extra credit: what are you deeply concerned about?

When you look at the world, do you see it as a perfect place to be? When you asked us to think about what may concern you in the world, I thought about many things but there was one that stuck out. Global warming, everyone knows what global warming is but didn’t see what it was doing to the world at first but now they do as it got worse in time. In the beginning the Arctic ice was all melting slowly, but now there is less then there should be. Now the weather is changing its hot when we should be wearing shorts and cold when we should be wearing shorts. This year in November and December its suppose to be cold and raining, nope we didn’t see any rain. As March came along its suppose to poor in march but not even probably one two days it rained a lot. This has resulted in one of the biggest droughts in California. There is barely any water and we are only allowed to use so much of it and you have those people that don’t care and water there grass for 3 hours straight or allow their kids to play in the water for hours and its not even hot our.  Global warming is starting to hit us back to be ungrateful in the beginning and not trying to take it another direction. Now that it is getting worse people start to realize what is actually happening to the planet they live on. To me global warming is a big deal, and no one really sees what is going on until it begins to effect them more. They didn’t care about the polar bears but now that its coming to effect the humans, thy don’t know what to do. Global warming is a big deal and people are trying  to fix it but its probably to late to. 

Question waiting for superman

How do adults get in the way of change and why? 

There are many ways that adults get in the way of the education,  Paeents of students want the best for their kids so they send them to school with the best education but that means more money to be spent . Like in the movie Nikia was pay 500 to send her daughter to the private school but when she got behibd in payments the school took it out on her daughter. The adults struggle with money and can't afford that school anymore. 

Another way adults get in the way of change is the oh boss of the teachers don't wanna change the teachers union rules  so all the adult that don't care about teaching and only in it for the money are still around "teaching" the students. 

waiting for superman first part

 in the part of the vide that interested me was they were talking about that when kids drop out of high school most end up in jail. 68% of prisoners are drop outs which is more then half. if kids were to stay in high school prisoner rates would go down. to me the reason for this is because once kids drop out of school they have nothing better to do then run around the streets and get caught up in things. in the video they stated that paying for prisoners for 4 years is 130,000 dollars but to put kids in a private school for 13 years is 104,000 dollars. they could save money if they put the kids through school with a good education. instead of a failing educational system kids would want to stay in school and learn to get a better job and not on the streets. also in the video at a school in la i think.. when a freshmen class there was 2000 students and by sophomore year the class size was1200. so 300-400 kids left . to me this is very interesting to show numbers of how many kids actually drop out..

Essay1

Justine Morales

Monique Williams

T/TH 9-10:15

English 1a

February 17 ,2015

                                               

Education and its flaws

What do you think about our educational system, do you believe there are have been many flaws? It has been noted that in the educational system there have been many changes that have had a negative effect. The most effected have been the students. Are the students simply following what other students do or do they follow what they want. How about the learning methods are the students’ actually putting effort into learning or are they being taught rehearsed facts? What it comes down to, are the teachers actually putting effort into teaching. In the following text I will explain these problems as well as some solutions with the help of Paulo Freire and the Passion Project II. These two sources explain in depth how the educational system has been broken. Education is too important to let it be what it has become.                        

This generations students follow the ones who are ahead instead of their own paths. As said in The Passion Project II; Jasmine Garcia says “I guess our expectations of succeeding is very unfair because we basically just think one way.” This means to me that we as students see what others do to succeed, so we believe that’s the only way to do so, If we followed each other’s footsteps. Sometimes similar has been said by Ken Robinson in the TED talk. Ken stated, “we have moved to linearly education, only one path in education… we are obsessed with getting people to go to college, nobody needs to go to college now. They can go later.” We would all have the same ideas, the same point of view’s. Everything would be the same; no one would have their own creativity to express their own thoughts.  We as a generation don’t acknowledge what we are good at; we just follow everyone else and what they are doing.  Nowadays people just like to get through life they don’t see any real enjoyment in life. That’s no way to live life, you need to enjoy yourself, live the moment. With this revolution everything will change, we will no longer ignore our talents and show improvement, Change in our generation is a much-needed thing. The change will include transforming education in to what it once was and yet many times better.  Everyone has forgotten what education really means. Education was about finding what you loved to do, what you wanted to pursue. Education in this generation has been manipulated into a competition. A competition that has narrowed our views where we only think about how long will it takes us to transfer and what classes I need to take to make that happen in little as possible. Education will no longer be about who has a better GPA, the better grade, or who got in to what college. It will now be about what you want and not what others think is best for you. A solution could fix this would be to think of what you want, not what path everyone else is taking. Be the one to take a different path and express your self, show your thoughts in ways no one would. In order to accomplish what you want, you need to know what you like and from there figure out what majors consist of your interests. Although the students follow each other’s success paths, are they the ones to blame for being asked to memorize facts. It has been shown learning today is not about comprehending our history or materials rather now, Its about who can recall more information.

