Final paper # 3

The typical middle school student (at the present time), emotional, unsure (of themself and their path in life), little to no self-courage, immature, cocky, rebellious, and full of the thought that they know everything. Picture this a punk looking kid with faded jeans, and a red hoodie under a black jacket that looks like fake leather. The long black hair that has a neon color stripe on the right bang, with a choking chemical cloud of spray-on axe deodorant. A nose ring on his left nostril underneath eyes filled with emotional hatred and sadness in opposite pupils. While placing a stink bomb under the teacher’s rolling chair filled with yin over whelming the yang, chaos over peace, bad over good. This is the typical middle school student with no common sense, completely forgetting the there is a choice between good and bad when having to think about using drugs, hurting friends, disrespecting elders. In my research I found that an interesting percent of middle school students who refuse to use common sense, use common sense and have little to no common sense.

When you look at a middle school student you see a very similar stereotype as seen in the documentary/movie “chalk”. We see the things they do that can make someone flinch because of how bad it sounds, feels, looks, and sometimes smell. Just think of how much it would help if we were to reeducate them or educate them about common sense/knowledge through a class. Indefinitely we see in more scenarios middle school students choosing bad choices making horrible decisions when the right/good choice is almost hitting them in the head saying “This is your conscious here……… LISTEN TO ME YOU STUBORN HUMAN!” they obviously need a refresher on how to be a better more sophisticated, stand up person. Think about how the society in schools and the community would change if one age group did a better job at being the better at decision making.

                We see the middle school age group making the worst decisions above any other age group. Some may believe that the best mistakes that can be learned from come from experience. But do they have to learn from experience when a good classroom lesson could suffice. Many people would just say that it’s just the kids being young and immature, sure some of them are but there has to be a line that should not be crossed for example using drugs the choice to use or not use. The easy choices which would make the world better in many ways. Bell hooks talks about “Critical thinking” and how critical thinking is a crucial to the development of thinking for one’s self.  Even adults can seem like they have no common knowledge of anything that is why we should start at a young age and teach the children so they don’t become some drunken jobless junkie’s.

                 We see it every day, younger and younger kids having jail time for breaking the law which were set up for people much older than them.  Now we sort of expect things like that to happen more often and more frequently because of the kids learning from their experiences or we blame it on are schools for not teaching them the right things. It doesn’t seem right for a kid to go to jail to learn from experience or get seriously injured because they tried to attempt a stupid stunt of sort  for example the video “black in black” touch up on that by saying that the united states is the leading in confidence. Reasoning to the bad choices may be the ignorance of the kids them not actually truly knowing the difference between bad and good which is not as strange as it sounds. Many parents teach their kids what they believe is right that might be completely the opposite so why not reteaching them in school so that we know at lest they know.

                How do we help these kids? I believe by adding a class involving the teaching of common sense/ common knowledge will help kids understand what they’re doing is wrong and why what they’re doing is wrong. The class won’t even have to be very hard it just has to be enough to teach the basic knowledge of good and bad, and right from wrong. They could even go over the actual father of common knowledge Aristotle. Aristotle has many great examples which the classes could be based upon and used in the lessons to also give a small history lesson of sorts. The class wouldn’t just be in the age group of the middle school though. If it were to work then it would be beneficial to even go all the way through school K-12 common sense/knowledge class.

                In the end we need to educate are children to be better, to do better, and to think better. To show them right from wrong, and to make choices which will benefit them in the future to come for their long path ways in life.so why don’t we make this class a reality and protect the future by first protecting the paths of the children who will be running the world in the next couple of decades. Common sense does not only benefit the children remember if someone knows better they will most likely show others how to better as well. One kind deed seen by many can have an effect which can start a chain of events that in the end would result in whole different world.

What I believe makes good teaching

What I think makes good teaching is a way that helps kids grow and flourish in there creativity. something that helps them use creativity in there own way and not for other things that we want to focus there own creativity on. But in a way I do believe there also needs to be a sense of organization along with it. I'm no talking about discipline, I'm talking about order in the sense of creative order which has nothing to do with randomness which also should be shown. We have to show them to be original and not follow a line of others. We use to be have the best schools in the world which points people to discipline and order which we don't have anymore. But the thing that people forget is that South Korea and Finland which are the leading nations in the educational field use discipline in most of there teaching as well. This to a degree is a problem, because it destroys creativity when order and discipline flourish there is a huge decline in creativity. Students are not able to express themselves in their own form therefor destroying creativity. So what i am stating is that good teaching has to be able to balance organization, discipline, and creativity in a way which makes them all even.

