HW 47 - Class film preparation 1

Please compose a colorful list of 5-10 ideas that should be considered for inclusion in your section's version of the "Savior/Teacher" film.

You could address plot, character, theme, tone, cinematography, dialogue, key images, tropes, references, or our collective process of making the film. Indicate which of the ideas are most important to you by putting an asterix by the one or few which you think are most compelling.

Due the morning we return from Spring Break.

HW 46 - Research and Writing

For this HW, due the morning we return from Spring Break, please;
1. Finish reading your novel, book, or article(s) of more than 40+ pages which relate to your chosen topic.
2. Write a short one-paragraph summary of the text. Describe, in a few short sentences, the main arguments or action of the text.
3. Write a short one-paragraph summary of how the text relates to your topic.
4. Write an additional paragraph or two analyzing and interpreting the text, in relation to your topic.

If you still haven't found a text, or have switched topics, please find a text that relates to your topic. Don't forget ERIC - the most comprehensive source. If your primary text is less than 40 pages please supplement it with additional sources until you get to roughly that page count.

For steps 3 & 4 - a summary includes description - "Chocolate War's depicts the majority's fear of the minority's cruelty which strongly relates to my topic of interpersonal dynamics in schools." You re-state an aspect of the text succinctly and accurately - virtually any intelligent reader would agree with your restatement.

An analysis or interpretation includes your original or interesting connections and opinions, "Chocolate War demonstrates that the individual can not ultimately resist the force of the institution - and since we're all individuals in institutions, that's an important insight, especially for my topic of how individual students should orient themselves to schools." Analysis or interpretation can provide more creative or daring claims of what a text suggests than summary.

For more discussion of the very important difference between summary and interpretation please click here - you can simultaneously press "CONTRL", "OPTION", "APPLE", and "8" to reverse the colors.

HW 45 - More Big Thoughts on Schools

In watching the Super-Educator films we've seen a collision between what I've called "transcendent" and "immanent" educational paradigms. The transcendent mode is about verticality, about the future, about the content - by teaching important knowledge and skills students will be able to "rise above" their present circumstances to future success in the dominant culture. The immanent mode is about spirals, about the now, about the students - by using the classroom as a site for students to learn to make sense of their own situations - the teacher enables the students to experience meaningful and crucial intellectual understanding of their own lives, emotional validation, and personal growth.

In some ways this same collision played out in the 80s and 90s in the US - between E.D. Hirsch & Ted Sizer.

Sizer was a founder and a leading thinker of the Coalition of Essential Schools - which SOF has always been a part of - and focused especially on the student's development of Habits of Mind. Hirsch was widely known for insisting on the crucial role of a thoughtful and coherent core content - so that students would learn the knowledge that would provide building blocks for their understanding.

Often the theories of the two were considered in opposition to each other.

Please examine some of the following texts. Create a one paragraph summary of the main argument of each of the two thinkers. Using quotes from the text make arguments of your own that address (in a paragraph or two each) one or more of the following angles:

1. Do these theories contradict each other? Intellectually, emotionally, practically? In what ways do they? Could they be adapted to work together?

2. Which of the two theories do you find more resonant in your own experience? Has your education at one of Sizer's schools (he not only inspired SOF, he also came and visited) taught you to use your mind well, to be intellectually alert, to be able to think about important aspects of your life and society? Have you had any teachers that seemed inspired, now that you know about it, by Hirsch? For instance, would you say that the chemistry class's focus on molarity and ions and the periodic table of elements create an emphasis on knowledge?

3. What additional points does reading these theorists make you think of, about your own education and philosophy?

If you feel like you care about this and you are a strong reader, please make use of most or all of the texts. If you feel less interested or find it hard to make it through the texts, please read at least the texts in blue. Due Friday, March 18, 8:30am.

Wikipedia makes a good entry point for Hirsch & the recent NYT obituary works for Sizer.

For a very short and easy comparison of the two thinkers - you can click here.

For a longer article that examines the debate over "school choice" in terms of the two thinkers, sympathetic to Hirsch, click here.

For a longish article by Hirsch, on the central role of background knowledge in reading comprehension, click here.

For a medium sized speech by Sizer, from around the time SOF was formed, click here.

For a conversation with him, click here.

A right-wing essay in favor of Hirsch.

Feel free to consult Dr. Google on your own, as well.

Due Friday, March 18, 8:30am.

HW 44 - Big Expectations for School

In class we've discussed the tendency for institutions to become the battlefield for cultural wars. School, in particular, serves as a focus of these struggles as one of the few institutions that involves virtually all members of society as public citizens - as we the people - rather than as individuals, as consumers, as solitary internet clickers.

Other institutions (marriage, media, transportation) are experienced privately - the public institutions (Congress, courts) tend to involve minimal participation by most members of society. School combines massness and publicness and therefore serves as a battleground for most every public controversy in society.

The functions, purposes, and benefits that people claim for schools also highlights the key role of schools as a public institution. People say that if schools did X, every kid in the US would have a better future, less racism, less poverty, more creativity, more Google-type businesses, be skinnier, love poetry, better gender training, etc etc.

President Obama has spoken often of the importance of education. Please consider his speech, at the beginning of the school year this year, and note the benefits Obama claims will result from school success. Note how Obama offers a vision of school (our biggest public institution) as essentially a stage for each individual actor to achieve success.

Obama schools speech video (20 minutes)

Obama schools speech transcript

Consider this argument about the benefits of a liberal arts education - what benefits are claimed? Or this Thomas Friedman column - which at the bottom argues that schools provide crucial support for decent and prosperous societies. The Friedman article, in part, speaks from a long tradition of efforts to capture schools - essentially democratic public institutions for citizens - as tools for indoctrinating and training youth for capitalism. Others have always focused on the benefits of intellectual and social awakening that schools can enable.

Please respond in a 2-4 paragraphs to at least 3 of the above sources. Criticize or celebrate the arguments made in those texts in terms of your own perspectives (tentative or solid) of "What school is primarily for." Address the issue of what schools can plausibly accomplish and limits to the change that schools can make. What should be the top priorities of schools, who should get to decide that, and what can we reasonably expect from schools?

Please post by Friday, March 12, by 8:30am.

HW 43 - Journaling About School

While lying in bed before sleep with the lights low - earliest memories, strongest images, primary and secondary feelings, etc. Bring in notebook or typed version on Friday for "Cultural Code" exercise.

HW 42 - More Research and More Thinking

Part A:

Please add another three to four relevant sources to the research from 41. Add them directly to HW 41's post by editing that post. At least two of the new sources should be added to the annotated bibliography section - giving you at least five of those two-paragraph-each entries. Remember - the sharper you identify your major interest/question the better your research will be.

Part B:

First write, in 1-3 sentences, as sharply as you can, the question/accusation/insight that forms the heart of your exploration. Then write 2-4 paragraphs about the significance of your topic/interest/question. Please consider one or more of the following questions and also any other significance that you can address:

A. Why does it matter to you personally given the experiences you've had in your life - in terms of your feelings, hopes, memories, daily life?

B. How does your topic matter existentially - in terms of the meaning of your life, of knowing who you are, of whether you live well before you die?

C. How does this question matter functionally - in terms of what society requires, how institutions interact, international capitalism?

Part B can be labeled HW 42 - Significance and is due Wednesday at 9pm. The additional entries in 41 are due at the same time.