Last Blog!

Can you believe it?  Didn’t this go super fast?
For your final connection to the course, I want to leave you with questions, not answers.  I want you to think through all that you have read and experienced this semester.  Generate a list of at least three questions that you will continue to hold with you as you move forward in your path to teaching.  Share why these questions are important to you.

It went super fast. I'm surprised that I am done at MCTC. I enjoyed getting to know my fellow classmates but I wonder if we used our time productively this semester. I think we spent a lot of time getting to know each other but I also feel like we wasted a lot of time. My first question is how could we have used our time more productively?

It was nice having a small class, I was disappointed that so many people dropped out, it was noticeable because we had such a small class size. I'm concerned about the people that did. I hope everyone is okay. This is a concern I typically wouldn't have in a larger class. I feel like we were very invested in each other's education... is that good or is that bad?

I think we had important conversations, but I think we got side tracked a lot. We cared more about the real-life situations that were going on. I'm not a fan of the blended format and the impacts of technology seemed to get in the way of learning. I feel like a lot of people were frustrated at the amount of technology that was involved in the class. My question is: is technology necessary for educator's? I believe it is, I like the idea of a technology class for future educator's because it will be prevalent in their future experience
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True Learning is Uncomfortable

When I think of our discussion on Wednesday it made me think of an article I read last semester by Kevin Kumashiro it's called Preparing Teacher's for Crisis: a Sample Lesson. To quickly summarize Kumashiro believes that true learning happens when people are uncomfortable. When people are comfortable learners, they gain knowledge but there view of the world remains the same. When people are uncomfortable learners they gain knowledge and their perspective of the world shifts. Here is an illustration that demonstrates this belief:

What happened at MCTC this past week makes me believe that MCTC is unsupportive of letting students learn in uncomfortable ways. Through uncomfortable learning comes profoundly more important understanding of each other's worlds. I think that especially in college it is important to challenge each other's view and perspectives and I expect my school to provide an environment that promotes difficult conversation. By reprimanding Professors and taking legal action reinforces that MCTC is not supportive of learning uncomfortably.

What can happen when people learn in discomforting ways? If you look at the picture above in figure 1 the student is smiling, after learning in an institution that learns in comforting ways the student leaves smiling with more knowledge. In figure 2 the student enters an institution that encourages challenging students to learn in uncomfortable ways, the student leaves with more knowledge but more importantly their previous knowledge have been reshaped. I encourage MCTC to challenge my beliefs and perspective.

Classroom Connections Essay

My Outline:

My Philosophy:

                I have to think that the banking model of education is inefficient. We could become more efficient by inheriting Freire’s philosophies and implementing a praxis model in education.

 Paulo Friere states that: The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world.

How does the current structure support and negate critical consciousness?

·         Does it differ between schools?

o   Yes.

§  Anyon

My structure

                Student vs. Teacher-centered environment.

The kids need to be involved in their education. Relevant pedagogy.

·         Are we different?

o   I think cultural communication is necessary

§  How is cultural communication used in the current model?

§  How is it avoided?

·         Yes we are different.

·         Delpit

My praxis

How do I make my philosophy congruent with my praxis?

·               How can I translate theory into practice?

o   What do I see? Compared to what I’m learning

• Movie project, thats praxis? Is it respected/ aknowelged?

 

 

·            How can I integrate my theory with actuality?

o   Children are in class for 55 minutes? Is that right I don’t think so.

Friere and Delpit

Describe the major tensions between Freire and Delpit.  How are their approaches different?  Use text to support your thoughts.  How does Delpit shift your understanding of Freire?

