Hwk 50

Gatto:
In the article The Six-Lesson School Teacher, Gatto discusses the six common “lessons” that are taught throughout schools in the states. In the first lesson, he says that students are forced to become used to the school environment and accept it. They have no where they can escape so they need to become used to what school life is about, where their intelligence is determined by their test taking skills. Depending on how well these skills are they will tend to do better in their future. In the second lesson, he talks about the students having a on and off affect. Where they have moments when they are very intense with their thoughts and deep thinking, and then there is a moment where there is a pause and it all stops. This is when they move on to their next subject, and have the same thing done again. It’s a cycle that goes on a number of times throughout the day. In the third lesson, Gatto says that as a teacher, it is their right to become a part of a dispute between others. They feel as if it is their job to “intervene in many personal decisions”. In the fourth lesson, the teacher is in power. He is the one who controls what will be taught and how his class will go. This then sifts the good kids apart from the bad, the students who behave like responsive robots are known as the good kids the ones who listen. The bad kids would be the unresponsive ones, turning their heads away from what they are told to do so. In lesson five, it discusses the evaluation of each student done by the observer. He is the one that will determine what will be said to notify the guardians in a number grade. The students are evaluated based on tests and grades, and the outcome is a number grade showing how much they are worth as a percentage. Lesson six talks about how all students are being “watched” whether in school or at home, they are always doing something that ties them back to the school environment; they are never free because the thought of school is always in mind somehow.

Gatto seems to be against all these six “lessons” of a school teacher. I go against it as well, when these lessons are being taught to the students it seems as they are being treated as slaves, doing what they are told to do so. They are treated as if they are in a prison cell with no where to escape. The students are treated as if they are in factories where they are to come in at a certain time and be watched by others while producing work that is said to help them out in the future. This is nonsense because after these 12 or more years of schooling how will we use the material we have “learned” in the outside world? After studying for all those tests and quizzes how will those number grades evaluate how well we do in the future? Will we ever use what we studied for hours locked in our bedroom after we are done with our schooling? Or will the material we had “learned” just determine where they will end up in life, and after taking that occupation it will be something consisting of the past? I think that it’s absurd that we have to go to school for something that will only determine where we will be in the future, because after that we will not do anything at all with what we have been taught for the past decade and more. It’s like we have been working in this factory since we were four year olds, and we were brainwashed into thinking that we were being taught something. At the end all we were doing was being prepared for getting our minds ready to do well on the tests that will prepare us for our future. If that’s the only outcome of school then why do we waste all this time being “taught” something that we wont use any time soon? They are all excuses used to make us feel as if we were doing something important, when in reality we aren’t.

Freire:
In Chapter 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire discusses how we all recite something that we think we need to know in order to survive in the community, when in reality we are just training ourselves to know something yet don’t know the origin of it. She relates the students and teachers as certain objects in which case the teacher is always the one that is “filling” the students mind with what they are being taught, and the student is then receiving all this information from the “subject”. The teacher is always the one who is the giver where the student is always the receiver. The teacher is never really educating the students about much, she is just there depositing information expecting the students to pick up the information she is giving off. Freire relates this student/teacher concept to the banking system. The teacher is always “depositing” and the students are forced to take what is being “deposited”. The relationship between the student vs. teacher is not one of the student and the teacher. They both play separate roles, where they are never on the same level. The teacher is always one above the students, where the students are there doing what they are told to do so. This shows that the student role always accepts or is forced to accept the role they have to play, they are not allowed to have a choice. The banking system shows that there is inequality shown since the two roles are not in the same level. The student is always below the teacher which is shown in the banking system, Freire doesn’t like this concept.