What is more beneficial to the student, Learning?, Or rehearing the facts that are being taught. Many students now just remember for a test and not to actually learn.  As said in Paulo Freire: “Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated account. Worse yet, it turns them in to “container,” into “receptacles” to be “ filled” by the teachers.” (Page 1)   To me this means that the students are “jars” and the teacher says material and the students just take it in. They don’t question why or how. Many students take there notes from that class and memorize it cause it will be on the quiz or test at the end of the week. But after the quiz students would just “throw it away” and remember the next section for the test. Another quote to back my statement would be “Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat.” (Page 1, Paulo Freire). This quote means that between the students and teachers there is a lack of communication. The lack of communication between the student and the teacher is a very important part in learning. Having lack of communication can affect the learning process of the student. If the student and the teacher are not on the same page nothing will be learned or taught. In order for the teacher to communicate with the student, the teacher needs to know what the student is interested in. If the teacher knows what the student likes or enjoys he can use that as the icebreaker to communicate to the student actual information that benefits the student, as well as a process where the student actually take in the information and save it for later use (long term). Like stated above the students aren’t the ones to blame rather, some percentage of teachers not putting enough effort into teaching.

Although most teachers actually teach because they love to teach, while other teachers do it for a paycheck. As said in the Passion Project II, Peter Mutch say’s “Having a teacher take a personal interest in you and show their personality through what they’ re teaching is incredibly helpful to the process of learning. Its almost essential, right.”  (Page 11) This quote means that when you as a student have a teacher that actually puts in interest towards you. And gets to know you, you as a students gets more interested in what is being taught. We as students don’t really express ourselves to teachers if we are really comfortable with them. Knowing this from personal experience when a teacher actually talks to me on another level I feel more comfortable to express myself to that teacher, knowing even if I’m wrong ill ask for help with out hesitation. In the short interview we watched in class with Jeff Duncan-Andrade. He states, “ A teacher should not only talk to his students in a classroom but outside the classroom, but also outside the classroom at a baseball game or a play.”  When kids have a bond with a teacher they focus more. Students are able to express themselves because they know that the teacher is listening. Jeff also talks about how if teachers actually made their lesson are started with what’s going on around the kids, the kids actually find interest in what the teachers are teaching. Students know when a teacher Is there for the money or actually there for the kids education. Like in the short You-tube video about Jeff Bliss. When he said that his teacher keeps getting mad because the student doesn’t get the lessons but all she is giving them is packets to do. When he is telling her the facts she gets upset and tells him he is wasting her time. Shows that she doesn’t care what he is saying. When teachers are handing out packets and expecting the students to know the material, how do teacher expect them to learn. To fix this issue with teachers not showing any affection to the students learning would be to talk to the teachers and let them know what they can do to help the students, although a teacher may have hundreds of students at least putting some kind of effort to the students, letting students know you are there for the would help as a teacher means a lot to students, so they can feel comfortable in talking to the teacher.

In conclusion, the educational system has had a lot of changes. These changes have had a negative effect towards the learning process of the students. I have explained some of the issues with the educational system, they are as follows: the students have yet to follow their own paths they have stuck into following the people before them. Also following that another problem would be that students have been taught to memorize the information then actually learning it. Last but not least we have the issue where the teachers don’t put enough effort in to teaching. This leaves us with a very poor educational system. The only way that we could overcome these issues is to give solutions to these problems. These solutions include the teacher giving more to the student not just in the sense of information but also in the sense where the teacher makes a relationship with the student. Having a relationship with the student will increase the chances of the student getting a creative sense while being interested in learning and will actually learn because the student will have a strong close relationship with the student. Now that we know what’s wrong and know how to fix it, what will we do about it?

