Similarities and differences between Lewis Black and Mike Rose

I did not see too many similarities between the two or even differences.  This was just two guys saying the system is broken in two very different ways. 
Lewis Black is so sarcastic and at times funny.  He has a point in what he was saying but I did not hear him offer up any concrete solutions to the problems. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to  understand that our schools are broken - which is good because none of us are"
 Yes, it is ridiculous to have such an expensive public school in California, "I'm pretty sure schools shouldn't be the nicest building you'll ever be inside" and of course Tony Danza probably should not be teaching (does he have a college education and a teaching certificate?) unless he is qualified to do so, but there  were no suggestions beyond the sarcasm to improve the problem.  But I guess that is Lewis Blacks way of making sure people get the message,,, Schools are broke and need fixing and throwing out a bunch of stupid suggestions like the NBC reporter did "The next time you drive by a school, stop in and ask what can I do to help" are so not helping.  Brilliant.

Mike Rose, on the other hand, did have some solid suggestions. 
" To stop making the standardized test score the gold-standard of student achievement and teacher effectiveness. In what other profession do we use a single metric to judge goodness? Imagine judging competence of a cardiologist by the average of her patients’ cardiograms."
     These tests are not helping anything.  The teachers have to teach to the test.  I have heard that several times over the past years that my boys were in school.  The tests measure more the ability of the teacher to teach certain subjects but don't say a lot about the students ability to learn to actually think out a problem and solve it.  Also the time away from actual learning increases when these tests are being given.  At Kingston High School during testing week, the only kids that are required to actually be in school before 11am are the tenth graders that are taking the test as well as a few from the other grades that are retaking the tests.  What a wasted amount of time!

"To have the secretary of education, the president, and other officials stop repeating the phrase “We are going to educate ourselves toward a 21st Century economy.” It is smart economic policy more than anything else that will move us toward a 21st Century economy."
Politics do not belong in school.  Maybe that's what got us in this pickle in the first place.  Politicians are good at one thing....saying stuff.  I am not sure they do anything beyond that, certainly they  don't do anything.   We need people with a solid workable solution to the problems in the schools that are not afraid to go up against the system.

That's it for now.  Where's my heart medication?!!

What do I think high school is for?

That's a tough one.  After putting three boys thru the school system in North Kitsap I don't have a lot of positives to say about the purpose of high school. 
What high school should be about is helping to transition the students from kids to adults.  It should be  about encouraging self esteem, free will and aiding in the acquiring of new skills that will put the students in better position to go out in the workforce. 

What I think the high school is actually for:  providing jobs for a bunch of people who may at one time thought teaching was a noble profession but got swallowed up or carried away by the constant flow of administrative BS that is so rampant in the schools.  Forgive me,,, my experience, in reference to my boys, was not a good one. 

Now what would I like to see changed about it? 
Ha, a lot... 

Besides the obvious - money, I would like to see more flexibility from the staff in dealing with the kids(young adults).  They - the school administration, sees the world in black and white.  Its not black and white,  it is gray.  The students are all individuals and should be treated as such.  We all learn differently and so there should be some acknowledgement of that and students be given different options for test taking, assignments, etc. if the routine path does not work for them.  If a student tests better orally instead of pen and paper or computer work than why can't some accommodation be made to  help that student succeed. 
The schools are too big.  One of the biggest complaints I have heard from teachers is that they don't have time to give each student individual attention.  Of course they don't.  They have a minimum of thirty five student in five to six classes a day.  That's 210 different kids who all learn in different ways.  So smaller schools and smaller classrooms.  Maybe if the money was actually spent in the classroom and not on "green" buses and new sports equipment every year there would be more left to spend on  teaching and yes, even caring about our kids.

How does Chalk illustrate the charges Freire and Gatto level agaist education?

The movie illustrates a lot of what Freire and Gatto write about - you just need to look for it.  I found that by rereading(again) Gatto and Freire I was able to assign scenes from the movie to bits in the essays.  Here are my examples:

From Freire:  Narration(with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content.
     In the movie, there is a scene where Mr. Lowry, a fairly incompetent first year teacher, has the students repeating words and phrases.  I am sure the kids have no idea what they were in reference to except maybe history. 

From Freire:  In the attitudes and practices section of his writings - (h) the teacher chooses the program content, and the students(who were not consulted), adapt to it.
     In the movie, there is a scene where Coach Webb has decided to teach a few yoga moves and has the students doing  particular exercise that makes some of the kids uncomfortable(probably in a sexual way).  Some people do still have some modesty and to force the kids to set that aside is just wrong.

