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

Reflection-
     Reading this article reminded me of my final paper I wrote for my first year writing class. I chose to research ability grouping and tracking. We also had to create a blog about our topic, which I will link here.
     In my paper and blog I talked about how even though ability grouping and tracking are very controversial, when done correctly they are useful and should be tried out in all classrooms.
     When most people hear about ability grouping they see it as this rigid systems where kids are set up to fail and be pit against one another but I see it as an opportunity to grow. When you separate students by ability for even part of the day they get to experience a more individualized learning where everyone is on the same page. They get to step out of their normal roles in a typical classroom and grow.
     I think that the biggest reason why ability grouping ever fails is due to the stigma surrounding it and not finding the right educators to implement it. Oakes talked about how kids in "lower ability groups" get less qualified teachers who come in with a negative attitude about their students. I see this as a problem with the teachers rather than the system. For this system, and for any other classroom system, to work you need teachers who are free of bias and who have a growth mindset towards their students, otherwise any system is doomed to fail.

Service Learning Connections to Author/ Mapping the Authors

In this blog post I will be connecting three authors with some stories from my field placement. For my full mapping the authors chart you can follow this link.

Story: When the kids go to gym the get in two lines: a boys line and a girls line. There was this one time when a boy wasn't really paying attention and he drifted into the girls line. The kids who noticed made a big deal out of it and laughed at him. He looked really embarrassed and strongly asserted that it was a mistake.

Connection to Authors

1) August- This reading talked about how we need to normalize being LGBT among children and make school a safe and inclusive place for everyone regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation. In this situation the kids unintentionally could alienate a fellow classmate who might not fit into the gender binary or whose looks do not conform with the stereotypes of their gender.

2) Christensen- This reading talks about the stereotypes that children are bombarded with by the media that shape their beliefs or views on different groups of people. This story clearly shows that they have clear images about what a girl is and what a boy is and their laughter indicated to me that they think that there is something inherently undesirable about breaking stereotypes or perhaps being a girl.

3)Johnson- Johnson talked about how important it is to explicitly talk about issues with children which is in line with August and Christensen's beliefs. In this specific situation it would have been beneficial to the students if we had time to explore why they laughed and to talk to them about gender.  

Kliewer and Varenne & McDermott Quotes

1) "Democracy, in Dewey's perspective, "is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience."
- The Kliewer article goes on to say that in a true democracy everyone listens to and sees value in everyone else. Both of the articles talked about how people without disabilities tend to not even see people with disabilities as the people and peers that they are. We look down on them with pity and fail to see that we 100% can work with them or be friends with them and things like that. We create this divide between us and them as if they aren't capable of being apart of us and what we do. As long as we have this mindset we will not have a true democracy because we do not listen to those with disabilities, we silence and dismiss them due to our misunderstandings about what they are capable of.

2) "These students who exhibit the canonical mind are credited with understanding, even when real understanding is limited or absent; many people can pass the test but fail other, perhaps more appropriate or probing of understanding. Less happily many who are capable of exhibiting significant understanding appear deficient, simply because they cannot readily traffic in the commonly accepted coin of the educational realm."
- This quote is basically saying that our education system and the things or skills that we value in it are messed up. Doing well in school is not the same thing as being smart nor does it mean that you'll do better in life. Also we as a society value being able, which ties into the second article about the small town where there are a lot of deaf people and they all managed fine, everyone knew sign language and they had all these strengths but the people in the neighboring towns felt pity for the deaf people in the town.

3) "So I guess what I'm arguing is that if you did pick Lee out, you wouldn't be seeing Lee. It's not Lee you're picking out. It's your stereotype, your mindset."
- I picked this quote because I think that it is so true. We see a person and we make these judgments about who they are and what they're capable of and it's unfair.

School Segregation Connections

 

     This weeks readings made me think about two other readings that we have done:

               1) The Johnson reading- This weeks readings all mentioned that everyone knows that desegregating schools is the best way to improve the education of lower income black and brown students but no one wants to talk about it. This reminded me of the Johnson reading because they all talk about how uncomfortable it is to talk about race because we want to believe that we as a country have gotten past all of the racial inequalities and we don't want to admit that we have these systems that have been designed to make white people more likely to succeed.   

               2) The Kozol Reading- The Kozol reading described what it was like to live in poverty by following and talking to various people. They talked about their struggles and how they have essentially been abandoned by the people who are supposed to be protecting them and how no one who has the power to help them wants anything to do with them. On the TAL podcast they talked about how there are classes where the teachers don't show up, schools are left unaccredited for years and years at a time, and there are a number of more injustices that all add up to these kids having been abandoned. I also remember in the Kozol piece how the reason that they burned medical waste in that neighborhood was because the residents of the richer neighborhood didn't want it to happen where they live. It was also mentioned that the poor neighborhood became a dumping ground for things and people that no one else wanted. In the TAL podcast, essentially the same thing happened. The parents in the richer and whiter school district were resistant to accepting the Normandy students into their school and they even threatened to leave if the Normandy students really came. In both scenarios people want the poorer people of color to fix everything internally but it just isn't realistic.