Comment on this chapter using the following format:
1.a salient sentence or passage, and why it stood out for you
2. a question you would like to ask the author
3. one or two key ideas you got from this reading, and why you believe it/they are important
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QUOTE:
ReplyDelete“As a society, we embrace individualism, and yet we seem to be OK with our schools becoming more and more standardized. People think setting standards means having higher standards, but all it really means is having the same standards.”
This is very interesting because we, as a society, aren’t even trying to hide the fact that we really are trying to standardize education so as to make sure that all students are held to the same standards. I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to me before, but why exactly is that a good thing? Why are we trying to make sure that all students are held to the same exact standards? I’m so confused. It seems so blatantly obvious that holding all students to the same exact standards is a bad idea. But, I can vaguely remember thinking that standards-based ed is a good thing.
QUESTION:
You mentioned that the students admitted to the Met are drawn from a lottery of applications. Is there any differentiation between applicants before they go into the lottery? In other words, are there any applications you receive that don’t make it into the lottery?
KEY IDEA:
The biggest thing I got from this chapter is that every kid deserves a chance at a good education even if that kid does not “fit” into the typical high school. It is obvious to me that it is possible to create a school where even the “roughest,” “toughest” kids can feel safe, nurtured, and encouraged, so that they might have an adequate opportunity to receive a great education.
Quote(s):
ReplyDelete“They need to feel that school is a place where their strengths and energies are nurtured and applauded, where they and their loved ones matter as human beings, and where they have control of themselves and their successes. Finally, they need their school- and their society- to see them as a resource and not as a resource drain.” (p. 22)
This passage caught my attention because it reminded me how much the majority of society holds education so high, but at the same time undermines it, because they forget what the purpose of education means, and how important the people involved are. Educators are undermined in what they do from the majority in society. Teaching is a noble profession, and the above encompasses what teachers and administrators need to recognize, and I think this goes by the wayside. Students have minds and are creative with ideas, but we cannot cultivate this together with them if they do not feel safe to step outside their comfort zone, and take risks to learn. It is all right to be wrong in answering a question, because by failure we learn to succeed. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, and he failed ninety-nine times before he succeeded. By showing students we trust them, we care about their learning, and know they can preserver and achieve success.
Question(s):
What changes do you think society needs to make to cultivate learners who will feel comfortable and prepared to be a part of the real world?
Key Idea(s):
I think an important key idea from this chapter concerns the three R’s Littky discusses. “Teaching is about building relations with students, and managing classes.” This is a quote from my high school English teacher. She pointed out to me the fact that past knowing the content, it is more important to connect with students, and build relations. Then one needs to understand and know how to manage in order to excel with students in the classroom. I liked the other two r’s too, relevance, and rigor. I think it is important to find connections with students and make actions, activities relevant to them. Then when you offer them a challenge, the work is rigorous, and they have a better time overcoming the challenges and asking questions, then answering questions on a worksheet. When students feel they can trust you, and you care about them, they’ll learn through the relevance and rigor in activities.
A personally significant sentence or passage, and why it stood out for you:
ReplyDelete“When we talk about reform, we should not be talking about tweaking the scheduling and modifying the curriculum, but about completely overhauling the entire structure of schools as we have known them for way too long” (29) I love this idea, no matter how unrealistic it sounds in the midst of tradition and bureaucracy. We can spend from now until eternity coming up with better curriculum and debating how to implement this in the schools. What we need to do is to take a real look at what is and is not working, and completing throw out what is not. It seems that way too much money has been spent on studies showing that there are problems and on small topics that can help a little. Basically all we are doing is putting a band-aid on a fracture and expecting it to heal. I say that suggesting we overhaul the whole system sounds unrealistic, but it is just as unrealistic to continue to expect things to change drastically when we aren't really willing to drastically change anything. If you want something to change, start doing things differently.
A question you would like to ask the author: Who is the number one lobby group that would need to be on board for really extreme changes in educational legislation to take place?
One or two key ideas you got from this reading, and why you believe it/they are important: One key idea I took from this is the overall low expectations that are placed on students and schools. Parents, community, teachers, everyone should expect great things from every student. I believe that what the author is suggesting is that we don't really believe in these students, so we're not willing to go the extra mile for them, and that this is one of the core issues that needs to change. The mentality of our nation needs to change before any real “reform” will be put in place.
