Final Paper: Final Draft

According to the Film Chalk "Fifty percent of all teachers quite within the first three years." A rowdy and unruly student body could be to blame for a large chunk of that fifty percent. Teachers can encounter such hardships as students who are always confrontational, arguing, disobeying, and disrupting you every step of the way. You may also encounter the other end of the spectrum with students that don't care about you, the school, their education, or anything anyone has to say about how they should care about all these things. Then all  those kids in the middle who do some of the infuriating things that are found on both sides of the fence and further encourage the ones who take things too far. As a teacher you will be emotional poked and prodded by unruly kids every day you get up, don your clothes, and head into work. When you think about-facing such a trying obstacles everyday of your work life it becomes very clear why so many teachers can't hack it and quit. There is a solution to handling just such a class that doesn't involve abandoning the career you invested at least four years of your life into learning how to do. Furthermore this solution could very well set these current problem students back onto a path that leads to graduation and college. A teacher who reforms his or her class as opposed to abandoning it when it gets to be too hard would, to me, fall into the category of a great teacher. It would seem reasonable to assume that most if not all of the bright eyed youth plugging away at their education degrees right now have dreams of being just such a teacher. As I said a problem class isn’t just a trying obstacle it’s an opportunity to prove your greatness. Thus I have taken on teaching a tenth grade creative writing class in a known to be problematic Chicago school that I will leave nameless. I am excited for this opportunity, rather than daunted by it because, assuming the administration stays out of my way, I have the solution. The best way to take on and reform a problem class is by simply taking on the role of a problem-posing educator.

With problem posing educating as Paolo Freire describes it in his book Prodagogy of the Oppressed “The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn teach while being taught”(3). Being prepared to learn while you teach sets you up with a proven winning strategy. I will Talk to the kids on their level not as an all-knowing superior. If you communicate with them like their equals they will respond to you as their equal and come to trust you more quickly. When you have a student’s trust you just opened a door into how they really think and feel a door into active dialog between you and the student. You will now be able to discern how the students will best learn the material your trying to teach them and how best to present it. As Freire states in the same book “the problem-posing educator constantly re-forms his reflections in the reflections of his students. The students- no longer docile listeners- are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher”(3). This is a method very unfamiliar to most students and humans natural curiosity in the strange will make them want to participate and listen rather than disrupt. This will also get the “I don’t give a shit about anything” students actively engaged in what they are learning and the way they learn it. This makes the material more relatable for them, more something they do care about.

I will incorporate different materials into my teaching to make the learning experience more hands on and less forgettable. For example for my creative writing course I will bring a peach into class the first day and make a display out of cutting the peach up and distributing slices to the class. Then I will ask what did you just eat? “It’s a peach.” But what was the peach? Was it dry or was it succulent and juicy? Was it soft and fuzzy or hard crispy? I didn’t try the peach tell me exactly what I missed. I will slowly urge the class into a discussion on descriptors and how best to get your five senses across in your writing. How to make the reader feel the sticky juices from the peach and hear the quite sucking sound it makes as you sink your teeth into the soft flesh easily tearing off a large sweet chunk that kicks with just the most subtle hint of tart. I know this method of introducing a familiar topic in an unfamiliar way will work to gain the attention of even the most hostile of students based on a very similar and very successful method Mr. Escalante used with an apple in the film Stand and Deliver. In the film he used the demonstration of cutting the apple to explain fractions to the class in a new and interesting way. During the apple presentation students started to visually grasp the idea of just what a fraction is. Half an apple is what one half of anything would be. Quickly the students picked up on the fractions and were engaged in their learning. The speed in which they were able to pick it up proves that this new angle to teach fractions had an effect on reaching the class just as the peach will in my creative writing coarse.

I will take a few more notes from Mr. Escalante by adopting similar behavior traits in the classroom. For example when one of his “tough” students was slacking and scoffing at him he retorted with “Tough guys don't do math. Tough guys fry chicken for a living.” He showed that giving the student a little gruff back, telling them how it is, and showing you won’t back down to class bullies can make a serious difference in the way the students see you. They will stop seeing you as a threat and an authority and see you more as a mentor and leader. Not someone to be conquered but someone who is on their level. When they no longer view you as a threat they will stop challenging what you say and start listening to it. Once the real problem students are listening the rest of the class will listen to and once they are listening they are learning. The success Mr. Escalate achieved was outstanding; this was possible because through his choice in behaviors, behaviors I will adopt for my own teaching, he was able to establish a connection with his students as a mentor, as someone actually there to help. He proved the best way to treat a class is to talk on their level, to give respect only if it is given and to never give up on them even when the other teachers and often parents have.

