HW 52 - Initial Theories of Human Relationships

Your assignment, a ridiculously impossible one, includes sketching out your best insights and theories into why and how humans do what we do - in all forms of relationships.

Not just your theories of human motivation (what we're trying to do and why) but also your theories of love, your family theories, your theories of friendship, power, social structures, roles, nations, ethnicities, genders, and every other aspect of humanity. Please also extend your thoughts in the direction of ethics, of how we should live, of the meaning and value of human life, how we should act with other people.

You can pose questions too - not just simple lists of simple questions - but questions that you think could offer insight if complexly worked with. Elaborate what the question asks and states and assumes.

Look, on the one hand this assignment could define "overwhelming". But on the other hand, we all act in the human world, we all deal with each other every day. So you've already had to evolve these theories in order to navigate your world. This assignment merely asks you to write down some of those theories that you already live by.

5-12 paragraphs due Monday, May 3 @ 9pm.

101 Today

Assignments 49 and 50 should already be completed. If they are not, they should be your first priority.

Assignment 51 should be your second priority, as it is due Tuesday.

Please complete this survey when you've finished the above assignments.

If your progress report lists your grade as a 55 you will be eligible to take the 3rd quarter final in class today. It will begin 15 minutes into class and you will have 10 minutes to complete it.

Try not to waste your time in 101. Good luck!

HW 49, 50, 51 & Notes on Finishing School Unit

As we finish this school unit I hope for the following experiences for you -

1. HW - 49 - A 4-6 paragraph analysis of your section's class savior/teacher film. This will be due Friday, April 23 at 9pm. Please address:

a. your personal contribution

b. your analysis of the message and tone of your section's film

c. contrast the film with the savior/teacher films we watched clips of

d. theorize (explore thoughtfully and powerfully) the connection between salvation and education/schooling in our culture

If your section didn't successfully complete a film you could choose to use this film to compare/contrast.

2. HW - 50 - Your response to a set of readings and final interviews on schooling. Please read the following and write a one paragraph summary and a one paragraph response to each separate text or author (depending on your skills read all or some of the texts - making sure you read at least one from each author):
Gatto - Against School, 6 Lessons, Teacher of the Year Acceptance Speech
Freire - Second Chapter of Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Critique of Banking Model) - strong readers should read the whole chapter and weaker readers or the time-crunched should read the first 14 paragraphs - up to and including the paragraph about "the humanist, revolutionary educator".

Delpit - Silenced Dialogue, Interview with N. Stanley, Other Peoples' Children (24-34 on the pdf viewer)

SOF Educator - Interview done inside or outside of class - Fanning, Manley, Copeland, Ms. D, and Andy, etc.

This will be due Monday, April 26 at 8:30am - it will include the above text responses and the results of an educator interview.

To clarify - you will publish on Monday a paragraph of summary and a paragraph of analysis of at least one text or interview from Freire, Gatto, Delpit, and an SOF educator (Ms. D, Fanning, Andy, Cope, Manley, etc). This means you will write at least 8 paragraphs total for this assignment.

3. HW - 51 - A 3-5 page paper, drawing on your independent research, interviews, class materials, etc on a particular topic of interest to you related to schooling. This will be due Tuesday, April 27 at 9pm.

If you don't yet have a topic please consider the following - linked to what we've studied this unit:

1. School as salvation - what can schools realistically do to address the systematic problems of inequality, anti-intellectualism, and meaninglessness in our society? (Savior Teacher Films, Obama speech, Sizer, Freire, Hirsch, Delpit, interviews, own thoughts)

2. School as domination - How do schools train us to be sheep, to be dull, to be dumb, to be absurd? Is it possible/preferable to escape, to transform, or to understand the institution? (Dead Poets Society, Freire, Sizer, Delpit, interviews, own thoughts)

The quarter quiz will be offered (a bit late) Monday, April 26. All questions will relate to school unit material found or linked to from two blogs - mine and Andy L's.

HW 48 - Treatment for Savior/Teacher Movie

Please write a 3-20 paragraph treatment for your section's film involving a savior/teacher.

What is a treatment for a film? A treatment is a simple telling of the story of a film in present tense - with each scene presented clearly but without dialogue or camera angles (which will be added later in a script version of the treatment).

For instance the treatment for Avatar might include;

INTERIOR - 8pm
Jake Sully, a former Marine who lost the use of his legs while helping the US suppress a revolution in South America, speaks to two white-coated scientists. They put him in a MRI type machine that scans him on a molecular level. They tell him he is a perfect match for his dead twin brother and offer him the opportunity to replace his brother on a trip to another planet. Jake is somewhat overwhelmed by his feelings of grief for his brother and the abruptness of the voyage to another world, but feels he has little to lose. His decision is emphatic when the scientists inform him that his salary will suffice to buy treatments necessary to end his paraplegia.

Other advice on how to write a treatment can be found here.

Feel free to combine your ideas with others - from their blogs or class discussion. I'm excited to read the stories you want to tell about school, using the genre of the savior/teacher as a framework to share your insights and messages.

Due Tuesday, April 13 at 8:30am.

Extra Credit Opportunity - "The Class"

"The Class" (aka "Entre les Murs") doesn't follow the tropes of a super-teacher film. That's just one of the great things about it. For this extra credit opportunity please watch the film and answer 1 or more of the questions below in a 3-6 paragraph essay. For the purposes of this essay, a paragraph should have 4-5 sentences, the first one usually a transition from the last one and an introduction to the new topic.

We will watch the film together on Monday April 12 from 3:20-5:30pm - snacks possibly provided. But you can also watch it by yourself or with friends off Netflix (play instantly) or other digital distribution channel - such as Blockbuster Video or whatever.

Questions:
1. The film highlights contradictory agendas from the major stakeholders - students, teachers, administrators, parent. These contradictions seem to render the experience painful and maybe even destructive to many of the participants. Now that you have seen the contradictions, and maybe even have some empathy for the perspectives of the various stakeholders, propose a pragmatic or idealistic course of action for how a student (or a teacher) in such a situation should act - to maximize benefit, to sidestep catastrophe, to integrate the various perspectives.

2. Do you hold the teacher responsible for the damage done to Souleymane? Are the 14-15 year olds morally responsible for their own choices? Is the teacher morally responsible for finding solutions to the institutional car wreck that he's steering his class through? Or would it be better to see this as a systematic issue rather than an individual moral issue? If the former, how should the system be altered? If the latter, how should individuals be trained to make more effective moral and pragmatic choices?

3. Compare and contrast the school in the film with your experience of SOF. What are crucial similarities and differences? What should SOF change in light of the insights you've gained from this movie?

Due Thursday at 1:30pm for the equivalent of 2 assignments. May be completed after Thursday but before April 21 for inclusion in next quarter's grades.