Social Justice Event:
Attending the Social Justice Event Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation I was able to hear an abundance of information about the changing and evolving of the education system in our society today. The keynote speaker,  Christopher Emdin was very engaging and entertaining while being very informative and eye opening as well. He used videos and pictures incorporated in a powerpoint to help prove his points about the education system today. Many of the things he said connected to multiple readings that we had discussed in class and throughout the semester. The first piece I could relate this event to was the most recent piece we read by Ira Shor titled Empowering Education: Critical teaching for Social Change. The title says it all, Shor discusses how the education system needs to change in order for change to happen outside the classroom as well as inside. The point that was made about being slaves to society and conformity was the most important part in the piece because that is exactly what people are. They are slaves to the bigger people, those who create the rules but these rules are what is causing the issues in the first place. This concept reminds me of the Silenced Dialogue. A video the speaker showed at the Social Justice Event also reminded me of the Silenced Dialogue as well. The video was of a student in the back of the classroom trying to answer a question the teacher had asked by yelling out the correct answer but the teacher would not call on him because he did not raise his hand. This video related both to the Silenced Dialogue and the point Ira Shor made about being slaves to conformity. There is a rule in the classroom about raising hands and if a student does not raise their hand they will not be called on even if they have the correct answer. The child in the video continued to put his head on the desk, feeling defeated and put down. It is the job of the teacher to make children feel welcome and comfortable in the classroom. Another point Emdin made in his presentation was the fact that people are from different backgrounds and it is important to blend these backgrounds in the classroom and make sure that judgments aren't made based on what a person looks like or their background. When the speaker asked open ended questions to the audience there were a variety of people who raised their hand and agreed with him on what he was asking, there was no one type of person who answered his questions or who agreed with his points when he asked about them. These exercised he did kept the audience engaged and it made me realize that being quick to judge someone on their appearance is not good. I already knew it wasn't good but it opened my eyes. These engaging exercises he conducted reminded me of the Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez because he talks about the young boy who grew up in an unsafe neighborhood and thought nothing of it. It is incredible was children go through when they are so young and as adults it is difficult to realize how much they go through because they don't directly discuss it. Working in the school as a tutor and listening to many stories told by classmates has made me realize how strong these kids are and the events that go on in their lives are difficult and I commend their bravery and strength every day for going to school.
There are many outside sources I could refer to relating to the speaker at the Social Justice Event. Reiterating the engaging exercises about how people have different backgrounds and it is important to be aware of that, it just relates to the many stories and personal experiences that have been shared in class. In my classroom there was a little boy who did not celebrate Thanksgiving and I had asked him about it. In doing so, I think I made him feel left out from the rest of the kids. When Emdin discussed the education system as conforming and not changing I thought about what Fred had talked about in his blog when he discussed the many children who were incorrectly classified with disabilities and how this has been going on for years, even more so now. Another connection to the conformity of the system was when Emdin showed pictures of classrooms and how they are set up and how class pictures are taken. All the students usually stand in rows and the desks are placed in rows as well; he used pictures from years ago and pictures from today's classrooms and there were not any differences. This struck me very hard because as a future teacher I do not want to give in to society's ideas of a perfect classroom and having the desks set up differently is important so the children can engage with different students. When I attended the presentations throughout that day I analyzed how the desks were set up and in the Henry Barnard school there are circular tables with chairs around them and in the Fienstein School on Broad Street there are square and rectangular desks with chairs around them but in my English class here the desks are lined up in rows. It was interesting to compare the classrooms and I thought about how boring my English class is and how that could correlate to how the desks are lined up. Overall, he was very informative and entertaining throughout the presentation and I enjoyed it.

Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change
By: Ira Shor

EXTENDED COMMENTS

I have decided to base my blog this week on the blog that was written by Wesley because I enjoyed his comparisons he used and the points he picked from the article were the same points I enjoyed reading as well. He posted a very interesting Ted Talk about critical thinking and how that is the way teachers should teach their students and how anybody should teach. I loved how the speaker, Steve Joordens mentioned that anybody can be a teacher, not just the adults in classrooms with an attendance sheet.
There was a point made in the video about being slaves to society and slaves to certain systems and slaves to conformity, I found this interesting because it made me think about how sometimes I choose not to speak up about certain topics because it is not the most popular opinion I have. Joordens then continues to talk about people with different opinions; he called these people opinion odd balls and he said he loved them. I think everybody is an opinioned odd ball but sometimes people don't like to show that.
Also, In Wesley's blog he discusses points made in the article. In particular I love his topics...in his words called PAPSMDDDRIA but this means 

• Participatory

• Affective

• Problem-posing

• Situated

• Multicultural

• Dialogic

• Desocializing

• Democratic

• Researching

• Interdisciplinary

• Activist 

I really enjoy how he emphasized how important these roles play in every day life as well as in the classroom. As future teachers we have to acknowldge that we will run into issues with politics and there are no ways to avoid running into these issues but there are ways in solving them and dealing with them appropriately. 

