Final Draft: Paper 3

A rowdy, disrespectful and disruptive class is perhaps one of the greatest fears a teacher can encounter. It may also be one of the most difficult challenges, one that will make or break a teacher’s career. However, I feel prepared to tame this unruly class. After rigorous studies, I believe I have the tools it takes and the idea of what kind of teacher I would be. Many teachers just fall into place, like a piece in the puzzle that is the education system. That is the first mistake. To command a class I would define myself. The second mistake is pushing too hard from the get go. The idea is to mend, not fracture further. In the end, I know I would need to connect with my class to succeed. You need that connection to show them the purpose in learning. I would be the teacher that stands out, adapts to his class and connects with them on a level deeper than just education.

In the education system it is common for teachers to just fill the role of teacher and nothing more, when it comes to such a challenging class that is just not the case. I would have to become the teacher. The one that students want, the one that gets results and most importantly the one that is her/himself. Once I defined myself my students would be more inclined to identify me with a person rather than a teacher, not that teachers aren’t people, but to a class so unstable they aren’t. As Mr. Lowrey did in Chalk, the 2006 dramatic comedy, he played to his class and enlisted them in helping him win the school’s ‘Spelling Hornet’, a spelling bee based on student’s slang words. I would need to have a similar experience with my class, something to help them see me for me and identify with me. However, they cannot see me as equal to them. My position in the classroom needs to be defined as the dominant. If students were to act out defiantly, I would need to make an example of them to the class, preferably in a mockingly way as Mr. Escalante did. He merely returned fire, in a sense. Not to say that I don't appreciate humor because I do but the kids need to understand that those kids of distractions are unacceptable. It is my hopes to work humor into my lessons and get a positive reaction out of them. I would wish to get to know my students more thoroughly and have a vested interest in their lives as a whole. Helping people in all aspects of life is important to me and if I can do more than just teach my students then I would be more than pleased. Just as Mr. Keeting did in Dead Poet's Society, he even went to the extent to attend one of his students plays. His students responded incredibly to the way he made his classroom a more friendly environment and maybe even less of a classroom. We are going to have some fun in my classroom, good ol' educational fun. The best part is they won't even know they are learning.

Many teachers just have a set lesson plan from the get go. Which is how it is supposed to be, but it can’t be set in stone. Not all classes are the same. I would like to custom tailor my plan to this class if we plan to succeed. If I were to just force the material down their throats then all they would do is reject it. The key is to ease into the class with students of this variety. Similar to the ideas set forth in the article, Gift of Grit by Jerry Large. He speaks on Paul Tough's plan of parenting in which you only baby your children for so long then you have to let them develop on their own. I feel a class of this type would benefit from such a plan. Instead of just diving in, I would gradually lead into my lessons and warm them up to the idea. Once I got them up and walking then they could start running on their own.  As Tough says, “If you want success, build character and the rest will follow.” I feel this would effectively change my class. Effectively passing the class to ensure the class' success in assignments would boost their confidence and result in more effective classroom experiences. The goal would try to steer away from the normal feel of a classroom because to those students that creates some discomfort. By showing them I can pace the class to their needs, they won't feel so pressured as they would in a normal class. It won't be like a class where I just read my lesson straight off a piece of paper. This will not be a classroom that supports the banking method of schooling. I refuse. Paolo Freire's take on banking style puts it like this, “Narration leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content.” My class will not just be a narration, it will play to the interests of all my students and captivate them.

Students who behave in such unacceptable manners obviously have something missing from their lives. At least, some some negative event that has brought them down to this level. I need to show some sort of compassion towards them or connect with them in some way. Comparable to part of the article, Children, Arts, and Du Bois by Keith Gilyard. He recants of how he met a young poet nearing her  eigth birthday and that just so happened to be the same birthday of W. E. B. Du Bois. Not only did he tell her of Du Bois but he gave her all the information she needed to research him further. A true connection. I want to be able to be knowledgeable like that towards my students interests. To show them that I am more than just an educator to them, I am a person that cares. Hopefully this will cause the outbursts to occur less often and create a level of respect between the class and I. If I notice my students are particularly artistic then I should create assignments that require creativity. Small thing like this to show the students that I am aware of what they are interested and can relate it to our material.

