Group Update - talking points 9

Forgot to do this before i went home, i was kinda just realy siked to head back to jersey and left. but on Tuesday morning i met up with Jordan and Kayla and we basically layed out how we are going to do our project, what anecdotes we are going to use, and how we are going to integrate all of our experiences into the theories we touched upon in class. We figured that we would give google.docs a try, so we agreed to type up our personal experiences and work on the theories together over break and also when we return back to school.....pretty simple plan.

Remember the Titans speech.

we mentioned remember the titans in class which is one of my favorite movies so i decided to just add a clip from the imfamous speech at Gettysburg by Denzel Washington to the team.

Talking Points # 6- Oakes, "Tracking: Why Schools Need to Take Another Route."

Oakes argues that when students are grouped, their are large gaps created between high and low-level students. These gaps heavily favor and aid the high-level students while keeping low-level students in a propetual cycle of failure/ lack of success.

1. "The teachers seem to be more enthusiastic, to make instructions clearer, and to use strong criticism or ridicule less frequently than teachers of low-ability classes. Classroom tasks are often better organized, and students are given a greater variety of things to do. These differneces in learning opporunities point to fundemental and ironic school inequities. Students who need more time to learn appear to get less; those who have the most difficulty learning seem to have fewer of the best teachers."

This excerpt from the article illustrates the huge differences between the learning environments created through tracking. The best students get the best teachers, and the less successful students get the less successful teachers. The classrooms environment created by teachers for the higher level students are more comfortable places to learn rather than the environments given to low-level students.

2. "In fact, studies that control for instructional differences-- providing identical curriculum and instruction to both tracked and mixed groups of studnets -- typically find that high-ability students to equally well in either setting. The fact that students are tracked seems less important than that they have other instructional advantages that seem to come along with classes that are highly able."

Studies show that students who are highly-able excell in either environment, regardless of whether the class is tracked or not. These stats show that seperating the classes has no clear benefit for the higher level students, but at the same time has detremental affects on the lower level students. Right after this excerpt, the author quotes that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is a very good example of that, since that it has minimal benefits to the students are more trophied, but has many negative affects to the students who need the most help.

Talking Points #5 - Kahne and Westheimer

The authors of this article seem to argue that students often use their service learning projects to collectively help others, but at the same time, only scratch the surface of the problems in which they are helping with. This simple civic duty is indeed a help, but they feel that service learners should approach the problems at the source and create "change" as the authors would say, for long-term beneficial transformations for the less fortunate. The issue of support civic duty but focusing more on change is something that should be addressed by the teachers leading the service learning experiences. With the help of the teachers, both the students and the community alike can get more out of their service learning experiences.

1. "Mr. Johnson's curriculum included only minimal attention to any systematic analysis of the ill his students were helping to alleviate. Instead, his class focused on incalculating a sense of civic duty. His high school seniors were not asked to articulate an understand of the conditions and contexts that might have contributed to the loss of a family's home or to a pregnant mother's decision to turn to crack cocaine."

This excerpt from the article is the first evidence that I encountered which supports my understand of the authors' point of the article. The analysis of Mr. Johnson's curriculum shows that his class was helping the less fortunate in various ways, but this kind of assistance to the less fortunate would be considered what Kozol would call "a band-aid" on the wound. This sort of service learning aids the less fortunate after the fact, but neglects an in depth look about how to help these problems in the long run.

2. "These two orientations (and they are by no meants neatly distinct from on another) have a long history in debates over curriculum. The "project method" and related approaches often included a service component that emphasizes change. For past reformers, such as John Dewey, William Kilpatrick, George Counts, and Paul Hanna, the transformative potential of this approach was of prime importance."

This is what i believe the whole focus of the article is. The people listed seem to be the pioneers of the service learning, and their goals, motifs, and approaches were slightly different than those of today's service learning projects. Their focus was on the problems that they addressed as a whole. Later in the article Dewey was said to focused on changing his students thinking towards the problem, and while still emphasizing charity (civic duty), he still focused on major changes. His students analyzed the problems to completely change their thinking towards it, and then the students would use their new mindsets and experience to address the whole issue.

3. " Educators who emphasize change would clearly also value the educational benefits of this approach. to tap into the full power of the service activites, these practicioners would want to combine critical inquiry with action. this process can transform students' understandings of both disciplinary knowledge and the particular social issues with which they engage."

This excerpt explains that it is the resposibility of the educators to create a curriculum that focuses more on change rather than civic duty. If these educators and practicioners can advocate change, they will be able to utilize a service learning project's full potential. The curriculum should help students understand the issues in which they are addressing in their service learning activities to give them better ideas on how to help the issues they are going to face.

Finally got internet.

i finally got internet installed in my place and im going to catch up on my blogs which i am a tad bit behind in. ill put up a new talking points in a little bit when i finish reading.