Friday, March 27, 2009

Chapter 10 - Students at Risk

This chapter was all about students at risk, how to identify certain students at risk, how to prevent certain problems, and how to intervene if need be. The following risks were discussed:

1. Tobacco, drugs, and alcohol use/abuse


2. Suicide

3. Dropping out of school

4. Teenage pregnancy

5. HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections (STI)

6. Child abuse and neglect


7. School violence


8. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth


I found the statistics for each of these risks to be very interesting and the different indicators were interesting as well. This chapter made me really think about certain of these problems, and how I would react to them personally. Some of the situations would not be easy to deal with, some others might be a little easier because of the personal experiences I have had. All in all, I found this chapter extremely interesting and gave me some very positive feedback on how to deal with, or prevent, certain situations. You never know what you will come across in your life...


DaNo

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Childhood and Parenting in Children's Popular Culture and Childcare Magazines

I really enjoyed this text because I think it describes perfectly how society actually is. Luke talks about how girls and boys, at a very young age, are separated. The toys in a store (specifically Toys R Us) are placed in a strategic manner, so that the girls have to walk through all the boy toys before getting to their section. He gave an example about water guns, which really got me thinking. The boys water guns are shaped like actual hand guns, in metallic or primary colors. The girls water guns were shaped like lip sticks, compacts, or nail polish bottles, in different pinks and purples. All the boy toys were "high-tech" and the girl ones were kitchen appliances, ironing boards, and dolls. Another aspect he spoke about was how magazines affected a parents outlook on childhood. The articles in these magazines were very short, not written by professionals, and usually had a lot of advertising in them. Often first-time mothers will read these magazines and books like they have all the answers. Another interesting fact about these magazines is that they all revolved around women, and never spoke of fatherhood. I found this article very interesting because I had never really paid attention to the whole toys issue, but now the more I think about it, the more it makes total sense.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Chapter 9 - Responding To Diversity

After reading all those history chapters, I found this one to be very interesting. The introduction to this chapter explained a scenario where a girl was in an auto mechanics class, and she was not being treated equal to the boys in the class. The author asks us if the girl should drop the class or not. I don't think she should, because American society needs to realize that things are changing and becoming more diverse, therefor, should encourage this girl for exploring auto mechanics; going beyond the stereotypes. I learned that a very important difference is all the different cultures; macroculture and microculture. Teachers need to understand the means of communication, the means of interaction, and the values of driving people or groups, and how these things influence learning. A new term I learned is enculturation, which means learning formally or informally through parents or other adults. Certain strategies on teaching culturally diverse students are as follows: emphasizing verbal interactions, teaching students to use self-talk, facilitating divergent thinking, using small-group instruction and cooperative learning, employing verve in the classroom, focusing on real-world tasks, and promoting teacher-student interaction. Multicultural education has two primary goals; 1. promote educational equality for all students, male and female, minority or majority, able or disabled 2. enable all students to learn and develop knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to successfully participate in and contribute to an increasingly diverse society. Multicultural education has five dimensions and they are: content integration dimension, knowledge construction process dimension, prejudice reduction dimension, equity pedagogy dimension, and empowering school culture and social structure dimension. Multicultural education also has five approaches and those are: teaching the exceptional and culturally different approach, human relations approach, single group studies approach, inclusive multicultural education approach, and educational multiculturalism and social reconstructionism approach. The author also states that the hardest thing as an immigrant is keeping a healthy ethnic identity while developing an American identity. The major elements that are produced by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are: the right to a free and appropriate education, identification and nondiscriminatory evaluation, an individualized education program, least restrictive environment, and procedural due process. There were many other major points covered in this chapter, but these are the ones I found most interesting. America needs to learn to adapt to every situation, and realize that the whole world is slowly becoming a mixture of all the different cultures!

DaNo

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Freire Text

After reading the Freire text, I learned that his education philosophy is based on his belief in human liberation, through the use of critical consciousness and dialogical methods of interaction between people. He didn't agree with the method of "banking" teaching, but favored more of a "problem-posing" method. A "banking" method is where teachers "deposit" knowledge, the things they know best, into student's minds. The students record, memorize, and repeat what they are taught, without truly understanding what everything really means. The people who think they are the most knowledgeable feel as if they are giving a gift of knowledge to those who know nothing. Freire did not like the "banking" concept, and preferred the "problem-posing" method. For him, this meant that teachers, as well as students, develop their own visions of the world by using their own voices, not someone else's. Education should be a practice of freedom. I agree with Freire's "problem-posing" method, because we have the right to be who we want to be and believe what we want to believe. I don't like it when people try and impose things on me that I don't believe in or don't want to belong too.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Illich and Goodlad

Goodlad's text was about the different purposes of schooling. There were twelve in total. Here they are:
1. Mastery of basic skills or fundamental procedures
2. Career education-vocational education
3. Intellectual development
4. Enculturation
5. Interpersonal relations
6. Autonomy
7. Citizenship
8. Creativity and aesthetic perception
9. Self-concept
10. Emotional and physical well-being
11. Moral and ethical character
12. Self-realization

Illich's text was about disestablishing school. He thinks schools have a way of destructing the lives of the children who attend them and that the children are being brainwashed into believing whatever the people with the highest power believe. He thinks teachers have too much of an impact on their students lives and therefor doesn't let the student make its own decisions and doesn't have enough control over their own life. There are three different roles a teacher can play: teacher-as-custodian, teacher-as-moralist, teacher-as-therapist. Although Illich has some very strong points about this topic, I do think that school and education is still necessary in everyday life.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Chapter 6 - American Education: From Revolution To The Twentieth Century

Chapter 6, just like chapter 5, was full of interesting historical information. One thing I will now always remember was who invented the dictionary; Noah Webster. Back then, their dictionary was called the "blue-back speller" because of the color of the book's binding. That fact will definitely stick with me. There were many different types of schools as well. For example, monitorial schools, charity schools, Sunday schools, infant schools and academies. An interesting thing about those days, that is very different from now a days, is that men often made twice as much money than women did, for doing the SAME job! If things were like that now, I don't think I would be a very happy woman! HAHA! The part of this chapter that I found most interesting was the part about the education of minorities in America. The main social groups I learned about were the Native Americans, the Hispanic Americans, the Asian Americans, the African Americans, as well as women. The education for these groups of people was often neglected, segregated, and not fair to them at all. They were not allowed to learn anything but English and were forced to assimilate into the American society. Often the ones that dropped out and went back to their homes found that what they were taught in the schools was useless. Personally, I think education has come a long way and will only keep improving as time goes on! :)

Dano