Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Why can't we all get along?

In class on Monday, we talked about the Human Relations approach to education, which is attempting to generate a positive atmosphere with the students by decreasing stereotypes and advocating a sense of togetherness in a nation of diverse individuals. Personally, my reaction to the article was that educators are trying to make all students feel more comfortable within the classroom. Even though one of their main goals are "to improve relationships between majority and minority students by eliminating prejudice and discrimination," their practice of this approach is not effective. Teachers are supposed to ask themselves "what can I do" or "what should I do" prior to incidents that upset the peace within the schools; not after. Sleeter and Grant state that "student diversity became an object of concern only when it threatened harmony within the school." Principals and teachers shouldn't wait until problems arise with students. Bullying is a big problem in schools and it makes sense that students who are getting bullied or teased don't do well in schools. Who is going to pay attention in class if you don't feel comfortable being there? Effective strategies should be put into action before there are problems involving students. I agree with Sleeter and Grant that "ignorance supports prejudice; accurate information can help reduce prejudice." People are always saying "knowledge is power" and if students grow up learning accurate information regarding race, culture, etc., it will hopefully help reduce prejudice and discrimination against people. Once again, this is another reason why schools need a multicultural based education system.

After looking at the answers for the Equity and Diversity Awareness Quiz, I am embarrassed to report that I only got one question right out of fifteen. The only on I got correct was #13, the annual earnings of the average full-time US worker is roughly equal to the daily earnings of the average CEO in the US. I noticed that my answers were mostly naive. For example, I was nowhere near the correct answers for #s 2, and 12. I can't believe that African American women are four times as likely to die during child birth due to lack of access to prenatal care, compare to white women. This is absurd to me. The US needs to get their priorities straight because according to this quiz, the military budget for the US is seven times higher than China's and roughly 2,600,000 US citizens are millionaires. Spread the wealth. Additionally, 84.5% of teachers never or rarely respond to homophobic remarks made by other students. This is ridiculous because how do you expect to change these behaviors if you don't acknowledge them. This ties back into the Human Relations approach because actions have to be taken in order to prevent bullying and cruel remarks from occurring. Knowledge is power. Here is the quiz, see how well you do.

http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/quiz/quizNEW.pdf

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Standardized Testing

Standardized testing is a problem for schooling and learning for so many reasons. In the article "Standards and Tests Attack Multiculturalism" by Bill Bigelow, he states that "test questions inevitably focus on discrete facts, but cannot address the deeper, multifaceted meaning of facts." Therefore, "one can master isolated morsels of fact and remain ignorant about the issues that give those facts meaning." This bothers me most about standardized tests because anyone who is good at taking tests and memorizing information will most likely do well on these tests. However, those of us who understand the basic concepts of the information and, for example, can't remember the date of which it happened will do horribly on these types of tests. Standardized testing doesn't allow the students to grasp the overall concept and importance of the events or ideas being taught in school because they are worried about the minuscule details which will be questions on the exams. Also, since teachers know that the students will be tested on these certain facts, the teachers will be more inclined to teach to the tests instead of expanding and explaining concepts more in depth. He also explains how these tests undermine multicultural education because, to the students, "if it were important it would be on the test." Therefore, teachers cannot teach a curriculum based on multicultural education because they don't have the time to educate their students about the culture and events of different people when they are time restrained to these tests. Also, the students won't see the information as important because they know that it won't be asked on the exams.

Furthermore, standardized testing is not going to help close the achievement gap. The No Child Left Behind Act has the right idea and hopes to rectify the correct problems in our education system, but the action of carrying out this bill is not succeeding. Holding the teachers accountable for their students by using standardized test scores is not going to help fix the problem because teachers will continue to teach to the test. However, teachers should be held accountable for because their is a need for better teaching, especially in the neediest school districts. The trouble with this problem is that teachers don't get paid enough to try harder and the districts that need the better teachers don't have enough money to pay for highly qualified staff. In the article "Evaluating 'No Child Left Behind'" by Linda Darling-Hammond, I agreed with the improvements of NCLB such as assessing students on their progress instead of using these standardized tests and giving teachers better salaries and working conditions. Now the question is how to implement these new improvements. The class had an idea of grading the students on a portfolio type of progression which I agree with, but what kind of grading system will be put into place? How do we give teachers in needy school districts more pay? If anyone has any ideas, feel free to express them. Hopefully, these changes can happen to benefit the students and close the achievement gap.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html
This shows how much farther away our country is from incorporating multicultural education. Texas is changing their curriculum to a more conservative view of history and cutting out even more historical information. Education already doesn't include so much history and culture in our curricula and Texas has decided that even more has to be cut out. They are molding education into what they believe students should learn in school and not the truth of all aspects of history and our life in the US. Take a look.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Black/White

