Our Prezi!!!!! Service Learning Project Stephanie and Kelsey's Service

http://prezi.com/u2ygr6chedwx/copy-of-herbert-khol/


Stephanie and Kelsey's Service Learning Presentation!

Education is Politics

Blog #11 Education is Politics (Connections) 

In this article Ira Shor suggests a new method of approaching teaching. Shor describes the politics of teaching as not only being in the classroom. Teachers must educate to standards defined by the national, state, local and even school building level. Shor believes there is a better way to achieve the desired results than the status quo. Rather than teachers doing all the talking and students listening, taking notes, and blindly repeating what they’ve been taught, today’s students should be empowered to participate in creating the curriculum, question the validity of the materials presented, and become more informed, inquisitive, and educated members of society. 

In the article Aria by Richard Rodriguez the following two guidelines, when utilized, would help to achieve an empowered education for its students. 

Collier’s fifth guideline states, “Do not forbid young students from code switching in the classroom. Understand the functions that code switching serves.” Code switching occurs when bilingual people use both languages in speech and they alternate between the two languages. When code switching occurs it does not mean that students do not understand the difference between the two languages. In many ways it demonstrates that the children are making an effort to communicate using everything they have learned. 

As explained in guideline seven, “Providing a balanced and integrated approach to the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.” Children become aware very early of the importance of written language through books, the media, signs, printed containers, and endless forms of environmental print. The main goal of an ESL instructor is to teach her students to be able to communicate verbally and understand written words. Communication is of vital importance if foreign speaking parents and their children want to be successful. 

According to Shor it is the teachers job to get to know their students, their backgrounds, their intellectual abilities, and what matters to the students in their everyday life. Curriculum that addresses this criteria will be more beneficial to the students and more readily learned. 

According to McIntosh in the article White Privilege, “whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow “them” to be more like “us”.  When the curriculum is geared towards strictly whites students, when all the examples pertain to only white culture then the minority students are at a disadvantage before they even begin the lesson. Theses lessons also make the minority students feel inferior. 

Shor suggests that “subject matter is best introduced as problems related to students experience, in language familiar to them.” Teacher’s who use the problem-posing method correctly will have a better learning environment for all students. 

Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome

Blog #10 Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome - Hyperlink 

I agree with Vygotsky when he says that children with down syndrome or special needs should be allowed to participate in the everyday classroom setting. There are different stories throughout the article that discuss the challenges that some of these children are forced to face on a day to day basis. I think it is sad that there are communities in the United States who are not willing to work with the disabled and give them a beneficial education that will help them succeed in the 21st century. 

It must be very challenging for teachers who have inclusion model classrooms to accommodate the needs of special needs students and be responsible for all the other students to meet the high standards that are placed upon students today. I was disappointed to learn that Early Education Majors now have to extend their education to a 5th year because we are no longer allowed to combine the Early Education B.S. Major with an Undergraduate Special Education Program. If all communities have inclusion model classroom then all teachers are going to need some sort of special education training. 

When I was in kindergarten and first grade we had 2 special needs students in our classroom. I believe that having special needs students in the classroom helps young students accept special needs people for who they are and it carries forward throughout their lives. 

Literacy with an Attitude - Reflection

Blog Post #9 Literacy with an Attitude - Reflection 

On a weekly basis this class has helped to shape my personal definition of what wanting to be an educator means. I use my personal experiences as examples throughout this class and I feel like my   journey through the public school system is shaping me into the teacher I will become someday. 

Jean Anyon discusses the different types of students she observed in five public elementary schools: 

 "The First school discussed consisted of high achievers who are placed in the advanced placement classes and are being taught like the executive elite schools where knowledge is academic, intellectual and rigorous." Initiative and assertiveness is encouraged unlike working class schools where students learn by rote, memorizing facts and spitting back the teacher's notes. Working class students are not empowered, not allowed freedom of choice or movement in the classroom or school building.

