Discussion on Gatto

Gatto's point is that every public school student is receiving a cookie-cutter education to shape them into average citizens. My group members and I agree with his point because we have had these kinds of parameters posed on ourselves when enrolled in public school systems.

• "Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children." 
• "The aim.. . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality." 
• "By the time I finally retired in 1991, I had more than enough reason to think of our schools - with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers - as virtual factories of childishness." 
• "Class may frame the proposition, as when Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909: 'We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.'"

Reviewing "Zami" by Audre Lorde

“Zami” was a very interesting piece to read. Audre Lorde really had a hard time in school because of her vision, and her inability to remember the order of numbers. This essay really puts you in Audre’s shoes and illustrates what kind of education she had. One scene that stuck out to me is when her teacher was telling her to simply draw the first letter of her name of the paper. Audre, always out to impress wrote her full name out on the paper. The teacher came over to her desk and exclaimed “Well I never!” Her voice was sharp. “I thought I told you to draw this letter? You don’t even what to try and do as you are told. Now I want you to turn that page over and draw your letter like everyone…” and turning to the next page, she saw my second name sprawled down across the page.  I think that this clearly illustrates the scene exactly how it happened, and the type of teaching style that this grade school teacher uses. Audre is trying to impress her teacher, but the teacher is so strict about following directions, she doesn’t recognizes Audre’s creativity. 

What makes a good teacher?

I have been pretty fortunate when it comes to having good teachers. Maybe I just have low expectations, but I thought most of my teachers at O’Dea high school did a really good job. I think a good teacher has to have a good relationship with the students. If the students aren’t comfortable talking to the teacher as a friend, I’ve found that it is harder to ask for help when you need it. The teacher also needs to take the students other classes into consideration. I know a lot of teachers don’t believe in this, but they need to move their tests around so it doesn’t fall on the same day of another class. It puts the students in a really stressful situation and they just don’t test as well if they have more than one or two tests per day.  I also really like it when teachers keep you updated with your grade week by week. Many teachers like to wait until the last couple weeks before they post their grades, but it’s a lot less stressful if they let you know ahead of time.  Lastly the teacher has to be enthusiastic about the topic. The only way the students are going to become interested in organic chemistry is if the teacher is enthusiastic about it, and provides good examples. Being enthusiastic may the most obvious, but I believe it is the most important. When I was at WSU, I had an environmental science teacher that really had a passion for what she taught. Bringing in physical examples, and letting us work with our hands made the class much more fun and brought the class closer together as friends. Overall, it was a better learning experience because of the teachers interaction with the students, and her attitude about the subject.   

Idea's for Paper #2

In paper number two, I will be writing about my experience with two teachers (good and bad) that I had in high school. I think one of the worst teachers I’ve ever had is my biology teacher sophomore year. For one, he couldn’t control the students at all, and two he didn’t know how to teach. He would sit in his corner asking questions straight out of the book, while we would sit there playing cards, playing on our phones, eating, or whatever we wanted to do, not paying any attention to him at all. The other students would constantly mock him and make fun of him all the time, but he never really did anything about it. In this class we would have tests every couple weeks. Since he kept the tests in plain sight, some students would just take pictures of the tests and then hand out people all of the answers on test day for a small fee. The majority of the time we took tests, almost all of the students cheated and got good scores.  The reason why this teacher was bad is because he didn’t like teaching, and he didn’t know how to control high school students.

I think one of the best teachers I ever had was Mr. Rittman. He taught me geometry when I was a sophomore and then algebra 3 when I was a senior.  He was one of my favorite teachers because he treated us just like he would his own children.  Each day he would go through our homework step by step and solve every problem for us. Then he would always ask if we had any questions or needed more examples or anything before he would give us the next assignment. Every time we would do something right, he would always make sure to award us with a licorice. Having these two teachers at once really made me realize what qualities a good teacher has, and I think I can write a good paper comparing these two. 

Stand and Deliver Notes

-Teacher starts with unorganized dysfunctional class

-he challenges the people who don’t try

-Uses very simple analogies to explain math.

-gives tall kid with pony tail three books so he can study

-Gives them quizzes every week

-If they don’t do their homework they have to sit in a chair in the middle of the class room

-Insults Anas dad about her education and working in the restaurant

-Getting them into math by using real life examples

-Counting with fingers

-Making the whole class be involved with the discussion

-mostly Spanish speaking students

-Important: Teachers meeting

-Teachers do not think that the students are ready for calculus

-Had the students repeat “cool” when it was hot in the room

-Calculus isn’t meant to be easy, it just is.

“All you see is the turn, you don’t see the road ahead”

-His wife doesn’t want him teaching through Christmas

-His wife doesn’t like him teaching as much as he does, she wants him to take a break

-Has a heart attack in staircase when teaching adult English class

-Has them line up against the wall and has them answer questions one at a time

-Two guys get pulled over after pony-tailed kid hangs out window

-The two guys get into a fight and then separate

-Students get Mr. Escalante a new car

-“You are the true leaders, the only ones who will make a change”

-Scores were dismissed because they didn’t think it was possibly

-Mr. Escalante didn’t realize how burnt out he was, and how burnt out his students were 

Final Draft- Educational Narrative

     I guess the first question I asked myself when I was reading the directions for this essay was- “what kind of learner am I?” If you think about, it is extremely important to understand what kind of learning style suits your personality the best, or else you will never completely understand anything that you learn. In my opinion, there are three ways of learning - by hearing, by seeing, or by touching. Any of these three are effective, but one or two of them may work better than the other depending on the person. For myself, I know that visual and audible methods of teaching are my favorite ways to learn. I like to have pictures and videos explain to me what’s being taught, and then practice them for myself afterwards.  I know when it comes to mastering a skill of any type, whether it is sports, or computer skills, I must diligently practice before I am close to perfect at it. I believe that I learn by hearing, seeing and doing, but I can learn the best by combining all of them together.

