Competition in Schools

While doing a bit of research on Paterson for the Community Project, I stumbled upon a series of videos in which Governor Christie discusses the subject of education in Paterson. One of these videos features a screaming match between the governor and an unidentified male. Christie takes a verbal stance on competition in schools, to which the "opponent" refuses to listen. He claims that a school cannot succeed unless competition exists. I found this to be a rather interesting potential topic for debate. Can we succeed unless there is an opposing force pushing us to do better? Will we lack motivation without it? When money is at stake, will teachers work harder to push their students? I pondered this for a bit, and decided to search google for some opinions. On EducationNext I found an article that explains the monetary benefit to school competition. State funding is essentially pointless without the promise of improvement. Even if the schools themselves are not at odds with one another, it may benefit each school to believe they are. Goal-setting as an alternative may work, but unless there's something to lose, there's nothing to gain. Another point the article makes, is to make mention of private schools. If a local public school is demonstrating poor stats, those who can afford it will send their kids to a private school. In some cases the parent might risk the odds and apply to enroll their children in a charter school. In a town like Paterson, it is rather difficult to afford private school without scholarships. In the article (focusing on Florida schools) Cassandra M.D. Hart and David Figlio note that 

"because state school funding is tied to student enrollment, losing students to private schools means losing revenue. The threat of losing students to private schools may give schools greater incentive to cultivate parental satisfaction by operating more efficiently and improving the outcomes valued by students and parents." As a result of poor schooling, we may see lower mobility rates across the board. Therefore the added competition might be a viable option. Now, in New Jersey we have various factors that contribute to determining state aid. Referring back to the video, Christie responded to his opponent by stating that “nothing else in our society works without competition, and public education won’t work for everybody unless it does, too.” Mr. Christie, you have a valid point. Throughout our schooling we'll face a multitude of situations with competitive natures. Why should this be any different? Competition encourages success, and rewards achievement. Should there be a limit? Of course, but it IS necessary. 

http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/13/chris-christie-to-heckler-public-schools-need-competition/#ixzz2RpeIdevv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kFhmh3r9pA

http://educationnext.org/does-competition-improve-public-schools/

Cultural Relevance in the Social Sciences

Below you will find a checklist of culturally relevant practices that may be used to one's benefit when teaching social studies in Paterson Schools.

1. For a lesson on immigration students will interview someone with a cultural/ethnic background other than their own. Each student will present what they've learned to the class, and bring in an item significant to the culture they've studied. These items can be either an object or a popular snack/dish (must be cleared with me for allergies). 

2. Using a popular song to create a pneumonic device for memorization of certain topics (i.e. countries, capitals, presidents, amendments, etc.). 

3. Having each student bring in an item, song, or tell personal anecdote that will better help us understand each other. This can be something tells us more about your personality, or more about your culture. 

4. When choosing which novelists or essayists to use for class assignments, try to use those who may identify with who I am teaching. Paterson has a large hispanic community. To teach about Spanish history I may choose to include an excerpt from Don Quijote.

5. I can use historical artwork created by say a Peruvian or Dominican artist to help students use artistic clues to uncover details about the past. 

6. Using a game they are all familiar with to help them study before a test. For example, growing up we all new what Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was, so our teachers often used it to help us study. In paterson. Students can even create their own game to help them learn the material, while having the opportunity to have fun as well. 

7. Spending time on topics that are often brushed over. When discussing each time period, it can be beneficial to get various perspectives on the period. To teach about the civil war era, for example, I may provide 5 or 6 diary type entries or excerpts for class discussion. Each of these excerpts will be from a different type of perspective (a white plantation owner, a slave, a former slave, a hispanic member of the union army, and a hispanic member of the confederate army, and a native american). We often get perspectives of whites and blacks, but people often forget there were others here at the time. 

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After viewing Waiting for Superman, I can honestly say I was crossing my fingers for these kids as they waited to hear their names called aloud during the lotteries. There were some tears, there was some laughter. What seemed to bother me most was the situation that occurred with chancellor Rhee in D.C. Many teachers believe they have a right to sit back an do absolutely nothing once they're tenured, and its part of the reason their students may struggle to succeed. Rhee sought to pay teachers what they were worth while eliminating tenure. If you do what you're supposed to you should be able to keep your job. Why should someone who does nothing maintain a job when their may be someone unemployed, who'd get the job done with greater success and commitment? I agreed with Rhee, and wished the union gave it a second thought. I saw it as a great way to weed out the useless. Money is wasted to keep these poor teachers, money that can be used for better teachers and better programs.

Below are some of the practices that caught my attention when viewing the film. 
1. Reading a magazine when you should be teaching. ----BAD
2. Teacher Harriet Ball in Houston, teaching her students math terms using a rap song-----GREAT
3. The clips from the Simpsons and School of Rock----BAD

My Past Molds My Future

To bounce off of the Irvine article we read for class this evening, I've decided to speak about a few of my own experiences as a student. I've chosen to talk about the exercises/projects/lessons that stuck with me over the years, to emphasize how important it is to understand your students throughout the course of each academic year. To start, an appreciation for the fine and performing arts, and the humanities seems to be a common thread among the classmates I grew up with. Therefore, many of the activities my teachers chose to embark upon relied heavily on those two fields. In subjects like math, the occasional sports analogy was of course prevalent as well. 

