Literacy With An Attitude

Literacy With An Attitude 
By: Patrick J. Finn 

Reflection:

Like others in the class, I found this piece to be somewhat confusing. After reading it a few times however I believe that I got the underlying meaning to the piece. I do see some Delpit in it regarding to the culture of power. When Finn talked about the different levels of education, (The working class, middle class, the affluent professional, and the executive elite) I couldn't help but compare this to Rhode Island. The "working class" I thought of as inner city schools such as the ones that we do service learning at. Then I compared the middle class to schools in Rhode Island that are just you're average schools. For the affluent professional, I compared this to some of the art schools in Rhode Island  Then finally for the executive elite I thought of private schools such as Hendriken (sp?), La Salle, etc. Just by looking at the schools you can see a big difference. A child that goes to a working class school, most of the time won't be nearly as proficient as a child who goes to an executive elite school. This can be the result of a plethora of things. Maybe the child doesn't feel safe going to school, so it's not a good learning experience. Maybe the staff at a working class school really don't want to be there, and are not doing a very good job. Just from service learning I realized that if a teacher is absent some days in a working class school, the children may just be put into another classroom and given busy work to do. That would never happen at an executive elite school. I'm willing to bet some of the substitutes at EE schools are more qualified than some of the full time teachers at these working class schools. Even in the middle class schools, there is still a difference from EE schools. For example, my girlfriend went to Mount. I went to Burrillville High School. In my comparative scenario I would say Mount is EE and Burrillville would be middle class. The things that she would do in some of her science labs were things that I didn't have available to me until college. I felt like she had a better opportunity to gain knowledge during those years of our lives than I did. I feel like these differences can be seen throughout all of the different levels/classes of education.

Here is a VIDEO explaining the difference between n affluent professional school and an executive elite school.



Questions/Comments/Points to Share:

I know we have a wide variety in class of schools that people went to. Do you think the school you went to better or lessened your opportunity to learn?

This American Life

This American Life 
By: WBEZ 

For my blog this week I decided to do an extended comment on Kamryn’s blog. After I listened to the radio thing and read the article I went and read everyone’s blog. Kamryn basically said the exact things that I was thinking.

I agree with Kamryn’s first point about how the radio station was very SCWAAMP. The quote that Kamryn used,

"... that black and Latino kids in segregated schools have the least qualified teachers, the least experienced teachers.  They also get the worst course offerings, the least access to AP and upper level courses, the worst facilities.  The other thing about most segregated black schools, Nikole says, is that they have high concentrations of children who grew up in poverty.  Those kids have greater educational needs.  They're more stressed out.  They have a bunch of disadvantages.  And when you put a lot of kids like that together in one classroom, studies show, it doesn't go well." 

was the exact quote that really got me. I think that this is very evident even in schools that aren’t segregated. Just living in a “bad” area and going to school this is seen. For example, in high school I had many different classes that I was able to choose from for electives. Also there were 3 different levels of core classes that you could take based on how advanced you were. I thought that it was something that all schools had but after listening to this, I see how much of a privilege that it was to have those. Also, when you put these children that all have a bad attitude regarding school together, it is not going to be a very productive classroom.

I also agree with Kamryn connecting it to Kristof’s point of individual vs. institutional. Due to the poor institution in the Normandy area, the children suffered. An individual child could not succeed in that institution.

 

Questions/Comments/Points to Share:

One more thing I wanted to say was this radio thing really made me think about being apart of a good institution as a teacher. 

In The Service of What?

In The Service of What? 
The Politics of Service Learning 
By; Kahne and Westheimer 

Reflection:

In both Mr. Johnson's class and Ms. Adams' class service learning was a large part of the curriculum. To try and decide which form of service learning, (charity or change) is better is a very tough thing to do. I feel like they both have their pros and cons. With charity, the student if physically seeing what they can do, and how much they can help. For example, the boy in Mr. Johnson's class who made the survival kits for the homeless. He sees how much he is helping that one person. However, that particular student may fail to see the larger homeless problem. While the hands on experience is great for that student, it would also be great for him to have the knowledge of the larger homeless issue. That is where the change aspect of service learning comes in. Being educated on the issue, and working with larger groups to try to help a problem is a great thing. It can create a much different outcome than the charity version of service learning. To stick with the homeless example, raising money for the two homeless organizations helps a larger range of individuals than the student who made survival kits and handed them out to the homeless. That’s not to take anything away from that student, because I’m sure what he did was a huge help, but the change idea of service learning helps more so with the homeless problem rather than the homeless individual. 

Questions/Comments/Points to Share:

While going for change instead of charity really does help the problem more in my opinion, I don't think there is anything like that face to face interaction when you are helping someone in need. For example, for the past month I have been doing a fundraiser for a child on the basketball team I coach that was diagnosed with bone cancer. We did special events, raffles, etc. All the money we raised could have been donated to an organization that fights against his particular type of cancer. In the long run, that would help more. However, donating it to his family for medical bills, expenses, etc. helped that particular INDIVIDUAL more.