HW - 50 - Your response to a set of readings and final interviews on schooling

John Taylor Gatto was a teacher for over 30 years and can only blame school for lack of student interest. His article on "How public schools cripple our kids, and why." He found himself as well as all the students board in the classroom. he later references his father saying to him that if "I was bored it was my fault and no one else's." In his teacher of the year acceptance speech he talks about how it is a rough time for education. He continues to talk about school being to blame for the bad grades and lack of attraction.

I personally agree with Gatto because i am a student and i know how it feels to be in a boring class. Many students would agree too, when we know what is going on in class that day you get the feeling that it is not important to be in the class. The days that we know that something interesting is occurring in class that day you will notice a slightly higher attendance.

Paulo Freire's idea of teaching is vary plan and simple. Student comes to school a few teachers fill their minds with information that the students sit and absorb. It is a to b, the students have no choice in what they can learn. his article goes on about contradictions in education, that if students had an influence on their own education they would actually need a teacher to give them options then again how would the students know what to teach themselves.

Freire's theories have been my favorite. all of his ideas seem to connect to the the average school life. The main idea is summed up that the young minds are empty and the teachers have the obligation to fill NOT DONE

Lisa Delpit teaches young students and her idea is that she can feed the children complex work and they will feel that it is natural. She realizes that this is not the most interesting way to teach but it is possable

HW - 49 - A 4-6 paragraph analysis of your section's class savior/teacher film

I had written a story line for the classes super teacher movie. it was not chosen, although i was allowed to contribute to to Victor's script. in the final cut of the movie i was in a quick flash. I played as a background.

Our classes movie was signaling that students need to respect teachers. the basic outline of the story is that a new teacher comes in to school after studying super teacher movies, and the students are not fooled. the students hurt the teachers feelings and later arrives to class a mess, the students pity him. problems are solved and the teacher has cured them.

the short movie's tone was loud and sad. in the class room it was noisy, people were making a mess of the class. andy the protagonist, his voice was not able to be herd in the first half of the movie. two thirds of the movie was a tragedy, its a shame that all these inner city school children have no respect for someone that is on a mission to help, its is also sad and i thought that it was a bit of a fail in the story line that the teacher was weak and had no control and that the only reason that there was respect is that andy went down a self destructive path.

In a sense the class film and the savior teacher had the same goal, to teach the delinquents, victor's idea was basically watching an ugly hamlet 2. All the other main characters in the super teacher movies were were determined throughout the entire movie and a majority of the time the saviors pitied the students.

going to an inner city school gave me a different perspective when watching the super teacher movies. Our school is not rough considering the others schools in the city.

HW 48 - Treatment for Savior/Teacher Movie

Ronald Calvin is new to the teaching environment he just received call from a school that put him on hold. There was an incident that left a student and a teacher in the hospital. The argument was apparently provoked by the student. at home Ronald watches the full review over he news and hops on his NETFLIX account and browses through some war movies and documentaries on dictators that show discipline and he takes notes.

His first day of work finally arrives. he walks through the metal gate that forked at the top ensuring that no one can go over the fence. There are bars on the window, the building has a cold feeling like being in a prison. he arrives at fifteen to eight and heads into the from office. There are no students to be seen. He asks the only secretary "where are al the students?" she replies that they show about twenty past the hour. Ronald is dressed in a grey suit, and put on a nice neck tie. the woman at the front desk in in her fifties, overweight, wearing a cardigan glasses with neck change.

Ronald wonders into the principles office has a very classic introduction. Juan Phanning is a man about discipline, wants no relationship with rouge students. Phanning provides Ronald with a cautionary tale.

Ronald runs through a day of class identifying who all of his students are and the roles that they play. In midst of watching a James bond special on Spike TV he is inspired to be a double agent at school. get on the students side hang out with them then once that they all think that they are on his side he will pull the plug.

