What I want to see changed in the school system

There are many things I want to see changed in the school system. I believe everything we learn is to suit an agenda that isn't necessarily beneficial to the students. I think the school system should be much more personalized rather then trying to cram 6 broad general classes into the day. The current system is set up that students don't take in what they're learning, rather they try to memorize the information just long enough to get a good grade on the upcoming test, after that the knowledge is rarely used again and the next quizzical lesson is taught the following couple weeks only for the same routine to continuously occur. Therefore I believe that school should be more suited for the individual. I also think classes should be taught to students for an outcome outside of school. Students main goal shouldn't be getting a good grade on a test but learning tools and skills to suit them in life.

Gatto's depiction of school vs my own

Gatto claims thats school is consistent with boring those involved. He describes his students as saying that the work is pointless, doesn't make sense and or they already knew it. I would agree to a point with what Gatto is claiming. All throughout secondary school I couldn't wrap my mind around why I needed to know some of the subjects these teachers were forcing down my throat. Although they claimed that this is important information needed to be a successful adult, I knew many successful adults that didn't know chemistry or calculus to the degree that our teachers were trying to convince us was mandatory.
Gatto states that "...we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands." This may seem extreme but I entirely agree that the need for young people to go to school is shrouded in the idea that its to educate us to play important roles in society but more so to do what Gatto explains, help facilitate "habits and attitudes that corporate society demands".

Paper #2

Casey Jones

Formal Paper #2

Ms. Gruwell and Ms. Watson

            When it comes to good teachers, Ms. Gruwell and Ms. Watson seem to both be the epitome of a great teacher. Three qualities that these two teachers seem to weave into their teaching would be dedication, ability to influence, and their pressing attitude in and out of the classroom.

            Both teachers from the movies, portrayed dedication in the way they taught in multiple cases.  Ms. Gruwell showed this characteristic when she first came to her class full of children coming from low-income families and seemed to exemplify lack of motivation or resources. Rather then taking the easy way out and allowing the kids to fail as most other teachers expected, she tried multiple times to unify the class, even after failing time and time again, she steadily made her way to bringing the class to a that of a family unit. Ms. Watson shows this same characteristic of dedication when she was overwhelmed with the fact that her class had already read and studied the class book till nearly having the imaged imprinted in their brains. Rather then to allow her students to plateau with their knowledge right then, she pushed her students into areas where they hadn’t felt comfortable, confronting each of them with new pieces of art that they hadn’t been exposed to and making them make a judgment on their own rather then reciting the words they’d read from the text.

            Two more similar characteristics that both Gruwell and Watson seemed to identify with was their ability to influence. Gruwell showed this amazing trait again and again throughout the movie. She was able to influence her students to not only go to class, but to pass their sophomore year, a grade level that most other teachers thought was out of reach for that particular group of students. On an individual level, she helped Eva break through from the unsustainable and dangerous life she’d been living, and even to speak up and tell the truth about the murder she’d witnessed. Ms. Watson also had a unique ability to help influence her students for the better. Being the strongly independent women that Watson was, she was able to help many of the female students from Wellesley see that jumping into being a wedding gown and being whisked away to a life of a stay at home mom is only one of the many options they had after college. This was shown most prominently with Watson’s student, Betty.

             

            Betty was only able to gain the information Watson presented to her because of Watson’s pressing attitude. Gruwell and Watsons were able to help their students learn and become what we can only assume is successful with their demanding attitudes towards their students learning. Coming to a very low budget school with a class of less then ambitious students, Gruwell seemed to demand the most from her students. When one of her students, Jamal, turned in a lack luster paper, rather let it slide, Gruwell pulled Jamal from class and held his feet to the fire. This effort strongly portrayed the concept that this teacher wouldn’t allow anything from her students that was less then what she thought they were capable of.