At the end of the year after I have filled their young minds with the wonders of creative writing I will have each student select their three personal favorite stories that they have written throughout and I will help each student submit their work for magazine or newspaper printing. Those who do get published will be overcome with a sense of pride. Seeing how all the work they put into it mattered, how they went from not caring a lick for the English word to being able to write the word in such a way people they have never even met before care to read it. Boosting pride, self-confidence, and proving the value of their ability to learn will be carried with them out of this experience and into the other classes and then college. Those who do not get published will still be developing a very important trait know by Jerry Large as grit. In his Seattle times article he states. “A big part of building character is overcoming failure. Too much adversity is bad, but so is too little, which doesn’t allow a child to build grit. Grit is one of the characteristics of successful people.” So published or unpublished, by the end of the year my class will have earned and developed several skills and character traits that will survive with in them the rest of their lives and set them up for future academic and job successes.

Final Paper: Works Cited

Works Cited

Chalk. Dir. Mike Akle. Perf. Troy Schremmer, Janelle schremmer. SomeDaySoon Productions, 2006.

Freire, Paolo “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” University of California: Herder and Herder, 1970. Print.

Large, Jerry “Gift of Grit, Curiosity Help Kids Succeed” Seattle Times. Seattle Times Company, 2012. Web. 26 September 2012

Stand and Deliver. Dir. Ramón Menéndez. Prof. Edward James Olmos, Estelle Harris, Mark Phelan. Warner Brothers, 1988.

Final Paper; First Draft

According to the Film Chalk "Fifty percent of all teachers quite within the first three years." A rowdy and unruly student body could be to blame for a large chunk of that fifty percent. Teachers can encounter such hardships as students who are always confrontational, arguing, disobeying, and disrupting you every step of the way. You may also encounter the other end of the spectrum with students that don't care about you, the school, their education, or anything anyone has to say about how they should care about all these things. Then all those kids in the middle who do some of the infuriating things that are found on both sides of the fence and further encourage the ones who take things too far. As a teacher you will be emotional poked and prodded by unruly kids every day you get up don your clothes and head into work. When you think about-facing such a trying obstacles everyday of your work life it becomes very clear why so many teachers can't hack it and quit. There is a solution to handling just such a class that doesn't involve abandoning the career you invested at least four years of your life into learning how to do. Furthermore this solution could very well set these problem students back on a path that leads to graduation and college. A teacher who reforms his or her class as opposed to abandoning it when it gets to be too hard would, to me, fall into the category of a great teacher. It would seem reasonable to assume that most if not all of the bright eyed youth plugging away at their education degree right now has dreams of being just such a teacher. As I said a problem class isn’t just a trying obstacle it’s an opportunity to prove your greatness. Thus I have taken on teaching a tenth grade creative writing class in a known to be problematic Chicago school that I will leave nameless. I am excited for this opportunity, rather than daunted by it because, assuming the administration stays out of my way, I have the solution. The best way to take on and reform a problem class is by simply taking on the role of a problem-posing educator.

With problem posing educating as Paolo Freire describes it in his book Prodagogy of the Oppressed “The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn teach while being taught.” (3) Being prepared to learn while you teach sets you up with a proven winning strategy. I will Talk to the kids on their level not as an all-knowing superior. If you communicate with them like their equals they will respond to you as their equal and come to trust you more quickly. When you have a student’s trust you just opened a door into how they really think and feel a door into active dialog between you and the student. You will now be able to actively learn how the students will best learn the material your trying to teach them and how best to present it. As Freire states in the same book “the problem-posing educator constantly re-forms his reflections in the reflections of his students. The students- no longer docile listeners- are now critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher.”(3) This is a method very unfamiliar to most students and humans natural curiosity in the strange will make them want to participate and listen rather than disrupt. This will also get the “I don’t give a shit about anything” students actively engaged in what they are learning and the way they learn it. This makes the material more relatable for them, more something they do care about.

I will incorporate different materials into my teaching to make the learning experience more hands on and remember able. For example for my creative writing course I will bring a peach into class the first day and make a display out of cutting the peach up and distributing slices to the class. Then I will ask what did you just eat? “It’s a peach.” But what was the peach? Was it dry or was it succulent and juicy? Was it soft and fuzzy or hard crispy? I didn’t try the peach tell me exactly what I missed. I will slowly urge the class into a discussion on descriptors and how best to get your five senses across in your writing. How to make the reader feel the sticky juices from the peach and hear the quite sucking sound it makes as you sink your teeth into the soft flesh easily tearing off a large sweet chunk that kicks with just the most subtle hint of tart. I know this method of introducing a familiar topic in an unfamiliar way will work to gain the attention of even the most hostile of students based on a very similar and very successful method Mr. Escalante used with an apple in the film Stand and Deliver. In the film he used the demonstration of cutting the apple to explain fractions to the class in a new and interesting way. During the apple presentation students started to visually grasp the idea of just what a fraction is. Half an apple is what one half of anything would be. Quickly the students picked up on the fractions and were engaged in their learning. The speed in which they were able to pick it up proves that this new angle to teach fractions had an effect on reaching the class just as the peach will in my creative writing coarse.