Points to bring up in class: Although my post is late and we already discussed the article I would have loved to touched upon this video and what other classmates thought of the speakers points on critical thinking and the difference it makes in classrooms when teachers think outside the box and outside the curriculum.

 

http://www.accessexcellence.org/LC/TL/buchanan/

Citizenship in School: Re conceptualizing Down Syndrome
By: Christopher Kliewer

REFLECTION
I chose to reflect on this piece because I have learned more from this piece than any other article we have read. I want to become a special education teacher and reading this made me think about the many situations I will have to face inside the classroom and with other students and teachers. There will be students with many disabilities, besides Down Syndrome and I need to learn how to handle these students and teach them and inspire them in the classroom. There were many points brought up about the importance of spoken word and communication and these points reminded me of the Silence Dialogue article and how these students will never be understood unless they are heard somehow. Some of them cannot physically be understood but by observing them and watching what they enjoy to do, teachers are able to communicate with them in other ways besides oral words or listening to them speak. I am affected by this article because the teacher that incorporates Where The Wild Things Are into her lesson plan is really inspiring. She takes one interest of one student and uses it to follow many standards that are required for the children to learn; they are able to be artistic in the making of the play and they are able to practice their reading and writing skills in reading the story and writing a script for the play. It is so important to keep all the students happy and I think it is especially important to listen to those students who may not have a strong voice in the classroom, those with disabilities unlike the other students. I hope to work in a classroom with mainly special education students but learning how to work with special education students as well as not disabled students is equally as important.

Points to bring up in class: Throughout school there was a handful of students that I knew who were disabled for many reasons and they were put in mixed classes as well as classes where there were only disabled students. My questions are only for them because I would not be able to answer it. I really wonder what it is like to be in a classroom different than the ones I have grown to know. Some students had an aide with them all through school, others only had the aide for certain classes. How long are they able to have the aide? What did the aide do?

I have added a link describing that the number of babies born with down syndrome has actually decreased over the years.

http://www.downsyndromeprenataltesting.com/gone-150000-fewer-people-with-down-syndrome-in-the-u-s/

Tracking: Why schools need to take another route
By: Jeannie Oakes

QUOTES

"Perhaps as important as student's access to knowledge are critical instructional conditions in their classrooms, that is, the quantity of time spent on learning and the quality of the teaching" (178).
This quote is relevant because as future teachers and educators we have to realize how important our job is, not just to us but to the students. It is our duty as teachers to lead these students to a successful future. This quote is mentioned in the section on Uneven Opportunities and I think it is crucial that we recognize the opportunities that we create for every child and how every child seems to have different opportunities depending on their abilities.
"Creating constructive alternatives to tracking presents technical as well as political problems. Despite promising research findings about heterogeneous grouping, little is likely to be accomplished by simply mixing students up. To be effective, alternatives will probably require fundamental" (179). This quote is relevant also to the fact that we will be teachers and educators and we have to adapt to the changes that occur all the time with the tracking systems and testing alternatives. Tracking as positive and negative affects and can lead to many issues as well as many successes, for the children and the system. I think tracking pressures students to do better but it also makes them feel too pressured and eventually they don't care where they stand. Personally I did not like having a rank in my class because it made me feel poorly if I were below.
"Some rules of thumb can help teachers judge whether the lessons they plan are likely to help students of all ability levels succeed" (180).
Another aspect of teaching that we will have to get accustomed to is creating lesson plans and making sure they work for all types of students. This is a difficult task because it is difficult to figure out what type of lessons work for every student and we have to adjust and accommodate to all the needs of the students. It is helpful to have a student teacher in the classroom at the same time so they can work with students individually on certain subjects that they have issues with.

Points to bring up in class: Although this article was mainly discussing the differences in abilities in students and how different classrooms and teachers accommodate many different students, I want to know the opinions of my classmates of how they plan on working in the system.

I have posted a video about a teacher assigning seats, what do you guys think about it?!

  https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/assign-classroom-seats

Becoming Something Different: Learning from Esme
COLLEEN M. FAIRBANKS
PENNY MASON CROOKS