Group Blog for top two pick 11.26.13

Top Two Pick of readings 11.26.13

We all agree that our number 1 choice is Jerry Large's "Gift of Grit, curiosity help kids Succeed". Truly in the real world children need confidence and character to actually become their own person and make their own decisions which puts them on their own path. They need "perseverance and passion for long-term goals".  We agree with Tough who says, "If you want success, build character and the rest will follow".

Our number 2 choice is bell hooks "Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom".  We came to the conclusion that critical thinking is an important thing for children to learn as it helps them to make their own decisions and opinions about important matters in life. It helps children to look into the details and pull out the images and ideas to sort through choices in life. We should be like the children who "come into the world of wonder and language consumed with a desire for knowledge" who become "relentless interrogators".

At first, we didn't all agree with #2.  But after much discussion we concluded that "Teaching Critical Thinking" was a more important piece than Barry Boyce "A Real Education". Barry Boyce talked about being "mindful of others", where we decided that "Critical Thinking" was a more valuable asset in real world situations. We attribute this to critical thinking is more educational than being mindful of others, but being mindful is a subset of critical thinking.

Chalk notes

Man talks about his school life which starts the introduction of the movie. Teacher asks what to your mind when I say history, long silence and then he says that’s why where here. Then a long movie intro similar to the office but with school. Teachers go over first day of class. The teachers don’t seems to be very encouraging to the students they joke in a way which is rude and immature. The movie comes off as being like the TV-show office but is involved with school. The teachers talk about themselves and how they think about the year but nothing about the kids.  The assistant tries to break up a fight outside but she doesn’t handle it very well. None of the teachers seem to be handling things very well with talking to the children. They talk about focusing on the student and nothing even similar to that happens. The teachers are so dysfunctional and they don’t even work as a team, they yell and go against each other in an unhealthy way. One of the history teachers talks about his improvements that he made to his class to help the children learn more but it doesn’t look or sound any different. The group of teachers talk about being role models what a joke. The way the teachers act is so immature they almost act like their students heck they do. They talk inappropriately about their students outside of class. Again the teachers argue and ramble at each other it is just sad.one of the teachers gets mad and throws a chair. At the end of the year there seems to be a better structure than the start but there is still a lot of immaturity coming from the teachers.

Formal Paper #2

Both are good teachers with great teaching skills but hey are different in the way they teach, communicate with their students, and above all act. Mr. Escalante from the movie “Stand and deliver” and Mr. Keating from “Dead poets society” whom are close to prime subjects for this comparison. They have many similarities but also a few differences which defiantly shows who is the better teacher in the sense of good teaching. They both have their own ways of talking to their students outside of class and inside of the classrooms, which shows their personalities and their teaching methods in a different light. There are also some of the ways they encouraged the students to work on their class and homework. Their attitudes are also another aspect that is involved with their teaching and interaction with the students such as if they get aggravated or angry with the students in anyway. Also the ways they teach by invoking any type of emotion onto the student in order to create a scenario in which the students would start to think clearer because of these emotions. How the students were affected due to the teaching and the communication between the students is another important view that I will be compared between the teachers. Both teachers have a good teaching habits but the little things they do affect the students in some way may it be large or small. Both teaches have a dry sense of humor which the students seem to enjoy, but I question if some of the jokes they make are really suitable for in a school environment and if they are truly necessary in the first place. The smallest of details put together is what makes something great such as the little remarks or statements that the teachers make which help the students develop the understanding of the lessons.