I will take a few more notes from Mr. Escalante by adopting similar behavior traits in the classroom. For example when one of his “tough” students was slacking and scoffing at him he retorted with “Tough guys don't do math. Tough guys fry chicken for a living.” He showed that giving the student a little gruff back, telling them how it is, and showing you won’t back down to class bullies can make a serious difference in the way the students see you. They will stop seeing you as a threat and an authority and see you more as a mentor and leader. Not someone to be conquered but someone who is on their level. When they no longer view you as a threat they will stop challenging what you say and start listening to it. Once the real problem students are listening the rest of the class will listen to and once they are listening they are learning. The success Mr. Escalate achieved was outstanding; this was possible because through his choice in behaviors, behaviors I will adopt for my own teaching, he was able to establish a connection with his students as a mentor, as someone actually there to help. He proved the best way to treat a class is to talk on their level, to give respect only if it is given and to never give up on them even when the other teachers and often parents have.

At the end of the year after I have filled their young minds with the wonders of creative writing I will have each student select their three personal favorite stories that they have written throughout and I will help each student submit their work for magazine or newspaper printing. Those who do get published will be overcome with a sense of pride. Seeing how all the work they put into it mattered, how they went from not caring a lick for the English word to being able to write the word in such a way people they have never even met before care to read it. Boosting pride, self-confidence, and proving the value of their abilities to learn will be carried with them out of this experience and into the other classes and then college. Those who do not get published will still be developing a very important trait know by Jerry Large as grit. In his Seattle times article he states. “A big part of building character is overcoming failure. Too much adversity is bad, but so is too little, which doesn’t allow a child to build grit. Grit is one of the characteristics of successful people.” So published or unpublished, by the end of the year my class will have earned and developed several skills and character traits that will survive with in them the rest of their lives and set them up for future academic and job successes.

No MAS

The Mexican-American studies or MAS program helps Latino students in several very beneficial ways. According to the text “ninety-seven percent of students participating in the program graduated high school, compared to 44 percent nationally, and 70 percent entered college, compared to 24 percent nationally.” This fact alone proves the benefit of such a program. The program is able to achieve such an impressive rate of success due to its ability to reach the students. It incorporates Latino authors that the students can relate to and care more about. It’s like a slap of reality saying, hey this guys just like me, and look he made it! He even wrote this book! If he can make it, then so can I! The students are learning the exact same skills and stories as they would outside the program, only now they are also learning these skills from sources that ring true to them. The text also proves the importance of students relating to their studies when it states “Students scored higher on the AIMS (Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards) test compared to other Hispanic students who did not take the classes.” Students who were not taught with material they could relate too. I see only two reasons such a great program could be seen as a threat by someone. Those two reasons are A) They are incredibly racist and the idea of helping a minority increase their education is an earth shaking tragedy among their social group or B) They somehow stand to receive a massive financial gain for their destruction of the program. Although B could potentially circle around to A and perhaps an incredibly racist individual is contributing the massive financial gain to the people responsible for the destruction of the program….Perhaps.

Mike Black

Mike Rose's resolutions wrap back to Lewis Black's thoughts most notably on their views on charter schools. They both essentially feel charter schools are an idea not a solution. Charter schools are potentially a great alternative to failing public schools but the process of getting into the school and the fact that Jerry Large points out "KIPP (a charter school) students showed a pattern of sliding backward in high school and often failing to graduate college." shows that charter schools are not the winning solution. Also both of them strongly feel there has been way to much talk on how to fix education and not nearly enough actual effective action. They, as they should be, are troubled by the fact that the same economist who so successfully analyzed the financial and housing markets are now flocking into education reform a topic they know most nothing about. How can these people fix a problem they barely understand when they couldn’t fix the one they should know everything about. The idea of judging teachers ability based on the average standardized test score of their class is ridicules! To quote Rose "Imagine judging competence of a cardiologist by the average of her patients’ cardiograms." this kind of system is archaic and proven to be an inadequate method of judging teacher ability.

Against School

Some of what john gatto is saying comes off a little scary. Particularly the quote he used from H. L. Mencken that stated "the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States... and that is its aim everywhere else." The idea that were are all being bread down to a safe controllable level of uncreative inward thinking peoples is very scary. I have run into this "conspiracy theory" on this topic before in a totally unrelated essay and its reoccurrence lends it some, even if you view it as minuet, credibility. He also talks about the teachers saying "Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers" which I never really took into consideration before. I mean sure bored students are an everyday occurrence I myself have been one a time or two but I never thought of how the teachers may feel. They teach the same curriculum every year, we are only hearing once and for the first time they are hearing it for the (insert giant ass number here) time and probably have lost interest in the topic all together. This shows another side of how hard it is to be a teacher but does not excuse a lazy teacher. If you are bored with what you’re teaching it is your job to spice it up and take interest again not the administration or the student body. Being bored isn’t a reason to teach sloppy it’s a reason to explore new teaching methods.