His girlfriend is not happy about his plans but ignores her warnings. He winds up smoking with the stoners, gets involved with other crimes with the students. He begins to destroy his relationship with his girlfriend. After a couple weeks of crazy crime, drug abuse, and showing up later than the students at school. He lays in bed alone at home and looks through all the notes and all the careful planning has failed. The next morning he shaves puts a fresh suit on arrives to school the next early. When the students arrive, he has them form a circle of chairs and tells all of them his plans to screw them over.

The students have made friends with him and he has created a strong bond with him. Ronald lays on the new that he is going to lose his job if their grades don't improve. Phanning has made it clear to him that is his students don't pass the midterm that all the students will be kicked out of school and Ronald will not be able to teach in the entire county.

He has held the students back for a while and the rest of the movie the students are the only ones showing up on time to school. Ronald makes class fun for the students playing videos, games, and history reenactments. Later shots of the school is bright. gates are off the windows, a fresh coat of paint. The school looks very welcoming. The morning of the midterms one his students that had a rough home life was found shot and killed in the early morning. The rest of the students scored high and Ronald kept his job, his class graduated to the next grade and the school was renamed in memory of the student who died.

HW 41-Initial Reaseach on Schooling

Weir, Laila. "The Edutopia Poll." Edutopia n. pag. Web. 24 Feb 2010. .
This is a Women that is posing a problem for others insight. In her piece she is saying that the more that they push kids the less they aspire to read. Although allowing them to choose books of choice might not allow them to be challenged. One of the input was from a K-8 teacher saying basically that it is there education, and they should guide there reading based off interest. Then there is the typical input where there teachers need to control the list of books that kids choose from.

This is all part of the experience of school and the choice of what you learn. Moving forward to high school There should be an actual choice class. not a list composed by adults something that the person learning can actually benefit from. The Edutopia Poll is presenting the same issue, some times books should be based on interest.

Langer, Lori. "Removing kids from class an unacceptable choice." Bucks County Courier Times (2010): n. pag. Web. 24 Feb 2010. .
The author describes an incident at a school misbehaved students were removed from the class and neglected. The issue is that further damage is being done to the students by not allowing them to learn.

No education as punishment, that could also be a reward. Some teachers assign more work to students if they misbehave. IT then becomes a problem for the student. Just today I took a unit test and i missed a day in the class and there was an entire section that I was unable to answer. The students are headed to further delinquency. This leads to a bad school experience leading to a poor future.

Lowry, Donna. "Class Act Teacher Follows As Kids Lead." NBC (2008): n. pag. Web. 25 Feb 2010. .
Lowry's article on teacher Kathrine Green a kindergarten teacher that allows the students to run the class. The Kids come up with the ideas and she helps make them educational.

Allowing the students to create the course allows creativity, also what hey will be learning will be based off interest, which means that there will be more produtivity in class and at home. kids, teens, youth, should have a good experience in school and learnsomthing that they can actually benifit from. NOT saying that core classes should be cut, but this idea can be integrated into these classes.

Ahlstrom, Charissarsa. "Collaborating with Students to Build Curriculum that Incorporates Real-Life Materials." National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy 6.C (2003): n. pag. Web. 25 Feb 2010. .

Charissarsa's article was explaining that what the people that are learning should

HW 38 - Art Project Cool

Each scene is s different aspect. The first one is about The asshole aka the jock the dominant person in the school. the pose is also displayed in the first clip. Everyone is like a black jazz musician, relaxed awake but as if they are sleeping. in the second clip about the funny guy, christian makes everyone laugh and puts another guy in the hot seat. In the third scene the social cues are represented, Conor in the scene is not able to read the situation Matt and christian both understand how well they now each other and make a proper goodbye. people are always in the moment and don't step back and look at themselves. it's a competition to be cool in school.

The the process of making the video started with coming up with ideas. Everyone equally contributed to that part. From that conversation we were just going to keep filming a regular day in the hall and cut short skits out from the footage. I took the camera home and cut out the clips we all decided on that would represent some aspect of cool. then i added sound and anything to emphasize a point in the clip that needs to stand out.

I think that It can be cool because videos that are funny are cool. Personally i think that it was more fun over cool because it was creative.

Cool Video

The Coolest Video from Jin Omae on Vimeo.

