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.