Community Service

Giving back to the community is something that we should constantly take part in as often as we can because escpecially as teachers it within our nature to have the desire and the will to give back to those around us and those who are in need of recieving the best we can offer. I love children and I think they often are the most appreciative in their own little ways of things done for them. I helped out at a daycare center back at home for a couple days and as always I enjoyed spending time with the little ones. I thought that I wanted to teach they younger age, but as far as dance goes I would rather teach an age that could be trained on a higher level, and retain critical information. However I always like to be around young ages because I feel as though they bring you into their world, and a complete seperate world from ours might I add, and you forget about all the worries in your world and focus on their cares and worries for those moments. Their innocence and enthusiasm for life is so genuine, despite the trouble they may get into and the challenges that they can bring, I can't help but enjoy the time spent with them. Not to be corney but they often give the best hugs too!

School Meeting at Arts

During my visit at Arts High, I got to sit in on a school meeting at Arts that Friday afternoon of my visit, and it was quite an interesting experience. I could tell from Mr. Carney's attitude alone toward the meeting that it was a drag for the teachers, something that was recquired and not decided upon or very productive. I walked into a meeting room where about three other teachers and Dr. Brown was there to meet us as well. It was kind of funny because they all had the same "I don't want to be here" look on their face, almost as if they were admirable teachers outside of the room and as soon as they walked in they became students again forced to sit through a boring lecture class. Dr. Brown holds these meetings, nine to twelve times out of the school year, with small groups of teachers throughout the day. The meetings are held to discuss productive ways to continue maintaining a productive classroom and teaching methods. However the topic of this particular meeting was the educational taxonomy, and open ended questions.
I thought that the discussion on open ended questions was quite non productive because it stated the obvious about these types of questions, it was a disussion that we might have in an education class for prospective teachers rather than current teachers. I couldn't help but wonder what other topics and discussions these teachers could be using their time talking about. Not to mention it was kind of funny to realize that the teachers mannerisms within the meeting were not unlike those of students in a classroom. Mr. Carney was fiddling with candy, a another was kind of shy and hesitant to contribute to the discussion. The meeting lasted for one block period and when it was over as I walked out of the room, I felt as if I had just seen teachers from another aspect I would have never seen. I just hope the teachers can find more productivity from the meetings than they had found that day.

Arts High School Orientation

I would be lying if I said that I went into Arts High with no preconceived notions or expectations. Coming from the dance perspective, I actually expected more of what I saw as the dance studio space, and to be honest the training level of the students there. I had the idea that these students were ready to be thrown into Julliard right away after leaving Arts High, I made myself believe that I may not be a qualified enough teacher to teach there if I was offered a job. However I was relieved in a way to see that the students were still wet around the ears, and could use a lot of training, and that I could be a great teacher for them. Of course yes I have a lot to learn but hypothetically speaking in terms of what I have seen now against what I assumed. Not to say they were not wonderful or anything less, but I can see there is room for training and discipline in the art of dance for the students.
Outside the dance aspect of the school, generally I was very impressed with the classrooms and the enthusiasm I saw in the students while learning and discussing class material. For example while touring the school we stepped into a visual art class where the students were critiquing each other's work and discussing things that could be done to improve upon their work. I sensed a level of maturity in the students that is often missing in many cases otherwise, excited and serious about what they had to do while in school. I was truly touched by the young man who was recently voted senior class president, touched almost to tears. When he was asked how his friends feel about him have the opportunity to go to school and do what he loves and enjoys while in school, he responded playfully saying "why would they be mad? Oh you mean because their not one of the chosen ones?" This brought a smile to my face because I wish for so many children to be have the privileges these children are getting here at Arts.
Though I am sure there are cases where some students may take their opportunity for granted, I am almost certain the majority have earned their position and are working hard at maintaining it within Arts. It's sensitive because I understand what these kids are facing when they leave the hallways of Arts High, and even though each child in the Newark community can not be impacted as these students most certainly will be, it warms my heart to know that positivity starts with the handful of students learning and growing there now.

Responce to No Child Left Behind

I admit I was a little naive about NCLB and its position in the school system. I understood from a broad perspective what it entailed but I did not know about the numbers and the details supporting it, like the three percent of students that are exempt and the remainder of "special students" who are counted which can bring the scores down for a particular school. For as long as I have been in school, the whole idea of testing has never been a beneficiary aspect of school, or at least it never seemed so. I remember my teachers would often neglect current class material to cram things to teach us quickly before testing time. In my philosophy education class, we have been talking about Emerson, Dewey and DeBois' educational philosophies, and I realize that the common idea among all of their philosophies lies in learning by experiences and through a focus on the needs of the children alone. America thinks that they have finally caught a handle on education and bringing equality to education for all students, however this testing method with its apparent advantages I think they project a more disadvantage because children are still being neglected in the process, and others are pressured to perform to the best of their ability despite their disposition good or bad.

