Talking Points #9

Peggy Orenstein - School Girls

This article is about...

Power

Sexism

Race

Education

Learning

Equality

Orenstain argues that equality between men and woman are not being taught correctly through the school systems and it is in desperate need to be altered. She also states that due to the over view of a classroom and the prints of a text book children (preferable boys) are not only being sheltered from all the great female hero's in history but are not even interested in learning about them at all.

1. "Woman are one-half of the world's people; they do two-thirds of the world's work; they earn one-tenth of the world's income; they own one-hundredth of the world's property."

2. (describing her classroom)"It is the mirror opposite of most classrooms that girls will enter, which are adorned with masculine role models..."

3. "I wondered how the boys, who could only see male experience as relevant, would ever learn to see girls as equals."

Throughout this article i found myself finding everything that i read completely believable. I can remember back in the 4th grade we also had to pick a memorable hero of the passed to research, present and try the best we could to resemble them. As i remember all the girls did females and all the boys in the class picked males for their projects. I believe Orenstein is not sexist and never intended to be. She is just trying to explain equality to young children so that they understand it at a young enough age to be able to follow it throughout the course of their lives and to reteach it to others.

Talking Points #8

Christopher Kliewer - Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome

This article is about...

Down syndrome

Equality

Schooling

citizenship

Learning

Advantages/Disadvantages

Kliewer argues that

Talking Points #7

Charles Lawrence - "One More River to Cross" - Recognizing the real Injury in Brown: A Prerequisite to Shaping New Remedies

This article is about...

Talking Points #6

Jeannie Oakes - Tracking : Why Schools Need to Take Another Route

This article is about..
Fairness
Students
Ability
Placement
Teaching

Oakes argues that there is a variety of unfairness in the schools due to the way children are placed in groups according to their ability's in the classroom.

1. "Growing numbers of school professionals and parents oppose tracking because they believe it locks most students into classes where they are stereotyped as "less abled" and where they have fewer opportunities to learn."

2. "Students in the low-ability classes were likely to have little contact with the knowledge skills that would allow them to m into higher classes or to be success if they got there."

3. "When curriculum is organized around the central themes of a subject area rather than around disconnected topics and skills, all students stand the greatest chance of enhancing their intellectual development."

I found myself able to relate a lot of this article. I can remember as young as elementary school when 'resource room' was introduced and students were taken out of their regularly scheduled classes to receive 'extra time' with class work or homework help. This became a big deal when reaching middle school because those students resource room time was now given during other classes such as art, home and careers, health, music and technology. These students were thought of as 'slow' and even refereed to as 'special ed.' Its good to give children extra help when they need it but to shelter them away from other activities is the wrong way to do it. There is so much they were forced to miss out on for a reason that isn't even there fault. If there are a decent amount of problem students, putting them all together is just causing the problem to grow. They see everyone in the class work the same way and continue on with the bad behavior. Also, putting all the 'high-ability' students altogether puts a lot more pressure on the students in there. They might feel as though they have to constantly compete with each other for the better grade so that they will not fall behind in the class. I can understand where they are coming from by thinking that this would be a good idea so that the teachers with the 'low ability' students can take extra time reviewing when necessary instead of wasting time when other students don't need extra time but iv learning from experience that this teaching method does not work. The outside life for children can be hard enough, learning should not have to be another problem they should have to worry about, it should already be exposed to them. Without bringing color or ethnic backgrounds into it i feel as though this is just another way to label and single out students.