HW 46 - Research and Writing

For my book i read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. It was about a firefighter named Guy Montag, only firefighters in that time aren't responsible for putting out fires, but starting them. They are responsible for the burning of books. Books are against the law and might spark some form of revolution. They made it a point to throw people who were found in possession of books to be thrown in jail and their house to be burned. This was all fine with Montag until he met a young girl who wasn't under the spell of television and opened his eyes to the world around him. It was when she met her untimely end that he really began to question everything around him. The story is about how we are so quick to absorb what is right in front of us but refuse to look past it, especially when we are being spoon fed the "truth."

This connects to my thesis because although it doesn't directly deal with success rates or anything like that, it gets into the mind set of someone who had an education under the government and someone who didn't and offers extraordinary contrasting points that will be extremely useful when i write my essay. I can use how the government mindset is so easily upset when it comes into conflict with the free thinking mind.

I wanted to be able to look at education and see how the schools in urban areas compare to suburban schools and how that can effect success rates. I thought that race would play a big part as well as income. I figured inner city schools wouldn't fare as well as rich long island schools. The reason that the book helps with this is because it addresses the types of education and without looking at race or income it attacks this man's life and how easily his perfect balance can be thrown off when he comes into conflict because he doesn't really understand life because he was never really taught, he was more along the lines of forced memorization. These tactics can leave you unprepared for life which is exactly what happened to Montag. He didn't know how to respond to change so he shut down and did what he was told. Even in scenes where he should have made his own decisions he had someone else make them. He was never truly alone throughout the book, it was always someone Else's thoughts or words that were guiding him, he was a puppet. I want to be able to base what i write off of something like that. I want to be able to understand the school systems like i understand Montag.

HW 45 - More Big Thoughts on Schools

Theodore R. Sizer as we know was the founder of the coalition of essential schools of which we are members along with over 600 other school across the country and internationally. He believed that if students were allowed to more freely use their mind then they could develop more intellectually. He thought that by giving us minor structure that we would be able to grow beyond what we could have if we had stuck to the structure. He thought that we were like a plant, if you keep putting us in bigger pots we can grow more because if we were a big plant in a little pot then we can only grow as much as the pot will let us. He wanted to leave room for change and because he believed that with change came growth. E.D. Hirsch, on the other hand believed that by learning facts about American and other countries that we will be more prone to success because we know what is necessary and that is what will help us more when we apply for colleges of jobs. In the books he published he stated that every grade level should have certain lesson plans that should be followed more explicitly and then after that the rate of success will be much greater.

I believe that freedom is necessary for change and that you can't progress without change. The problem with that is that progress and change are things that need to be kept in check. You cannot allow a plant to grow freely and expect it to stay within certain boundaries. The idea of untethered change can be scary to many because it is unpredictable and has the ability to get dangerous. If total and complete freedom is offered to today's youth then what control does the powers at be have over us? How can they possibly control us and make us do what they want. What i would do if i had to run a school, as predictable as it may be, i would mix the ideas of Sizer and Hirsch. I think that freedom is necessary to grow and learn but there needs to be some sort of root that can be built off of. It would great if people could hold an intelligent conversation and interject their own ideas, but they need to be able to understand what is being talked about. The Bill of Rights is something that should be taught in schools. We need to know the history of the planet. I think that if there could be a mix of Political sciences, World History, and Social studies in public schools, then there would be a great increase in the people produced by that education system.

E.D. Hirsch said: "Such is the case for the fundamental, inescapable importance of substantial, broad background knowledge for reading comprehension (and for performing well on reading comprehension tests). But agreement on this begs the next question: Knowledge of what? What knowledge should the schools be responsible for teaching to all kids? I believe that part of the answer is quite straightforward, and I hope uncontroversial—and to teach it ought to take about 40-60 percent of curricular time. " (Building Knowledge-http://archive.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/spring06/hirsch.htm). He wants the students of tomorrows youth be able to hold a conversation. It isn't necessarily a bad thing. He bases his knowledge off of comprehension tests which isn't right so i think that his ideas might be skewed from the beginning but he does have some valid points especially with the fact that we need more background knowledge. Ted Sizer said : "Few of the young soldiers who served under him had completed high school, but when treated democratically, as members of a cohesive group, they learned new skills readily, he found.“Whatever troops you got had to deliver,” Professor Sizer told Phi Delta Kappan magazine in 1996. “If one person didn’t do it, he put everybody’s life at stake. That made a deep impression. There was no tracking in the Army, just the beliefs that somehow these young men had to be trained and had to be reliable and that all soldiers can learn.”(Obituary Works-http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/education/23sizer.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all). Again just like Hirsch, Sizer recounts ideas from personal experiences and plans that to work accordingly with all people. Both of these people didn't ever investigate the other side, because if they did then it wouldn't be a problem right now because they would see how they could use each other to cover the flaws in their own ideas. But that is because they didn't take advice from each other, at least thats what i think.

HW 44 - Big Expectations for School

In my professional opinion i think that President Obama's speech on school is really the best out of all the articles. He doesn't say that school is there to transform you into something that you aren't. It simply says that if you try your hardest then you will be in a better position to help yourself in the future. Although it is the most generic and designed to embrace the path of least resistance, he still does an excellent job of getting his message across. He doesn't say that if they try to be something that they aren't then they will be better, but if they try their hardest then they will have more opportunities then if they just drop out. On average the people with the college degrees have a higher salary (http://www.all4ed.org/files/u1/TaxesGraph.gif). Albeit that race does place a significant role in these topics, that is not what i am discussing now. What Obama was basically saying is that if you try your hardest and stay in school then the chances for success are much higher.

My beliefs in the school system are quite simple. I believe that school should be mandatory but for those who are going to go and just make it harder for the people who went there to learn then what is the point. Things don't always happen like they do in movies. There isn't going to be a new white teacher in every bad school in America who goes there to miraculously change the lives of the students by reaching them through various trust exercises. Some of the students will just be dragged through school and just barely graduate if they don't drop out and then find a job that they can do. That's what i think at least.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/02/column-we-need-two-school-systems-.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/opinion/23herbert.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/opinion/03friedman.html?em

Those three articles seem to understand what i am talking about. The first address the fact that people are different and that there should be schools to address the different peoples needs so that they can be more effective to this country and be more successful in life. The second article states that schools are more successful when they are more stern with their students and mold them to follow their rules and do what they say. They make the children submissive and because of that they are more successful and therefore more able to adapt to our society. Terrible but true. The third article is about how we are beginning to have to outsource more and more because although we may be leaders in most aspects of the world. We are beginning to let the rest of the world catch up with us and in complete honesty. They are just plain cheaper then us. They can produce the same labor and basic needs for a fraction of the price and be the same quality. These three articles are all really important because as cheesy as it may be, they all connect back to the original Obama speech. They all basically say that we need to step up. We have become lazy! I am no exception, i have had all week to write this and i am doing it the night before it is due. I don't know who is to blame the school, my home, my friends, my teachers. Maybe it might just be my fault. At least i am willing to accept it.