Arts and Du Bois

 Arts curricula can be very important to a student’s development. Just giving them a chance to think outside the box of right and wrong answers, and get creative could be enough of a reprieve to get them through calculus next quarter. The arts are another aspect of education to cut them would be just as harmful to academic growth as cutting math or English. There are key critical thinking and problem solving skills developed through art classes as well as affording the opportunity for growth in social skills. Social skills and charisma are more important in the work force than any other skill or trait. They afford you the opportunity to present yourself and your ideas in a confidant manor that will quickly push you up the corporate ladder. Schooling primarily focused on math and science leave very little if any room to develop these two incredibly important skills that an arts class such as acting would quickly build. To quote Keith Gilyard “Obviously, I take no position against science, technology, engineering, and mathematic efforts” but the arts classes are just as important to a rounded education.

GREENBURG

What Greenburg is saying is very similar to what Large is saying. It also feels as if they both would argue against the banking system of education. Both of these people feel that it is just as important to build the character of the student, to make them into someone who wants to and can succeed rather the just shovel facts into their heads and punish those who can’t hold onto them. Where Greenburg differs is he thinks a more enlightened or spiritual approach is key and Large was more of a challenge them and let them learn through failures. Greenburg feels a person must be able to get to know their emotions and express how they feel in order to be able to get in touch with their success. He states “This can make it possible for them to reduce feelings of depression and anxiety, and since a pretty good percentage of teenagers are at risk for depression, it’s important to have it in the educational tool bag.” I strongly agree with this. If there is a method to take some of the high stress, anxiety filled, depression out of being a high school student then this is beneficial. Everything that is going on at that age is hard to deal with, anyway to ease or gain control of all those feelings will no doubt help that student academically as well as in most other aspects of their lives.

LARGE

I feel like Jerry Larges ideas could do a lot to improve our school system. He talks about building a student’s "grit" or character as a means to better prepare them for success. A student must be allowed to fail but not forced to in order to develop their grit. Large states "A big part of building character is overcoming failure. Too much adversity is bad, but so is too little, which doesn't allow a child to build grit." he goes on to say "Grit is one of the characteristics of successful people...the others: self-control, zest, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism, and curiosity." his views have already been seen to work when put into practice at KIPP Academy. KIPP is a middle school that was started in the south Bronx. KIPP has been praised and highly regarded do to its raising the academic achievements of it’s under privileged student body making them among the top scorers in all of New York City. Despite this success at KIPP students showed a pattern of sliding backward in high school and often failing to graduate college. It was determined that the problem was their students character was being enforced from the outside by rules and rigorous structure, thus the students would fail later when these rules and structures were removed. Now KIPP remodeled its method to build the "grit" characteristics into each student rather than enforce them from the outside. Students, who are taught to possess the character traits of success within them, will not falter when the world around them is no longer enforcing those qualities.

Compare/Contrast: Final Draft

So what makes a great teacher? A great teacher will first and foremost care about the material they are teaching and how well they are reaching the students with that material. They will also listen to their students and be able to take the criticisms about their teaching method to heart, adjusting his or her method to better reach the class. A caring teacher will take an interest in all their students on an almost friendship level. Not just within school but also taking interest in their extracurricular activities lending support where and when it’s appropriate. They will also give special attention to the students who are struggling rather than push them aside to get them out of the way. They will even go as far as to take time after class to reach these students so they don't, by proxy of spending too much time with struggling students, neglect the students who are doing well. A perfect example of a teacher who embodied all these qualities would be my high school math teacher Mr. Krats. I have also encountered the flip side of this coin in a math teacher we will call Mrs. Bake. So what makes a great teacher? A great teacher is a teacher that cares.

A caring teacher must first care for the work they do. Mr. Krats always came to work eager to reach his students, there was always this positive aura that came with him and filled his classroom with positive energy. It wasn’t necessarily the math that he was so enthusiastic about, although he had plenty of enthusiasm in that area; it was the opportunity to teach that he loved. A teacher who cares so strongly for his work makes it impossible to not care to learn it. As a student his enthusiasm pulls you into trying your best and earning better grades. You can’t help but want to learn from him. Mrs. Bake could drain the eagerness out of you just as fast as Mr. Krats could put it there. Her room was always unkempt and had a fairly offensive odor to it, already setting you in a downer place. She would seldom stand usually lecturing from a chair behind her desk, but when she would she had a slumped defeated demeanor as if all her students were just another irritating part of her annoying job. When Audre Lorde said, “caring for was not always caring about. And it always felt like sister MPH hated either teaching or little children.” (72) She could have been talking about Mrs. Bake herself. If she can’t care about teaching or her class why should her class care about her or what she teaches?

Caring teachers listen to their students about their views on the curriculum. One of the things most impressive about Mr. Krats was how readily he was willing to change the way he approached teaching something if people couldn’t quite grasp it the way he was trying to teach. He would listen to the class when they had a complaint about something then figure out a better way to reach them without dumbing down the material. In “The Banking Concept of Education” when Paolo Freire defines the superior style of teaching he calls “problem-posing education" he states, “The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn teach while being taught.” (3) Freire would agree that Mr. Krats has adopted the superior “problem-posing education” method of teaching. Mrs. Bake was all banking method. She would sit behind her desk and lecture, lecture, lecture leaving very little room for questions. If someone did manage to pop out an "I don’t get it" her “helping answer,” if you were even lucky enough to get one, was to simply reiterate what she had just said as if repeating what you didn’t comprehend in the first place would solve your problem. She had a hard time just listening to the fact you needed help, let alone listening to any suggestions you might have on how to better reach her class. Dan Brown states “no great teacher can simply shut her door to the outside world.” (2) But that’s exactly what she did.