 "In affluent professional schools work is creative activity carried out independently. It involves individual thought and expression." 

 "In the Middle - class school, work was getting the right answer. Answers were words, sentences, numbers, facts and dates. You could not make them up. They were found in books or by listening to the teacher. You wrote them neatly on paper and in the right order. If you got enough right answers, you got a good grade." 

I grew up with a middle class education in a small Rhode Island town that is mostly middle class with some upper class and lower class population. I feel as though my education was a mixture of all three types of education discussed in the article. In some subjects like science and history and math the assignments where repetitious and mechanical.While in English teachers expected their students to read and then write essays that express a different way of thinking about the same topics we learned about in class. This type of teaching encourages individual thinking.

When I was in high school I always wished that the curriculum was laid out differently. I feel as though by junior year of high school the curriculum should introduce a more career driven path.  By senior year students will have been exposed to more subjects introducing career opportunities to help the student plan their future.  I also think the idea of a career driven path is important for the students who will not be attending college. Today high school is becoming more and more difficult because of the high expectations the curriculum is placing on all students. In order to graduate we had to pass the NECAP’S and complete a half online and half paper portfolio that included a presentation to a room of teachers and principals that represented four years of completed assignments that met the state  graduation standards. I think more high school students are dropping out of school because the standards are too high for the academically challenged students. 

Thinking Points: There are many different teaching styles as well as a diverse student populations. There is no teaching method that will meet every student's needs because each student has a different background when they enter a new school year. Teachers may have to redefine their teaching style based on the needs of their students. 

Brown vs. Board of Education

Talking Points #8 Brown vs. Board of Education (Quotes) 

What is the relationship between the historical issues you see in the website on Brown v. Board of Education and the contemporary issues of race that Bob Herbert and Tim Wise raise here?

The relationship between the topics above is that the issue of racial discrimination is still a problem in today's society. Tim Wise states that after the election of President Obama as our first black President we are " no where near a post racial America".  Tim Wise is the author of Between Barack and a Hard Place and he feels that "the evidence of racism and discrimination against average everyday folks of color is still very much in evidence". This country will not be a truly equal opportunity society until the racial discrimination in housing, education, jobs and criminal justice is eliminated.

It has taken many historical events such as Rosa Parks refusing to get up on a bus, Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech, the 13th Amendment (1865) abolished slavery, the 14th Amendment (1868) extended equal protection of the law to all citizens, the 15th Amendment (1870) guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. Electing Barack Obama as the president of the United States of America is yet another step closer to equality between the races.

The Supreme Court decision on May 17, 1954 for Brown v. Board of Education made equal opportunity in education the law of the land.  As stated in HERBERT's article Brown v. Board of Education , “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal".   If the less fortunate, poorer population is confined to the same areas where they live, they will not receive the same education as students in middle to upper class school systems. Herbert states "long years of evidence show that poor kids of all ethnic backgrounds do better academically when they go to school with their more affluent — that is, middle class — peers." 

I agree with Herbert's statement that "Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential patterns, housing discrimination, economic disparities and long-held custom, they most emphatically are in reality." I believe that racial discrimination is prominent in our public schools today represented by income level. Until legislation and education reform is passed to disperse low income student bodies among more affluent community schools racial disparity will continue in full force in our modern day society. All students deserve an opportunity to be educated to their full potential.

15th Annual Promising Practices Conference

The Fifteenth Annual Multicultural Conference Promising Practices took place on November 3, 2012 at Rhode Island College in Donavan Dining Center from 8am - 2pm.  The event began with a welcome speech from Nancy Carriuolo (President of Rhode Island College) and Dr. Corinne McKamey and Dr. Holly Dygert (Promising Practices Co- Chairs). Followed by a keynote speech by Dane Fusco titled "Youth Development -- Promoting equity through child and youth agency" After the presentations the participants departed to attend two work shops located throughout the campus. 

