1) "Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, drunkenness sobered, but stupid last forever." - Aristophanes
To me this quote seems correct of the most part. I do believe that all of those things will change as a person grows. However, I don't know how I feel about the use of the word stupid. It is obvious that as humans we will never be perfect and therefore make a "stupid" decision every now and then, so it can never fully be cured. But I do believe that as we mature and become more educated the "stupidity" begins to lessen.
2) Mr. Hundert is so shaken and altered by the experience of teaching a boy such as Sedgewick Bell because we has never had a student that behaved that way. He has never had a student talk back that way and be so disrespectful towards him. But, at the same time, Mr. Hundert is shaken because of the level that he can relate with Sedgewick. They have similar relationships with their fathers, which bring up many old memories for Mr. Hundert.
3) I think that when Mr. Hundert described Sedgewick's influence on the other boys in class as "hypnotic" he was right on the money. Sedgewick's behavior slowly started to bring out different attitudes and behaviors in the other boys that normally they would not display in the classroom.
4) The ethical dilemma and Mr. Hundert faces when calculating the final marks to determine the three candidates for the contest begins when Sedgewick just missed the cut by making fourth place. Mr. Hundert feels as though Sedgewick deserves and place in the contest because of how hard and he has worked and how much he has improved over the course of the year. So he changes Sedgewicks A- to an A+ and that eliminated Martin Bluth, whose father once won the contest, from the final round.
5) The second dilemma that Mr. Hundert faces happens at the contest. This dilemma is that he catches Sedgewick cheating to win the competition. Rather than disqualifying him, Mr. Hundert asks Sedgewick a question he knows he will not have the answer for, but the other boy will, thus Sedgewick loses the contest fair and square. Later when Mr. Hundert confronted him about it Sedgewick did not understand why he didn't call him out in front of the whole school.
6) I think that Mr. Hundert agreed to host a rematch of the contest because he still felt guilty about giving Martins place to Sedgewick only to watch Sedgewick cheat to try and win the contest. I think that this brought up a lot of emotions in Mr. Hundert because he remembered the love he had to his students and for teaching. I think the fact that Sedgewick once again cheated to try to win really hurt Mr. Hundert.
7) I do not think the film resolves this tension. I do not believe that this tension will ever be resolved. When you see Sedgewick's son Robert run out of the bathroom stall upset after hearing what it father says it makes you think that lying could never be worth it. But then you see later on in the movie and Sedgewick did not change is ways, because to him there was nothing wrong with it. I think we will always have this problem in the world because there is rarely just one view on things.
8) Mr. Hundert returns to teaching because he is reminded of his great love for it. He wants to touch the lives of more students, and try to help mold them into characters of integrity. The surprise that was waiting for Mr. Hundert when he returned to teaching was that he now has Martin Bluth's son in his class. Maybe this will be Mr. Hundert's turn to correct a wrong.
9) Mr. Hundert was very passionate about the subject that he taught. He used lots of dialogue and communication with the students. He kept the students thinking at all times, and did the best he could to know that every student was learning to the best of their abilities.
10) Studying the classics helped every boy that was in Mr. Hundert's class see that it is us who make our decisions about our lives. We control the choices that we make, and we are responsible for our actions. I think through learning about the classics they learned from the greatest of the greats how to contribute to society whether through money, work, or relationships.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Educational Influence
It is said that every little even t and experience in our lives shapes our personality and character. These events can be major life experiences or small little events that would never be expected to impact a life. One of the first experiences I remember that significantly influenced my education is something we did in elementary school. In fact it started before I entered the kindergarten. In my home town there is one day at school where each kindergartener is encouraged to invite someone they know that is going to be entering kindergarten the following year to attend school with them for a day. This is one of the first, but not last, time that the teachers at my school went out of their way to make things comfortable for all students. I will never forget how much easier the first day of school was having been there before. But that was only the start of student-student relationships.
Once we were in elementary school they teacher all had a system to interact the grades and help build relationships amongst them. This system was called the friend system. Kindergarteners were paid with 3rd graders, 1st graders with 4th graders, and 2nd graders with 5th graders. To this very day I remember being a kindergartener and meeting my 3rd grade friend. I felt like I was on top of the world. We could periodically have lunch dates and go on field trips with our “friend” throughout the year. While this seems so simple it honestly made a huge difference in my life and the lives of my friends. It was nice to have that relationship with an older student when you are new; and to be able to lead a younger student when you are older. This is one of the many reason I want to be an elementary school teacher, so that I can help student learn, but more importantly feel comfortable and safe.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Paulo Friere's Banking Concept of Education
1. Paulo Freire used the concept of "narration sickness" to describe how education is suffering most, referring to the relationship between the teacher and the students. Narration sickness is defined as to the traditional mode of education in the classroom where the teacher simply talks on and on and the students must sit patiently and listen like little receptacles of knowledge.
