Freedom Writers

Extra posting

 Seeing this movie was great because it kind of got me thinking of all the themes we covered in class and I wanted to share some of my thoughts about what I saw in this movie and how I could of connect to the readings. I loved this movie!!!

How did I connect the Movie Freedom Writers to class readings?

One of the reading which I can relate this movie to is the Delpit reading, in her "Silenced Dialogue" because like this articles says this students are being left behind and nobody really want to teach them just because they come from an environment of violence and they are miss communicated that they don't want to learn. The school only wants to do the job of keeping them in school until they are old enough to drop out. They are being silent and aren't heard because the school thinks they will never be able to learn. Their whole life they have been silences because if they express what they see or feel nobody cares, that what everyone seems to put them already in the list that they aren't worth teaching. Unlike like their teacher Ms. G she actually listens to this voices that tells them why they can't learn and what they hate school. She starts to make a change for all this kids and makes them value their education. She puts them in front of everyone and gets their trust because that the only way she will get respect. I really like how she is the only one who has not giving up on them and does the same as everyone else making them silent and keep teaching something they don't want to learn. To them she is a new hope for all this kids that have been through so much and are tired of never being heard just because they are already labeled the ones that aren’t going to graduate. This film reminds me of this reading of how miscommunication is a separation between all this kids. They don't want to follow the codes and rules because to them it means NOTHING!

    Another reading which connects to this film is Johnson and the Privilege; there is defiantly a culture of power here in this movie. They are part of the Privilege group because it shows it when they get the old and less active vision of the books. The newer books aren’t part of their privilege because they can't read to that level. Frank is too hard for them to read. On the other hand the privilege kids are the ones in the honors class who get the nice room and get new books they are challenge with work. The Johnson reading is there and is related because the ones in power are the white middle class that are more privilege then these students.

                

           There is also a connection to the Anyon reading in the Social class and the hidden curriculum of work.  These kids in the freedom writer movie are all taught in the working class, where they are only suppose to know the right answer so that they can pass and move on. The teacher that comes in changes that because she doesn’t see this methods for her students to improve, she has alternative ways to teach with creatively and the kids get interesting with what she has them do they being to think more a higher working class they start to think more of a professional level because they get the author of Ana Frank to come to talk to them they start to see that learning isn’t just memorizing things and having no effect on their educational life, like Eva said what is this going to teach me that is going to make a difference in my life. They want to see differences in their life.

Talking Point #8

Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of work

JEAN ANYON

Quote: The teachers rarely explain why the work is being assigned, how it might connect to other assignments, or what the idea is that lies behind the procedure or gives it coherence and perhaps meaning or significance. Available textbooks are not always used, and the teachers often prepare their own dittos or put work examples on the board. Most of the rules regarding work are designations of what the children are to do”

                I don’t really see how these students can learn if all there are being taught is how to get the right answer and now really doing any real deep thinking about how to solve that answer. The working middle class from this school are only taught one thing to strive for what can only be so much. These kids are not privilege and it shows that there is Silences thought out there educational life because they can’t express their ideas only have to go along with what the teacher is saying is right and that is the end of the story no opportunity for them to really learn or having a choices as to what they want to learn they just have to follow the procedure as they apply and that is it. Which I believe is really unfair to these students because that’s how they aren’t motivated to challenge their thinking and to bring out their potential.

Quote:  There is little excitement in schoolwork for the children, and the assignments are perceived as having little to do with their interests and feelings. As one child said, what you do is "store facts up in your head like cold storage - until you need it later for a test or your job." Thus, doing well is important because there are thought to be other likely rewards: a good job or college.

                I agree with this quotes because it was much like my experiences at my high school where everything was pretty much no  excitement to what I do in school, all the assignments I was never really interested in learning because it didn’t I didn’t really have anything interested to do with me. Like the child said the material is taught to memorize it and store it in your head until you well need it for a job or when it comes up in a test. I think that’s not really learning anything or put much value to what students need to get out of school to prepare them for college. To prepare them for what they really need to learn. I know that for most schools the most important thing is getting the students to do well and improve their standards tests, but how is that going to happen when all the school does is put this students to only learn the right answer. I think that for most of the students they want to learn and how a teacher that can really explain and encourage them to do well which in most cases doesn’t happened. They are put aside just because they are seen as not smart and not able to learn.