While Delpit and Friere both discuss how the oppressed can become free of oppresion their methodologies for doing so differ greatly. Delpit believes for the oppressed to escape they must learn the language of their oppressor or "the silenced dialogue". Where as Friere believes that there needs to be structural change, the oppressed must fight to emancipate themselves and become revolutionaries. This difference is best seen in the conciousness of the oppressed and the oppressor in Delpit and Friere two visions of oppression. Friere believes the role of the oppressor is very clear and intentional while Delpit describes a more ambivalent  unaware description. For Friere the dichotomy of the oppressed and oppressor is very evident. To have an oppressor there must be the oppressed, the process is dehumanizing for both however, the oppressor benefits through material wealth and political power. Friere believes the oppressor exploits the oppressed to strenghten and develop there power. For friere, the first step is for the oppressed to become aware or concious of their oppression. For Friere, the oppressed are least concious of their situation while the oppressor is well aware.. Oppositely Delpit describes the oppressor as unaware... " Those with power are typically least aware of- or least willing to aknowledge- of it existence. Those with less power are typically most aware of it. Delpit's picture of the oppressor is ambivalent rather than aggresive.

Opportunity Cost

"Opportunity cost" is always present when implementing different pedagogical models in curriculum or education. One thing we began talking about in class was that a lot of times the educator holds the majority power choosing what pedagogical models are used in a classroom or learning environment. It is for this reason that I believe as a future educator in my teacher education that educators should experience as many pedagogical models as possible even if they philosophically differ with the approach. By living in the model you are able to figure out where the deficits occur, and where and how the "opportunity costs" change between a banking model opposed to a praxis model or a student-centered environment compared to a teacher-centered environment.

Grandpa T.R.

My artifact has a lot of meaning to me personally, I also think there is a lot of context, code and mythicism and symbolism involved in the picture which hangs in my apartment. My artifact is a framed picture of my Grandpa T.R. He was 17 at the time when this picture was taken by the Saint Paul paper in 1932. He was a record-setting hurdler and a top propect in Saint Paul football and was headed to the University of Notre Dame. This picture was taken just before my grandfather suffered a minor cut on his leg, the cut became infected so badly that  he was hospitalized almost lost his leg.

This was just before the end of his football career(and legacy) and his chance to go to the University Notre Dame and then who knows?

 

I think the story above would be "the coded situation" this photograph and my grandfathers stories of the glory days and his skills have been mythicized overtime to take on a new identity and shape a different history. To decode and split apart the elements of this photograph I think I need to look at the past, present and future in regards to the context and themes of the world at those times.............

Chapter three

Friere paints a beautiful picture of what it means to be a part of true dialogue. There are certain 'musts' for dialogue to occur, first of all, no one can dialogue alone. There must be humility in dialogue, there must be an intense faith in humankind, faith in people and dialogue cannot exist without hope.

Friere points out in chapter three that dialogue is similar to education in the form of praxis. To have real dialogue, like education the praxis of dialogue must involve respect and reflection and re-presentation of information through conversation. Like education dialogue is work towards the truth shared by open-minded parties. It can not be a deposit of information from one person to be consumed by another.

Like is typical with Friere we see a polar opposite of dialogue which is unauthentic word. Unauthentic word involves the speaker speaking to serve a purpose, the object of unauthentic dialogue typically seems to be meaningless. The purpose is to maintain staus-quo or to achieve dominance or hold power over an object, person or world.

I think it is all too often that we experience unauthentic word rather than dialogue in our society. This is exemplified for me by the current state of our governments politics and the manipulative nature of bipartisanism. Unfortunately for our society the sound bites created by politicians that spin through the media monster come off for many people in our society as true. This constant redundantness of our governments politics has created a limit-situation for me in my own life. Maybe it is through true dialogue that we can begin to work on the unauthentic word which is spoken so often in todays society.

Hunger Group Members: Anneka, Jeffrey, David Our Mission: We are working towards reducing the impact of hunger on our community specifically at MCTC and in our Minneapolis Public Schools
http://hungergroup.wikispaces.com/home

