Final Exam

The Final Exam in Social Studies will begin 12:50pm Wednesday June 9. It will be a 50 question multiple choice exam drawn from my version of "cultural literacy in the social studies".

Please examine the source facts (around 209), hyperlinked for your benefit by M. Bateson, that will be translated into the 50 questions.

The exam is mandatory. If you are otherwise passing the class;

passing the exam will add a few points to your semester grade.

failing the exam will not affect your grade.

If you are otherwise failing the course;

passing the exam will lift your semester/quarter grade to a 65.

failing the exam will result in a 55 for the semester/quarter.

XC - Quarter 4 - Babies

As a follow up to our parenting mini-unit - please watch Babies, playing now at a theater near you. In 3-5 paragraphs total answer 2 of the following questions:

1. Did one culture, shown in the film, have a better way of parenting than the others?

2. How did each family prepare the child to take its "place" in their society? Did communication, cuddling, supervision, discipline line up to "mold" the kid for that society? Or do you think that a kid from one society would have been able to transfer successfully/easily at age 1 to one of the others?

3. What looked universal - common to all humans - from the film - at least as edited? Why is this universality significant?

4. Your own question.

Due Friday, June 4, 11pm, equivalent of 1 assignment.

YOU THE MAN - XC - 4th Quarter

For extra credit please address two or three of the following questions in a page or more of analysis (all combined). Try to be specific, precise, and sharp - don't fall into movie-critic mode.

1.

What did the performance suggest might be the underlying dynamics that lead to domestic violence? What are some dynamics that might support/allow domestic violence, as shown in the performance?

2.

According to a World Health Organization study rates of domestic violence vary widely in different countries.

Is the personal story related in the performance something you can translate to a political approach? If so, please write a strategy - in a series of 3-10 steps - to change our culture so that domestic violence becomes extremely rare. If not, please explain why not, and discuss the value of the play apart from sparking social change.

3.

Address another aspect of the performance and/or discussion that you'd like to explore or analyze.

4. Was this experience of watching the performance and discussing it afterwards valuable enough to be repeated next year? Why or why not?

Due Friday, May 28, 5pm.

HW 58 - Parenting 102

Part 3: Interviews

Please include some quotes and perspectives from guest speakers, from perspectives presented in class (including of course the perspectives of other students), and from your own interviews with your parent/guardian and/or the parent/guardian of your parent/guardian. Again - we're not looking for "The View" type gossip or self-exposure - but for thoughtful insights and figuring stuff out.

Please write two paragraphs summarizing and analyzing these sources.

Part 4:

Please write two paragraphs evaluating and synthesizing your insights from this mini-unit on parenting, as an ultra short but powerful paper on parenting, that stands alone from the other paragraphs. Your focus should be on insights you've thought of that are helpful for you in making sense of your own experience of being parented and/or insights that you think might be helpful for you as a parent.

Due Monday the 24th of May 8:30am.

HW 57 - Parenting 101

Part 1: Your initial thoughts

• How should kids be parented?
• What should be the social arrangements? An extended family, nuclear family, a village, corporate day care?
• What should be the guiding principles? Love? Obedience? Loving obedience? Humor? Empowerment? Subordination? Time outs? Separate cribs or co-sleeping? Breast feeding or bottle? Child-centered or parent-centered? etc.
• What were the best parts of how you were parented (since the worst parts don't really belong in a public class blog)?
• How do you think you'd parent if you're put in that position?
• Do you think babies should be treated more like adults or like puppies?
• Do you think parenting will "come naturally" or do you think you'll have to research multiple perspectives and come up with a (possibly evolving) model in collaboration with other family members? Did your family read books about how to parent you or do informal research such as talking to other family members?

Write 2-3 paragraphs about your thoughts in response to a few of the questions above.

Part 2: First research

When Parenting Theories Backfire
Lesson Plan from Developmental Psychology course
Attachment parenting
Continuum Concept
Ferber Method

other stuff you find

Check out the links above and write another two paragraphs responding to two or more of the texts.

Due Wednesday, May 19th 8:30am.

HW 56 - Interviews & Survey Question

Informal Research Continued -

1. Please type up 3-6 questions for interviews with other folks to illuminate your chosen research question.

2. Do the interviews (at least 3) and record the results on your blog.

3. Please add an additional paragraph analyzing the responses in terms of your own research question.

4. Write a very careful and precise SINGLE survey question that can be added to the second collective student survey.

Due Monday May 17, 8:30am.

5/10/10 in 101

Hope everyone enjoyed the funny weather this weekend.

HW 54 -
Pt 1: Take this Myers-Briggs test (or a similar one) and analyze the usefulness of the results in 1-2 paragraphs. If you enjoy the process consider taking this "Big Five" test too.

It'd be interesting if you posted your results but don't feel that you need to. Please write down the categorization the test(s) offers on a piece of paper (or phone) you will have in class on Tuesday.