I like this article because it well give all this different view of all the types of schools and what they are characterize as working class, middle class, Affluent Professional School, Executive Elite School. It reminds me of how I was taught in school and which kind would my experience fit in. I would have to say as the working class with in between middle class. Because although I was taught to do thing step by step the most important thing was getting the right answer so that I can get good grades and pass the tests. My choice didn’t really matter and I was stuck on following directions and just being silent t for the rest of the class time. I was taught that the most important thing was to know what was right but never how? This what right or why was it right. I think for my service learning place, the students seem to be in-between the middle class because they are giving a problem and they do work their way up to how did they solve the problem to thinking. I think more is missing for them to get a better understand of what they are learning.  

Talking Point #7

Teaching Boys and Girls Separately

By ELIZABETH WEIL

Quote: Leonard Sax represents the essential-difference view, arguing that boys and girls should be educated separately for reasons of biology: for example, Sax asserts that boys don’t hear as well as girls, which means that an instructor needs to speak louder in order for the boys in the room to hear her; and that boys’ visual systems are better at seeing action, while girls are better at seeing the nuance of color and texture.

            When I read this article, I didn’t really go against the author but against the idea that to be able to pass a standardize test they need to be this students into an all girls school or all boys. I don’t believe that separating classroom base on gender is right, rather it’s separating groups of students and taking them away from experiencing what is diversity. I think that Sax reasoning of separating these two genders because of biology make up doesn’t really make any sense to me. This shouldn’t be a reason to separate these kids. When Sax says that boys don’t hear as well as a girl that is just abuser, and to go off this simply observation and say that since boys can’t hear well they need to be put together so they can be with its own kind. That doesn’t mean that they need to be separated because they need to be taught different. Personality I don’t like this idea of having boys and girls separated because it takes away their social abilities and when they go out in the real world they won’t know how to socialize with women or men. This is not one way to solve a problem of bring up the tests scores, it just going nowhere. I mean if these kids are being taught by the fact that they are different then each other, then they don’t really see that this kids need more than a division of gender, but a division of different methods to learn.

Quote: For boys, he said: “You need to get them up and moving. That’s based on the nervous system, that’s based on eyes, that’s based upon volume and the use of volume with the boys.” Chadwell, like Sax, says that differences in eyesight, hearing and the nervous system all should influence how you instruct boys. “You need to engage boys’ energy, use it, rather than trying to say, No, no, no. So instead of having boys raise their hands, you’re going to have boys literally stand up.

            This could be one observation that could as well be for both genders because there are those girls that act the same and need to be active and move around and get up. They are those girls that tend to be more like boys that have that energy and want to do everything. I have a cousin that’s a girl and she has a lot of energy always active and can’t be still, always moving around so I see no differences in that, which boys are more engaging, I think that some girls could be the same like my cousin. This reason for separation isn’t buying me I think that the problem in today’s education system is that too much focus is being put on the making sure that the students pass this tests so they can be better than other students are the states. There is too much compensation going on and the stress to be drilling this material on this kid’s brain so that they can pass and get the grade. The sense of creativity is being ignored because it’s all about being told want is right and what you should draw instead of leaving creativity show up.

Quote: Given the myriad ways in which our schools are failing, it may be hard to remember that public schools were intended not only to instruct children in reading and math but also to teach them commonality, tolerance and what it means to be American. “When you segregate, by any means, you lose some of that,” says Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. “Even if one could prove that sending a kid off to his or her own school based on religion or race or ethnicity or gender did a little bit better job of raising the academic skills for workers in the economy, there’s also the issue of trying to create tolerant citizens in a democracy.”

            I agree with this quote on how the public schools were intended not only to instruct children in reading, math but also to teach them tolerance and what is means to be American. And if you segregate this means by separating these students then it lose then senses. I think that going off by gender would be like saying putting all the students by ethnicity or by race its two different ways to make students work better because they share the same idea and are in their comfortable zone with their own kind, but it takes away their experiences of diversity and what the real world looks like when they step out. There isn’t always going to be that place where only girls are working with you or with people of the same race are part of your own world. This is just a way again to go on the wrong path to solve the educational system. I mean by putting kids by gender in classrooms they aren’t going to hear them there will be silences in their classrooms and only be taught for the need to make tests scores better.