My Foundations of Education

1. Politics of Education

1.1. Conservative-Progressive

1.1.1. Competition

1.1.2. Intrinsic motivation

1.1.3. free market

1.1.4. The Raegan philosophy

1.1.5. schools should be part of a steady process to make things better

1.1.6. schools are essential for individual development

2. U.S. Education History

2.1. The Standards Era began around 1983 when President Raegan issued a report called "A Nation at Risk" which began the foundation for school reformation by bringing attention to the lack of adult literacy as well as low test scores and standards.

2.2. The Democratic-Liberal School:

2.2.1. >Believes in equality and excellence

2.2.2. >Lawrence A Cremin agrees that there are discrepancies between opportunity and results.

2.2.3. >Provides a place for everyone

3. Curriculum & Pedagogy

3.1. Humanist Curriculum: knowledge of the traditional liberal arts is the cornerstone of an educated citizenry.

3.2. Student should be liberally educated and should study English, foreign languages, math, history and science.

3.3. We should go back to this because students need to be well rounded in all areas and not exclusively Western culture.

3.4. Functionalist theory: curriculum is to provide students with knowledge, language, and values to ensure social stability

3.5. Schools are to teach values and norms of society

3.6. Schools should not teach facts to memorize, but teach students how to learn.

3.7. Functionalists also believe history and literature is less important to teach, but that is the part I disagree with.

4. Educational Reform

4.1. Teacher quality: highly qualified teachers are expected in every classroom, but many may be unqualified in the subject matter they are teaching. (out-of-field teaching)

4.2. The problems stem mostly from lack of organization within schools. Many teachers leave schools because of poor working conditions and lack of professionalism.

4.3. Hiring should be a more rigorous process because of the high drop out rate of teachers. Students need consistancy because many of them will only get that at school.

4.4. "A combination of school, community, and societal level reforms are necessary to reduce the achievement gap."

4.5. From the 1980s to 2012 educational reform has emphasized the excellence side of the excellence and equity equation. Quality over quantity is what matter in teaching.

4.6. Providing for basic needs of students will in turn help teachers be able to teach. A student who hasn't eaten since Friday at school may come in hungry and grouchy, but a teacher cannot reach that student until they are fed.

4.7. Students know when you care and when you don't care. They need to feel as though school is a safe zone where all their needs are met which means teachers need to step up their game.

4.8. Five element: "meaningful learning goals, intelligent accountability systems, adequate resources, strong professional standards, and schools organized for student and teacher learning." If these things are put into place change will happen and it will be drastic and meaningful.

5. Philosophy of Education

5.1. Idealism: exploring ideas

5.2. Perennialism: teaches concepts and focuses on knowledge and the meaning of knowledge.

5.3. The goal of an educator should be to help guide children in learning while allowing them to question what they are being taught.

5.4. Plato belived in assisting his students in achieving higher forms of knowledge and understanding.

5.5. The goal of education is to produce knowledgeable individuals, with progressive minds, who want to continuously be transformed.

5.6. Plato believed that education was to assist individuals towards achieving the greater good.

6. Sociological Perspectives

6.1. Functional Theories:

6.1.1. >Emile Durkheim believed moral values were the foundation of society

6.1.2. >Interdependence of the social system

6.1.3. >School's are necessary for creating moral unity, social cehesion, and harmony

6.2. Knowledge: The more years of schooling the more knowledge and social participation

6.2.1. Employment: The more college and schooling the higher the chances of earning more money

6.2.1.1. Education: Opens doors for oppurtunities

7. Schools as Organizations

7.1. Phil Williams: House of Representative. Bill Holtzclaw: Senator. Dr. Tommy Bice: Superintendent. Mary Scott Hunter: State Board Representative.

7.2. The United States has a very complex education system compared to most other countries. It is decentralized. To pass laws many different people with various amounts of influence must approve it. The government has mainly left education to the people and their states.

7.3. The United States organizes schools by elementary, junior high, and high school. The school systems give a degree of openness. The composition of schools are also diverse due to many different races, languages, and wealth. Students achievements are based on statistics and standardized tests.

7.4. Finland has made a point to turn their education system around including turning away from standardized testing and focusing on equal access to curriculum.

7.5. To become a teacher in Finland you must be one of the 15% chosen who will then recieve free college and a stipend. Teachers are well respected and treated as such.

7.6. Finnish teachers also get the opportunity to oversee smaller class sizes as well as time to collaborate with other teachers. Because of good teaching conditions, teachers are able to develop better practices to suit the needs of their students.

8. Equality of Opportunity

8.1. "There is little doubt that society discriminates against women occupationally and socially."

8.2. Classroom teachers assume gender bias even without realizing it especially in mathematics. If girls were held to the same standards as boys the achievement gap would decrease.

8.3. Educational attainment between girls and boys have significantly decreased over time. I believe the "feminizing" of classrooms do have some part in that because women are beginning to fight harder for equality.

8.4. Female students generally outperform males in all areas except mathmatics.

8.5. Coleman Study: students who attend predominantly middle-class schools do better on tests of achievement than schools with less middle-class students

8.6. It comes back to the expectations and willingness of students and teachers to strive to meet those expectations.

8.7. "The road to equality of opportunity does not go through the schoolhouse door." I believe in quality over quantity and no matter the amount of funding a school has it comes back to the quality of what is done with or without that funding.

9. Educational Inequality

9.1. Functionalists believe schooling produces unequal results, but those results are based on individual differences.

9.2. "Ensure the elimination of structural barriers to educational success and the provide all groups a fair chance to compete in the educational marketplace.

9.3. Students should not feel as though just because they're poor they'll always be poor or just becauase they're rich they'll stay rich. Students need to understand they can succeed or fail no matter where they are economically or socially.

9.4. Within-School Difference: "Education in the United States assumes that students in the lower tracks are not capable of doing academic work and thus schools do not offer them an academically challenging curriculum. When these students do not perform well on examinations measuring their skills and knowledge, it confirms those expectations."

9.5. Curriculum and ability grouping is wrong. If we want students to succeed we set them up for it, if we want them to fail we do the same thing.

9.6. If teachers set high expectations, students will aim to achieve them, but with that teachers must be prepared to put in the work and as students see that they will to.