My senior year of high school I took Humanities. This class had such a wide array of lessons to be taught, and my teacher truly did a fabulous job trying to create appropriate strategies. As a class about the humanities, being taught in the modern day, one must find ways to compare the past to the present (for english, history, and mythology). I can recall two lessons focused on creativity, and understanding of existentialism, that are just two of many to stick with me that year. In our unit on Hamlet, Mr. Hock had us create a Hamlet Soundtrack CD, based upon our musical knowledge and our understanding of the book. Each scene required a song change. Points were lost for irrelevant song choices that had nothing to do with the material. Before the unit began we were asked to explain ourselves via song, which essentially meant that we were to bring in a song that truly speaks to us and be able to explain why its currently relevant to our life. Our final paper on Hamlet brought back rather amazing results, so I would say it was rather successful. The final project in the class revolved around existentialist thought and theory, which can be difficult to truly define. For these units we read the books Waiting for Godot, The Stranger, and No Exit. To finalize the unit, he has us work in groups to create an existentialist piece of film. The final grades for this exam were given to us by means of a red carpet awards show (in the classroom on the last day of class). If a film did not portray and of the key elements he'd asked for, the given group would win an award named after a director that typically shared the same end result, etc. We were able to learn the content that was required while having the chance to have fun and express ourselves. If I attempted to sit here and list the number of success stories this teacher had I'd never the time to complete the MAT program!

Math was never my strongpoint, and it truly took a lot of effort to get concepts across to me. My father, is a math teacher, and tried his hardest to help me whenever possible. When I was learning about finding X in Geometry, he tried to find something that would stick. I am Jewish, a Religion filled with culture, food, and holidays. My next door neighbor and I would make hamentaschen every year (triangular cookies with jelly, or chocolate filling) around Purim (Holiday in March), and my family would wait in anticipation for them. My father decided to try something out. He grabbed one of these triangular cookies and told me to grab a couple of chocolate chips, a notebook, and a pencil. He then proceeded to use these tool to teach me how to find X on a triangle. I learned the concept, I passed my quiz, and I made a batch of cookies!

Culturally relevant can also refer to a given class's hobbies and interests. As a student I can promise you that the only lessons I remember are the ones that stood out as an attempt to better understand myself and my classmates. In other words, I remember the ones that achieved positive results. For example, in my 6th grade social studies class, my teacher noted that we were all quite creative, and gave us a project that involved quite a bit of creativity. She had us each pick one of the 7 wonders of the world (at the time), and creative a 3D model of it. There were guidelines that told us what materials we were able to use, dimensions, and items to be included. For my project, I built a 3-dimensional model of the hanging gardens of babylon. While I certainly did not have access to the materials used to create the original, my teacher gave me a list of materials that would best show the comparison when building. I didn't throw my model out until began to pack for college. I just remember how proud we all were of our accomplishments, and how well we all did on the unit test. As I've mentioned, these are but a few of my experiences. I may even choose to bounce off of some of them in my own practice. These experiences are simply to be the foundation for creating culturally relevant classroom activities. 

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy a Response to Irvine

Irvine's article was short, sweet, and to the point; providing a basic foundation for culturally relevant teaching. There are many films out there that glamorize the field of teaching, making it's hardships seem like simple obstacles everyone can over come in just one shot. Irvine uses an un-named teacher's experiences to show that it may, at times, be difficult to engage one's students in a way that guarantees content retention. She then goes on to show that if you learn to harness your sense of creativity, culturally relevant pedagogy can often be the best way to ensure said content retention. "Culturally relevant teaching requires the teacher to possess a thorough knowledge of the content and employ multiple representations of knowledge that use students’ lived experiences to connect new knowledge to home, community, and global settings" (Irvine 2009). That being said, there will be instances when someone attempts to implement a given strategy that may backfire completely. Teaching is very much an experimental process in which we form a hypothesis, create a variable and control group, and test different strategies against the hypothesis to see what works and what doesn't. "Monica's" first attempt to use the cultures of her students as a basis for learning backfired initially. The students did not learn, but they did appear to have fun. An activity that involves memorization of content can be beneficial if used as a mnemonic but if it is simply used for entertainment purposes the content will not stick. The later example of writing a letter to the mayor as a means to learn formal letter writing was culturally relevant, exciting, and got the information to "stick." School is not necessarily supposed to be "fun," but that doesn't mean it can't be. Children are more willing to take the time to understand your content if you take the time to understand THEM. In an area where students are unable to afford a gameboy, you would not have them do an activity that assumes they have access to one. If we expect our students to learn, then we must do the same. It is important that we take the time to understand what is important or endearing to the communities we choose to engage ourselves in. For example, if I were to teach a lesson on cultural diffusion in the United States a culturally responsive practice might be to have students interview someone from a different background other than their own, and to bring in a dish or an item that comes from their subject's home country. This will promote cultural understanding in a fun and meaningful way.