Final course reflection

 Final Course Reflection

In this class, we did many things and we went through a lot of content. One of the first things that stands out to me that is meaningful is when we watched Precious Knowledge. I think this documentary was very powerful and inspiring, not only to me but to other students as wel,l who might not know the struggles that minorities go through.

Another thing that we did in class that stands out to me was the jeopardy game. I am very grateful we did not have a test and that our form of mid-term was a fun learning game where each and every single of of my peers got to participate one way or another. This jeopardy game is something that I will definitely will be using as a teacher in the future.

 

Lastly, something that was meaningful to me from this class was Alfie Kohn's “What to look for in a classroom”.  I think that when I become a teacher in the future, I will be using Alfie Kohn’s chart. His chart is one of the pieces of content that stuck the most with me throughout the semester, and I would even notice myself looking for “good signs” each time I went into a classroom. I have seen classrooms that look like his chart, and the environment in those classes is always a nice one. 

Aria By Richard Rodriguez

 Aria 

By Richard Rodriguez

(reflection) 

After reading Aria by Richard Rodriguez, I was able to make so many connections and realizations about my own experience with the English language. Firstly, as I was reading, I couldn't help but think about my own experience. My parents, at one point, only knew Spanish, so I grew up speaking Spanish. I was fortunate enough that my parents did not force me to learn English or to speak English only at home. My parents always encouraged me to speak Spanish at home and to never be ashamed of my heritage. My parents, unlike Rodriguez’s parents, allowed me to stay with my private language. To this day, I only speak Spanish at home, including with my brother, who speaks English as well. However, this is not the case in many immigrant families. Many children in today’s day still go through the same process as Richard Rodriguez went through. My cousins, for example, only spoke English at home and their parents would answer back in Spanish, never really implementing the English or Spanish language. Today, they feel disconnected from their culture, and some of them are even embarrassed for not being able to speak proper Spanish. Similar to Richard Rodriguez. I believe that a lot of children who come from immigrant families go through the same experience as Richard Rodriguez's, causing them to lose that part of themselves that they later on in life wish for. I think it is important for teachers to allow students to express themselves freely in any language that they are comfortable with because language is personal and it is important to them. Taking away language from any individual is like taking away their identity. I like this quote from Nelson Mandela, which aligns perfectly with this blog, which is "to lose a language is to lose yourself."

https://www.edutopia.org/article/benefits-being-bilingual/

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The silenced Dialogue

 Lisa Delpit 

The Silenced Dialogue

In the article The Silenced Dialogue by Lisa Delpit, she starts off with stories of minorities. I think of these stories as a piece of evidence for her argument.  In this essay, she criticizes U.S. public schools for ignoring the cultural backgrounds and ways of communicating of minority students, especially African American students. According to Delpit, education is not a neutral or simply academic process; it is mixed with issues of power, especially when it comes to who decides what and how to teach. Educators who ignore or play down these power relations shut down the views and needs of people who are already on the outside. In this essay, she mentions 5 aspects of power. One of them is “the culture of power”. These are the unspoken rules and norms that dominate in schools. Children from white, middle-class backgrounds often come to school already familiar with this culture, while minority and low-income children may not. The culture of power is something that usually has to be taught to low-income or minority students in school. She argues that the students who don’t already know the culture of power are at a disadvantage. 

After reading about the culture of power, I can say that I definitely agree. Most teachers assume that their students already know about this culture of power. However, I myself had to learn the culture of power in school, which I did not understand. For example, the usual “Are we supposed to be doing this?”. These questions, as a young girl, would confuse me very much, especially since I knew very little English. As a future educator, I hope not to run into these Lisa Delpit moments.

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The Broken Model

 The Broken Model

By Salman Khan

This reading was about how the school system shaped itself and tests. The school system that we have now is a model of the Prussian model. The Prussian model was believed to shape students into employees and consumers due to how the school system is composed with bells and periods. The Prussian model suppresses the workforce of creative, curious, and self-directed lifelong learners. 

The author also argues that standardized testing is not the best way to measure students' intelligence. Standardized testing may show where a student stands at a given moment in time, however, it does not measure their creativity or their potential. With standardized testing, students learn to retain information for the test instead of learning to learn, as well as teachers. Standardized testing forces teachers to teach for the test and not for learning. I believe that these types of testing create an atmosphere of anxiety wich may cause the student to forguet what they know during the test.

Events, Issues, and Moments in Education timeline.

                             Time      Event/Moment/Issue

1635	The Boston Latin School, founded in Boston, Massachusetts, became the first public school in the thirteen colonies.
1837	The state of Massachusetts formed the first state board of education with Horace Mann as its secretary.
1852	Massachusetts passed a compulsory attendance law from 4-16.
1870	All 37 states had public schools and the US. became one of the most literate countries in he world
1892	The National Education Association formed the “Committee of Ten,” which was a group of educators.
1900	34 states had compulsory schooling laws that required the nation's children to attend one-room schools
1918	Every state required students to complete elementary school.
1954	The Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling declared state-sponsored segregation in public education unconstitutional.
1990	The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed, ensuring access to education for students with disabilities.
2002	The No Child Left Behind Act was enacted.
2020	The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted education globally, leading to widespread remote learning.