2. Narration sickness mimics/mirrors the current No Child Left Behind Act standardized testing practices in today societies in many ways. The first way is they are both making the work we learn hollow and empty. Also it turns learning into memorization and predictable. Lastly they both turn students into "containers" just waiting to simply be filled.
3. There are two different types or teachers out there, those who use the banking concept of education and those who use problem-posing education. My high school history teacher from both 9th and 10th grade, Mr. Olson, preferred to use the banking concept in his teaching method. Almost every day of class was filled with constant note taking. They have have been notes we had to copy off the board or overhead, sometimes they were note we had to free hand while he lectured, and sometimes they were notes we took by outlining the chapter in our textbook. He was the only one in the room that got to make decisions, he taught us the content he wanted to teach, not necessarily what we needed more help learning about. Not to mention he pretty much thought that he knew everything that the was to possibly know about anything!
I personally did not care of this style of teaching at all. To this very day I have a very negative attitude about any type of history class room. I can honestly say that I can't recite three things that I learned in any of his classes off the top of my head. It was just a matter of remembering enough of the information to get through the test, then let it all go to make room for the new information. I feel like if there would have been more discussion and exploration of the information it would have embedded itself into my brain more, but it was almost like he was in a race. Trying to see how much information he could get through in that one semester. His prize: confused and upset students.
4. Through out all of my years of school my life has been touched by a number of amazing teachers. There are truly been some that have helped to shape my life and who I am so much that it is hard to just pick one. If it hadn't been for these educators influence in my life I would not be majoring in education myself! One of the teachers that stands out in my mind as an excellent educator is my high school senior English teacher Mr. Ganci. He almost always lead the class as one big group discussion. There were very few days where all we did was sit and listen to him lecture. That doesn't mean he didn't, he just did it in a way that kept us, as students, involved and responsible for our own education.
Some of my greatest memories for his teaching methods is the way that he made everything fun and related to us. This English class was focused around literature. Let's be honest, what room of high school seniors want to spend their nights and weekends reading assigned books we would probably never read with out this class. But Mr. Ganci kept it fun! Rather than giving on tests on the novels or having us answer questions and write essays, he based our tests off of popular music. I can recall that for at least three of the books we read that year he would play a song by Coldplay, then they next book a song by The Killers and he would hand us the lyrics to the song. We would then write about how we thought the lyrics in the song followed the story we had just read and how the characters related. He made testing of books like "Frankenstein" and "The Count of Monte Cristo" fun for the whole class. Even with the outbreak of 'senior-itous' in the room.
5. Based on Neil Postman's "My Graduation Speech" and my knowledge of the Athenians and the Visigoths I see that one of them would embrace the banking concept while the other would embrace problem-posting education. I think that the Athenians would most likely embrace the concept of liberated or problem-posing because of their desire to learn and communicate. That leaves the Visigoths, who I think would be the most likely to embrace the banking concept because of their crude, stubborn, and selfish ways.
I can honestly say that every course I am currently taking this semester is based mostly on dialogue. I really enjoy that all of my teachers are practicing problem-posing education, at least most of the time!
2. Narration sickness mimics/mirrors the current No Child Left Behind Act standardized testing practices in today societies in many ways. The first way is they are both making the work we learn hollow and empty. Also it turns learning into memorization and predictable. Lastly they both turn students into "containers" just waiting to simply be filled.
3. There are two different types or teachers out there, those who use the banking concept of education and those who use problem-posing education. My high school history teacher from both 9th and 10th grade, Mr. Olson, preferred to use the banking concept in his teaching method. Almost every day of class was filled with constant note taking. They have have been notes we had to copy off the board or overhead, sometimes they were note we had to free hand while he lectured, and sometimes they were notes we took by outlining the chapter in our textbook. He was the only one in the room that got to make decisions, he taught us the content he wanted to teach, not necessarily what we needed more help learning about. Not to mention he pretty much thought that he knew everything that the was to possibly know about anything!
I personally did not care of this style of teaching at all. To this very day I have a very negative attitude about any type of history class room. I can honestly say that I can't recite three things that I learned in any of his classes off the top of my head. It was just a matter of remembering enough of the information to get through the test, then let it all go to make room for the new information. I feel like if there would have been more discussion and exploration of the information it would have embedded itself into my brain more, but it was almost like he was in a race. Trying to see how much information he could get through in that one semester. His prize: confused and upset students.
4. Through out all of my years of school my life has been touched by a number of amazing teachers. There are truly been some that have helped to shape my life and who I am so much that it is hard to just pick one. If it hadn't been for these educators influence in my life I would not be majoring in education myself! One of the teachers that stands out in my mind as an excellent educator is my high school senior English teacher Mr. Ganci. He almost always lead the class as one big group discussion. There were very few days where all we did was sit and listen to him lecture. That doesn't mean he didn't, he just did it in a way that kept us, as students, involved and responsible for our own education.
