Talking Point #6- Jeannie Oakes

Premise:

• tracking
• consequences
• "less able"
• strategies
• high ability
• low ability
• classroom
• curriculum
• cognitive abilities
• learning
• student education
• learning strategies
• group work

Arguement:

Oakes argues that "students who are placed in high ability groups have access to far richer schooling experiences than other students." Because tracking does in large part seclude students, stereotype them as less able, schools need to find an alternative to tracking.

Evidence:

"...school professionals and parents oppose tracking because the believe it locks most students into classes where they have fewer opportunities to learn. Many express particular concern about tracking's effects on poor and minority students, who are placed in low-ability groups more often than other students and are less likely to be found in programs for gifted students or in college preparatory tracks."

"tracking leads to substantial differences in the day-to-day learning experiences students have at school... students who are placed in high-ability groups have access to far richer schooling experiences than other students. This finding helps explain why it is that tracking sometimes seems to "work" for high-ability students and not for others."

"In low ability classes, for example, teachers seem to be less encouraging and more punitive, placing more emphasis on discipline and behavior and less on academic learning."

Comments:

Besides maybe Kozul, I found this reading most enjoyable. Although it was one of the shorter readings, I feel it was filled with as much, if not more, useful information as any of the readings. Tracking is a very common and important issue that teachers and students deal with everyday. Throughout my education, and even as young as Kindegarten, I can remember students being secluded from the class to get "extra help". I found this reading very interesting because it taught me about tracking consequences and the uneven opportunities that are related to tracking. It also taught me about tracking alternatives and how important a curriculum rich with meaning is. "When curriculum is organized around the central themes of a subject area rather than around disconnected topics and skills, all students stand the greatest chance of enhancing their intellectual development." This reading truly impressed and engaged me, while teaching me a ton of useful information.

Talking Point #5 - Kahne & Westheimer

Premise:

• stereotypes
• homelessness
• community service
• learning experience
• charity
• change
• service learning
• community
• relationships
• politics
• moral
• altruism

Arguement:

Kahne and Westheimer argue that "learning and service reinforce each other and should come together in America's schools, yet there is a difference between charity and change in relation to service learning.

Evidence:

"In the moral domain, service learning activities tend toward two types of relationships. Relationships that emphasize charity we will call "giving." Those that aim primarily to deepen relationships and to forge new connections we will call "caring." In caring relationships, Nel Noddings asserts, we try to consider the life and disposition of those for whom we are caring."

"..is a fundamental critique of those market the importance of service learning by referencing both the motivation and joy that come from giving and the importance of altruism."

"Citizenship in a democratic community requires more that kindness and decency; it requires engagement in complex social and institutional endeavors."

Comments:

I thought this piece was a slightly tedious read but rather interesting. I had never thought about the difference between charity and change in service learning, and found the difference between Mr. Johnson's project and Ms. Adams project to be very interesting.

Talking Points # 4 - Linda Christensen

Premise

• stereotypes
• racism
• sexism
• literacy
• society
• individuality
• cartoons
• media
• influence

Arguement

Christensen argues that the media, most specifically in cartoons, movies and books influences how children act and think in a negative manner, and therefore, we need to become more critical about what is portrayed in the media.

Evidence

"Children's cartoons, movies, and literature are perhaps the most influential genre "read." Young people, unprotected by any intellectual armor, hear or watch these stories again and again... the stereotypes and worldview embedded in the stories become accepted knowledge."

"Although these stories are supposed to meerely entertain us, they constantly give us a secret education. We are not only taught certain styles of violence, the latest fashions, and sex roles by TV, movies, magazines, and comic strips; we are also taught how to succeed, how to love, how to buy, how to conquer, how to forget the past and surpress the future. We are tauht, more than anythin else, how not to rebel."

Comments:

I thought this piece was extremely interesting and a very engaging and enjoyable read. It was interesting to read about the "secret education" in cartoons because I had never thought of this and it brings a new light and different understanding to the fairytales we all loved as children.

Talking Points 3 - Carlson

Premise

• gay
• straight
• homsexual
• lesbian
• teaching
• normalizing
• education
• speaking out
• sexual identity
• right vs. wrong
• community

Arguement

Carlson argues that it is imperitive that our society becomes more normalized and comfortable with gayness, and furthermore it is our educators responsibility to normalize gayness in our schools to give children an early understanding of the normality of gayness.

Evidence

"Since all normalizing communities maintain a center and margin in the face of oppositition and resistance from those being marginalized, analysis needs to proceed through anaccount of the specific techniques and apparatuses of power that have been employed in the school to keep gayness "in its place" as an invisible prescence."

"Throughout this century, one of the primary means of ensuring that gayness was an invisible presence in the school was through the dismissal of teachers who were found out to be homosexuals."

"One of the effects of this closeting of gay teachers may be an overzealous effort by gay teachers themselves to avoid any class discussion in which gayness may come up, since they presume that to be publucaly "out" at school would cost them their jobs."

Questions / Comments / Points to Share

I found this article intriguing and a rather easy read. I think that Carlson brings up some very interesting points. I had never considered that teachers are often times scared to speak on gayness, especialy if they are gay themselves, out of fear of keeping their jobs. I think Carlson is right, in that gayness is a part of our society and needs to become more normalized, starting with the education of children in schools.

Talking Points #2 - Virginia Collier

Context / Premise

• multilingual
• confidence
• intercultural conflicts
• caregiver speech
• academic language
• second language acquistition
• language
• culture
• four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing)
• bilingual classroom
• community
• code-switching
• balance

Arguement

Teaching multilingual children is an extremely challenging yet unbelievably rewarding task that is obtained at a high level through correctly balancing the two major variables of language and culture.

Evidence

"Your goal is to help your students master the language udesin formal schooling (academic language proficiency) and at the same time give your students language tools for use in all contexts in the outside world."

"Code-switching is appropriate in creative, informal, casual, and intimate speech among bilingual speakers."

"When two languages are used in the school curriculum, the teacher should plan the precise times to use each language. Bilingual pedagogy research indicates that the teacher should clearly seperate the two languages of instruction."

Talking Points #1 - Peggy McIntosh

Context / Premise

• priviledge (white, male, skin color)
• oppressiveness
• equalness
• challenge
• whiteness
• conferred dominance
• systematic change
• power
• damaged culture
• race / racial identity
• unfairness
• society
• daily experience
• dominant race

Arguement

Our society and most significantly those individuals of the unearned skin priviledges, need to become aware of our racialy damaged culture in order to find parallels to remove dominant racial groups that we are taught to remain oblivious to.

Evidence

"whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow "them" to be more like "us".

McIntosh is bringing up an interesting point that was pointed out by one of her colleagues - whites are are raised and taught to look at their lives as neutral while being oblivious to the realities of race.

"Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already."

Hey... I'm Nick and I am a transfer student from Endicott College. I'm from Newport, RI and am pursuing a Secondary Ed degree. I've played sports all of my life, my favorite's being football, baseball, and basketball. I have a wonderful family that I am very close to, including an older sister who has been backpacking through Thailand for the past month. I am enjoying this semester, but am especially anxious for the summer to spend time at the beach, among other things.