Pt 2: Please add an additional paragraph addressing insights on interpersonal relationships related to this test. Ideally this would address your evaluation of the reliability and usefulness of the test - as demonstrated in experiments in class and your own guesses about another's Myers-Briggs score. You should also consider the implications of people having measurably different personalities in terms of our relationships - whether "appreciate difference" or "maximize compatibility" are the conclusions you draw.

Due Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 9pm.

My results can be found here for both tests. Please check someone else's that you know fairly well - that will help you evaluate the reliability of the test(s).

HW 55 -
Pt 1: Please post your independent research question/topic.

Your research should be based in one of the four domains of relationships we plotted in class - family, friends, frequent interactions, and mediated relations. You should further focus the question to enable you to do a precise, sharp, and interesting independent research paper. For instance - "why do people divorce?" is not that good, "what are the primary causes of divorce?" is somewhat better, and "is marriage counseling an effective remedy, in most cases, for the primary causes of divorce, and if so, how?" is quite a bit better. Your question should be clearly answerable using social sciences evidence and intelligent analysis - not serve as merely a launching pad for spacy speculation.

Pt 2: Next please visit your old triangle partners' blogs (or two other students who will reciprocate) and offer them feedback on the sharpness and clarity of their independent research questions. If they have a question that you consider vague or overwhelmingly broad please suggest an alternate formulation in their comment section (copy and paste to your own blog).

Pt 3: Post your possibly revised question and conduct internet research, creating an annotated bibliography of 4 or more credible and possibly helpful sources online. The annotated bibliography should cite the sources in MLA format and offer a paragraph that combines very succinct summary and very succinct evaluation of usability of the source.

Due Wednesday, May 12, 8pm.

PS - For more information and examples you can see other students' questions collected here.

HW 53 - Survey Analysis

Part 1:
This survey was made using questions contributed anonymously by you and your classmates. All answers are anonymous. You don't have to answer anything, but it would be helpful if you would take the survey. It includes almost a hundred questions (sorry - there were a lot of great questions that I had to sort through) so you will need to budget time. Use your time in 101 for this only if you're already done with HW 52 and you don't mind risking a little privacy (it'd be better to do it where no one can look over your shoulder).

Part 2:
Please create and share insights on the process of taking the survey. How did it feel to take it? Were there any questions that made you stop and think? Without necessarily listing those questions - what were some of the commonalities between the questions that made you think or feel deeply? If you decided not to take it, what was that like? If you don't want to talk about why you didn't take it, do an alternate assignment - such as research divorce rates among families, "face time" with parent(s)/guardian(s), etc.

Part 3:
When the results are posted (Wednesday at 8:30am) please analyze the results. (Hint: Password is the correctly spelled uncapitalized last name of the mostly bald guy who used to stand at the door when you came back from lunch). What were some of the particularly interesting scores? Do you notice any patterns? Were there any big surprises? Do you feel like you are similar to most of the students who answered the survey? What do you think accounts for the differences?

Part 4:

Please compare our informal and quick survey results to the report of the results of a professionally done teen survey such as this one or this one, or a reputable report you find yourself. What was a similarity? A difference? What does the experience of comparing show you about researching complex issues?

All four parts due Sunday May 9 by 8:30am.

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.

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.

HW 41 - Initial Internet Research on Schooling

Maybe you've locked in on one very specific topic or angle during your interviews or maybe you're still exploring among several general perspectives. This assignment is intended to cause you to enhance your understanding of one or more aspects of school that you find particularly bizarre, wonderful, awful, +/or crucial.

Identify five or more internet sites related to your topic(s). Please make an annotated bibliography of 3 or more sources - each should include correct MLA citation, a very brief summary of most important points (2-4 sentences) and a very brief analysis of the utility of the source for particular topics or arguments (3-5 sentences).

Any sites you identified that you don't write up as annotated bibliography entries can be tabulated in an "Additional Works Consulted" list.

For those of you interested in education as tool of oppression/empowerment - here's the entry I started on Wikipedia.

Use the following as a model for each of the 3 or more entries in your annotated bibliography -

Andy's Model:
Viren, Tom et al. "How To Be Cool." http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Cool. WikiHow, n.d. Web. 2 December 2009.
This article, compiled and edited by many authors, attempts to provide advice of how to become cool. It contains a list of suggestions, additional tips, and warnings. Many of these tips will be familiar - "Be yourself" and "Be confident" - and others less so "Find a way to love learning."

This short guide deserves reading for its helpful simplification - in the introduction it reduces coolness to being confident, unique, and on friendly terms with everyone. The copious suggestions, tips, and warnings also reflect a variety of the dominant perspectives about coolness - which seems to primarily be understood as being admired and liked by the masses as an authentic and friendly and socially-adept human being.

Your goals with this annotated bibliography include tightening your focus on an aspect of school, understanding that aspect, and identifying resources worth coming back to (or not worth coming back to) for yourself and your triangle partners when presenting your research synopsis and writing your end of the unit papers.

Due Wednesday, February 24 at 9pm.