This truly is the only way to reach these kids. They won't respond to your run of the mill teacher. Their lives have trained them to reject such advisers. I will be more than a teacher. As I said, I will be the teacher. I must stand out from the rest as if my name were bolded on the roster of teachers. My class will play to the needs of the students at first bolstering their confidence and increasing their maximum payload. The idea is withdraw results from them without them knowing. My classroom will be fun and friendly. A place where learning and growing prosper within all of us. I will be the teacher that stands for what he believes in, runs a progressive classroom and gets to know each and every one of his students.

Works Cited

Chalk. Dir. Mike Akle. Perf. Troy Schremmer, Janelle Schremmer. SomeDaySoon Productions, 2006.

Dead Poets Society. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Robin Williams. Touchstone Pictures, 1989. DVD.

Freire, Paolo “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” University of California: Herder and Herder, 1970. Print.

Gilyard, Keith. "Children, Art, and Du Bois." President's Commentary Sept. 2012: 19-20. Text.

Large, Jerry “Gift of Grit, Curiosity Help Kids Succeed” Seattle Times. Seattle Times Company, 2012. Text. 26 September 2012

Stand and Deliver. Dir. Ramón Menéndez. Prof. Edward James Olmos, Estelle Harris, Mark Phelan. Warner Brothers, 1988.

Mexican American Studies

To see such an outcome for something so promising is truly sad. Whether or not what the class reinforced is hard to say, but the progress that it stood for is what everyone feared. Society worldwide is suffering from racism and prejudice. The idea that Latinos could become well educated as a united ethnicity would scare the hell out of your average white politician. It’s sad to see that after all these years, race still matters to people. Race is merely a label and boy do Americans love labels. Racism and sexism has indeed shrunk immensely, but when it comes to positions of power it holds true. In the end, that is all it boils down to. Minorities cannot be successful or to your typical white American, that is scary as all hell. You don’t see Asian school bus drivers, all yard workers are Hispanic and black people are in every KFC commercial. God Bless America… right? It can range from large to small in the ways that America devalues what it means to be “American” unless you’re a white one and that is most likely what happened to the MAS program at TUSD. The managed to produce unheard of numbers from Latino students and suddenly it is like some cult dedicated to hate the white man. Goodness knows if the Latinos want to come together as an ethnicity and become well-educated then that means it is to overthrow America. Just goes to show you that freedom still is not free.

Against School

I could not agree more with John Gatto. His ideas on boredom that his grandfather taught him, that it is our own fault and no one else’s. We all have the ability to instruct ourselves. This relates back a few blogs about how we all need a purpose. Without a purpose, you surely will become bored. Gatto also spoke on the necessity of schooling. Not education, but schooling and as John put it, schooling’s “deadly routine.” That we are forced to sit down and most likely relearn content numerous times over for roughly twelve years of our life, which falls back onto the banking concept that we previously discussed. Teachers need to adapt to each of their classes, meaning teachers cannot be just anyone. They can’t just spew information as we sit, mouths ajar, collecting all the dribble. Schooling has risen to a point where education is on the back burner. Schools are just meant to put out socially acceptable students not well-educated ones. Gatto sums it up in this list, “1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each person his or her personal best.” They way schools are setup now are almost custom tailored to suppress great minds. Anyone with an abstract frame of thought is deemed wrong instantly and shuttled away to be reformatted with the appropriate school software.

