Sunday, November 29, 2015

EDCUATION IS POLITICS

By:  Ira Shor


Quotes:

Ira Shor quotes from Paulo Freire that, "To be a good liberating educator you need above all to have faith in human beings, You need to love, You must be convinced that the fundamental effort of education is to help with the liberation of people, never their domestication.  You must be convinced that when people reflect on the denomination they begin a first step in changing their relationship to the world".http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/13276-education-and-politics

This quote is very true and relevant to all teachers and educators.  A good educator must be a believer in whomever he or she is entrusted with.  As a matter of fact, an educator needs to love his job and his students.  Love, as I see it requires patience and devotion.  Also an educator must teach to free his or her students and never teach to domesticate them.

Ira Shor again quotes from Freire that, "This is a great discovery, education is politics".  Ira Shor goes on to say that, when a teacher discovers that he or she is a politician too, the teacher has to ask, what kind of politics am I doing in the classroom?  In favor of whom I am I being a teacher"  I believe Shor and Freire are right because as they say, the teacher works in favor of something and against something.  Due to this, he or she will have a great question, how to be consistent in his or her teaching practice with his or her political choice. Ira Shor says that a teacher cannot proclaim his or her liberating dream and, next be authoritarian in his or her relationship with the students.

Ira Shor explained that politics also resides in the discourse of the classroom, in the way teachers and students talk to each other, in the questions and statements from teachers about concepts being studies in the freedom students feel when questioning the curriculum, in the silences surrounding unorthodox questions and issues in traditional classrooms.

In this article, Ira Shor suggests that the entire school experience has political qualities and consequences.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

CITIZENSHIP IN SCHOOL
By:  CHRISTOPHER KLIEWER

quotes:

When Jason Kingsley and Mitchell Levitz were growing up with Down Syndrome, they noted that their valued participation within the community was really a challenge of recognition posed to those who seek to exclude them.  This ultimately falls heavily on the shoulders of people with disabilities.

People with disabilities can learn and gain a full, rich lives.  Kingsley states the challenge is to take away negative attitudes about people with developmental disabilities , get rid of the stereotypes and break the barriers for people with disabilities.  As Kingsley thinks heavily about the above quote; "How do we erase those negative attitudes",  in light of the fact that people with disabilities are judging us.http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/data.html

Isaac who attended the Shoshone School was considered by clinical judgment as low- functioning, with no speech intelligent to teachers, was awkward with severe dilemmas with fine motor skills and scored poorly on developmental instruments.

At 52 months, Isaac tested to a level appropriate to a toddlers level of cognitive functioning.  However, Shayne the teacher, did not see Isaac as defective.  Shayne was a sympathetic teacher because she admits that none of her students go to school to be labeled.  She also indicates that every body works together, play together and be together.  And, rightly, she says that's what learning is.

Shayne built a community with acceptance for all and whatever all kids were participating in.  Shayne did a lot for all her students especially, in finding a job for Anne in a video rental store.

Colleen Madison agreed with Shayne that no child was inherently an intellectual burden to a classroom.  There is an individual ability in every child.  Down Syndrome or not.

Christopher believes that educating children together makes the representation of Down Syndrome from burden toward citizenship.  To conclude, when the Pope visited the United States, I was surprised to see a Down Syndrome man read an Epistle at Mass without a single mistake.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

LITERACY WITH AN ATTITUDE
By:  Finn
Connections

Mr. Finn discusses what some minorities feel about acting, while as a betrayal of the people.  They think they have been wronged by mainstream Americans.  This he maintains in the opening of his preface. 

While writing his book, he considered several titles and after reading Kozol and Paulo Friere, who was a professor at the University of Recife in Brazil, who taught his students literacy to engage in the struggle for justice, a dangerous undertaking.http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/implement/improving-services/plan-adult-literacy-program/main

Mr. Finn talks about his upbringing as the eighth of nine children whose fate changed because of a birth injury that left part of his left arm slightly paralyzed.  His father and brothers were plumbers but he pursued education which he was pretty good at; After graduation at the local teachers' college, he started teaching in a school in a black neighborhood in Chicago's south side.

Since he himself was from the working class, he knew how working class and poor kids related to authority.  He taught well and got praise from his principal.  However, Mr. Finn praised on teacher, Ms. Kennedy who he thought was a better teacher.  He describes her as a very beautiful black lady who had just graduated from Fisk University.

Mr. Finn married a very conservative teacher who taught in a suburban school while he pursued his education to the doctorate level.  He later taught English at the graduate school.

In Mr. Finn's second chapter he saw, as Jean Anyon's study of fifth grade class of the white, elite, affluent, professional, middle class where almost all the students were white and then the lower class.  These schools had similarities.  There were many teaching skill discussions among the teachers.  Some were good, others were bad.  The chapter discusses the nature of teaching in these class cultures.

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

SL PROJECT

DELPIT:  In my 2nd grade classroom, I could tell that the students are in check to learn, do home work and follow the basic rules unlike my 1st grade students who are quite young and not focused. 

Ms. Bliss is a polite, older, experienced and a very strict teach who gives her students simple instructions to be followed.  She thinks if all powers are taught in the right way, there would not be any silence dialogue. 

She knows power and authority comes a long a way in the teaching process in the classroom.



COLLIER:  I could see that teaching multilingual children is exciting but also, challenging in my 2nd grade classroom.  The teacher's primary language is English, but most often whiles helping with their readings, I hear the students communicating to each other in Spanish or a different language.  Since I do not understand what is being said, I normally smile and ask if one needs help but the reply is no Ms.  Am in Spanish class I still cannot figure what they saying.  Anyway, will try and catch up.