Inquiry Question

I am working within a group of three and we decided we wanted to relate the question not only as asked to the essential questions, but also to our field of teaching, the performing arts. We are having trouble deciding how to word the question, but the idea of it is that we want to discuss how the use of dance or the performing arts can be used within a democratic school system to further enforce a means of active learning, for example, which as learned in the Promise of Urban Schools is key for an educational experience.

Reaction to the Promise of Urban Schools

I thought the Promise of Urban Schools was quite enlightening and encouraging to me as a prospective teacher, and possibly in an Urban district. In my philosophical education class we watched a video Monday talking about what they called, "alternative learning" in classrooms which projected the same principles that the Senior Fellows developed to promote the promise of urban schools in America. Both stressed the idea that students need to be given enough freedom but a balance with responcibility to build confidence in themselves to be able to solve any problem they are given. A publi school I believe that was in California, Peninsula, was used as an example school in the video that illistrated the outcome of students working in a liberal enviorment where they have control over their learning. An urban school district director in Harlem, New York, admitted that his schools were losing students to drop outs, and they were not scoring well on alptitude tests. Once this method of teaching education was incorperated in the schools, students began to love school and the numbers became positive.
I think the reading explained it best on page 3 in the second column, first paragraph where it reads that the issue with so many urban schools now is the fact that "control and punishment are the priority." Also the irony in the task given to students in these urban schools is hours of community service, but they are not encouraged within the schools that there opinions, actions and participation are needed in society because they are not given the liberal enviorment of learning inside school so how are they suppose to feel they matter within their communities enought to give back?
I think the principles in the reading, and additionally for myself what I learned from the video I watched in my other class, are good to remember and take into account throughout the visits to Arts High. I look forward to seeing how strong these principles are enforced in this urban school enviorment, what they enforce and what they are possibly missing.

Writing Assignment

What role should schools and schooling play in the United States? In a democracy? For as long as we can remember schooling in the United States has been a strong aspect of the country. Despite the many changes and problems within the system through history, have they served the people of this country efficiently with equipped education to better themselves? What should be the school’s means for delivering efficient education? These are the question I will attempt to discuss briefly in relation to a quote by Thomas Jefferson spoken in 1820, “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.” (Jefferson in Tyak, D., 2003 p. 9)

I believe Jefferson is saying that the powers of society should be nowhere else but in the hands of the people. If some believe that the people are not adequately prepared to know what to do with those powers, they should not be taken away but instead be given education to help them make decisions regarding their power as a society. The underlying question here is that, did schooling actually begin to provide citizens with sufficient education as a means to better them as a society? If not, have schools changed today towards doing so now? I think Jefferson is saying this should be the initial role of schools in the US, however have we been genuinely educated for better use of our judgment or freedom of choice, or have we been educated into using our discretion in a way that our thinking becomes limited only going as far as the education we received. In other simpler words, education used as a form of brainwashing. In Jefferson’s time education was used as a follow up after war for instance, a means to change the minds of people and get them to do or think certain ways.

We can see throughout history schooling has not always been for the better for all children in the US, and in some cases the same remains for today. In terms of societal problems with inequality, civil rights, economic handicaps, and other issues with societies in the States, schooling has definitely not always played the role Jefferson points out sufficiently. For example before the civil rights movements, black children in the U.S. were given the low end of education that could not do anything but discourage their dispositions. Furthermore, in certain circumstances today some children, who come from families with lower income, are not given the same educational opportunities that children from higher income families are receiving. Also even within education there are circumstances with the use textbooks, bias teaching, and others also that could be an argumentative approach to schooling being a brainwashing tool. For instance some claim that the use of textbooks hinders further learning, but students are only learning from one point of view perspective. Noah Webster believed that European textbooks were giving the wrong impression to students, encouraging them to think the wrong things opposing US thinking, and therefore the system needed to come up with our own textbooks. Now that we’ve done that, in some cases these books are not broadening thinking but still pushing on individual’s perspective on a subject.

So again, I think that Jefferson was pointing in the right direction for our country through what he said in his statement, but I think schooling possibly may not have committed to its true role in the United States. However I also do not think it is too late to make a change to getting us back on the right path as future partners to schooling in the US. I think Emerson’s philosophy of education is a model for how education in the US should be for students. Briefly describing, his idea is that the mind is boundless in that it can take in everything, action being the best way to learn because it is not the product of creation but the creative process that stimulates the mind and finally, just as I have pointed out, books should be secondary tools to learning because they have become misused in many cases. I believe we once had this in US education and we have strayed from it, and if we could stress these importances more there would be a lot of positive changes in US education.