1. Ch. 2 Politics of Eduation
1.1. 1. Identify and describe the four purposes of education.
1.1.1. The four purposes are intellectual, political, social and economic. The intellectual purpose is to teach basic cognitive skills. Which is to transmit specific knowledge in and help acquire high-order thinking skills. It involves processes like thinking, decision making, comprehension, judgment and evaluation in subjects. The political purpose is to get future participants prepared and educated of the existing political orders. Also to help bring diverse cultural groups into a common political order. The social purpose is to help solve social problems. To get children socialize into various roles, behaviors, and values of the society. The econiomic purpose is to prepare for future occupational roles and prepare students to select, get trained, and allocate each into dividsion of labor.
1.2. 2. Choose and describe a perspective for the following: 1) the role of the school; 2) explanations of unequal performance; and 3) definition of educational problems.
1.2.1. I think the role of school is more of a liberal perspective, where the education system is set to provide equality to every student and ensure fair treatment. I view the explanations of unequal performance as a liberal perspective also. Through policies and programs , there should be an attempt to equalize those from disadvantaged backgrounds so they can have a better chance. I may have a mixture in all 3 perspectives for the definition of educational problems, but I'll chose liberal. Mainly because of the argument of inequality deriving from the differences in quality in urban and suburban schools and the low and high socioeconomic backgrounds.
2. Ch. 6 Schools as Organizations
2.1. 2. Identify and describe the elements of change within school processes and school cultures.
2.1.1. The elements of change within school culture and school process are time, effort, intelligence, and good will. First of all it takes time to manage and resolve conflicts, to build positive relationships, and to positively deal with changes. It takes effort to be involved in school restructuring and to be prepared for the issues,disagreement, and conflicts that will need to be managed and resolved. One must also be willing to build new relationships and behaviors,enabling trust and communication to leadership and an initiative to emerge. Intelligence comes in the interrelated process and content. The work process the team uses is as important as the content of educational changes it attempts. Time and good will is also required in the sharing decision making, trust and openness built within the team and the school, and the usefulness and the visibility of the project.
2.2. 1. dentify major stakeholders in YOUR district by name (state senators, House of Representatives, state superintendent, representative on state school board, local superintendent, and local school board)
2.2.1. Robert J. Bentley serves as president of the state Board. Cynthia Sanders Mc Carty, Ph. D is the State Board of Education representative for the local school district. The local superintendent is Dr. Cindy Wigley in the Marshall County Board of Education. The senator for the Marshall county school district is Clay Scofield. The representative for the Marshall County House District is Ed Henry. The local school board is Marshall County Board of Education.
3. Ch. 5 Philosophy of Education
3.1. Describe the particular world view of one of student-centered philosophy of education (pragmatism or existentialism). Include the following information: generic notions, key researchers, goal of education, role of teacher, method of instruction, and curriculum.
3.1.1. Pragmatism: philosophy encouraging people to find processes that work in order to achieve desired ends. Its founders are George S. Pierce, William James, and the one whose philosophy was an important influence on progressive education, John Dewey. Dewey's notion in a progressive setting was that children children required a course of study that would reflect their particular stages of development because they are actively growing and changing. Dewey's primary role of education was growth. He view was that ideas could be implemented, challenged, and restructured, with the goal of providing students with knowledge of how to improve the social order. He believed on balancing the needs of society and the community on one hand and the needs of the individual on the other. Methods of instruction were nontraditional allowing children to work in natural ways. The teacher had a non-authoritative figure and her role was more of a facilitator. Curriculum changed as the social order changed and as children's interests and needs changed. This was known as traditional discipline centered curriculum.
4. Ch. 7 Curriculum & Pedagogy
4.1. 1. Explain a curriculum theory which you advocate (humanist, social efficiency, developmentalist, or social meliorist).
4.1.1. The developmentalist is the curriculum theory I support. It is related to the needs and the interest of the students rather than the needs of the society. The curriculum first became dominant with Dewey's progressive principles implemented in a number of independent progressive schools. School and curriculum historians felt it was not very influential in U.S. public schools, but also noted that it has been profoundly influential in teacher education programs as well as an important model in independent schools.
4.2. 2. Identify and describe the two dominant traditions of teaching.
4.2.1. The Mimetic and the Transformative traditions. The mimetic is based on the viewpoint that the purpose of education is to transmit specific knowledge to students. The best way of doing it is by the didactic method that commonly relies on presentation or lectures as main form of communication. In this tradition education is a process of information transforming one another( teachers and students). Unlike Mimetic, with a traditional/conservative model, Transformative has a progressive model. Education for them is learning information with the purpose of changing the students in some meaningful way. They do not see the transmission of knowledge as the only component of education and teachers are not authoritative. Their process of teaching involves conversations between student and teacher in a way that the student becomes an integral part of the learning process
5. Ch. 8 Equality of Opportunity
5.1. Describe how class, race, and gender each impact educational outcomes.
5.1.1. Class impacts educational outcomes in the way that it places children in different levels or labeling.Some teachers think highly of middle and upper- class because they are more likely to speak "standard English. Also children with better financial support are seen with higher expectations than children with lower income because of the the resources that are provided at home, like books. The impact in race comes in with the race seen as minorities. Minorities, or Hispanic- Americans and African Americans, do not receive the same educational opportunities as whites. An impact, in the example of SAT scores, minorities score less and its link to awards in post- secondary institutions can up bring negative impacts to scoring less. As for gender, more girls are said to stay in school longer than boys and also achieve higher after graduation. Females are also said to have higher level of writing and reading proficiency than males, with males outperforming females in mathematics. Gender's impacts are more related to the individuals educational attainment.