CONNECTIONS

After reading this piece I connected the points made to two previous pieces we read, Speaking the Unspeakable and Hunger of Memory. In Speaking the Unspeakable, there was a lot of discussion revolving around the difference between public and private spaces and how the two can be combined. In Becoming Something Different, Esme is struggling between the pressures in her home life and the pressures in her academic life. Although in Speaking the Unspeakable it is sexuality that is the main topic but I think the bigger picture of private and public spaces in everybody's daily lives is the most relevant point that is made and can be correlated with topics other than sexuality. In this case, the barrier is lack of communication between two languages. Esme constantly struggles with learning English in school and it is very difficult for her because at home her parents speak primarily Spanish. The pressure Esme feels from the school is to learn English in a certain amount of time and speak it proficiently or she is placed in special literacy classes clashes with the pressure she feels from her family at home who wants her to keep her heritage and not be like the other American children. When Esme reaches high school it becomes more evident that her parents are strict about their cultural ideas when her father does not allow her to have any boys over.
In the Hunger of Memory, Ricardo faced many of the same challenges that Esme did throughout their academic careers. He deals with the same conflicts of private and public space that Esme deals with because his family primarily speaks Spanish in their household as well. All three of these pieces deal with the differences between public and private spaces and the challenges that ELL students face in their homes and in schools. It is not only a lack of communication between two languages but lack of understanding between cultures.

Points to bring up in class: Does everybody face issues between private and public spaces? How is this a challenge? Sometimes issues at home can meld into the issues going on at school and children will miss school because of these issues but what is the big picture here. These children are not being taught equally and are being pressured by too many people.

3 R's Race Reform Rights
HYPERLINKS
There were many parts to this video that related to issues that we have previously discussed in class and to other articles we have read. There was a particular topic that related to me because of my plan to become a teacher. I feel like many of the people in this class can relate to this as well. Closer to the end of the video there was a question asked about whether having a non white teacher affects the students. I had never thought about it before but the only Spanish teacher I had was for my Spanish class and I think I have had only one black teacher in middle school science; he has since retired. This made me think about how non white teachers feel when they teach and whether it does make a difference or not. Gloria; one of the speakers said something in response to the question, "All students need to see a teaching force that more accurately represents the country." her response was clever and clear and not close minded and opened up many other questions to follow. She basically is saying that a non white teacher will not just help non white students but they would help every student. My Spanish teacher obviously helped me in my Spanish class but thinking back having my teacher in eighth grade be black affected me as well. He would actually make mild jokes about it and I realized he was one of my favorite teachers because he was so outgoing and knowledgeable....not because he was black.
I attached a video that appeared on the side bar of the original video and a picture of the logo of the Dual Language Immersion program that is opening up in schools. the video is of a Hispanic teacher talking about his experience in the classroom and how he incorporates his culture to help the students.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWRriW9jm6Q
Points to bring up in class: Will we, as future teachers, be able to accommodate all children, Spanish speaking and not? Depends on school, administrations, curriculum, etc. Our experiences in the schools we are in now, I am in an ESL classroom and the curriculum is not great even the teacher complains about it.

Kahne & Westheimer, "In The Service of What?"
REFLECTION

I decided to write a reflection on this piece because I have completed a lot of community service hours in my life and service learning and community service is very important to me. I never realized there were controversial issues about this topic until reading this article but it seems it can be misconstrued that it is the "wealthy" helping the "poor" but it is just people helping people. In high school I completed the 30 hour famine where a group of us stayed at the school over night and played games that related to issues about hunger and third world countries and we did not eat for a complete 30 hours. It was not difficult because we had each other to distract us and we could sleep if we wanted to. Drinks were provided for us so if we felt hungry we drank water or juice. Knowing I can complete the 30 hour famine was a huge stepping stone in my life because I was able to learn what it was like to not have food but that was only for over a day. After those 30 hours were over I was extremely tired, my body was fatigued and felt very ill and it was difficult to eat after that too.
Another project I take part in is the One Day Without Shoes project and this takes place once a year. The point of it is to not wear shoes all day and get a feeling of what it is like to not have shoes. When I did it in high school it was raining and I remember walking to the bus stop without shoes, it was one of the most painful experiences. I could never imagine walking every day without shoes on the hard cold ground and I just kept thinking about all the diseases I could have potentially gotten. Over the years, I have convinced many people to take part in the day and it really changed my perspective on how people live their lives in other countries. I believe taking part in any community service opportunities will allow people to grow and learn and meet other people and change perspectives.
This article made me think of why I participated and continue to participate in the activities that I do. I think I may do it because I like helping people but honestly, I like changing as a person and learning. It is one thing to help others and know I made a difference in their lives but to know that an experience so simple can change myself is huge.

Points to bring up in class: What community service have other people done? Why do we do it? Community service does not have to be for people, it could be for animals or the environment. The possibilities are endless. The article has many points about the different parts of service learning and the ways it affects people and the people completing it but all in all, it changes people not just helps them. I disagree with many of the points made in the article. VIDEO OF ONE DAY WITHOUT SHOES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REXVN_aROuM
WREBSITE FOR 30 HOUR FAMINE
http://www.30hourfamine.org/?cons_id=0&ts=1414019841&signature=a7d5c2b3cb92e9feb8915a44ca2c05a6