Pecha Kucha

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1uISMvq3QwMcWISg1pOkMoH9dlRQKbuqOYGO3NmK-MZc/pub?start=true&loop=false&delayms=20000

Oakes- "Tracking"

Tracking in schools is an awful thing to do to students. Oakes speaks about the problems with dividing the students into different groups based on there intelligence levels and skill levels. This is giving bigger advantages to students in these higher skilled groups and disadvantages to the students in the lower skilled groups. When what should be happening is that all students should be receiving the same work and the ones who struggle just get a little more help so they can understand the lessons. No students should be left behind. 

This article to me connects to Collier a little bit because Collier says that teachers need to embrace and honor a students first language choice. So they need to give them help so they can learn at the same pace as the other students. This relates to Oakes because students need to learn the same stuff together and not separate. If students who had trouble speaking english were ignored then they would never learn anything. So why should kids be placed in separate groups based on skill? They all need equal opportunity, no matter what language they speak first or there skill level. 

This article also connects to Christensen a little because Christensen talks about how students need the right tools from schools to interpret the media and other cultural texts. It relates to Oakes because if students in higher skill groups in school have better tools than lower level groups, then it isn't fair to the students in the lower level groups. So what I'm trying to say is that all students need the same tools to learn the same stuff equally.

This is how this article by Oakes relates to these two other authors.

Here's a video that relates to this topic.

The Problem We All Live With

In the audio clip the narrators all have similar themes in regards to segregation in schools. They talk a lot about how schools aren't as unsegregated enough yet. They talk about the Brown vs. The Board of Education, and how now schools can't tell a student of different race or ethnicity that they can't go to that school. But What happens instead is that most student minorities end up going to poor quality inner city schools, and this is not helping them because the schools in the cities are not good educational schools. These schools just can't seem to teach these students enough. These schools have tried to change teachers, curriculum, and administrators. But none of this stuff works. In these areas the students just don't seem to have the motivation to receive a good education. So some may think that it's not the schools fault, but to me I think it is. I think that these schools need to reach out to parents and talk to them about how important it is for these kids to pay attention in school. If the students all go to school and pay attention, and the teachers and curriculum is good there is no reason for the lack of success. It all starts with the kids when there young. It doesn't matter if you go to a school in the suburbs or a school in the inner city. If the kids are all taught the importance of education there is no reason for them to fail. And there is no reason to bring up the Brown vs. The Board of Education. I say this doesn't have to do with this case because the government didn't force these kids to go to these schools. Its there parents fault for living in these areas and putting there kids in these schools. But with lots of work, these schools can become great, and help all kids receive a great education. And to me that is what really matters the most.

This to me connects to SCWAAMP a little bit because to me this audio is trying to make the white race seem like they have a better education. When I think that all races have an equal chance at education depending on how much effort they put in.

In The Service Of What? By, Kahne & Westheimer

What I got from this article was how important it is to do some sort of service learning in your life. It doesn't matter what your age is, you should really invest in some sort of service learning in your life. In the article it talks about a 7th grade class and a 12th grade class. The 7th grade class comes up with a group idea to do as a service learning activity for the community. While the 12th grade class has to go find there own service learning activity for the community. Even though they do it in school, at least there giving back to the community.

This article made me realize why we talk about are service learning in class. In the article it says that if you talk about your service learning you are more likely to get more out of it. So when we talk for 30-45 minutes in class at least we know we are really getting a really good feel for the service learning, and what it's about. I say this because we talk about the good, funny, awkward, and bad stories we have during are service learning. 

I can proudly say I can understand this article well as I have put my time into service learning. I have done boy scouts so I have done a lot of fundraisers and volunteering events. I have also volunteered for my school to go read to kindergarteners. I did this in 11th and 12th grade and it was really fun to do this for those kids. I could really see the service learning goals happening. The ones I saw and did that Kahne and Westheimer talked about were charity, change, moral, giving, caring, and civic duty.

This is how this article related to me.

Promising Practices

At Rhode Island College's Promising Practices, I learned quiet a few things in the workshops I did. The first workshop I did was called Mindfulness in Kindergarten. This was an interesting workshop because it showed a lot of ways how simply calming down the kids and letting them relax would help them improve in school. They improve because when they are calm they are paying more attention in class. So one exercise we did in the workshop was that the instructor rang a bell while we were quiet and told us to see how long we could hear the bell for.

After we listened long for the bell we all felt so much more relaxed, and mindful. So it was cool to learn this. Here are there things that can help with mindfulness in kindergarten.

The second workshop I did was called Healthy Life styles, you heath your life. This one was great because I'm a PE/Health major so this really interested me. I learned a lot about how when your younger you usually are healthier then when you move out and get older. This is because when you are young you usually aren't as stressed out and your parents usually have good foods to eat. But when you move out you tend to stress over a lot of things like money. When you stress it can lead to over eating. And when you don't have a lot of money you have a lot of unhealthy foods. So this was cool to learn. To learn about more Healthy lifestyle choices click here.

To connect these workshops and things I learned to course texts I would say that Delpit would connect to the kindergarten workshop because when the instructor rang the bell we all got quiet to listen to it as long as we could. This could be used to show rules and codes of power to younger kids.

In the Healthy lifestyle workshop we talked a little bit about how someone who is LGBT me be less healthy sometimes because there stress about other people. This could connect to August because when someone who is LGBT is in a safe place, they can live a safe and more healthy life.

Last Author that connects to these workshops would have to be Christensen. I think he connects to both workshops because the instructors would tell us the right materials, tools, and resources to do a lot of activities to bring mindfulness to kindergarteners, or be more healthy.

Map the Authors

View Here.

Rodriguez: Aria

In the article "Aria", Rodriguez tells his story about how he was socially disadvantaged. He talks about how he was scared to use the english language because he felt like it wasn't his language to use. He wanted teachers to address him in Spanish, a language he felt comfortable using. His teachers always viewed him as shy but this is because he didn't like being called on because he didn't really know the english language. Eventually the school saw that Rodriguez and his brother and sister were all really shy. So the school sent people to Rodriguez's house to talk to his parents. After the people from his school left, his parents told him and his siblings they should start to talk at home in english and no more Spanish. So doing as his parents told him, he went on to learn english in school well, long with his siblings. But since he stopped using Spanish, he basically couldn't speak it anymore. His parents on the other hand had no real way of truly learning english so they knew very little english, and they still talked mostly Spanish. This was bad because Rodriguez and his siblings could no longer really communicate with there parents. And there house was always semi quiet.

I argue that this was a bad idea for the school to tell the parents to have the kids speak english all the time at home, and for the parents to make there kids speak only english at home. Rodriguez tells a story about one time he walks into the kitchen while his parents were speaking Spanish, but when they saw him walk in they switched the conversation to english. What they should have done was still speak Spanish and english so there kids would be able to speak both languages. Also the school should of helped Rodriguez and his siblings learn english while still knowing the words in Spanish.

If only Rodriguez could of had this to help.