Taking an interest in your students is one of the most important things a caring teacher will do. As mentioned before this should extend beyond academics and include home life as well as any extracurricular activities the student may be involved in. Dan Brown states “Great teachers have strong relationships with their students’ families and engage in meaningful ways with the larger community. Going to a volleyball game and cheering your face off can sometimes make a world of difference.” (2) Mr. Krats was incredibly good about doing these types of things. In high school I had a very keen interest in video editing and Mr. Krats, because he cared enough to get to know me, knew this. So after a math test one day when we had about 30min of extra class time he asked me if I would be willing to share one of my short films with the class. I did and the class loved it fueling and inspiring me to keep trying my best even in my little side hobbies. I however, cannot think of a single time Mrs. Bake ever took an interest in me, or anyone else. She never connected with her class it was simply be here, listen, and do your homework. Her inability to harness even the slightest interest in her students is one of the biggest reason I view her as the worst educator I have encountered in my schooling.

A teacher must care enough to take extra time with struggling students. I spent more than a few hours after school with Mr. Krats puzzling through tough math problems. He was always willing to put aside extra time for you if you needed extra help. He knew the value of his time, and he knew how he wanted to spend it. Krats went so far above and beyond with my friend Leon practically becoming a personal tutor for him in order to get him through algebra so he could graduate. Leon had fallen so far behind because of his encounters with Mrs. Bake years prior. Again Audre Lorde could have been talking directly about Bake when she said “Since I could not see at all to do any work from the blackboard, sister Mary of PH made me sit in the back of the room on the window seat with the dunce cap on.” (74) This is practically the same treatment Leon got from Mrs. Bake. Every time Leon got lost and raised his hand during her lectures to ask a question Mrs. Bake would send him out of the class for “disrupting her.” She must have taken an extreme dislike to him needing extra help and inconveniencing her with question because no matter how you cut it a student having a question on the material is NOT a disruption! Her appalling treatment of a struggling student set that student behind for years and could have destroyed his chances at academic success.

Mr. Krats and Mrs. Bake were, and are still math teachers. They both work at schools within the same district and I believe at one point they both worked in the exact same school. They also both had the amazing opportunity to teach wonderful me, but that’s about as far as their similarities go. Mr. Krats is caring teacher who will listen, help and take an interest in his students trying to do simply the thing he loves, teaching. If Mrs. Bake could adopt even half of the caring attributes of Mr. Krats the experience with her wouldn't be been such a colossal bump in the road of education. If she was just able to try, the massive detour in Leon’s success at school would have never happened. If Caring and great teachers like Mr. Krats were more common they would inspire other teachers as well as students who are soon to be teachers to achieve much more than the bare minimum required of them and potentially change this country’s standard of education to a much needed higher degree.

Compare/Contrast Rough Draft

To be a great teacher you need to care about your class as if it was an extension of your family. A teacher who truly cares will first and foremost care about the material they are teaching and how well they are reaching the students with that material. They will also listen to their students and be able to take the criticisms about their teaching method to heart, adjusting his or her method to better reach the class. A caring teacher will take an interest in all their students on an almost friendship level. Not just with in school but also taking interest in their extracurricular activities lending support when appropriate. This makes it easy for students to ask questions and communicate with the teacher when they need help. They will also give special attention to the students who are struggling rather than push them aside to get them out of the way. They will even go as far as to take time after class to reach these students so they don't, by proxy of spending too much time with struggling students, neglect the students who are doing well. Teachers who can integrate all these things into their teaching truly demonstrate how much they care and how badly they want their students to succeed. A perfect example of a caring teacher would be my high school math teacher Mr. Krats. I have also encountered the flip side of this coin in a math teacher we will call Mrs. Bake.

A caring teacher must first care for the work they do. Mr. Krats always came to work eager to reach his students there was always this positive aura that came with him and filled his classroom with positive energy. It wasn’t necessarily the math that he was so enthusiastic about (although he had plenty of enthusiasm in that area.) it was the opportunity to teach he loved. Having a teacher care so strongly for his work made it impossible to not care to learn it. As a student his enthusiasm pulled you into trying your best and earning better grades then you thought you could, you couldn’t help but want to learn from him. Mrs. Bake could drain the eagerness out of you just as fast as Mr. Krats could put it there. Her room was always unkempt and had a fairly offensive odor to it, already setting you in a downer place. She would seldom stand usually lecturing from a chair behind her desk, but when she would she had a slumped defeated demeanor as if all her students were just another irritating part of her annoying job. When Audre Lorde said, “caring for was not always caring about. And it always felt like sister MPH hated either teaching or little children.” (72) She could have been talking about Mrs. Bake herself. Being treated like the annoying drunk girl at a party when you get to class just sets you up for failure. If she can’t care about teaching or me why should I care about her or what she teaches?

