tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325023615235359588.post5603882409774979121..comments2015-10-21T12:52:21.303-07:00Comments on myASTLexperiencebcrookes: The Discipline GamesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00696402900596847183noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325023615235359588.post-84359806303367677832014-10-21T18:02:54.311-07:002014-10-21T18:02:54.311-07:00Although I am not a movie buff, I appreciated your...Although I am not a movie buff, I appreciated your connection to other texts, especially The Book of Eli. Reading your summary also reminded me of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. As you said, literacy and access to books brings power. And in the novel, the firemen, led by Captain Beaty, must destroy the books because they contain conflicting ideas and are therefore dangerous to society. <br /><br />However, I think we are all in agreement that conflicting ideas are what make us grow. We want to avoid anti-dialogue and have real conversations. Otherwise, like the villagers that Freire worked with, we become too caught up in our daily lives that we don't realize how enslaved we are to the systems that exploit us.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02678533376591169934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325023615235359588.post-2882475299615690712014-10-21T11:30:42.022-07:002014-10-21T11:30:42.022-07:00Ken,
We constantly have people walking through ou...Ken, <br />We constantly have people walking through our classrooms, and have since I started teaching in CF, I have always felt a sense of their anticipation for mischief and behavior problems. I have also often found visitors to be incredulous at the performance and behavior that they actually see when they sit in class, then debrief. Another common theme with people I meet, when asked when the find out what I do and where is the phrase "oh!" which I have finally stopped being defensive about. I now operate under the assumption that most people are swayed by public opinion of CF, and just don't understand the incredible group of young people we have. Check this web search result about our schools: <br /><br />http://rischools.wikispaces.com/Central+Falls+HS <br /><br />I think this is what outsiders mostly think. I do not think most people would find what happens in many of our CF classrooms unusual in a privileged/affluent setting unusual. Unfortunately, I think there are still too many classrooms, district wide, who still work under the industrial, follow the rules, learn to be capable of hourly wage jobs, that Finn talks about, so it is very hard to change that image.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00696402900596847183noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325023615235359588.post-29015300806150208502014-10-21T09:24:04.238-07:002014-10-21T09:24:04.238-07:00Brian, I loved your references to movies. I thoug...Brian, I loved your references to movies. I thought about Antz too when I read the article too! The mindlessness of teaching students how to do the repetitive jobs and follow the rules is out dated. I also thought back to your post last class, about how the structure of our education system is set up for the wrong era. We do not need so many factory workers, but we need innovators and creative minds, we need problem solvers. Teaching the high class these skills is not enough anymore, we need more minds who can problem solve and innovate. I also think that people who are low-income can be the best innovators because they have had to survive with so little, they have to work really hard for the little that they have, so why aren't teachers of low-income areas completing the problem-solving sections of texts or having discussion with their students? Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08746901113531508961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6325023615235359588.post-72142697672620605752014-10-21T08:51:27.882-07:002014-10-21T08:51:27.882-07:00Brian,
While reading your post I noticed somethi...Brian, <br /><br />While reading your post I noticed something today and maybe you can relate to this since we work in the same city. We had a lot of college students and adults come into our school over the past couple days. All the visitors debriefed with teachers and students at the end of their visit. All of the students and adults said that they were so amazed at the performance and behavior of our students. This stayed with me for a while after they left- was the behavior of students suppose to be "bad" or was the curriculum suppose to be easy? Is this why the adults and students were mind-blown when they came in because they were expecting something else? Would they make the same observations about students who came from a privilege setting, suburban, and majority White setting? I feel that the the observations about our school might differ, from the observations at another. It seems like a common theme when we debrief with visitors, the anticipations and expectations before they come to our school, always seem to be lowered because we are in a certain setting. Is this something that you observed at the high school level?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com