Watson also showed this same behavior. With one of her students, Joan, she sees that she has an interest in continuing on with a law degree. Instead of allowing Joan to let the opportunity pass, Watson presented her with an application to Yale. Although after multiple follow ups, Watson comes to see that Joan decides against Yale, it was only after she’d been pressed and forced to really look at both path ways is she able to see that getting married is what she really wanted to do, this would not have been possible without Watsons demanding attitude for Joan to truly confront her situation.

            Ms. Gruwell and Ms. Watson were picture perfect examples of two teachers that went well above what was expected from them although they came from almost completely opposite circumstances. While they can be seen for utilizing three important qualities to be a successful teacher they went about them in different ways. While Ms. Gruwell had to show dedication to get her students interested in the lessons she wanted to express, Ms. Watson had to bring her students down to earth and help them realize knowledge is far from being able to understand underlined points in their textbooks.

Emulating Lorde's, Rose's and Malcolm X's texts

"My homeroom was supervised by Brother Dill, a troubled and unstable man who also taught freshman English."
The 5th Grade classroom was watched over and taught by Mr.steed, who pushed the 9 year old students to act as adults.

"Mr. Montez was a tiny man, slight, no taller then 5 foot 6, soft spoken and delicate."
Ms. Gruwell was a young women, with a lot of determination and ability to unify a divided classroom.

"Bimbi had always taken charge of any conversation he was in, and I tried to emulate him."
Ms. Gruwell taught with great compassion and understanding, qualities the students began to mirror.

Mona Lisa Smile

I think Mona Lisa Smile was a decent movie. I don't think it was as interesting as "Freedom Riders", but I think it did a good job of personifying a good teacher with positive intentions. I think Ms. Watson gave a good visual on how a teacher should have a want to inspire her students. I think the entire school she worked at was very snobby and stuck up.

Teacher like Ms. Gruwell

I've had teachers that were similar to Ms. Gruwell in that they were dedicated to helping their students learn. Ms. Gruwell also made it clear she wanted to get to know each of her students, which is exactly what my 5th grade teacher, Mr. Steed did by standing in the front door of his class and shaking each students hand. Both teachers made it clear that they intended to get to know those who they were teaching. Also, during student conferences Mr. Steed had a set of ideas that he proposed to the parents, to not only help them be successful that year, but what issues he could see possibly arising throughout the rest of their years in school. This is similar in a way to what Ms. Gruwell did in that she showed that the actual learning of her students was important to her.

Ms. Gruwell and Ms. Watson

The two teachers seem different in that their environment is entirely opposite. Ms. Gruwell struggles with getting her students motivated and helping them see, to a degree, their potential. This is not the case with Ms. Watson entirely, she deals with very overconfident students that almost seem to believe they're free of flaw.
The teachers of both movies have a great deal of similarities as well. Ms. Watson and Ms. Gruwell both have a unique way of teaching. Both teachers are extremely dedicated and stress the concept of helping their students look at things in a different light.

Comparing schools from the movies

The school that Ms. Watson teaches at is very high class and prestigious, very unlike the low budget school in "Freedom Riders." Ms. Gruwell taught a group of students who seemed to lack ambition, study habits, and mostly a home environment that complimented good grades. Ms. Watson's students seemed to be the exact opposite, all coming from wealthy families with a history of academic success.

Ms Gruwell

Ms Erin Gruwell is a great teacher. Throughout the movie, "Freedom Riders" Ms. Gruwell showed her dedication to her students and her teaching. Ms Gruwell fought for her students in many ways, such as demanding they get the books they needed as opposed to the old, outdated, and damaged books her class had been receiving prior. Erin also spent much of her time off the clock to get the resources to get her students what she believed they needed to learn and be the most successful. Another quality Ms Gruwell had to personify her want to help the students was how hard she tried to get to know her students, such as learning each individuals names and how to pronounce them, such as her student, Ava.

Audrey Lorde's Essay

Audrey Lorde had multiple teachers that played roles in her life.
The first of her teachers to make an impact was Mrs. Baker the librarian. This instrumental teacher in her life taught her to read and in Lorde's words "Saved her life, if not sooner, then later (22)."  The ability to read, Lorde describes as sometimes being "The only thing I could hold onto (22)."