Caring teachers listen to their students about their views on the curriculum. One of the things I loved most about Mr. Krats was how readily he was willing to change the way he approached teaching you something if you couldn’t quite grasp it the way he was trying to teach. He would listen to the class when they had a complaint about something then figure out a better way to reach them without dumbing down the material. In “The Banking Concept of Education” when Paolo Freire defines the superior style of teaching he calls “problem-posing education" he states, “The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn teach while being taught.” (3) I think Freire would agree that Mr. Krats has adopted the superior “problem-posing education” method of teaching. Mrs. Bake was all the banking method. She would sit behind her desk and lecture, lecture, lecture leaving very little room for questions. If you did manage to pop out an "I don’t get it" her “helping answer,” if you were even lucky enough to get one, was to simply reiterate what she had just said as if repeating what you didn’t comprehend in the first place would solve your problem. She had a hard time just listening to the fact you needed help let alone listening to any suggestions you might have on how to better reach her class. Dan Brown states “no great teacher can simply shut her door to the outside world.” But that’s exactly what she did.

Taking an interest in your students is one of the most important things a caring teacher will do. As I mentioned before this should extend beyond academics and include home life as well as any extracurricular activities the student may be involved in. Dan Brown states “Great teachers have strong relationships with their students’ families and engage in meaningful ways with the larger community. Going to a volleyball game and cheering your face off can sometimes make a world of difference.” (2) Mr. Krats was incredibly good about doing these types of things. In high school I had a very keen interest in video editing and Mr. Krats because he cared enough to take an interest in me knew this. So after a math test one day when we had about 30min of extra class time he asked me if I would be willing to share one of my short films with the class. I did and the class loved it fueling and inspiring me to keep trying my best even in my little side hobbies. I still edit and shoot shorts today (Obviously as a hobby) and Krats’s interest in my extracurricular is what I credit that too. I however, Cannot think of a single time Mrs. Bake ever took an interest in me, or anyone else for that matter. She never connected with her class it was simply be here, listen, and do your homework. I would be shocked if she even remembered my name at this point, hell I’d be shocked if she even remembered me enough to recognize me. Her inability to harness even the slightest interest in her students is one of the biggest reason I too this day view her as the worst educator I have encountered in my schooling.

A teacher must care enough to take extra time with struggling students. I spent more than a few hours after school with Mr. Krats puzzling through one math problem or another. He was always willing to put aside extra time for you if you asked for some extra help. He knew the value of his time and he knew just how he was going to spend it. Krats went so far above and beyond with my friend Leon practically becoming a personal tutor for him in order to get him through algebra so he could graduate. Leon had fallen so far behind because of his encounters with Mrs. Bake years prior. Again Audre Lorde could have been talking directly about Bake when she said “Since I could not see at all to do any work from the blackboard, sister Mary of PH made me sit in the back of the room on the window seat with the dunce cap on.” (74) This is practically the same treatment Leon got from Mrs. Bake. I remember very distinctly every time Leon got lost and raised his hand during her lectures to ask a question Mrs. Bake would send him out of the class for “disrupting her.” She must have taken an extreme dislike to him needing extra help and inconveniencing her with question because no matter how you cut it a student having a question on the material is NOT a disruption! Her appalling treatment of a struggling student set that student behind for years and could have destroyed his chances at academic success.

Mr. Krats and Mrs. Bake were, and are still math teachers. They both work at schools within the same district and I believe at one point they both worked in the exact same school. They also both had the amazing opportunity to teach wonderful me, but that’s about as far as their similarities go. Mr. Krats is caring teacher who will listen, help and take an interest in his students trying to do simply what he loves, teaching students to the very best of his ability. If Mrs. Bake could adopt even half of the caring attributes of Mr. Krats my experience with her wouldn't have been such a colossal bump in my road of education. If she was just able to try the massive detour in Leon’s success at school would have never happened. If Caring and great teachers like Mr. Krats were more common they would inspire other teachers as well as students who are soon to be teachers to achieve much more than the bare minimum required of  them and potentially change this country’s standard of education to a much needed higher quality.

p#1 Rough Draft V.2

          To be a great teacher you need to care about your class as if it was an extension of your family. A teacher who truly cares will first and foremost care about the material they are teaching and how well they are reaching the students with that material. They will also listen to their students and be able to take the criticisms about their teaching method to heart, adjusting his or her method to better reach the class. A caring teacher will take an interest in all their students on a almost friendship level. Not just with in school but also taking interest in their extracurricular activities lending support when appropriate. This makes it easy for students to ask questions and communicate with the teacher when they need help. They will also give special attention to the students who are struggling rather than push them aside to get them out of the way. They will even go as far as to take time after class to reach these students so they don't, by proxy of spending too much time with struggling students, neglect the students who are doing well. Teachers who can integrate all these things into their teaching truly demonstrate how much they care and how badly they want their students to succeed. My friend Leon (not his real name) had the misfortune and pleasure of encountering teachers on both sides of this spectrum.