Some of my greatest memories for his teaching methods is the way that he made everything fun and related to us. This English class was focused around literature. Let's be honest, what room of high school seniors want to spend their nights and weekends reading assigned books we would probably never read with out this class. But Mr. Ganci kept it fun! Rather than giving on tests on the novels or having us answer questions and write essays, he based our tests off of popular music. I can recall that for at least three of the books we read that year he would play a song by Coldplay, then they next book a song by The Killers and he would hand us the lyrics to the song. We would then write about how we thought the lyrics in the song followed the story we had just read and how the characters related. He made testing of books like "Frankenstein" and "The Count of Monte Cristo" fun for the whole class. Even with the outbreak of 'senior-itous' in the room.
5. Based on Neil Postman's "My Graduation Speech" and my knowledge of the Athenians and the Visigoths I see that one of them would embrace the banking concept while the other would embrace problem-posting education. I think that the Athenians would most likely embrace the concept of liberated or problem-posing because of their desire to learn and communicate. That leaves the Visigoths, who I think would be the most likely to embrace the banking concept because of their crude, stubborn, and selfish ways.
I can honestly say that every course I am currently taking this semester is based mostly on dialogue. I really enjoy that all of my teachers are practicing problem-posing education, at least most of the time!
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Clergymen's Letter and Civil Rights Movement
1. Passive Resistance: Is resistance by nonviolent methods, such as refusing to comply, demonstrating in protest, or fasting. These acts of resistance are directed toward a government, an occupying power, or specific laws. It is said that The nonviolent theory was developed by Henry David Thoreau in his essay, Civil Disobedience (1849) and later adopted by Martin Luther King Junior. Other well-known practicers of passive resistance include Leo Tolstoy and Mohandas Gandhi.
2.
Photo 1:
Photo 1 was taken in North Carolina in 1965. It is a photograph of Klu Klux Klan Grand Dragon, James R. (Bob) Jones. He is posing after lighting the cross at a nighttime rally. The burning of the cross was to call in clans or to tell clan members to come, a signal invented by the Scottish. My initial reaction was to choose this photo because of the history South Dakota has with the KKK. May times we thing those things just happened in the South, but a klan started in Southeast South Dakota near Canton and Beresford in 1921. Within the next year there were klan out in the Black Hills; and by 1925 there were klans in almost every major city in South Dakota. Until 1928 a small town outside of Sturgis was very popular and full of klan activity; even though there is very little evidence today.
Photo 2:
Photo 2 was taken in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. It is a photograph of a group you African American youth in front a a department store so called "taunting" a white police man. I picked this photo because I found it kind of ironic that the white police officer looks slightly frightened. However if the colors were reversed I think the thought process and his view on the situation would be completely different, along with many other white Americans of that time.
3. As much as I wish I could confidently say that there isn't discrimination, whether it is racial, gender, job, or age-related, because I believe that there most definitely is here is Sioux Falls today. I am currently reading a book titled Uprooting Racism for a different class right now and while it doesn't talk specifically about Sioux Falls, it is talking about the United States in its current day and age. As Martin Luther King Junior said in the Letter from Birmingham Jail "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
4. My topic for my major paper #2 is racial discrimination in the criminal courts system. I plan to support this claim with statistics I have found on the racial groups of people arrested, and for what charge. I also plan on supporting it is real cases that the public should be slightly knowledgeable about. I think that 3 ways in which i can use ethos and logos in my next paper would be 1) referring to different law which are supposed to be stopping racial discrimination; 2) using examples about reputable cases and apply to the specific audience; and 3) refer to past experiences in the world like Genocide, the Holocaust, and the Civil Rights Movement.
2.
Photo 1:
Photo 2:
Photo 2 was taken in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. It is a photograph of a group you African American youth in front a a department store so called "taunting" a white police man. I picked this photo because I found it kind of ironic that the white police officer looks slightly frightened. However if the colors were reversed I think the thought process and his view on the situation would be completely different, along with many other white Americans of that time.
3. As much as I wish I could confidently say that there isn't discrimination, whether it is racial, gender, job, or age-related, because I believe that there most definitely is here is Sioux Falls today. I am currently reading a book titled Uprooting Racism for a different class right now and while it doesn't talk specifically about Sioux Falls, it is talking about the United States in its current day and age. As Martin Luther King Junior said in the Letter from Birmingham Jail "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
4. My topic for my major paper #2 is racial discrimination in the criminal courts system. I plan to support this claim with statistics I have found on the racial groups of people arrested, and for what charge. I also plan on supporting it is real cases that the public should be slightly knowledgeable about. I think that 3 ways in which i can use ethos and logos in my next paper would be 1) referring to different law which are supposed to be stopping racial discrimination; 2) using examples about reputable cases and apply to the specific audience; and 3) refer to past experiences in the world like Genocide, the Holocaust, and the Civil Rights Movement.
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