The second teacher to enter Lorde's life was Mrs. Teacher. Mrs. Teacher seems to be very strict, and seemingly the worst kind of person to teach kindergartners. Lorde immediately notices that she is not given the standard items for learning to write, as she was handed a black crayon and a lookalike of her sisters music notebook.

As Audrey Lorde transfered to the Catholic school across the street, she was greeted by her new young teacher, Sister Mary of Perpetual Help, where her mother immediately gives the nuns direction to spank the unruly Audrey whenever need be. Lorde describes the new teacher as "Hating either teaching or young children (27)." And quickly divided the class into two sections, Fairies and Brownies.

What makes a good teacher

I believe that the attributes of a good teacher are ones that really consider the learning of their students as a large priority. I think that this can come in many different forms, but always behind that central idea.
I think its also very important for the teacher to be able to understand the students which in turn will help the students understand the teachers perspective, making learning on both ends much easier.

Paper #1

1. I'm relatively happy with my first paper. There are a few grammatical errors that I found after re-reading it a couple times that I will need to fix.
2. I was able to pull a little information on how my essay should be written from looking at some of the other papers in the class.
3. At this point, to help make my writing better, I think it would be helpful to have others read my paper and point out areas where I was either to vague or the information just didn't make sense.
4.The educational experience I chose to write about was coming to an understanding that I, in general, just have control over myself.
5.I wanted the reader to come away with an understanding of what issues protruded in my life before the learning of the lesson and how my life was altered afterwards.

Educational Experience

An educational experience that had significance in my life, is the lesson of learning how to ride a bike. This was an important moment of my life because it not only did I learn an important skill used daily by many people throughout the world, but I was able to familiarize myself with the idea that many obstacles in life may not come easy at first. I learned this little by little each time I fell until I was finally able to stay upright on my own. I initially had thought the only thing I had just done was become efficient at being mobile on two wheels. As time has went on I've understood that the very simple skills I'd be utilizing while learning to ride a bike are skills that have been used and needed in almost every difficult situation life has faced me with.

Malcolm X / Mike Rose

The two narrative essays by both Malcolm X and Mike Rose have many similarities and differences. Both Malcolm X and Mike Rose explain a situation where they seemed to have been failed by the education system, but both found a way around their undesirable learning environment to learn, not only basic knowledge needed to play a part in society, but go onto being exceptional thinkers.
The two stories differ greatly in how they were able to come upon such knowledge. Malcolm X was able to apply his "articulate hustle" to his writing when he was locked away as a convicted robber. Mike Rose seemed to have been able to get more out of school when he became very interested in a topic in his sophomore year of high school.

The first writing assignment seems like an interesting enough topic. I think focusing on an educational experience from my life, will not only allow me to look back on something that enlightened me, one way or another, but why the experience did so. The idea of looking back on a positive experience and dissecting it seems very positive and useful.

Feross Aboukhadiejeh computer programming

I liked Feross Aboukhadiejeh's explanation on how he got interested in computer programming, what he suggests, as well as the experiences he offers of other computer programmers. He seemed very knowledgeable on the topic, not unlike Joshua Romeros explanation, but with a very clear message on how to be successful. He sums it up very simply, that you  need to practice to be efficient, and to make the task easier, be interested in the topic.

Group blog

Today we gathered in groups to discuss why it was we came to choose the templates we did for our Google blog pages. The group, consisting of Dan, Casey, Omar, and Travis all took a few moments in setting up our individual sites to our preferred specifications. While Dan created his page to "pop" with a background that "jumps from the screen", Omar chose his theme because he enjoys travel, it looked nice and was simple. Casey, who chose his background to include a blurred image of a highway landed on the picture because it looked sunny and "nice". Travis, choosing the template with a black and white of a small bridge, picked that image in particular because it looked peaceful and was a quick click away from starting on the next part of the assignment.

First blog

First blog