A Real Education

Mark Greenberg is trying to mend the social awkwardness that so many children from this generation suffer from. Not everyone is a social butterfly and nor should they have to be. At the same time they cannot fear even the most basic social interaction. Something that K-12 schooling does not seem to touch on a whole lot. I suppose what schools need is some form of a psychology or at least public speaking class. Boyce argues that students need to be able to be, “…able to calm yourself and regulate your emotions in a variety of situations; understand your own emotions, accurately perceive others’ emotions, and empathize; listen attentively to what someone is saying, negotiate, and confidently persuade; think through problems effectively while considering others’ perspectives.” A hefty load to be dumped on anyone’s plate and could easily be peaked in some form of a psychology class. Just to allow insight into the human mind. Students would begin to understand why people do things and read them more effectively, effectively, raising the level of manners in students, in theory. They would realize that they are not alone in their social anxiety. The idea of mindfulness is to promote, “A kind of non-elaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is,” defined by Bishop, Lau and colleagues. Essentially, pay attention to the person you are speaking to, accept what they are saying and do not argue it? ...maybe. Not so sure that I can agree with that. I support a more in depth understanding of conversation for our students, but if I am interpreting this correctly, we don’t need more passives in this world.

Tough Love

I agree with the ideas that Large has put forth. It is understandable that parents wish to baby their children forever, but the world surely will not. The idea is to nurture your children from the start just as any parent would then know when to step back and let the child develop on their own. As the article states, “…if you want success, build character and the rest will follow.” This would work in K-12 schooling as I believe a lot of teachers try to incorporate a similar idea, at least in my experience. No one is there to hold your hand, unless you need it. I have had multiple classes throughout my K-12 career that consisted of self-taught classes. The teacher was their teacher another class, but if I needed the assistance I was free to ask for help. You have that comfort zone of knowing the teacher is there, but at the same time you are, in a sense, totally self reliant to effectively absorb the text. Students should not expect their teachers to be there step by step through every problem. Rather, they should build up our ability to be self-taught in early levels of schooling and slowly let us develop the ability to learn on our own. Which… unfortunately, not a whole lot of high school students could do. We all have the ability to learn, some less than others, but I have noticed it is all about why you’re learning that makes the difference. The article mentions Tough started his book with an article about rats, that rats who were nurtured young stress to do better in life. That is what I’m talking about. You need to understand the purpose of learning. Not just the idea of, I’m at school so I have to. Disregard those thoughts, you need to learn, whether it is for your parents, your teachers, your dog or you. It doesn’t matter what the purpose is, but the idea needs to be imprinted young that there is one. With a purpose comes grit, which is a reoccurring word and title of Tough’s article. Merriam-Webster defines grit as, “firmness of mind or spirit: unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger.” Purpose brings forth that grit and courage. Children who are babied until they become adults can never understand the purpose of even the most mundane tasks. If our schools follow suit and wrap their students in blankies and spoon feed their lessons every day then how will they grasp the purpose of learning.

Paper 2

            Two of my most cherished high school teachers, Mr. Burchill and Mr. Wilson, are both very incredible men that I was so thankful to have in my life, but were two very different people. Though they were both positive role models in my life, they did it in their own unique ways. Obviously these differences are due to their opposing demeanor and style of teaching. Being a teacher is greatly affected by who you are and the life you have led, but at the end of the day you have a purpose. You are there to prepare students for the rest of their lives because not all children have a person to play that role. A quote by Charles Platt captures that perfectly, "Compassionate teachers fill a void left by working parents who aren't able to devote enough attention to their children. Teachers don't just teach; they can be vital personalities who help young people to mature, to understand the world and to understand themselves. A good education consists of much more than useful facts and marketable skills."       Truly, the most ideal role a teacher can play for his student is that of a coach, whether it be life coach or a school coach, Mr. Burchill and Mr. Wilson embody that role.
            Demeanor plays a huge role in first impressions with a teacher and its consistency is equally important. A teacher that day in and day out comes to work and is the same person is going to hit home with students more. If they continuously come to work every day offering the same attitude to you then you are going to offer the same to them. Mr. Burchill did just that. He came to work every morning and he smiled, gleamed, and showed he wanted to be there. I can vividly remember his  big, goofy grin. In turn, his students wanted to do the same for him. I showed up everyday with a good attitude and ready to learn because he did the same. Mr. Burchill could be a silly man, but when it was crunch time, the classroom was no nonsense. Education was held in the highest regard in Burchill's class. Mr. Wilson may not have shown the same enthusiasm, but he showed his appreciation that you were there. As he went through roll, he would always thank all of us for showing up. He would always refer to himself as the “Almighty One” or “His Majesty”, something to that effect. A lot like John Keating's quote in Dead Poets Society, “O Captain, my Captain. Who knows where that comes from? Anybody? Not a clue? It's from a poem by Walt Whitman about Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Now in this class you can either call me Mr. Keating, or if you're slightly more daring, O Captain my Captain.”  It was in good fun and showed to us that he enjoyed being there. He would take a rooted interest your future and he would talk to you about it after class. It wasn't just a few times it was weekly and he always remembered what you had said. It wasn't like he was just on auto-pilot for your conversations. He was a genuine man that genuinely cared about each and every one of his students. We all cared about him in return, especially about what he was teaching. Mr. Wilson, as a history teacher, valued our education on the past, but at the same time wanted to fortify our futures. Their attitude positively affected everyone in their classroom. Which resulted in their students acting similar to that of the teachers which benefited the classroom environment and effectiveness of lessons.