The two workshops I attended where 1.17 Wake Up and Smell the Environmental Racism and 2.10 Preventing Transgender Bullying Before Children are 6 or 7 or 8 by Using Transgender Friendly Picture Books. I enjoyed both presentations. 

Workshop 1.17"Wake Up and Smell the Environmental Racism" was not what I expected. We discussed topics such as the Johnston Landfill located off of 295 south and the sewerage plant located off of Mendon Road in Woonsocket RI and why these plants are placed in poor areas and there is not  anything the towns people can do about it. Not only is it heart breaking and sad that the people who live in these communities have to live with a terrible smell. These plants are polluting the environment and making the residents of these communities sick (more likely to have asthma). Overall I thought the presentation was informative and interesting. I often talk with my parents about topics such as this and I didn't realize there was an active group that is trying to "clean up the environment" the presenters where 2 high school students and they are part of the group ECO Youth (Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island) 


Woonsocket Sewerage Plant 

My second workshop was 2.10 Preventing Transgender Bullying Before Children are 6 or 7 or 8 by Using Transgender Friendly Picture Books. The presenter Elizabeth Hansen Rowell was a very energetic older women who loves sharing and spreading her knowledge about this topic to anyone who will listen. I was unaware that there are picture books available about this topic and I am excited to begin my search in finding them to expand my personal library. We discussed the difficulties that todays children face with their gender specific toys and how bullying unfortunately begins at a very young age in todays society when a boy plays with "a girls toy" or "dresses like a girl" young girls also face similar name calling when if they are different from societies stereotypes. The main focus of this workshop was on young transgender children who understand that they are the opposite sex at heart. I wish this workshop could have been longer the presenter had so much information on this topic that there was little time for discussion at the end of the presentation. 

These books feature little boys who feel that they are in the wrong body 

10,000 Dresses By Marcus Ewert 

Be Who You Are By Jennifer Carr



These books feature little girls who feel that they are in the wrong body 

Backwards Day by S.Bear Bergman 

When Kathy is Keith by Wallace Wong 



 Books that feature children who like to wear the clothes of or and do things usually associated with the opposite gender but nothing is said about them feeling that they are in the wrong body. 

My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodouis 

Pictures of our presenter 



Over all I enjoyed the Promising Practice Conference there was a large turn out and all the speeches where informative I'm looking forward to discussing the event in class and learning about the different workshops my classmates attended. 

Romney vs. Obama - Education

Blog #7 Romney vs. Obama - Education - Extended Comments (Jessica S.) 

I wish I could say that I followed politics and understand what is being discussed at political debates. Unfortunately I find politics to be very confusing and hard to follow. As a college student going to school to be a teacher I understand that each candidates opinion on the topic of Education is important for our future as a nation, but I am often confused and I find what is being said hard to follow. When I read Jess's blog for the first time I was relieved because the way her blog post is laid out was very helpful. 

I like the way that the article Jess found from The Washington Post explains where Romney and Obama stand on specific elements of Education. The article explains where each candidate stands on:  

Vouchers - (using tax money to pay tuition at private schools) Obama opposes and Romney supports this aspect.

No Child Left Behind - As a future teacher I wish I knew more about this program of action because this effects my future directly. Each candidate states that he accepts certain aspects of the plan and since I don't fully understand No Child Left Behind I find it difficult to follow and support a specific candidate. 

Higher Education - This aspect of education effects my future greatly due to the fact that during the next 4 years I will be in college. Based on the portion of the article I believe my understanding is that Obama and Romney have very different opinion on how to make college more affordable. 

I also found this article Romney vs Obama online I liked how the article used quotes from pervious debates to demonstrate how each candidates opinion has changed or developed over time. I especially enjoyed Obama's speech at the end of his section I listened to the whole thing ( its 35 mins I don't expect you guys to watch the whole thing). 

Thinking Points: I am so happy that Jess's blog was helpful but I still feel like I have more questions than I had before. Does anyone else feel the same way after researching their topic? Hopefully the class discussion will be helpful!