Spring Chapters

Spring Chapter 1

Quote:

“Political liberty would be possible, according to Mann’s philosophy, because it would be restrained and controlled by the ideas students learned in public schools.” (Spring p.10)

Response:

Horace Mann makes a valuable point with this quote. He is saying that the United States government would be able to survive because the citizens would recognize how important it is. His idea is that an educated citizenry would be able to make decisions that they would then vote on instead of reverting to violence or revolution. Other political theorists and educational leaders suggested that a free education available to all would “control the minds of future citizens” or “prepare them for conformity to government regulations”. I agree with both of these statements and believe that our education system does both to a certain extent. Schools do teach students how to think and can obviously help determine the way someone thinks politically. We also grow up learning to obey the “rules” at home and at school. The government has laws that most people obey, probably because they were always taught to obey the rules.

Spring Chapter 2

Quote:

“The use of “secular” in the legislation is to make a distinction from character education based on religious values.” (Spring p.38)

Response:

This quote refers to the No Child Left Behind Act and a section of it entitled “Partnerships in Character Education”. I believe Spring emphasizes the word secular that is used in the legislation because he doesn’t think it belongs there. While I certainly support the separation of Church and State, I don’t have a problem with someone describing the type of character we should teach our students as secular. He does bring up my point that it is not being used in a religious framework but I still get the feeling that it bothers him. I think the writer of the legislation was just using language that would be understandable by the common person and was not trying to create a CCD class in our public education system.

Spring Chapter 3

Quote:

If a company needs highly educated workers… competing for low-wage jobs.” (Spring p. 68-69)

Response:

Spring is discussing the possibility that schooling is contributing to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. A report from the 2005 National Education Summit on High Schools reported that “in short, we run the risk of losing our middle class.” I absolutely agree with this however I have a theory of my own which I derived from a joke I heard. The joke had to do with how expensive a psychiatrist visit was and how if we don’t maintain a working class that a good plumber would cost just as much in the future. I am making the assumption that trade workers are in the middle class, have a high school education and sometimes a vocational education post high school. My assumptions probably aren’t far from the truth which leads me to believe that the middle class may not be as large as it once was but it will still exist. The report is singling out those that do not complete High School, and I’m sure that those individuals will be in a worse situation than anyone else especially with today’s job market. It’s likely almost impossible to get a job without a high school diploma when our workforce is flooded with over qualified workers. These individuals are then restricted to minimum wage jobs which aren’t even paying living wages.

Spring Chapter 6

Quote:

“A major problem for schools is finding… Exceptionally high dropout rates have been reported for these students.”” (Spring p. 150)

Response:

This paragraph is about the problems schools have in finding teachers that have limited English proficiency (LEP). I knew from my personal experience that LEP teachers are not always available which causes the student to be at a serious disadvantage if they don’t speak English. I did not know that the National average was only 29.5% of LEP teachers with LEP students in their classrooms. This is an obvious problem that needs to be addressed. I have some ideas that may be helpful to solving this problem. Native speakers that are fluent in English can be recruited by school systems and allowed to work as translators while they earn a teaching certificate. This may attract more candidates to the field by providing work during their education and the promise of a job afterwards. I also think that hiring translators from the community, even if it is a relative of the student, would help the students more than just letting them continue in school not understanding anything. These translators may not be certified which would allow the school to pay them a lesser, but fair, wage than their certified counterpart but their presence would be beneficial to the student until a certified translator could be found.

Spring Chapter 7

Quote:

“According to the Anti-Bias Curriculum, research findings show… believe that prejudice can be reduced if there is conscious intervention to curb the development of biased concepts and activities.”

Response:

The research in this paragraph details the ages that young children start to become aware of who they are and what distinctions they have from others, such as gender and skin color. It ends with “the advocates of the curriculum believe that prejudice can be reduced if there is conscious intervention to curb the development of biased concepts and activities.” To me this makes perfect sense! When our students start to notice something, we can intervene and teach them about it instead of allowing them to form what can be racist concepts. I don’t know if elementary education teacher candidates are taught how to bring this up but it is something that needs to be added if it isn’t already in place. Teaching young students about racism will probably be a touchy subject with parents, especially if they’re racist, but no one ever said our job was going to be easy. Another point to make is that if the parents are openly racist, the student may contest the teacher. Somehow this subject needs to be addressed without bluntly telling the student that their parents are bad people.