From Gatto:  "Without Conant, we would probably not have the same style and degree of standardized testing that we enjoy today, nor would we be blessed with gargantuan high schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000 students at a time, like the famous
columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. 
    In the movie, there is a scene where the assistant principal is almost frantically running thru the maze of hallways trying to find a wayward student.  She has to keep getting directions from someone on the walkie-talkie who is in a room somewhere watching on the cameras that are set up to keep tabs on the students.

From Gatto:  "The empire struck back, of course; childish adults  regularly conflate opposition with disloyalty.
     In the movie, there is a scene where Coach Webb is whining to the assistant principal about the other teachers not disciplining their students for minor infractions and then the conversation takes a personal turn and a bit of yelling followed.  The two women had claimed to be good friends at one point. 

From Gatto:  "Boredom is  the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who had spent time in a teachers; lounge an vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there."
     In the movie, the one scene that I can recall that most illustrates this passage is the scene where all the teachers are in the lounge and the one male teacher is complaining because someone took his yogurt.  There  was a definite lack of energy in that room. 

Notes from Chalk

Chalk
Parental apathy
The impact teachers actually have on their students
fifty percent of teachers quit in first three years
1st day - Math , history, principal
History teacher(Mr. Lawry) not connecting with students.  has not worked as a teacher before
Scene with teachers at lunch discussing their capabilities
Mr.. Stroope - history teachers
Coach Webb - PE
Mr.. Stroope - conversation about personal goals for evaluations, sarcasm,  cleanliness
lesson plans - be more detailed
Assistant principal  breaks up fight
don't be students friend. gym teacher taking other teacher out of class to discipline her and then talk about walking club
history class - teacher cant find chalk.  students are laughing at him.  he leaves
gym teacher.  make students understand your expectations and even if the aren't good she makes them think they are so they perform better
history teachers looks for books on classroom management
Assistant principal cant go to happy hour because of the demands of the job
teacher telling students to dumb it down for the rest of the class
gym teacher enjoying her job better so she can flirt with other teacher
Stroope asking other teachers about stealing , cheating, goofing off  scolding teachers
win  -  with integrity now
teacher pretends to call parent and tell him his sons grade is pitiful
daydream with Gym teachers and history teacher
Assistant principal finds teacher sleeping
Assistant principal has inappropriate conversation with teacher.  ask him if he is seeing anyone
teacher does not have time for a personal life
social studies teacher shooting at pots
teacher yells at student whose phone goes off.  kicks student out and demeans him after student yells at him as well
Assistant principal and teachers at a bar talking about kissing at work
stroop talking to students about teacher of the year.  boasting to students about being in the running for teacher of the year
history teacher going to confront students mom about his behavior - does not respect teacher. whining about lack of respect.
drinking wine with mom.  eamon gets the wine for his mom and teacher. 
Assistant principal working overtime again
coach Webb tattling about other teachers letting kids in late
Webb telling ap how to do her job
stroop coaching kid on questioning his competition for teacher of the year
teacher of the year debate.  bullshit meter thru the roof
stroop being a baby about not being teacher of the year and taking up class time talking about it
throws a temper tantrum  throws desk and yells at student
Assistant principal and Webb arguing in mail room
teacher spelling bee
history teacher wins the kids slang spelling bee.  his students coached him during class
history teacher gives the kids free time and the kids start rapping
Mr.. Lawry says.  Teaching is a gift.  Maybe its something you can learn.. no one has taught me.

Blog Post - How does the WS reading pertain to P#3

How does the WS reading pertain to the final paper for this class? 

Basically it reminds the reader about the types of essays we have already written and gives guidance for the final essay. 

Our final essay will be of the argumentative model.  It requires the writer to choose a subject and voice an opinion and then expand on the opinion - remembering all along that it is an opinion and not a fact.  It also requires a clear thesis statement, something that we learned in paper #2.  This will be different from the first two papers in that as an argument piece we will have to have some sort of evidence to back up statements.  It should prove to be an interesting exercise for me as I am not good at all in a debate or argument - yes I know I won't actually be arguing with someone, just trying to present an intelligent and well thought out report. 

What do Freire and Gatto agree on?

A lot, I think....

I don't think there would be too much disagreement if any between these two.

Lets begin with the vessel of the student.   Freire says " Narration (with the teacher as the narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content.  Worse yet, it turns them into "containers," into "receptacles" to be "filled" by the teacher  The more completely he fills the receptacles, the better a teacher he is.  The more the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are. 
In Gattos writing he talks a lot about boredom and immaturity, about the system purposefully "dumbing down" the  school populace so as to make them more like sheep and less likely to have a mind of their own. 
Freire states " It is not surprising that the "banking" concept of  education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings.  The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness that would result from their intervention in the world.  The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them."
Gattos says regarding the adaptation of the Prussian educational model " an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and  to ensure docile and incomplete citizens, - all in order to render the populace "manageable".
Along those same lines, from Freire " The educated man is the adapted man, because he is better "fit" for the world.  Translated into practice, this concept is well suited to the purposes of the oppressors, whose tranquility rests on how well men fit the world the oppressors have created, and how little they question it".
Also in Gattos essay there is a quote by H.L. Mencken that the aim of the public education is not
"to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence...Nothing could be further from the truth.  The aim...is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.  That is its aim in the United States... and that is its aim everywhere else.

