Against School

John Taylor Gatto showcases an interesting take on how public education is crippling our children. essentially saying that he is Against School. Gatto starts out with the definition of boredom. Gatto makes the interesting statement what was told to him by his grandfather saying: "he told me I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my own fault and no one else's". Gatto was using this as a segway conveying the message that if the students become bored with the curriculum or with the teacher, they should find a way to make it interesting themselves. The whole gist of the article is a disagreement with traditional public schools. Gatto wants students to be able to manage themselves. The idea of students "managing themselves" is not a widely accepted concept in the public school world. It is not that teachers are not open to this idea, but it falls under the category of "needing to meet certain curriculum" or "we need to prepare the students for the standardized test". It really is hard to try to implement this into a classroom environment where we are expected to have the students take and pass a regents exam at the end of the year.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MY Philosophy of Education and Learning

Image
Upon self-assessment, I learned what my educational philosophy really is. My philosophy follows the Behaviorism approach. Behaviorism  philosophy involves shaping our ideas by determination and forces in the environment. Learning occurs through reinforcing and responses to stimuli. I am not surprised that Behaviorism is my philosophy of education. Being that I teach special education students, a lot of my class is focused on repetition of skills and positive reinforcement. While Behaviorism was not the model I always intended on using, it is the method that works best with my class. In my class, reinforcing skills is essential to the student's understanding. Because they are in a 15:1 (self-contained) classroom, they need to be hit with the material from a view different angles in order to fully understand it. Here's a look at the history of the  Behaviorism Theory The philosophy that I like the best was Essentialism, which is the one I most associated with on my self-asse...
Read more

Digital Pedagogy

Image
Digital pedagogy involves classroom practices that require the use of other forms of modern technology incorporated into instruction. 1. I have observed a few digital pedagogy assignments in the classroom. I have seen students use social media as a form of classroom instruction and I have also seen virtual classrooms used. Interactive maps have become popular in social studies classrooms, and students are keeping up with classroom happenings and announcements through sites like Edmodo or Google Classroom. 2. For the teacher who is cautious about incorporating digital pedagogy, there are many ways to incorporate it in small ways. You can start by using blogging assignments in the classroom. By blogging, students have a safe digital outlet to share their thoughts and expressions. 3. According to the Digital Pedagogy  article, there are various training courses that teachers can take to work to incorporate digital pedagogy in the classroom. These can be found Khan Academy, Udaci...
Read more

Digital Age Education

1. What diverse learners are there in today's classroom? In today's class, we see a spectrum of different learners. We as teachers need to adapt and plan accordingly to the types of students that we have. We will get all different kinds of students who come into our classrooms. These students may have all kinds of disabilities with different kinds of skills. We as teachers need to address these issues and personalize our learning so they can be successful in the classroom. 2. What does brain research provide to adjust their teaching in the digital age? Brain research tells us that the way students learn is almost like a fingerprint, no student learns the same way as the other. If this is the case, then teachers need to access all the different parts of the brain that make it possible for the students to learn. 3. What is UDL? How do its principle's help teachers improve planning and teaching in the technologically advanced classroom? Universal Design for Learning is ...
Read more