Really Rough Draft

So I'm still a little unsure of just how I'm going to tackle this paper. I have a very rough idea of where I want to go with it so I posted that here but any suggestions anyone has would be very helpful.

           The key ingredient in making a great teacher is the ability to take a keen interest in your students. One Teacher who doesn’t care about his or her students can cause almost irreversible damage to one’s education such was the case for my friend Leon (name changed). To fully understand how one teacher not taking an interest in their student can cause so much damage I will have to introduce you to Leon before the terrible teacher, who we will call Mrs. Bake, got ahold of him. After this Leon struggled in school for years until finally a great teacher who actually cared to take an interest in his students came along. Mr. Krats (also not his real name) was the man who came along and saved Leon’s education, changing the course of his life forever. There is no doubt that the level of interest a teacher shows in a student directly relates to their potential successes or failures

Standardized Mind Control

After reading The Banking Concept of Education by Paolo Freire it became very clear to me that he would not approve of the vast increases in standardized testing. Throughout the text he expresses his extreme distaste for the banking concept, a fairly standard method of teaching driven by a very narrative approach. In The Banking method a narrating subject or the teacher takes a set of listening objects aka the students and proceeds to "fill" these objects with his or her narrating. The relationship between student and teacher thus becomes one in which the teacher is the all knowing authority and the students simply receptacles made to memorize and store what the teacher deems important. The more completely the teacher can "fill" his receptacles the better teacher he is thought to be and the more passively and meekly the recepticals allow themselves to be "filled" the better students they are seen as. This leads to a form of knowledge with no true substance simply people accurately regurgitating what they have been told without considering what the words they use truly mean. Standardized testing would fall right into this category because it simply asks the students to regurgitate what they have been told onto a test that will determine just how well they allowed themselves to be "filled". Students are seen as manageable and adaptable objects that are rewarded for accepting this role as it is imposed upon them. They will then be more likely to accept the world as it is presented to them and will never question or challenge an authoritative oppressor. This form of education serves well the oppressive minorities in charge as it leaves a docile majority who feel well educated and informed while having been secretly and threoly taught to never think for themselves.  These people simply adapt to the fractured world they are giving rather then look at it, think about it, and fix it. The best way to control a people is to make them think they are too smart to be tricked and then trick them into thinking they are in control. an increase in standardized testing just shows (At least how I think Freire would view it) they are trying even harder to commend students for not thinking for themselves and punishing the ones who are resistant to becoming receptacles filled with hallow mechanical knowledge.

Dead Poets PART 2

The second half of dead poet’s society starts with some of the kids starting to act out and rebel. They are doing this not so much to cause problems but more as an act of self-expression. They are really starting to understand what Mr. K is trying to say they just aren’t really sure how to express it yet. One kid is paddled for his rebellion and question on the Dead Poets Society but he refuses to give up any information. Meanwhile Neil (who previously forged his father’s signature on a permission slip that allows him to act in a local play) gets caught by his dad. The dad gets pissed and forces the Neil to quit the play the day before the opening night. “I made a great many sacrifices to get you here Neil, and you will not let me down.” The dad is so set on Neil becoming a doctor that he doesn’t even want to listen to Neil talk about how he wants to be an actor. Mr. K tries to convince Neil to talk to his father about it and express his passion for acting. Neil needs to stand up to his father and live his life. Later Neil tells Mr. K that he talked to his dad and although he wasn't happy about it he was going to let him stay in the play. Neil performs beautifully in the play and all of Dead Poets Society shows up to support him. Neil’s father even shows up to the play, which as it turns out is a very very bad thing. Neil never actually talked to his father about staying in the play and the dad takes him home telling Mr. K to stay away from his son essentially blaming Mr. K for his sons wanting to act. After some major lecturing the dad decides to pull his son out of Welton and put him into military school. He can't have anything risk distracting his son from becoming a doctor. Neil can’t take this and tragically takes his own life that night; he shoots himself with his dad’s gun in his dads study. He was clearly sending an overly strong message to his dad. He parents and the rest of the school staff however want to pin this on Mr. K and they gather up the Dead Poets Society is put under major pressure with penalty of expulsion to sign a statement blaming Mr. K and the teacher is fired. When Mr. K shows up during class to collect his personal effects from his office Todd the normally quite one stands up to explain himself to Mr. K. The principle begins immediately to scold and threating expulsion but Todd ignores him, instead he stands on his desk declaring oh captain my captain their name for Mr. K the rest of the Dead Poets Society joins him, with the exception of the one who turned on them all. Mr. K looks proud of his former class as now he know despite being let go some of his students got his message, he was able to make a difference.