QUOTE:
ReplyDelete“As adults, we have the power to break their spirits with even the smallest word or gesture, and with some kids, we may never get a chance to help build them back up again” (pg. 20).
This is a powerful statement. Like John said during class, we as educators forget how fragile students are and we forget how the simplest phrases can make students want to just give up and not want to try anymore. It is just a good reminder and something to always be kept in the back of the mind. We have to be mindful of every word and gesture we make to our students because the littlest thing could truly affect our students in a negative way.
I know that I have a tendency of being sarcastic with people I am really familiar with, it is my sense of humor, and I have had to catch myself in my previous field experience when I say something really sarcastic to a student. I have actually had a student come up to me in my 351 experience and tell me that a comment that I had made had upset him. I apologized and from than on I have tried to be more aware of my sarcasm in the classroom.
I have actually seen the affects of words on a student first hand. My childhood friend never really made good grades during middle and high school and her own mother told her that she was never really going to amount to anything. Her teachers basically told her the same thing. Second semester of our senior year she failed a class and was supposed to take summer school in order to finish up her requirements for graduation but she decided that since the adult figures around her had told her that she would never really do anything with her life, that she wasn’t going to take the summer class. As far as I know, she still has not gotten her GED.
QUESTION:
You talk about what we can use to measure students’ achievements besides standardized tests and you mention higher and different standards need to be put in place that don’t underestimate and undermined students, but there is no mention of examples of these standards. So what are some examples of these higher standards that need to be but in place for students?
KEY IDEA:
A key point that I have picked up on in this reading is that teachers and administrators have underestimated students. Littky gives the example of Martha who was told by her middle school counselor that she would never go to college so she shouldn’t aspire to get into a college. But Martha went to The Met and was encouraged by the staff to go to college. Instead of telling students that they should give up on their dreams and hopes, we should encourage the students to actively pursue their hopes and dreams. As educators we should also find ways to keep the students involved in their education so that they feel like they own some portion of it. Therefore, if they feel like they own some portion of their education they will hopefully want to go to school and continue learning.
Page 23- Kids are also very attuned to adults' attitudes towards them. This means that you cannot fake a desire to watch children succeed. You have to have a strong desire, and will to keep going in and giving your students the best this world has to offer. Or, you can just really care about them.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who guards the guardians? We teachers are quick to blame others- how much are we willing to attribute to ourselves?
Key ideas: Children should govern the outcome of education formatting, not vice versa.Standards are being set too low, or simply, standards are not the best forms of evaluation. At least, not when they encompass everyone regardless of any differences that might hinder certain groups of people. Again, we need to ensure an active role in order to ensure a better teaching environment.
“When a kid walks out of a school at the end of a day, the end of a year, or forever, no one asks him if he can do more with what he learned that just pass another test. No one asks him if he can apply his knowledge to real life. In the end, he might end up being really good at Trivial Pursuit, but what I want to know is, has he learned to love to learn and will he keep on learning, even without school.” p. 39
ReplyDeleteThis is probably one of my biggest goals or dreams for education. I hope that any teacher you ask would love to have students leave school with a passion to find out more about the things in the world that interest them, to make informed decisions based on researching many different sources. I know this is not the case, and that there are a few students who can rise above with an intrinsic love of learning. I believe that students can learn to love learning, if the are in the right environment.
Littky says on p. 35, “We have to have higher standards, and they’ve got to be different standards.” My question for him is if he has developed any ideas about what specifically needs to be changed, and if he has thought seriously about how to change them.
I think the 3 R’s of the met are something to take away from this chapter. Relationships, relevance and rigor are most of what is seriously absent in many public schools. Knowing the kids that come into our classrooms is one of the most powerful steps we can take as an individual.
“Finally, they need their school – and their society to see them as a resource and not as a resource drain.” P 22
ReplyDeleteI feel like society starts off with a negative view of kids and until they prove us wrong, we will continue to look down on them. At the same time we continue to proclaim the cheesy “children are our future” line. Kids shouldn’t have to spend their time proving us wrong, we should spend our time building them up and helping them to become productive members of society instead of waiting for them to fail and then saying something extremely original about the youth of today.