            Effectiveness and styling of teaching is a large idea of what defines a teacher. Burchill is a complex man and his style of teaching reflected that. He kept you on your path. All the students that did not want to learn, he would make them want to learn. No disrespect or defiance was taken sitting down. Burchill had a way of injecting the will to learn into your veins. When he spoke to you in a way that made you rise to the occasion. Just as Mr. Escalante said, “Students will rise to the level of expectation.” Burchill did just that. He sped up courses and squeezed everything into a day that he could. If you needed help after class you bet you would be seeing him there as late as possible every day. Burchill had a knack for drawing out every ounce of potential out of his students.  At the same time, Burchill respected how each of his students learned. Wilson was carving out your future with you and helping you connect the dots. He valued his curriculum and he valued the well being of his students. As Freire stated in The Banking Concept of Education, “... it turns them into “containers”, into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teacher.” [1] We were not seen in this fashion by Mr. Wilson. He valued our individuality and played to that with his teachings. Always using important tidbits that were interesting to us to lead into his lessons. Wilson would crack jokes about what he was reading during his teachings. The man had an great overall style of teaching that perfectly captured who he was. Teaching to him was meant to be fun and the way he did it reflected that. To him, time spent in the classroom was meant to be full of positive memories. They may have varying teaching styles but they were both effective in their own special way, whether it be in benefiting education or life.

            Though Mr. Burchill and Mr. Wilson have a different approach to teaching, the underlying effects from both of them are positive. They both care about the future of their students whether it be academics or personal life. In their classrooms the students were pushed to the boundaries in school and self discovery. Mr. Burchill had a more fierce and aggressive approach to teaching, whereas Wilson had a gentle and caring stance. These styles made them great teachers in their respective ways and any student would be honored to have sat in their presence. Great minds like theirs are what help mold us, the future generation. They fulfill the criteria set in an article by Carol Tomlinson, “The good teacher communicates a deep regard for students' lives, a regard infused with unblinking attention, respect, even awe. An engaged teacher begins with the belief that each student is unique, each the one and only who will ever trod the earth, each worthy of a certain reverence. Regard extends, importantly, to an insistence that students have access to the tools with which to negotiate and transform the world.” The role of coach is perfectly portrayed by these magnificent teachers.

           

Paolo Freire

Standardized testing goes against everything Freire protests in the chapter. Students would be filled with the same knowledge as one another and then be asked to dispense this knowledge on their test. Paolo Freire captures this idea by stating, “Narration leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content.” That we are just meant to filled, like some hard drive. Then if we fail to produce the content that was narrated to us, we are considered defective rather than unique. Freire seems to be getting at that everyone is an individual and we cannot learn as a whole. Everyone is their own person and therefore will develop their own set of ideas and thoughts. Meaning, they will not need to learn the same material as the person next to them. Education should occur on a more personal level and not this mass manufacturing sense that is. We are not just corporate robots requiring assembly at a young age. We deserve to create our own ideologies. Not force fed the spew of what others so blindly conceive as correct. To think that we should be evaluated on the same level as others around us is preposterous. We are showing our future generations that conformity is the path to success. That if you fall into the lines and learn just like the others, pass all the tests and that is how you make strides in life.