                I could speak of the bad teaching of Mr. Escalante but there wouldn’t be that much to talk of but truly Mr. Escalante has always had good intentions when working with his students but in some circumstances he gets so caught up in the his own expectations of his students because he values them so high that he believes that the students already understand the concept of the lesson that he is teaching. Mr. Escalante tries to involve himself within his students life’s to create a bond of sorts so that the children understand him more in, other words he tries to create a relationship between him and his students which is similar to the relationship of a family in which he would uses to create an environment of understanding as of a family. It is as if he brings his students to his level which is the opposite of Mr. Keating that I will go over later in the section explaining Mr. Keating’s teachings. However while Mr. Escalante is creating this environment he fails to remember that families also has their disagreements which brings him to the brink of a minor heart attack after an argument between him and the students; which was unclear because the students had all gotten the same answer to a math question which was never corrected if it was truly an incorrect answer. But in some instances he truly knows what is right for his students because he has good intentions for them. An example being that he went to the two investigators in order to find out why his students had thought to have been cheating on a test which they had passed following the correct instructions. Mr. Escalante also uses some dry humor which was not really appropriate to invoke some emotion of happiness which helped the students remember the materials better. Considering these things Mr. Escalante is a good teacher who believes in his students and but he has a few bad habits.

                Mr. Keating is very different in many ways compared to Mr. Escalante in the way they think for their student but what they believe is right for their students is all that different. They both want their students to grow and prosper into people unlike any other; to blossom into prime examples of life in the making, in other words they want their students to be the best. The way Mr. Keating helps himself and his students understand each other by going down to level of maturity and humor and it seems that he can handle it well without doing any bad teaching in the process. There is one instance where others would disagree with me on that note where Mr. Keating puts one of his students in front of his classmates invoking pressure upon the student but this also helped the student understand the lessons better and even give him inspiration to look into the details instead of looking at them. The school that Mr. Keating teaches in was once an institute in which he took classes in so he knows of the discipline which is used within its walls. He uses an appropriate humor with the students which is similar to Mr. Escalante but Mr. Keating seems to avoid any inappropriate humor so he doesn’t get himself into trouble. Even though it may seem as if Mr. Keating gets out of hand he still maintains a good line of respect between his students and himself which he started by saying “Oh captain, My captain” which he is referred to throughout the story. Mr. Keating was so inspirational to the children the he put them in a world none like any other, a world in which the discipline which was lesser than what the real world had; a world full of creativity which had no limits.

                In the end it seems as if Mr. Keating is the Better Teacher than Mr. Escalante But there are a lot of differences in time and place, where Mr. Keating was in the 1950’s in an academy somewhere in the east coast, and Mr. Escalante a teacher in Downtown L.A. in the 1980’s. These differences do contribute to both teachers teachings but have little to do with if they were good or bad. But in some ways Mr. Escalante is better than Mr. Keating making them both great at what they do. Mr. Escalante has a way of involving himself in his student’s lives where Mr. Keating couldn’t, and Mr. Keating inspires his students in a way in which Mr. Escalante didn’t. Even though they both had something that the other didn’t, they both changed their students’ lives in such a way that made these children ready for the adult world. These Teachers impacted upon these kids nailing the lesson taught into their heads so that they could use them in the future. Both Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante are talented at what they do and they do it beautifully.

Formal paper #2 draft

The two Teachers that I will be comparing are Mr. Escalante from stand and deliver and Mr. Kipling from dead poet’s society. The largest and the most important thing that both of the Teachers had was belief in their students. In a sense they knew that their students could aspire the greatness within to pass any challenge or feet. They both encouraged their students to do their best and be themselves to a logical and acceptable degree. These two teachers are great examples of good teaching along with some miniscule pieces of bad teaching moments. But in the end they but have what it takes to be good teaching in the educational society. It will be a close call to see which one is the better teacher in some ways but in the end there is a good difference between which is the best. Both teachers have fought to be great but I have to a say in the long run the winner is Mr. Keenly with his encouraging and non-violent/ yelling teaching

dead poet society: good teaching

In some instances we see some small forms of bad teaching such as Mr. Keating singling out Todd Anderson and saying “Don’t you think that I know that this assignment scares the hell out of you”. The next scene shows a form of good teaching in which Mr. Keating again points out Mr. Anderson and taunts him in a way to help him grasp the idea of true poetry. In the same scene he also pressures him in front of the class to help him think in a way of poetry, such as detailing the picture of a sweaty-toothed madman. In this way he is using pressure from being in front of the class in order to bring Todd to the path of poetic enlightenment. So far in this half of the movie we only see small slivers of bad teachings from Mr. Keating but out of all of the slivers that we have seen this scene showing good teaching out ways a them all.