Anyon's talking points

1. "In both working-class schools, work in language arts is mechanics of punctuation (commas, periods, question marks, exclamation points), capitalization, and the four kinds of sentences. One teacher explained to me, "Simple punctuation is all they'll ever use."
- This quote bothers me a little bit because it shows the attitude and the expectations that the teachers have for the students. The teacher's attitude to me says that they feel the students aren't going to need to know a lot about grammar because they won't be going that far in life. It seems that at the working class school the expectations for these children are very low and are expected to grow up being in the middle class and they won't get any higher.

2."Work tasks do not usually request creativity. Serious attention is rarely given in school work on how the children develop or express their own feelings and ideas, either linguistically or in graphic form."
- I think that this is a problem because all children are different and you shouldn't ignore their creativity or differences. All children learn in different ways and have a lot of interesting ideas and they should be able to voice and talk about in class what their ideas are, because a good way to learn is by learning other people's stance on things and getting other people's point of view.

3. "Language arts emphasizes language as a complex system, one that should be mastered. The children are asked to diagram sentences of complex grammatical construction, to memorize irregular verb conjugations (he lay, he has lain, and so on ...), and to use the proper participles, conjunctions, and interjections in their speech. The teacher (the same one who teaches social studies) told them, "It is not enough to get these right on tests; you must use what you learn [in grammar classes] in your written and oral work. I will grade you on that."
- What I find most interesting about this is how different it is compared to the lower and middle class schools. In the lower class schools, they only had to do simple grammar, and in middle class schools the grammar that they did was grammar that they had to use in everyday life, or for business letters and such. The were tested on the grammar they learned and that was that. However, in the elite school they grammar that they learned had to be used all the time.

What surprises me most about this reading is the difference in the way that the children were taught. It seems to me that the lower class schools were most strict with the children about what they learned and how they learned it, when with the elite school the children thought a lot about how to solve the problem on their own. Also, in the elite school the children were expected to do a lot more than in the lower class schools. They were allowed to venture out in the hallways by themselves, and they didn't even have bells for when the class was over. In the lower class schools everything was very routine and organized and watched over.

School visit today

Today I went to my school again. I had the usual meeting with Curtis and Debbie. Today they were very well behaved and personally I think it was because we didn't play candy land. Whenever they play candy together they both get too carried away and misbehave, so we just used the regular third grade word list and they were fine. After that I went to my kindergarten classroom and they were working on coins. They had to know the difference between all the coins and be able to tell how much each one is worth, and I worked with a little boy named Michael. The little girl sitting next to Michael though was constantly jumping around and not listening to directions, so i had to work with her more than I had to work with Michael. Overall it was a good visit.

Weil Article

The article I just read was about segregating boys and girls in the classroom. Personally, I think that this is a bad idea. I don't think that girls and boys should be segregated in the classroom because classroom aren't just about learning the curriculum. School is giving children the chance to get used to society and the environment that they live in, and that includes boys and girls being together. In school not only do you learn subjects like history and math, but you learn how to climb the social ladder, you learn about the community, and you learn about how to interact with other. Going to a same-sex school only teaches you how to interact and work with people of your sex, which could really set a child back socially. Everybody is different and learns in different ways, and if you separate those children they'll never learn about cooperation. I think that it's important for boy and girls to be in school together because that's where they get the experience that they need to interact and socialize with others after they finish school.

Kliewer Article

I found this reading to be very interesting and I liked it a lot. I personally am going to concentrate in special ed, and it's good to read an article on special ed children in the classroom and know a little bit more about it. What I liked most about this article was what Shayne Robbins did with her classroom, and I admire how she was able to really connect with her students, especially Isaac who went through a lot of difficulty doing things as minor as flipping a page. The way she was able to understand Isaac's behavior and learn more about the way he thought and all of his actions is very inspiring. Shayne always knew exactly was Isaac was trying to say and she was always able to make sense of his actions and what he was doing and I think that it's very important to be able to connect with your students on that level and get them to able to participate in class and such when they find it very difficult.

School Visit

At this school visit I worked with Curtis and Debbie again, and they weren't well behaved this week. They both were off the walls and Curtis didn't want to play candy land. I got him to play though. Debbie was very upset while playing candy land because the cards she got put her behind and she kept trying to cheat because she wanted to win so badly. Eventually they did calm down and it was just another regular visit. After that I went to my kindergarten room and I worked with a little boy named Elliot. Elliot needed help counting because when he has to count up to 20, he would always skip the number 16. So when he counted he went straight from 15 to 17, which became a problem because his answers were always one off. So i had to help him remember and teach him that he's skipping a number. Elliot and I finished his math packet early and then the class went to the library and my time was up.