Maysoon Zayid

All the MAT's went to Wilma Rudolph Learning Center, a school that works with students with mainly severe and profound disabilities. So I have been thinking a lot about special education and how we even think about disability and ability in our culture.

I saw this on my Facebook I think it gives disability, pay attention to when she talks about a play that she was not cast in, in college.


http://www.upworthy.com/a-gorgeous-woman-shakes-her-body-on-stage-and-the-crowd-goes-wild?c=ufb1

Oke, Femi. "A Gorgeous Woman Shakes Her Body On Stage ... And The Crowd Goes Wild." Upworthy.http://www.upworthy.com/a-gorgeous-woman-shakes-her-body-on-stage-and-the-crowd-goes-wild?c=. 

Bahia Shehab

In the Arab Spring, many took to the street but Bahia Shehab took to the walls. She is a graffiti artist who used her work as a form of protest.

http://vimeo.com/89910610


 Wagner, Marc Christoph (March 24, 2014)Bahia Shehab: Art as a Tool for Change. Huffington Post. Retrieved http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louisiana-channel/bahia-shehab-art-as-a-too_b_5020603.html.

Higher Education Out Of Reach For Too Many

Jeb Bush and Hilary Clinton, two leading presidential candidates, both agree that higher education is too far out of reach for many Americans.  Bush claims that with technology higher education can be accessed by more Americans, Clinton also agreed. But she also voiced her opinion that it is incomparable to a classroom experience full of peers to share ideas.

I agree that higher education is financially impossible for most people in the United States. But I also think that college is not for everyone. I think we prioritize College in our culture when many students attend and flounder or attend sub par academic institutions that hand out credentials. There are many different type of intelligences and traditional higher ed is meant for one type.  I think we need to think about how to make higher ed reachable but also supply other quality alternatives like trade schools and apprenticeships.




Rucker, Philip (March 24, 2014). "Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush say higher education is out of reach for too many." Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/24/hillary-clinton-jeb-bush-say-higher-education-is-out-of-reach-for-too-many/. 

French Education and American Education

Today I was doing some sample grading with the professor I TA for and another TA.  The other TA is french and she started to describe the french baccalaureate system in high school.  Her description was pretty scary.  It seemed very intense. she had 12 subjects and had an exam on each of them. She then stated it was easy all you have to do is know what the professor wants and give it to them. I though this sounded horrible, but I did the same thing in my high school.  I think we rag on American education to much sometimes, like we are outstandingly bad when other systems seem to do the same thing but they just structure it a little differently.

Finnish Education

I read an article in The Atlantic online, "Finnish Education Chief: 'We Created a School System based on Equality.'"  What I learned from this article is that Finland has shorter school days, more recess time, very few private schools and less homework yet they consistently outperform the United States. When asked why the Chief of Education and Science was asked why she thinks that, she says they can't afford to waste a brain. Each child is held precious. They believe that Human Capital is just as important if not more important than natural resources. They see each child as equal. There are also no gifted classes, every child is put into the same class. But these classes are very small in size.

This article caught my attention because we have spoken about Finnish education in  nearly every class. How can they do it and we can't? There are a TON of factors. The difference of population size in each country, the make up of the population, the rate of poverty, etc. But the idea that each child is seen as a valuable asset to the future of the country is a mindset that more american educators need to internalize. Often times we aren't asset based thinkers in the classroom. All we see are students deficits, "They are bad listeners. He has ADHD. She can't behave correctly." Instead of boiling students down to what they can not do, we need to look at what they can do and build them up. We also as educators need to be very aware of how we treat students to try to insure that we are not treating students in a negative manner. This is where I think American education can learn from Finnish education.


Gross-Loh, Christine (March 17, 2014). "Finnish Education Chief: 'We Created a School System Based on Equality.'" The Atlantic.  
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/finnish-education-chief-we-created-a-school-system-based-on-equality/284427/

Telpochcalli

I just taught 3 sessions of the same lesson at Telpochcalli Elementary School. Nicole Marroquin wants us to do a reflection and I though this may be a good place to do it. Make some cross curricular connections.

I taught a lesson using Eric Carle's A Home for Hermit Crab. Our big idea was community/working collaboratively. They made collaborative collages/ paper sculptures. I didn't think the activity was super engaging. I looked online and found an amazing artist Michael Villequette. His work is mind blowing. He constructs these paper collages, paper sculptures, and mixed media works.