Recycling the gift Passion Project II

I strongly agree with what is being said in the video and   how education is really being taught and how the students think of education. In the video they talk about how education has a different meaning to everyone. During the video Alex Neikrik states “I hate the way the teaching method works: you have a standardized test; everybody gets tested on the same material. I am the professor so I know all the material and you’re the students that I try to transfer it to you and if you don’t understand it then that sucks and I’m failing you.” This statement is truly how some teachers think education is, some teachers believe that they need to teach material by the book and nothing more if you have a comment lets just not talk about it because that’s not what is written.

Students don’t really know what education is the learning is actually memorizing what the teacher says for the test and then move on to the next lesson to memorize that. Students don’t really try and have a say on it to think more about the material. I know this for a fact cause that how it was in high school lets take notes for this week and read this paper till I have everything memorized for the test after I took the test I didn’t have to worry about what was taught because I passed this test and I able to move on to the next thing.

Also in the video Peter Mutch says “having a teacher take a personal interest in you and shoe their personality through what theyre  teaching is incredibly helpful to the process of learning. Its almost essential,right almost.” This statement is something to think about and very true when a teacher actually cares and actually shows creativity in their teaching and goes outside of the book it makes student think more about the material. When teachers would put there own personal twist on things it made me think more then what is in a textbook. when teacher and students actually have a connection with the material and talk about it I feel more interested in the material and when teachers and students come together it opens  more ways of think and show different perspective of things.

Ted talk Ken Robinson :Bring on the learning revolution

What in education is out dated, like the wristwatch."a single function device."?

 According to Ken Robinson, Education is an evolution instead of a revolution.  We as humans see one direct path, we don’t see the big picture, the bigger picture being that education is not for everyone, and each person makes their own path toward education if they choose too or not.  Revolution shall give the generation now a better way of learning.

We as a generation don’t acknowledge what we are good at; we just follow everyone else and what they are doing. Nowadays people just like to get through life they don’t see any real enjoyment in life. That’s no way to live life you need to enjoy yourself, live the moment. With this revolution everything will change, we would no longer ignore our talents and show improvement, Change in our generation is a much-needed thing. The change will include transforming education in to what it once was and yet many times better.  

Everyone has forgotten what education really means. Education was about finding what you loved to do, what you wanted to pursue. Education in this generation has been manipulated into a competition. A competition that has narrowed our views where we only think about how long will it takes us to transfer and what classes I need to take to make that happen in little as possible. Education will no longer be about who has a better GPA, the better grade, or who got in to what college. It will now be about what you want and not what others think is best for you.

           

             

Paulo Freire article and my thoughts

In this article written by Paulo Freire we find that there are many topics covered regarding how education is not really what is seems. Freire talks about how education is not taught the way it should be as well as how teachers and students should come together to reach their common goal. Freire also believes that teachers and students partnership is crucial to accomplish this goal, this goal being a better education concept.

            In the eyes of Freire education is not what it perceives to be he looks at education as just being information as being passed down from teacher to student. Information that the teacher wants the student memorize for that time being, which will have no purpose later on. He feels that it should not be that way he sees education as the student using his creative mind to expand on what the teacher gives them. Yet all he sees is the teacher restricting the student from thinking for him self and having him or her do as he does.

            Freire does not consider education to be a circumstance where the student must follow the teachers way of thinking, he sees the teacher letting the student explore for himself. When a student thinks for himself he contributes his or her own ideas good or bad there is contribution from their part. If the students and teachers could come together to expand all their ideas as one, this would create for better learning because both the student and the teacher will have a great learning experience. The reason why both student and teacher will benefit from this is because they will bot see different concepts that they have never thought about or paid little attention to, by doing this they will open their way of thinking. 

            If teachers and students would come together to accomplish this better education goal in the way that is mentioned by Freire education would be something else. Education would not be what it is today. Education would be made by older and newer generation thus making it more diverse. If education is more diverse it would cover larger topics rather than a narrow windows of controlled facts. Education would be more appealing to more people because of the broader concepts.

            In conclusion the article above explains how education is controlled and how it should be shifted into a newer idea. This idea being where the teacher doesn’t control what the students learn rather have the students and teachers teach one another. Where the teacher and the student work as one to share ideas on facts and decide together if they agree with it. Education is controlled but it should not, it should be left for the students to expand on not to memorize.