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.

HW 40 - School Interviews x 5 & Synthesis

Part A - Please interview five diverse people (self, family, friends, acquaintances, etc) about a particular aspect of school.

Some aspects that we came up with in various sections include:

• Making school better
• The experience of being a student
• School as a sorting machine
• School as machine for conquering and puppeteering a population
• Pedagogic techniques - grading, testing, etc.
• The motivations of school - for the student, parent, teacher, system
• The functions of school - both actual and claimed/rhetorical
• The historical development and transformations of US schools

Please make your interview questions high quality - they should evoke real thinking, non-predictable responses, and insight.

After transcribing notes from each of the interviews, please turn to Part B.

Part B:

Please synthesize insights from your interviews (that you figured out or that someone said) to write a paragraph or two about a particular aspect of school that you find important and interesting.

Parts A & B should be posted on your blog Sunday the 21st of February by 9pm.

HW 39 - First School Assignment

Please complete parts A & B by Tuesday, February 9, 9pm.

Part A:

Please write 3 each of the most interesting, fascinating, powerful questions, ideas, and experiences you've encountered about school. So please make three lists of three items each.

Part B:

Please explore one aspect or moment of school in a 2-4 paragraphs. Show us what's strange or great or awful about it. Talk about how you feel about it - how do you think it came to be - what consequences it produces.