Readicide

 Reading. The way many people find information, learn about events, and to be able to enjoy fiction. It is amazing and astonishing to me how unimportant reading has become in schools. I can remember reading so many different novels in schools that I would never run out of things to read. I read for class but also for fun during the school year. Reading is a great habit for kids to begin so that students will be more inclined to read information outside of the required texts. One of the quotes in the book says “students who do not develop the habit of reading books, newspapers, and magazines end up seniors in high school wondering why they never heard of a guy named Al Qaeda.” Students will stop reading and wondering with curiosity and what will they turn to?

I know that my master teacher, though hard to teach a novel with the new common core curriculum, still teaches at least one a year. Novels are very important to any students learning but now because of the new standards it is much harder to teach. Many teachers now are trying to pass their students by teaching to  a test and that limits what students do learn. I really enjoyed this book because it made me think about how I can still become an effective teacher even though I am having to teach to a test. There is no reason why students cannot or should not read longer novels. I am not saying that schools are cutting out reading all together but they are minimizing the importance. The only way I can see this improving is if teachers do all they can to pass their students as well as allowing them the opportunity to read.

Reading plays a key role in many aspects of education because it teaches new views and allows reinforcement of previously obtained knowledge. 

TPA Lesson Plan

General reactions/responses to TPA lesson plan

This lesson plan is very useful and easy to follow and I really like how it has those dummy proof questions with follow up questions. I think they do not ask too much and lay out exactly what is being asked of the students.

What in here seems valuable and worthwhile?

I think that the most valuable and worthwhile portion of the TPA lesson plan is the focus of the objectives and standards. They give the whole lesson plan worthwhile and allow for teachers to have a focus; like a rubric in a way. By putting the objectives on the lesson plan, it allows for other people like administrators and substitutes to follow when coming in cold. Past experiences have taught me that when teachers have thorough plans laid out the students tend to be way more focused and set up for success.

What questions and concerns do you have about the TPA lesson plan?

I am somewhat confused on how to incorporate parent and community connections. Knowing that parents have email helps with that portion but when it comes to community I get somewhat lost. Is it focusing the lesson on the community or the material and content towards how it can involve the community? It is hard to tell what students will and will not take from the class but my main question is towards what should be put in this section; is it broad or specific?

Why might this be a useful exercise for beginning teachers?

A useful tip may be to teach one or two lessons as practice in order to see how the class goes. I have found that after some of my mini lessons that I have taught, when writing out my plan after teaching it has helped me see what direction I should be going. But when in the regular classroom, this could be helpful so that a teacher can be prepared and thorough to note where things went right and where they went wrong. It is hard to gauge where some students are until after a few lessons.

All in all, I do not foresee many problems with this lesson plan other than having to be strictly focused. It does not seem to leave room for change or different outcomes. In order for this to work, teachers must be flexible and ready to alter their lesson at any time. 

I Read It, But I Don't Get It

One chapter that really stood out to me when reading this book was chapter 6, Connecting the New to the Unknown” and I really appreciated the section “This is Language Arts—Who Cares About Social Studies?” I know that when I was in the 7^th grade I did not make many connections between classroom content from history to language arts or math to science. Come to find out when I got to high school all material being taught had a purpose and was being taught concurrently with another class and it “never crossed her [as well as my] mind to use information in one class to help her [me] with another.” Who knew there was a rhyme or reason to the education system. Looking back, I now understand that what I was learning in one class I could use in another. Not always but some of the times. I realized this more in high school when my English and history teacher, all 3 years I was there, co-taught their classes because it made more sense and the content would cross over most of the time.

“Since good readers make connections between the new and the known” it is clear that many students need to be explicitly told that other classes have something to offer in order for students to fully comprehend the material. No teacher in middle school really explained this to me but it makes sense. When using other classes for background and other types of information, this opens doors for  students to be more equipped and will give them a much better understanding of the material.

Even as teachers, it is easy to forget how implicit we may be at times when we have done something enough to make ourselves think that who we are teaching understand it but in reality every year is a new group starting fresh as should our lessons. It is exciting to first teach a lesson because you are slowly learning it too but over time it just becomes repetitive. Taking the time to reinforce what you are teaching will be more beneficial to your students. “By noticing your process as a reader who connects existing knowledge to new knowledge, you will be well on the way to teaching your students how to use the same strategy.” 

Beliefs about Social Justice in English Education

The article I read was called Beliefs about Social Justice in English Education, and I found it on the NCTE, National Council of Teachers of English, and this is a “professional association of Education in English Studies, Literacy, and Language Arts.” This article I read had 7 different beliefs of how to implement social justice in the classroom including: A goal that evades easy definition, A grounded theory, A stance/position, A pedagogy, A process, A framework for research, and A promise that helps break down the needs of showing social justice in the classroom and how teachers can educate their students about the topic as well.