How does the MET work with the parents of the students in building confidence and supporting the goals of the student?
Key Idea: Reforming schools is not working, a nationwide standard is not working, and the system is work out and can’t be patched anymore. We need a whole new system. We say that our schools are preparing our kids for the real world when schools today are nothing like the real world. The real world is not broken down into subjects, it is one giant subject. The real world is not one long lecture and if our students sit quietly and listen in the real world jobs they will quickly find themselves really unemployed.
"And you cannot know a kid whose voice you don't listen to, whose interests are a mystery, whose family is excluded, and whose feelings are viewed as irrelevant to the educational process." If a teacher is going to not make that connection with his/her students, there is no way they will ever be able to reach them. Just listening to what a student has to say can reveal a lot about what kind of person they are as well as what they are interested in doing.
ReplyDeleteQ: In regards to a students interests, aren't schools doing the same thing as teachers if they don't develop a curriculum to cover every student's field of interest? By not doing so the school is basically turning its back to its student's goals.
Getting to know your students is one of a teachers main jobs as a educator. By doing so, it allows them to reach the students in more ways because that relationship is there. Without it the students look at the teacher as someone who isn't interested in what they have to say or what they are interested in, and aren't likely to put the same effort into their work.
Passage: "I hate the idea that we put a box, "high school", around our discussion of adolescents. It's like we immediately stop thinking about the child and start thinking about things like seat time, test scores, class schedules, grade books, textbooks, special ed., gifted and talented programs, and so on. We need to stay focused on the student" (28).
ReplyDeleteIt appears that schools do not focus on what is most important...The Student! They are all wrapped up in their test scores and school ranking and not about helping the students succeed in life after the standardized test.
Key Idea: The world is integrated. What is difficult is what schools do every day: unravel the world and all its vast knowledge and put it in boxes called subjects and separate things that are not separate in the real world.
If you want to prepare students for the real world then really prepare them instead of dumb down everything and separate them from reality.
Question: How do we change administration's view of children being criminals and look to help them. I can't imagine a student turning in their crack pipe being help and not shipped to jail.
Quote:
ReplyDelete"But there is way more going on in a kid's mind than just school. You have got to teach the heart as well as the mind, and for that, you have to make sure that the heart and mind are OK before you can even begin. WIth so much threatening our students' lives out there, we have got to make it safe "in here." It is nearly impossible to teach a kid who isn't ready to learn. It is absolutely impossible to teach a kid who is no longer here at all."
I can't stress enough the importance of a teacher/learner relationship and Littky keeps iterating the idea for me. Teachers who feel they aren't here to help students with their personal problems are PLAIN IGNORANT!!! Teachers spend more time with the students than any other professional does and in some cases even more than the parents do! Teachers should expect to know their students well enough for the student to confide in them. It is so true that we can't teach a heart that doesn't want to learn. So-the solution? Find a way to make that heart want to learn!!! In the process of reforming secondary education, we need to reform these so-called 'effective" teachers!
Question:
If big picture schools are public schools, how do you work around standardized testing?
Key Ideas:
"At the Met the students feel comfortable there and see the school as a part of the solution rather than one of their many problems."
I would love to work in a school district where students enjoyed going to school because they felt it was an escape from all their problems and a place where they could feel comfortable being themselves. Too many times, schools try to dictate to students the difference between right and wrong and they just become more of a problem to the student. This is where I see so many of the studetns start to pull away because school professionals are telling them how to talk, act, dress, and believe.
Another idea I really liked was that in most schools, students are taught not to speak without teacher permission. What?? How is the teacher every going to get to know her students if she doesn't hear their ideas and values? And who is going to correct the teacher when she makes a mistake if she is the only one in the classroom with permission to talk? As a speech teacher, I also want to work in a district where current and critical issues aren't swept under the rug like they don't matter for fear of offending parents and the teacher down the hall whose been at the school for 45 years who can't hear anyways? CHILDREN NEED TO BE HEARD!!
I have to add this because it is my all time favorite quote and I feel that it is appropriate in this situation..."Be who you are and say what you feel because those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter!" Dr. Suess