HW # 50

John Gatto: Teacher of the year acceptance

Schools and schooling have become irrelevant to our society. People do not believe anymore that scientists are trained in science class, poets in English classes and politicians in civics classes. The only thing they teach us is how to obey orders. How to be a good little robot and follow orders. An example is that when the school bell rings, we must put our notebook back in our backpacks and go directly to our next class. The amount of kids being home schooled by their parents has grown significantly. The education press reported that kids who are home schooled seem to be five or ten years ahead in their way of thinking compared to students in formal school systems.

Fortunately SOF is not a school that completely trains the students to obey and follow orders. Because we have classes that teach us about life and how to think for ourselves, we are able to analyze things better and know when we are following the "system" of life. SOF does not even have bells that ring in order to let us know that our current class has ended and a new one has begun which I find great because I detest the sound of does bells. Gatto mentions that the United States has the highest teenage suicide rate and they are mostly rich kids. Most rich kids go to private schools where the system is much stricter and students are turned into obedient little robots who are unable to really think for themselves and are not really opinionated. This may cause them depression or meaninglessness in their life and therefore they decide to commit suicide. I feel like home schooling is the most affecting method of learning because the student is in a safe environment and has nobody else to distract them. One way of home schooling is personal tutoring, which is basically home schooling but for a shorter amount of time. I had a tutor when i was a young kid and I still remember small lessons and techniques she used in order to teach me. Does classes were very affective because they were focused on only me so if i did not understand something, the teacher would explain it to me differently until i did. Home schooling probably makes students years ahead of regular school kids in their ability to think because they might be taught only things that will actually be useful in their future life and everything else is learned by personal choice.

Interview With Lisa Delpit

Delpit's goal is make sure that schools will have the skills required to insure an education that will work for lower class African-Americans. Delpit also discusses that teachers do not do a good job uncovering the brilliance of the children. That a student's brilliance should not be judged by the test scores they have. Arts are one of the things that appeal children the most. Arts could be incorporated into a regular class in order to get the kids more interested and focused.

50% black people do not graduate high school, trying to change the system in order to change that fact is a good goal. There must be something wrong with the system if the rate is not changing and something must be done. I am pretty sure that if 50% of the Caucasian students would not graduate high school, the institution system of school will be changed so they would be capable of graduating. I agree that testing can not be the way a teacher judges a student's intelligence because what if it is a student that just arrived from another country and his system of solving math problems is different? but yet, he was the best math student in his class. Or a a kid who was an amazing writer in his home country but he can not write well in english because he barely knows how to speak it. However for the most common cases which are people from their home country, it could be that they are not good test takers, yet they will be able to explain everything that has been taught in class with deep insight and great analysis better than anyone else. I also agree that art is a great way of appealing to students. It gives them an opportunity to express themselves and keeps them entertained. By incorporating art into regular classes, kids will pay more attention and have more fun in the class which will result to a higher understanding of the lessons.

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Teachers are the depositors and students are the depositories. As long as the teacher has deposited all his demanded knowledge, he has done his job. It does not matter if it is relevant to the real world or not. The teacher teaches and the student "mechanically" memorizes it. teachers do not really know anything that could help the student and the student is considered ignorant because of his acceptance to the teacher's worthless lessons. The result to this situatin is to abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the problems of human beings that is reelevant to the real world. To reject statements and actualize discussion in order to increase our consciousness.

Lessons that are detached from reality and are just useless facts have no meaning. These lessons alienates us from the real world, it gives us less time to our ability to think for ourselves and have our own criteria in life. In SOF we have classes that by having discussions and expressing our own ideas , we are able to have a better way of thinking and be clearer on what our opinions and ideas are in life. This is an advantage because when we graduate we will be ahead in a mental sense compared to many students that followed the formal school system.