5.2. What were the two responses to the Coleman Study from 1982?
5.2.1. The two responses were that private schools were more effective than public schools because private schools place more emphasis on academic activities and because private schools enforce discipline in a way that is consistent with student achievement.
6. Ch. 3 History of Education
6.1. 1. Choose and describe a reform movement that you think has had the most influence on education.
6.1.1. I think the 1954 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, which consisted of other separate cases in four states. Its sad to hear what the world was like in the past and how people of different race were not treated equal. the Brown v. Topeka Board Education is where the Supreme court ruled that state-imposed segregation of schools was unconstitutional. Although the decision did not fully succeed throughout the U.S., Brown's case slowly set the Constitution on the side of racial equality. It open doors to other movements/cases that slowly solved problems dealing with segregation and provided equal education opportunities.
6.2. 2. Choose and describe one historical interpretation of U.S. Education.
6.2.1. The conservative perspective did not side with progressive reform. Some critics still supported the goal of equality of opportunity and mobility through education, but believed the historical pursuit of social and political objectives resulted in significant harm to the traditional academic goals of schooling. Most critics argued for their own civilization. They argue that efforts to equality, multiculturalism causing changes in curriculum are all neglecting their heritage of western civilization. The progressive reform is seen as a threat to the democratic nature of public schools and conservatives call for a return to a traditional Western curriculum.
7. Ch. 4 Sociology of Education
7.1. 1. Define the theoretical perspective concerning the relationship between school and society: functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionalism.
7.1.1. Functionalism stresses the interdependence of the social system. Its concerned with the ways that a school socializes students into shared values and encourage social unity. Conflict theories base their social order in the abilities of dominant groups . they do not believe society is held together by shared values, instead they argue it emphasizes struggle. Interactionalism theories are critiques and extensions of the functional and conflict perspective. They label students from an inter-actional view and examine the interactions aspects of school life.
7.2. 2. Identify and describe 5 effects of schooling on individuals that you think have the greatest impact on students as explained in the book (there are 10 between pages 121-128).
7.2.1. Inadequate schools is one of the effects I believe have a great impact on students. Schools prepare students in different ways and some do not prepare every student equally. For example, urban education have failed to educate minority and poor children. The suburban schools and private schools get better educational experiences than other children. Next is the teacher behavior, I think its important how a teacher influences student achievement, actual performance, self esteem , encouragement, and more. If students do not feel good about themselves and are not encouraged to reach full potential, they will not have that help needed to motivate their best. the third id gender, because men and women do not share equally in U.S. society. Men are often payed more. Men usually have higher roles like manager while women are below that. The fourth effect comes from inside the schools. Main factors inside schools are the curriculum and the school offers. Curriculum placement within schools impacts the probabilities of students attending college. Also large schools may offer more resources, but teachers do not have freedom . A teacher from a smaller school may have freedom to help each student individually, but the school may lack resources. Finally, education and mobility, where more education leads to economic and social mobility. The amount of education and where students attend school will prepare them differently within schools, Therefore students fall and rise based on their own merit.
8. Ch.9 Educational Inequality
8.1. 1. Explain the two types of cultural deprivation theory.
8.1.1. One of the theories removed responsibility of unequal performance from the schools and teachers and placed it on the families. This theory argued that some students, working class and nonwhite students, came to class lacking intellectual and social skills needed for satisfactory academic achievement. Arguing it is because families lacked the cultural resources, like books and other educational stimuli. The other theory argues compensatory education programs have not improved significantly the academic performance of disadvantage students.
8.2. 2. Describe at least four school-centered explanations for educational inequality.
8.2.1. The first one is about financing. Explaining that more affluent communities are able to provide more per pupil spending, through taxes, than poorer districts. The next two are differences within school curriculum and pedagogic practices. A situation in England suggested working class neighborhoods are far more likely to have authoritarian and teacher- directed pedagogic practices and a vocationally or socially efficiency curriculum at secondary level. Schools in middle class communities are more likely to have less authoritarian and more student centered pedagogic practices and to have a humanistic liberal arts college preparatory curriculum at the secondary level. And upper class to attend elite private schools, with authoritarian pedagogic practices and a classical- humanistic college preparatory curriculum at the secondary level. Last is tracking or ability grouping. An action taken showing that the U.S. assumes that students in lower tracks are not capable of doing academic work; therefore the school does not offer academically challenging curriculum.