Dehumanization

One of the many pieces that stuck with me in the first chapter of Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed is the act of oppression is dehumanizing for all parties involved. Oppression is dehumanizing for the oppressor as well as for the oppressed. Oppression  for the oppressor detaches them from humanity by shifting the focus from a communal society to a more individualistic existence. Rather than the focus of life being humanity and community it shifts to a materialistic existence. Quality of life is represented by gathering items others can not afford and stacking the deck to keep the status quo. The oppressed are dehumanized through oppression through a lack of freedoms due to circumstance. The first step of the oppressed is to realize who their oppressors are. The relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor is dehumanizing and symbiotic. There must be an oppressed people for the oppressor to exist. I do not believe a solution to this interdependency and inevitability should be violence. I think violence of any type whether vertical or horizontal is dehumanizing. Violence even against an oppressor seperates an individual from their humanity by violating one of the basic human rights, the right to live. While I believe violence is dehumanizing for all parties involved I do believe it is an acceptable reaction in extreme circumstance.

WWSD

I think a major difference between teaching standardized curriculum versus a praxis model is the praxis model requires educators to be much more prepared, present and observant. When using standardized curriculum, yes a teacher may run into difficulties relaying information in the banking model of education, but typically the problems will be routine. There will be FAQ's that the teacher will be prepared to handle and probably some behavioral issues as well. Let me just say I am in no way saying teaching is easy. However in the praxis model of education the limits as to what is and isn't curriculum are expanded, the lines of real life and education are blended together making the questions and topics much more personal and relevant and in turn more important to the students and hopefully educators.

In Shultz's case he was able to work with his students, not just as an advocate but along side them towards a common goal. This required him to be more prepared and ready to pick up on 405's desire to make change. I think Shultz's ability to preserve space to go where he never imagined is one of his best qualities as a teacher who is successful in a praxis model. To limit the possibilities of 405's project would smother the classroom energy and desire for change. Shultz picks up on key moments of frustration in the classroom and allows the students to control the direction of their learning. "Most of the problems on that list have to do with our school building bein' messed up. Our school is a dump that's the problem!" In this instance Shultz creates the space for the students to be in charge of their own project and education. Shultz is also present, he is able to identify the strengths of his students in the classroom. Acknowledging his students capabilities and strengths gives Shultz the ability to understand how to assist their education. "..They told me, there was little nurturing of the strengths or abilities learned outside of school, but rather a devaluing of their adaptive abilities and street intelligences.


  



  
  

Why Relavent Pedagogy?

According to our readings, our educational structure in the current climate is set up to create winners and losers. The winners become economically successful with sometimes fulfilling jobs and live in economically prosperous neighborhoods with well-funded schools. The losers end up with typically labor intensive jobs in economically deprived neighborhoods with under-funded schools. Our public school structures promote these social and economic inequities through generalized standards across the board independent of the opportunity students have to be successful in this system. It's set up to create winners and losers and Duncan points out that the system does exactly what it is designed to do.

Relevant pedagogy escapes the suffocating nature of an educational system based on standards and tests. It redesigns curriculum to shift the focus towards issues relevant to students lives and communities. Duncan states that factoring communities and students lives into education can prevent the student from having to choose between their community and an education. When there is that pull between choosing home or education I believe that diminishes the experience of learning. Education is good and I believe education can be freeing for everyone because it helps you learn how to expand on your beliefs, thoughts and interests. When there is a separation between what is relevant to you and an expectation of what should be important(curriculum) there is a loss of self which is unfortunate because it hurts the reality of the experience. Shifting the focus from standardized curriculum and making it relevant creates opportunities for learning that are otherwise lost. I believe creating opportunities to involve students in praxis is a good way to achieve real education.

Public Work in Urban Schools First Day of Class

Hello classmates, my summer was good but it felt very short. I decided to take summer semester for the second year in a row, this year I decided two classes was plenty for the crammed eight week session, I took my last math classs I plan to ever take and psychology. It went pretty smoothly and kept me busy for the first half of summer since my year of service working for Minnesota Reading Corps ended early in July.

Some highlights from the second half; I went camping once at Sibley State Park with my Anna and my dog Wally for a long weekend. I ran the fastest 5k I've ever run, I moved to Saint Paul to the Mac-Groveland area, I saw one of my best friends get married at the Guthrie and best of all I got a new job working in education!

