are 86% of the students African-American and Hispanic in the Rosa Parks School in San Diego?  Is this plainly because of the school’s name or is this because of the location of the school itself?  This tends to be the case for all schools named after these famous activists.

 Page 41
“”This,” he told me, pointing to the garbage bag, then gesturing around him at the other indications of decay and disrepair one sees in ghetto schools much like it elsewhere, “would not happen to white children.””
This is preposterous to hear in the year 2010 after everything that’s been done to get where we are today; it makes it seem like we’ve backtracked and we are in the time where this all started.  There are some great schools out there with a majority of the population being African-American or Hispanic that are far superior than some schools with a majority of Caucasian students.  Yet, I’m sure when comparing all the schools throughout just the United States alone, it would unfortunately be the other way around as a whole.  It’s disturbing to hear that any school would have decaying anything and this is not what children should have to be dealing with at their schools.  It’s even more disturbing to hear children talk about the differences they see in their schools compared to others.  Children at any age shouldn’t be concerned about what their school has or doesn’t have.  Why wouldn’t something like this happen to Caucasian students?    

Page 62
“If we were forced to see these kids before our eyes each day, in all the fullness of their complicated and diverse and tenderly emerging personalities, as well as in their juvenile fragility, it would be harder to maintain this myth.  Keeping them at a distance makes it easier.”
This quote reminds me of the saying “out of sight, out of mind.”  It’s easier for a person to say no to something when they only hear bits and pieces of a story.  When that person can actually see the story and live the story and feel the story, there’s more of an emotional connection and it’s no longer so easy to say no to something so easily accessible.  If the nation can afford “clean places and green spaces” then why are there schools without these crucial needs?  Why refuse a school filled with children ten and under a playground and clean rooms to learn in especially if the school five miles down the road has these plus more?  

Page 73
“It was like the Level Ones weren’t even there.”
People are told not to discriminate, judge one another, and they are told to accept everyone for who they are; at least this is how I was brought up both in school and at home.  If a person is recognized for being the best of the best, that’s just fine.  It’s when a person is recognized for not being the best or ignored for not being the best that problems occur.  Students shouldn’t be called a “level one” or “level four” based on their capabilities in the classroom or while roaming the hallways; they should be called by their names, nothing else.  This reminds me of a Dr. Suess quote, “A person’s a person no matter how small.”  If someone is “small” or a “level one” they shouldn’t feel any less significant than any other child in the school building and the teachers most definitely should not treat them with any less importance.  This, yet again, goes against what Martin Luther King and others fought for: equality.  If students are being labeled and not treated equally in their elementary school classroom, how are these students going to end up when they grow older?

Page 85
“”My main feeling, 98 percent of my reaction to this methodology,” he told me flatly, “is that it’s horrific for the teachers and boring for the children…, an intellectual straightjacket.””
When I came across this statement, my mind repeatedly thought of Albert Cullum; a man who is well-known for making his classroom the complete opposite of what one would call boring.  His students absolutely loved going to school and dreaded the days they had to stay home because they were sick.  He made his teaching come alive so his students could really live throughout the school year.  “An intellectual straightjacket” sounds like teaching that is slowly dying which is bringing the learning aspect along with it.  It’s very easy to follow the rules and implement them in such a way that there’s a school filled with robot children.  It seems as though the teachers are doing their jobs perfectly when students follow the rules like that, right?  Just because the students are disciplined, does not mean they are learning.