Dead Poets Vs. Stand: The Teachers

Despite all the glaring differences in the schools Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante share a lot in common. Right out of the gate in both movies it starts off with them being a new teacher at their chosen school. Both decided to go back to their roots to reach the students who are in the same educational situation they were when they went to school. Both teachers also have very unorthodox teaching methods that at first the students reject but slowly come to admire and respect. Their teaching methods and goals in teaching make both teachers targets for angry parents and school faculty. They are both striving to reach these kids in a way no one else deems correct but the kids themselves have needed all along. The passion they are able to instill into their students on subjects the kids have always been told that they shouldn't or couldn't learn is astounding! Not only did they develop a passion for these new found subjects but they excelled in them. I believe the ultimate message from both of these teachers was "don’t lead a life of quiet desperation" Mr. K said it and Mr. E expressed it. Live life to the fullest, let nothing step in the way of what you can achieve, and let no one tell you otherwise.  “Carpe Diem!”

Dead Poets Vs. Stand : The School

Welton Academy (The school in Dead Poets Society) is almost the polar opposite of Garfield High school (The school in Stand and Deliver). Welton is a very prestigious prep school filled with the rich and upper-class, Garfield is an underfunded high school filled with the underprivileged and destitute. Each school as extreme expectations of their students as well, why this is still opposing views is Welton has extremely high expectations and Garfield as extremely low expectations. At Welton the students are expected to be obedient and focused purely on their chosen (or chosen for them) doctorate. They are treated so strictly and are so strongly pushed away from the arts such as acting or writing they are almost slaves to their academics. Garfield students are expected to achieve nothing but being prepared for the work world pushing them into algebra was seen as too much for them to handle. Here the smart are seen as weak or prey not as superior or gifted. Hell even down to the locations, Garfield being in crowded East L.A. and Welton being on a huge Vermont estate, are completely opposite of each other. It’s strange how students from two completely different worlds can have such a similar problem; the retardation of certain scholarly subjects.

Escalante vs. Macfarland

Mr. Escalante and Mr. Macfarland were different in a few ways, most notably their teaching style. If you dig a little deeper however it becomes clear that they share much more in common with each other than first glance suggested. They both went beyond what was required of them to help students they, when no one else did, saw potential in. They were able to look passed what other teachers could not and help their students to achieve much more than even the student themselves thought they could. They were both also very determined to reach their students and strived to help them get into college. Mr. Escalante with his constant pushing and pushing to get his kids ready for the AP test that would earn them college credits and Mr. Macfarland with all the extra time he put in to get Mike into a school despite his poor marks. He even helped Rose get the student loans he needed to be able to afford the school that Mr. Macfarland was able to get him into. So despite the differences on the surface it boils down to the fact that both were great teachers that changed the lives of their students.

Stand Part 2

So I was right about the tragedy and the ultimate success of the students however the tragedy did not take form of a death as I had predicted. Early in the second half you see Mr. Escalante doing what Mr. Escalante does, pushing everything (himself included) too far. He is now working through all his breaks, through all his vacations, and through all his weekends! It seems he has taking on trying to save the whole school by himself! He then goes as far as to take on another task, teaching English night classes to adults. During one of these night classes his body finally said enough and he suffered a mild heart attack. This is where I thought maybe the tragic death would come in but no, Mr. Escalante survives his ordeal but must take time off and so the students are stuck with a sub 2 weeks before the AP exam. To make matters worse the sub they get is a music teacher who has never even tried to teach math before let alone calculus. All is lost! Right? Well no, Mr. Escalante ignores his doctor’s orders and goes back to work early so he can do some last minute drilling with the students.

The Day of the test is upon us and the students are pumped up from their last minute cram session with Mr. Escalante. After the test they all go out to the beach to confidently celebrate their hard work and success. The class has almost become a family at this point with all the time they have spent together. Then the good news comes, every single student in the class passed the AP exam and Mr. Escalante is awarded a plaque for all his hard work and determination.

This happy moment is short lived however as the foretold tragedy finally rears its ugly head. After reviewing the tests the ETS (Educational Testing Services) determined that the students must have cheated because all the students made the same mistakes they also did better than the rest of the more privileged schools and took less time to do it. This hits the students hard and they react very badly, quickly starting to revert to their former angry and not wanting to try selves. Angel tries to get himself arrested and the "family" the class had become breaks. They all begin to self-destruct  do to the fact that despite how hard they tried and how well they did people wouldn’t accept it from them and still tried to shut them out with accusations. Fortunately the students don't fallow this path to long and realize despite this ordeal they still earned those scores, they were still able to learn. The ETS Drills and drills the students trying to force a confession out of them, but no one cheated so no one will fess up to it. Other teachers think the kids must have cheated too and eyes are starting to look towards Mr. Escalante himself. Finally Mr. E decides to get the kids to take a retest to prove their scores. Mr. E warns his students that it won’t be easy and the ETS will be looking for any excuse to call them cheaters. He is convinced it is a race and social status issue. The kids do very well on the retest and all 18 of them pass it again setting a precedent for future generations at Garfield high. Because of the model that their success set by 1987 there were 87 students who passed the AP test at Garfield high!