I'm at Ramsey Middle School as a Special Education Assistant working with autistic children. My first day is next Friday. I'm nervous and a little anxious about getting started but I think that is probably a sign that I'm doing something I care about. I also think it will be a useful experience in helping me determine what age group I want to focus on as a further my teacher education.

Well thats a little bit about me and my summer, I look forward to seeing those of you I know all ready and meeting everyone else.

April 26th

April 26th was one f the best days our group has had in PA. Since it was such a beautiful day I decided the group should get outside and play some basketball. We had talked about ways to avoid pressures of smoking, one of them was to stay active. Before going outside we had a brief meeting to look at what smoking does to your lung capacity. Then we went outside and just played.

For the second half of our day we had the opportunity to join Katie's and Frankie's  groups for an interview with a police officer. The conversation was more focused towards drugs, but the students were able to ask some questions about our project. It was a nice opportunity and I appreciate the officer but unfortunately I thought he had too much of an authoritarian voice for students who were simply asking questions. We talked about how the interview went afterwards and I could tell that Jyree felt uncomfortable with the encounter. Overall it was a fun exciting day where the MCTC Young Achievers had a a lot of success.

Action Research

I am using a couple of different techniques to collect data for action research. I use my own observations of group dynamics while we work on our project. This in combination with video of PA and blog reflections gives me a variety of ways to evaluate my research question.. Last week I gave my group a survey on the importance of roles during our PA project. The results are posted on my blog under Action research questions for the MCTC young achievers group.

I have adjusted my initial action research question slightly to better understand the importance of the chosen roles in our group.

My original question was: Will the weekly delegation of roles help our group work as a cohesive unit or does it limit the chance for a synergetic group effort?
My revised question is: How have our roles affected our public achievement project, and have these roles helped our group function as a cohesive unit?

We have continued to use the same chosen roles in our group, we have the documentarian, task master data keeper and reader. I have experimented with how roles are chosen in our group. Initially we would rotate. This worked okay but there were certain personalities in the group that gravitated towards certain roles. We then adjusted the process from delegation to discussion. This seemed like an improvement from the previous model. The role of the documentarian was most often picked by Jyree. Patrick and Michael would switch off choosing the role of data-keeper and task-master. This again worked pretty well however I noticed that now that the roles were developed we could move away from the distinction of titles. Roles seem to have strong importance in our PA process but now that they have been established and we understand which each can offer they contribute differently. I think my initial question was too focused on the distinction of each individual role and not on what they offer to group work. We have molded our roles and taken the necessary pieces of them for our group to help our group function better as a cohesive.

Action research questions answered by our group

Action Research Questions for MCTC Young Achievers

1.      Is the role of the “documentarian” an important role for our group? 1 being a bad role and 5 being an excellent role.

    

           1          2          3          4          5

 

2.      Is the role of “the reader” an important role in our group?

            1          2          3          4          5

3.      Is the role of “task master” an important role for our group?

      1          2          3          4          5

4.      Is the role of “data keeper” an important role for our group?

            1          2          3          4          5

5.      On a scale of 1-5, 1 being unfair, 5 being very fair, how fair do you think our group roles were?

      1          2          3          4          5

 

6.      On a scale of 1-5, 1 being not-helpful, 5 being very helpful, did roles help us get work done in our group?

            1          2          3          4          5

7.      Did you have a favorite role in our group, 1 being “NO”3 being “didn’t care”  5 being “Yes”

            1                      3                      5

8.      Would you like to use roles in a future project? 1 never again 5 yes please!

            1          2          3          4          5       

9.      Do you we should continue using roles in our group? 1no 3 don’t care 5 yes

            1          2          3          4          5

10.  Was there a best role in our group?
Task Master received 3 votes and Documentarian received 1 vote

We have an athlete! Almost...

So there is good news on the interview front, we found a connection through Dennis Donovan to the U of M football program. I spoke with him last Friday during our PA session and connected with him via email this week. Donovan is forwarding our email and interview questions to a couple of athletes and hopefully we will hear a response soon. It would be great to connect through Skype or to get a video response to the questions.