     Sports have never really been my specialty in life; I have never been into sports as much as my peers. I would much rather get outside and go for hike to see new things than sit on a sofa to watch a football game. One thing I have noticed about myself is I am not at all into team sports. Sure, I was on a soccer team, Swim team, and a running team but I feel as if I’m a little too introverted to be on a team. Being on a team includes being able to communicate well, but I would be too busy trying to make sure what I am doing is right before I do anything else.

     One sport that I have enjoyed all of my life is snow skiing. I started skiing at the age of two, and I’ve never really stopped since then. My mom, dad, and sister are all pretty good skiers, so I obviously had standards to meet. Of course when you are first learning to ski, you go and take a few runs on the easiest slope you can find to start out. Since I was only two years old when I started skiing, it wasn’t like I already knew what to do; I had to learn it completely fresh. One of the first things I learned to do is keep control of my balance when I was going down the hill. The first time we went up to Whistler Mountain in Canada, my dad had me ski with no poles in between his two skis, and he held my hands coming down the slope. Whenever I fell down, he would just pick me up and wait for me to straighten my skis out until he would put me back down. Really, this is probably one of the best ways to teach your kid how to balance on his skis!

     Most of my time would be spent in ski school when my family and I went up to the mountains so I skied with kids that were more on my level. Skiing with groups of kids my own age made it a better experience for me. I could make good friends during the day, and then reconnect with my parents and the afternoon, often wowing them with my new found skills. I think the one lesson I distinctively remember is the one my parents and I ended up doing together. We were in Winter Park, Colorado spending a week shredding up the slopes. I got a little curious one day and ended up signing up for an intermediate ski lesson. Since I was the only one that signed up for the class he let my parents come along and we pretty much got a full on private lesson. I think one of the most valuable things he ended up teaching us is how to carve our skis into the snow when we are trying to go faster downhill, and putting all of your weight on to one ski or the other when you want to turn sharply. Everything he taught us made all three of us more capable skiers, and we started trying slopes that were much harder.

     Of course skiing is something I've learned over the course of many years, so it is kind of hard to talk about one specific event. I think the most memorable times of skiing for me were throughout high school and college.  These are the times of getting a license and being on your own more. Having my own car and my own set of skis led to my friends and I venturing up to the mountains quite a bit. I really started to make friends by talking about skiing. All of the skiers at my school could sit there for hours and name off all of their favorite slopes. The best part was actually going up and skiing with all of my friends from school. Like I said before, skiing is a lot more fun when you ski with someone your own age.  

     About the only obstacle that stood in between me and my favorite sport was one of the most important aspects of skiing, money. Money was a major issue especially throughout high school because I didn’t have an income of any kind. I would work during the summer, but since I went to school in Seattle there wasn’t a chance of me working any of the rest of the year. My parents would give me some spending money occasionally, but other than that I was basically on my own when it came to paying for extra things like that. This really limited my ski time. Not only was it about $85 just for a lift ticket, I wasn’t getting as much practice as I used to. Even though I only ended up going to the mountains a few times in college I’ll never forget going up to Schweitzer Mountain in Sandpoint, Idaho with my friends Courtney and Dillon. We were all about the same skill level, so we basically spent all day racing each other down the slopes; throwing walls of powdery snow at each other as we skidded full speed trying to compete. I remember going down a pretty advanced slope and thinking to myself ‘am I going to break my ankles? We were going so fast that I thought for sure I would leave Idaho injured. Fortunately I didn’t, but skiing with my friends my own skill level made me push myself and improve for the better.

     The thing skiing taught me about learning is to keep practicing until you are near perfect. Sure, I consider myself a good skier now, but that’s because I have seventeen years of practice under my belt. I got to be a really good piano player, but that’s because I practiced for six years. I’m really good at washing cars, but that’s because I was a detailer for five years.  In order to get any better at whatever you do, you must practice until you are perfect. That is a philosophy I live by. Skiing has kept me active, and in good shape all of my life. I have made many friends and many good memories over the years skiing. I hope to continue skiing for the rest of my life and continue to learn more about the sport and more about myself each time I go up to the slopes.

What makes a good teacher?

I think teaching is all about being excited about the topic you are explaining. The worst kind of teacher is the one who just sits around and gives you assignments, while showing you fancy PowerPoint’s now and again letting the book explain the topic for them. I think a good teacher really needs to get into the topic and relate it to current issues so they can keep the attention of the audience. If the teacher is excited and explains the subject enthusiastically this attitude is sure to pass right along to the students. The attitude about the subject will come back when students do assignments and write papers on the topic (or at least it should).