Social justice is definitionally complex; it ignites controversy, is not neutral, and varies by person, culture, social class, gender, context, space and time. In fact, when definitions are consensus bound, a consensus definition of social justice is not likely to satisfy the most open-minded of thinkers.” It is amazing to me how often we can forget that social norms can hinder us in many aspects if we are not aware or choose to not be aware. In the classroom, for instance, as teachers we must be able to be a neutral administrator. We must be willing to take multiple sides of an argument and point them out without showing some sort of favoritism. Especially towards our students, we must not group or compare people to another. Students are majorly influeced by what their parents and friends believe and their belief system is what comes from that. How a student comes into his/her beliefs is influeced by what they are taught, see, and hear so in order for them to form their own opinions and beliefs, there must be a neutral influence for them to find their own beliefs to open up many other doors. Not to say that it is easy but teachers must be aware of this and willing to educate their students about social justice as well. 

critical Pedagogy

This was a very interesting research based article. I was amazed at how they approached their classroom; their approach is more to give the opportunity to teach with a student attractive focus. They turned their approach away from modern education styles to reach their dynamic. Using the text as well as the movie to give them an insight. “These young people are also able to come together as members of a common culture, a youth popular culture that frequently transcends race and class.” The only way they believed their students would understand is to show them in a new way. They used  “the film text as  great equalizer” for students to understand the social issues of the book “A Time to Kill.” Even the students at the time stated that they could relate to the feelings of carl Lee, the main character. “Their willingness to identify with the text enables them to bridge heir worlds with the film text and to embrace the text at a critical level.” They were able to connect with the book when they could see the actual characters come to life. “It is important to state up front that we watch film, not merely as entertainment, but as an intellectual activity.” The film opened up a new opportunity for the students and it was beneficial. Books always play a key role in any child’s education and teachers always find ways to teach them but now a days students are focused more on the real life and relation side of any book which is why I believe that movies, plays, or any other sort of real life reenactment helps relate to any piece of literature when done well. These teachers took a great approach to teaching and I am excited to see that there are more creative ways that teachers are learning to teach off of and that it is beneficial for students. They approached it with the mindset of leaning and let the students in on their goal which allowed them to have the mindset of actual learning. 

Peter McLaren

“The critical educator endorses theories that are, first and foremost, dialectical; that is, theories which recognize the problems of society as more than simply isolated events of individuals of deficiencies in the social structure.” Education is not so inward focused but outward focused. This article was very interesting because it pointed out many things about the education world. We tend to, as society, categorize people and stick certain people in blocks thinking that is the only way people function. We discriminate, even when we do not notice and it is easier to allow for people to be stereotyped because it is what we are conditioned to. Education is socially constructed  meaning “that it is the product of agreement or consent between individuals who live out particular social relations (of class, race, and gender) and who live in particular junctions of time. . . . Constructed symbolically by the mind through social interaction with others and is heavily dependent on culture, context, custom, and historical specificity.” Education is based on location, students, and teacher dynamic. Each of these (class, race, and gender)plays a role in the process. For example, when it comes to education in the classroom among the students the teachers are “more likely to value the opinions of a middle-class white male student, than that of a black female” and we cannot really answer why that happens other than prejudice.

“Teachers need to recognize that power relations correspond to forms of school knowledge that distort understanding and produce what is commonly accepted as truth.” It all comes down to how we view certain aspects of the world and it is up to each teacher to recognize their views and flaws in themselves in order to educate. Another thing the article pointed out is that resistance theorists challenge the schools ostensible role as a democratic institution that functions to improve the social position of all students—including those groups that are subordinate to the system. They question the processes by which the system reflects and sustains the logic of capital as well as dominant social practices and structures that are found in each class, race, and gender divided society.” And I think this is interesting because we want to be different in how we teach and be open to every child but it is hard to not let experiences weed their way into our approach to them. We just have to be aware and willing to step apart from that and just focus on the students as a whole. 

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

The education of students is very important. How they learn and what they learn is held up to the teachers and administrations. Paulo Freire makes a good point “the student records, memorizes, and repeats these phrases without perceiving what four times four really means. . . . to memorize mechanically. . . it turns them into containers and receptacles to be filled by the teachers.” (P. 1) the thought that students are being taught as containers is just scary. I do not understand how teachers can even have the power and effect they think this is an effective technique. The “banking concept of education in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits.” I know for me that I never learned that way. I do not just absorb information or retain much of what a teacher teaches without having the practice and application. Teachers are not the only ones that can teach students nor are they non influential. Many teachers have the knowledge within their content area and “the teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them.”

I could not imagine teaching students with the mentality that I am the only influence students have. That is a very scary thought. Students are not meant to just absorb and sit there; they have to be able to apply what they are learning but they are not the only ones learning. Teachers learn just as much from their students as they can teach them.

“It enables teachers and students to become subjects of the educational process by overcoming authoritarianism and an alienating intellectualism; it also enables people to overcome their false perception of reality.” Problem posing education does not do much of anything except give more of an impact to students than earlier learning and teaching techniques. 

Approach to Reading Literature

Literature has a way of speaking through its stories. I never knew there were so many ways of thinking about literature. “Readers. . . have an overall sense of the whole meaning they are reading, writing, or thinking about; but they orient themselves differently to the ideas they are creating because their expectations about the kinds of meaning they will gain or create are different.” (P. 2) There have been many times that I have read something expecting one ending and totally getting another whether it be in a play, short story, and novels. Wanting people to end up in a certain place or a story to end a certain way but it is funny when stories are based on history and the endings are more real and I want to separate reality from fiction. But it is taking the reality and putting them into context. Even poems by John Keats; his poetry bothered me and I just thought they were sad and depressing but it was not until I studied his life that I completely understood why he wrote the way he did. “When we finish reading we rethink our interpretations.”

When bringing literature into the conversation there must be an answer to all questions but many directions a conversation can go even when they are planned one way which is what lesson plans seem to do. I really liked how this article approaches literature with a solid look at how it is focused for the students. “Codified interpretations and particular points of view are discussed and considered, they are usually introduced and analyzed only after the students have had an opportunity to explore their own interpretations.” Students are free to interpret and discover answers to why stories are written the way they are meant to be interpreted giving the students free range to figure out and dive into literature with the help of a teacher.