I agree with Freire somewhat with what he has to say, but then again there are some things that I disagree with as well. I agree that in many societies the schooling system is related to the banking system of education where the teacher is the bigger figure giving out the information and the student has to receive the information. This is always the case in schooling because the teacher is supposed to be in charge of what the students will be learning and how they will be using the knowledge being given out. This is how the school system is brought up and students always tend to receive what is being given out but I feel like they aren’t actually learning much and they wont be able to use it when they are 12 or 15 years into their future. I think that what we are taught is only needed to help us in our next year of schooling, but after schooling it wouldn’t be considered much. I have used much of what I was taught in school, but only in school. Other then that I haven’t applied much of the material I learned in school outside of the learning environment. I feel like when we are all doing our jobs in the outside world we will be committed into doing our job. We wouldn’t use anything that we had learned in school. School is a big test that will determine what job we will have at the end. After obtaining a job, school would be something of the past and we wouldn’t go back to it again.

Delpit:
Lisa Delpit focuses on the schooling of colored children and has written a book on the topic as well. Delpit feels that the brilliance that all students have is very hard to bring out. They all have brilliance, but there is a different way for each student to bring it out and many teachers are not aware of the right way to do so. Not all students can bring out their brilliance in the same way, it varies. Because many teachers only use one method of bringing out one’s brilliance, it fails to bring out the brilliance of a number of students while it may work out for others. In Delpit’s mind, the best way for a child to learn is through the use of art. It opens up their minds and they are able to receive all the information while having more interactions with others. She feels that students learn better when they work with something they are comfortable with, for example the use of language. They will learn a second language better if they are able to answer their first language before they move on to the second. She wants the child to feel comfortable and for the teacher to make their curriculum based on their child’s need. The teachers need to be willing to meet with their students needs in order to have them learn something.

I agree with Delpit in many cases, I feel that each person is different and needs a different way to shine. Many teachers only follow the curriculum based on the standards given by the DOE, and I feel that the curriculum is too structured. We are not allowed to switch around the way we are taught or what is being taught because there are standards we have to be taught by. In Delpit’s case, it seems as if they are allowed to teach in which ever way their students feel comfortable. I think that having students learn using different methods shows what way each student can learn best. I remember from my own experience in Ms. D’s ninth grade humanities class. That was one class where I felt that we used many different methods of learning and this is why I found that class so interesting. One day we would be watching a documentary, the next day she will have a friend of hers come in to talk to us, another day we would be drawing about what we had learned in the past week. That was one class where I felt there were many methods used to teach kids like me, and this is why I was always engaged and prepared to go to class. The teaching methods of Delpit and Ms. D. seem to be connected in many ways, and I feel this is why so many students are interested in learning when they are exposed to a variety of methods in schooling.

Ms. D.:
In our class interview with Ms. D. she discussed her personal experiences as a school teacher and how she made a decision to become a teacher even though she had a choice of many other occupations with the education she had received. At first she shared with us how she used to work with young girls who had problems at home and struggled. She told us how she became very close to them and had a limit to how close they were, she would never force them to tell her anything. After learning about these experiences from others she started to learn that she wanted to do something that would help others, so she decided to choose a career in teaching. Even though she finds it hard to connect with each and every student of hers, she tries to make each student take part in class by creating a curriculum that consists of the standard curriculum and her own ideas as well. She had once thought about the idea of becoming a counselor, but she felt that she wouldn’t be able to make many deep connections with her students.

I feel like Ms. D. is right in many ways about how she isn’t able to connect with each and every one of her students. I feel that it is a tough job as a teacher to try to reach out to every student in a different way so the teacher can learn about the student in a way that the student is comfortable with everything. There also needs to be a certain limit where the student/teacher relationship is not too close. I think that it was her personal decision to become a teacher because she felt she had to help others, personally I think I would try to be a part of another career and if that doesn’t seem to work out I would try out the position of becoming a teacher. If I do have a shot at becoming a teacher I would try to make my curriculum fun and creative like Ms. D. did with her humanities class. It would be hard to keep the state standards in mind while constructing this curriculum, but if others can pull it off so can I.