Simhasana, 2011 

Clownepillars Too, 2013

  But I don't think I really combined his aesthetic with what we were doing. If I were to do this lesson again I would definitely use elements of his work mainly ideas of symmetry and layering to build up volume.  To do this for the Kinders I would have had precut shapes at differing sizes that they could have readily used along with some of the folding techniques we used this time around. For the 2nd graders I would have really stressed ideas of symmetry and maybe had them make a sketch or just share ideas before we started. The collaboration element could have been better integrated as well. They got that we were working together, but they weren't readily communicating and working as a team.


What went well was engagement. All three groups were into it. They liked that they were using their hands and using a common material in new ways. I think they also liked that I didn't make them do anything, I told them to use the paper any way they liked but to be creative. And I got really creative results.

3rd Grade Shell

Kindergarten Shell

All in all, I had a great time. It makes me want to go back really badly. Also Telpochcalli is an amazing school that really cultivates creativity.

Standoff with California

So the US Department of education is allowing California to not report standardized testing scores or allowing these scores to affect students and teachers. This is from a long standoff which resulted in Arne Duncan threatening to withhold 3.5 billion dollars used to educate underserved and disabled children. This is all over standardized tests that aren't aligned to standards (common core) being taught in schools. What bothers me is the threat to withhold much needed funds that will benefit children. This seems the opposite of education to me. We need to rethink why we need these tests, especially when they aren't calibrated to what is mandated to be taught in class.

The article continues to talk about critics who say throwing out the test is depriving educators of data. I think that is silly, because teachers have data everyday their students are in class. This data is from observational notes, chapter tests, writing samples, reflections, projects etc. There is plenty of data a test administered once a year is far less reliable sample of students' ability.

I think they just shouldn't test the students at all this year. It also reminds me of what is currently going on in a handful of CPS schools. The test seems frivolous and useless, why are we making kids take it? To punish them? To make them follow directions without question?




Layton, Lindsay (Mar 7, 2014). In Standoff with California over Testing Education Department. The Washington Post. Blinks. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/in-standoff-with-california-over-testing-education-department-blinks/2014/03/07/08f7e1b8-a63e-11e3-9cff-b1406de784f0_story.html

Charter Schools Expel more students than District-Ran Schools

"The data reveal that during the last school year, 307 students were kicked out of charter schools, which have a total enrollment of about 50,000. In district-run schools, there were 182 kids expelled out of a student body of more than 353,000." (Ahmed-Ullah and Richards, 2014)



So I feel like we are always railing against charters. Charters are each very different and to say all are bad school and all are good schools is far too simplistic. But the idea that Charters can easily expel students is rather troubling. By having easy expulsion schools can choose to simply rid themselves of the problem, resulting in students pin-balling school to school. There is  no consistency for these children.  I also looked at the list of charter schools in Chicago, and most of them are Level 3 and Level 2, so they don't seem to be doing that much better.





Ahmed-Ullah, Noreen S and Alex Richards (2014, February 26). "Charter schools' expulsion rate vastly higher than rest of CPS: Disparity sure to become fuel in ongoing education debate." Chicago Tribune. ://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-02-26/news/ct-chicago-schools-discipline-met-20140226_1_andrew-broy-charter-schools-district-run-schools  

Harper High School

I recently was listening to a 2 part This American Life about Harper High School in Englewood. They set up at Harper for around 5 months. They interviewed students and teachers about the high school as well as the neighborhood. The radio show pretty much revolves around gun violence and gangs.  But more importantly it talks about the effects on the students and the teachers.  Harper was a turn around school, so they were getting funneled a lot of money for extra personnel and equipment. The funding went away this year (the radio show is about a year old). Many of the people who are there for students who live rather hard lives will be gone. There is an account of one member of the staff, whose position will be cut, who sees a kid out in the hallway. The student thrown out of class because he took two cookies and refused to put one back. He was just hungry because he wasn't able to go home and thus hadn't eaten. The staff member without any deliberation goes to the cafeteria gets some chocolate milk (they were out of regular) and the brings the student back to his office and gives him a bowl of cereal. This just kind of makes me think about the importance of people and relationships in schools, that education is more than scores.