In class on Monday, everyone took the Louisiana State voting test given to black people in the early 1960s. It's a literacy test of 30 questions timed for ten minutes that is supposed to prove that a person has at least a fifth grade education. The test is incredibly frustrating and personally, I couldn't finish the whole test in time. If you get one wrong answer on this test, you were not permitted to vote. Everyone had a good time reading off their answers and debating over how to interpret the questions. But after thinking about people seriously sitting down and struggling to finish/pass this test, it just was not fair. The test was designed to make sure that black people could not vote. If you read the questions, they can be interpreted in all different ways. So one day this might be the answer, but the next day if you have that answer, nope that's wrong today. No one in our class passed the test and I am 99% positive that no one else can pass this test either. If you want to try it, here's the link.

www.rethinkingschools.org/img/archive/17_02/Vote_test.pdf

In the article, "Black Schools, White Schools," Bell talks about how the Brown vs. the Board of Education actually did more harm than it did good. Black children wanted to have the same quality of education as the white children by integrating the schools and having access to all of the accommodations and resources that the white schools offered. After the Brown vs. the Board of Education case, black children were now able to attend the white schools but the white people left and moved to different areas, taking the resources and quality education with them. Therefore, the case still didn't help black people gain access to quality education, it further segregated the schools and further perpetuated the problem. I never realized this until after reading the article. Also, in class, the professor asked me what it means to be white and I couldn't think of an answer. After thinking about it more, I realized I have never been asked that question or have ever had to think about my skin color. To me, this is what white privilege means; never having to think about how the color of my skin can affect me in life. It goes along with what everyone else said but I never realized it before taking this class. Like the Brown vs. Board of Education case or the girl in class in the article, "Race: Some Teachable-and Uncomfortable-Moments," I have never had to defend myself because of my skin color. Regarding race, the concept of white privilege has opened my eyes to skin color meaning more than just people's appearance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1wztUJ4VVE
This video, "Stereotypes and White Privilege," is similar to what we did in class on Monday. It's interesting to see how many stereotypes can be rattled off about people of color and how much of a struggle it is for the people to think of white stereotypes.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

What's goin on?

In class on Monday, our professor set up a simulation of how an English language learning student would feel in a classroom by speaking Patois while going over a quiz. Personally, it was hard for me to understand the dialect so I did the best I could to not participate and remain hidden from the teacher. In an English speaking class, students who are still learning English most likely feel the same way. Even though they know the material, they do not want to, or cannot, participate in class discussion because of the language barrier. Most often these students get put into the remedial classes, even though they know the lessons, because the teachers are not equipped to help them with the language. In the Sleeter and Grant article "Teaching the Exceptional and the Culturally Different," I liked how they suggested that students do peer tutoring and class discussions about the material because the student-student interaction will help the English language learning students build on the language and understand the lesson. This also helps the students who are tutoring the other students better understand the lesson. In the article, they also talked about parental involvement in the students' lives which I believe is extremely important for the student to succeed. I liked how it said for the teachers to do anything possible to get into contact with the parents, for example "meet parents on the parents' turf rather than in the school." I thought this was interesting because not only might parents not have time to meet during the designated parent-teacher conferences but the parents who speak a different language might not want to try and maneuver their way around the school when they cannot read the signs. I never thought about this aspect before but it makes sense because people do not want to go to places that make them uncomfortable. Parental involvement is important for the child to succeed in school because they need the guidance and support from home in addition to school.

In the Rita Tenorio article "Brown Kids Can't Be in Our Club," Tenorio describes some of the activities that she does with her first grade class to bring up the issue of diversity. I feel that these activities are more helpful than hurtful because it is a great way to show students at a young age that difference does not mean deficient, it simply means difference. These activities also show the similarities between different people. I liked the "Me Pockets" the best because not only does it show the cultural background of the students, it also shows the personality and the similarities between the students. It also gives a chance for the parents to get involved in the projects because the students will ask them questions about their family and heritage.

http://www.diversitycouncil.org/elActivities.shtml
http://www.diversitycouncil.org/midActivities.shtml
http://www.diversitycouncil.org/hsActivities.shtml

I could not think of any good activities for bringing up racial issues in my classroom so I looked online for other examples. These websites explain interesting activities and projects to bring up the issue from elementary school to high school.