Hw 50

The piece “Against schools” by Gatto was about his experience as an educator in the public school system. He questions the purpose of schooling and if students are really learning this way. He believes in education but not “schooling”, he’s against the system. He believes that schools fall short of accomplishing the mission they were founded. He states that there are other ways a person can educate themselves instead of submitting themselves to a forced education system. That schooling is not all what it’s cranked up to be. He states in a nutshell that schools cripple the individual by dumbing them down and making them conform to the system. That school is basically a trap to get us to conform.

I actually agree with a lot of the points Gatto makes. I also find myself questioning the point of school. Why? I don’t really think we need schooling in order to be successful which is what society wants us to believe. I don’t feel think students really learn much in school for various reasons. Mainly because they simply aren’t interested in what is being taught to them. Everyone in school is taught the same things and therefore everyone believes the same things. It’s the whole plan of the system, to get everyone to conform. I agree that “schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands.” This is why we all go to school and is why society wants us to go to school. School is a trap and we can’t escape it, we have to join the institution or it will find us.Schools are nothing more than a part of a system of oppression that keeps us down.

The piece “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Freire talks about how schools are part of a system of oppression, it oppresses the students and “mirrors society as a whole”. He talks about how education is basically a narration with teachers as the narrator. Who deposit specific information into the students and if the students believe and store that information, they are getting their job done. How the students are being misguided by the system. Students are being taught to comply which therefore makes them “manageable beings”.

It’s the teacher’s job to prepare us for a role in society. To conform and comply with what society expects from us. The minds of the students are being controlled. The teachers are teaching but students aren’t really learning anything. They are just storing all the information being fed to them. Students aren’t taught to think for themselves. Students are being taught there is no alternative. “The oppressed are regarded as the pathology of the healthy society”, you will become what society wants you to become and one way of doing so is by what you are taught in school. Students aren’t benefiting from the institution of education instead they are being oppressed by it.

The interview with Lisa Delpit by Nile Stanley is about her being the director of the Center for Urban Education and Innovation at Florida International University in Miami and what the school is about. The goal of the school is to “provide schools and communities with the necessary skills to insure excellent education for low-income children of color, particularly African-American”. She’s basically like a “savior” for the students and is all about really showing teachers how to see how smart their students really are. She also believes that the arts are really important in uncovering the strengths of students. She wants to teach teacher's how to see the best in the students they teach. To work with the students and not against them.

I agree with many of the things Dr. Delpit had to say in her interview. I think that many schools are lacking teachers who take a genuine interest in their students . Which doesn’t enable them to see the strengths of their students but rather what they still need to teach them. Instead teachers need to develop a relationship with their students and work around what they already know and do well. This is what she refers to as “teaching to the students needs” which is important because that way students actually learn. Teachers should also develop strategies and curriculum's that help them better relate and understand their student’s needs to inspire them to learn and bring out their “brilliance”.

Interview With Mr. Copeland:

Mr. Copeland's goal as a teacher is to bring some degree of social justice regarding education. He believes that students need certain skills that high school has to give them in order to be successful in the real word/future. He hopes that his students are learning the material that he teaches and is satisfied when they do. A personal gain teaching gives him is that "being a teacher forces you to constantly educate yourself and not every job does that". He feels that he learns from his students. Whether it's about the issues they deal with or about their backgrounds which might have been different from his own. He tries to show his students a different point of view. But mainly he doesn't "need to watch a movie on how to be a teacher" and feels his students "don't need to watch stuff on TV to see how they want to be".

After interviewing Mr. Copeland it seems that he believes in having a mix of the two types of education -transcendence and immanence. He doesn't strike me as being a "savior". He just wants to educate his students on issues of importance and wants them to learn certain necessary skills that will help them in the future. His students learn from him but in return he learns from his students. It seems he has a relationship with his students that enables him to understand and work with them better.