Both writers vigorously insist that the purpose of the education system is to, in very simple terms, turn us all into mindless consumers who will have little to no free-thought and to insure that we are too stupid to revolt.  That's my overly pessimistic view anyways. 
Both writers do encourage the reader to acknowledge the problem(s) in the US educational system(they do not suggest that this is just a US issue but a universal one) and give hints on how one might challenge and change the system with ones own self and children. 

Paulo Freire group post

 

 

 

Our task was to read(after reading "The Banking Concept of  Education") "Lessons to Be Learned From Paulo Freire as Education Is Being Taken Over by the Mega Rich" by Henry A. Giroux and discuss then write a summary about how the website (article) complicates, enriches and/or confuses our understanding of the reading.  We decided to each write a short summary and submit to our blogs as a group.

 

Jane Welton

Reading the articles, I found that it enriched my understanding of the readings.  The article our small group read expounded on the article assigned for the class.  In "The Banking Concept of Education" it is written, "In this way, the problem-posing educator constantly reforms his reflections in the reflection of the students.  The students--no longer docile listeners--are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher.  The teacher presents the material to the students for their consideration and re-considers his [or her] earlier considerations as the students express their own." I compare that to a statement from "Lessons to Be Learned from Paulo Freire as Education Is Being Taken Over by the Mega Rich" which states, "...students learn how to expand their own sense of agency, while recognizing that to be voiceless is to be powerless.  Central to such a pedagogy is shifting the emphasis from teachers to students, and making visible the relationships among knowledge, authority and power.  Giving the students the opportunity to be problem posers and engage in a culture of questioning in the classroom..."  The first article gives a great deal of information and the second digs deeper, giving more details and examples to the first.  It created more understanding of what Freire had to say about the state of the world of education.

 

Patty Riley

Paulo Freires writing was/is difficult at times to comprehend.  In rereading it a few more times as well as reading and rereading the website article I was able to more fully understand what Freire was writing about.   From "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" Freire writes "The educated man is the adapted man, because he is better "fit" for the world.  Translated into practice, this concept is well suited to the purposes of the oppressors, whose tranquility rests on how well  men fit the world the oppressors have created, and how little they question it."  Giroux backs this up with " Central to critical pedagogy is the recognition that the way we educate out youth is related to the future that we hope for and that such a future should offer students a life that leads to the deepening of freedom and social justice. "  The web article gave me a new understanding of what Freire was detailing but although not in much simpler terms at least in more understandable detail so yes, I would say that the web article definitely enriched Freires writing.  It neither complicated nor confused this reader any further.....

Enrique Acuna

My high school experience happens between 1983 and 1987. I was an average students got “C” average on occasion I would bet an A. Cooking, art, PE, and Shop automotive where the classes I excelled and I really didn’t have to try. About my sophomore & junior , I would met with my guidance counselor and he would go over my score exams and tell me that I was only capable to get a job in these field, automotive, secretarial, janitorial, and cooking. I was never expected to excel, I didn’t know how to. I was a sponge at the time and wanted to know more and learn. I would study astronomy and know the stars in the sky and the planets; I would read books and books about astronomy and black stars, super nova and other celestial objects. I also loved geology, I wanted to know about dinosaurs and evolution, I was very fascinated with Darwin, these are things I would read and teach myself. At the end of my senior year I asked why I never took biology, I always wanted to cut open a frog, and chemistry. I wanted to mix chemicals and learn the periodic table and all its elements. I was told It wasn’t in my profile. I just ignored it because I had been approved to join the navy and serve on a nuclear submarine.

So in gattos,  paper against school. I really feel that I was actually a product of Mr. Inglis school modem. The conformity function as it was called, I was the kid they were trying to make predictable so I can become a great use for this nation and its large labor force that was to become the 1990’s. I was being sorted and trained to a certain destination and told that’s it buddy you hit the glass ceiling of your career at 19. Congratulation tell him what he wins, Bob. You are now assistant manager of a local Del Taco restaurant here in sunny California. What made me not fall in that pitfall, I believed my parents had a huge influence on me to work hard and have pride at what you do, more my Dad than my mom. At a young age 14 I was working in a nursing home and assembly line for early apple iie computers. I had a car and I had liberty to come and go freely. I was responsible.