Kozol Chapter 3&4

Quote:

“Even the teacher’s words of praise were framed in terms consistent with the lists that had been posted on the wall. “That’s a Level Four suggestion,” said the teacher when a child made an observation other teachers might have praised as simply “pretty good” or “interesting” or “mature.”” Kozol p.68

Response:

This immediately reminded me of the 1984 Apple commercial or the movie Equilibrium. Both display a society that has deteriorated into the masses being controlled by a higher power. I honestly can’t imagine a teacher saying something to this affect to a student. The teacher must be too lazy to choose from the prescribed Level Four responses so he just categorizes it as a “Level Four” response. At that point teachers might as well not go to college, anyone who is halfway competent can evaluate a student based on a chart. Acting like a robot to your students will not help them learn or shape their behavior.

Quote:

“Level Fours, please raise your hands… It was like the Level Ones weren’t even there.” Kozol p.73

Response:

I don’t doubt that this happens in schools that are run using a Skinnerian curriculum but I have to say that I don’t know if I’d believe it unless I saw it. I can’t even begin to imagine what my response to seeing this would be. Not only has the Principle labeled every student publicly but they probably ruined the lives of those Level Ones who will likely never forget the feeling of worthlessness they felt that day in front of the entire school. Kozol discusses how the Skinnerian mentality has the student become their grade even though we know they earn their grade. I know if I was a Level One I would feel horrible and ashamed about what I had done to become a Level One.

Quote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/9201723.stm

Response:

This video about Ruby Bridges’ experience as a student who integrated an all-white elementary school in the south left me with more questions than answers. It seems like she was the only black student brought to the school and she was escorted by two federal marshals. I understand how dangerous it would have been and the reason behind the marshals needing to be there, but why was she the only student in the school? I think the school system must have realized that there would be a massive uproar about this and integrating one student would allow everyone to focus their anger on her. The marshals would then in turn be able to protect her and that would provide evidence for the school system and white community to say that integration doesn’t work. On another note, I enjoy Norman Rockwell paintings and I have never seen the one based on her.

Kozol Chapters 1 & 2

Quote:

“And students at good high schools read these words… and enlightened in our social history” Kozol page 30.

Response:

This quote discusses the Brown v. Board of Education decision and how students in good schools are taught that separate but equals repeal was a step toward the right direction. Clearly the decision by the courts was intended to do good, as I was taught having gone to a “good” school, but nothing is being done to enforce it. The Brown decision is being rejected by our nation with the evidence of segregated schools. As a nation if we wanted true desegregation, I propose that school systems would all have to be regional schools. This would include urban students being bused to the suburbs and suburban students being bussed to the cities. A certain percentage of whites and minorities then could attend each regional school. This of course would never happen because it would cause too much of an “inconvenience” to people. Kozol goes on to talk about organized parent groups in the wealthier schools; they would probably be the biggest opposition to my proposed solution.

Quote: 

“None of this includes the additional resources…to reduce the size of classes for their children.” Kozol page 46

Response: 

I find it very interesting that private funds raised by parent organizations go solely to that school. I assumed that if a parent organization or a donation from anyone else is made it would be to the school district or the Board of Education for dispersal as they saw fit. Reading about this made me think about where I would want my money to go if I were to donate to my child’s school, of course I’d want it to go to their school. However since I don’t have a child and I can objectively think about this; I believe that it’s only fair that money collected by the public school should all be put into a larger account that funds all of the schools in the city. That way schools in poorer neighborhoods can benefit from the donations of people from wealthier neighborhoods. This idea may cause a decrease in donations because parents probably want their money to directly affect their children. If a system like this were put into place all students would benefit from it equally.

Quote:

“This nation can afford to give clean places… to virtually every child in our public schools.” Kozol Page 62

Response: 

This quote seems contradictory to what Kozol has said in the first two chapters. It seems to me that he is suggesting that we can afford to provide exceptional schools to every student on par with what he describes as the wealthiest schools. He already argued that the wealthier schools are better off because of outside funding and the poorer schools do not get. Especially in a city like New York, how do dilapidated schools not get fixed by funds that are already there according to this quote? He goes on to say that we “keep them at a distance” to make it easier to disregard them. I think the blame should then lie on the Board of Education whose responsibility it is to provide for these students when they are in need.