We shot some solid video of each other asking interview questions and practicing "takes" last week, this will be fun to look at this week and while we begin editing and adding a message to the video. Editing typically takes a lot of time and that is something we don't have that much of in PA. I still worry a little to what we will actually have for a final video project. We have a lot of pieces to a project but we still need to connect them in some way. However, I think the PA process and skills they are learning as a group have a lot of value.

Friday Friday Friday

One difference that I have noticed between school work and working in a school is the amount of feedback you receive for doing your assignment. What I mean is ... if I put in hours of work creating a power point and give a presentation, classmates are typically aware of the amount of work that I have put in. Even if they aren't that interested they will usually pretend to be and respect the process... I don't think I should assume that younger students will act in the same way and that something I'm trying to get used to.

 This week went well. Our group has decided that they would like to contact an athlete and interview them about smoking. We created a list of questions that we edited this week. I was impressed by their ability to weed out the dead-end questions on our list. For instance Patrick pointed out that one of our questions would elicit a "yes or no" answer and we wanted to get better quality answers.

 We ended up composing an email as a group and I will send it out to the different organizations that we picked. I'm kind of skeptical about getting a response but I think it's worth a try. We've decided to contact the Timberwolves and the Vikings. I think of the two we are more likely to get a response from the T-Wolves. I think what we are asking for is reasonable... we have a list of seven questions that we would like answered. We would like to receive a video response from one of the athletes via email. I think I may attach a short video of the students composing the email.

 I'm hoping we hear something; it would generate some momentum towards completing our PA goals. Our end goal is to create a smoking awareness video and air it on the TV screens throughout the school we will also post it on YouTube.

Presenting

I think presenting on Wednesday was important for our group as a whole. While we have all worked hard in previous PA sessions, organizing our research and presenting it to others groups seemed to give us more of a sense of purpose. It helped me and I think my team formulate an end goal for our PA experience.
Our presentation consisted of four parts each of us were responsible for one piece. Or goal was to share where we are in the PA process and how what we have done will lead us towards a finished project. Patrick shared a very well thought out journal entry that summarized why smoking prevention and awareness is important in our community. He shared some shocking statistics which really explained why our topic is important and was able to communicate his concern in his own voice. It was cool. Jyree "the documentarian" shared our video in its initial stages. It's pretty choppy and will need a lot of work but I just introduced the video program two weeks ago. I'm excited for the students to learn how to edit video and figure out how to interview eachother on camera. It gives us a tool to help reflect on our process. Michael shared some interview questions we have developed as a group about the pressures of smoking that kids face. It looks like the target for these questions has become a professional athelete. We will see what this leads to for our project...  

Getting the Gang Back Together

It was nice to have the the whole group back together for our PA session. Last week one member, just before PA began ended up punching a kid in his class. He ended up getting suspended and was obviously not allowed to attend tour session. The week prior I was out sick. It really helps to have everyone present for the group to truly be successful as a unit.

We went over our roles( documentarian, task master, data keeper and reader) for the week and journaled about the responsibilities our individual roles had. I guess It wasn't clear but in my action research question but we do rotate the roles from week to week. I think journaling is a nice way to start because it helps get the focus back into PA. I think next week however I might switch our opening activity into a game or an icebreaker since we have all journaled about each of the roles. Doing some more kinesthetic activities could be beneficial to the whole PA session as well. I think this will also be good after missing PA over spring break.

The rest of our session went pretty well. We finished doing our research questions and everyone participated in their roles. I was trying to let the kids have more of a lead in doing their own research they worked hard and it was nice to see. I am still stuggling with the different learning abilities in our group. Multiple times things were left up to one student "because he's smart". However, I felt as long as everyone was participating in their roles, everyone was learing a piece of group work.

After finishing research we brainstormed a list of questions that we would like to ask a professional about smoking awareness and prevention. Everyone participated and it went smoothly. The one big success of the day was learning that we could answer a lot of our own question by refering to the research we had done. We tried to develop a list of questions that would give us new information rather than repeating things we had already learned.

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