Final Draft- Cool

Cool affects everyone differently. The typical answer “oh, cool is being yourself.” Cool could be considered an oxymoron because to be cool is being original or authentic but conforming to the same idea as everyone else. The whole idea that to be cool is to be different but. During informal research for class I discovered that being cool is conforming to the same idea. There were relentless guide to be “Cool” generally saying the same thing. What are people getting out of this whole thing? People are craving significance but for what? It is a strange paradox that cool is. Cool is a lifestyle that people adopt to feel significant. People change their physical and social style to achieve the significance.

Physical appearance: Tattoos/Pierced Body/Hair
Tattoos and pierced body have been an increasing form of identification. Guest speaker John Fanning came in to our school to talk about his tattoos that had spread from one arm across the chest and to the other. There are many elements to the tattoos. His artwork to him was a “Timeline” it first started with the first tattoo that he received. In his American culture there is no right of passage to become a man, so that first one represented to him that he has achieved manhood. Most men feel more significant to the world once the label of a man comes upon them. Piercing and tattoo work is permanent.

Hair may grow back, but it can be the largest part of self. Genetically almost everyone has different hair. Cutting it can change a view of a person. Anthony Synnot wrote The Body Social: Symbolism, Self, and Society. He writes that hair has become a gender issue; men and women have been ruled by society to have different hair in different places, and different lengths. Actress Natalie Portman had shaved her head; speculation from critics said she might be gay. She might have felt different, cool in a way; she is rebelling against social norms. Her significance was displayed all over the news, “Hey a popular girly girl cut her hair, if I do it I might just be cool to.” (Not actual quote)

Social Cues/Cool pose
Walking into a room of familiar faces, people put on a show to relate to the other person. The person must know what to say, the tempo of the speech, and the indication of a handshake. Erving Goffman wrote a book called The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. He has the idea that what we live is a performance, how we act around others is front stage. Goffman feels that we read the situation. Then act to match the other person. Personally I don’t feel that this performance is in bad faith it makes life peaceful.

In a New York Times article A Poverty of Mind by Orlando Patterson talks about the pose. It is being laid back and not worrying about life. An individual can be an African American and have the new hair and clothes, but people lose their social significance without the pose. The pose must look natural, as if it is something that comes out of the womb.


Opposing view:
The careful reporting of FRONTLINE introduced The Merchants of Cool, which is the point of view of the large corporations that sell to the merchants, which are adolescences. Later on in the archive shows a group of teens in Detroit waiting to see their favorite band Insane Clown Posse. The reporter asked who is the middle finger pointed at and one of the teen responds “It’s pointed to the mainstream.” The band is not associated with Mtv or any large financial company. These teens may not be mainstream cool but still have these same characteristics. The small group of teens that have not been fazed by corporations feel cool because they are a part of the minority. The band is a new thing to fallow that is rare. Being part of an original idea let’s these people have a genuine feeling making there own significance.

Self:
I have created significance for myself. I follow the idea of being different and conforming. I pose walking down the street; giving the look that I am confidant. I will comb my hands through my hair to the messy look. Everyday at school I read the social situation, walking down the hall I know who to hand shake, who to hung, the correct conversation. It all depends on my relationship with these people. Also some people give off the sigh that they do not what social reactions. My hair also plays a major role in my life; in 6th grade I let my hair grow out from a buzz cut. Many people liked the hair so I kept it, although it has changed in shape it’s the common length that the opposite sex was attracted to. I previously had a piercing that

Denouement:
People that achieve cool constantly put on new acts to get the feeling of being significant and wanted (cool). Guides tell people that they need a nice car, and a good-looking girlfriend. The only way to be cool is to be socially savvy, people want the acceptance by others and the feeling of being wanted to be around others. Cool is bound to change in the future. It is a fairly new concept. In history people respected leaders, not necessarily cool. It is bound to evolve from where it is now, another prophet of cool will be born some new item will be invented. Although there will always be a pose, some people will always rebel, there will be new form to permanently change the body to give the different and unique factor. Hair might need to glow in the future or maybe it will be metallic.