class 6 readings

1.       Do kids who go to school like these enjoy the days they spend in them? Is school, for most of them, a happy place to be? (Kozol, ch 7, 163)

Students want to go to a school that has nice facilities and school supplies. I think it is tough for the children to be motivated if they go to a school that has nothing. School needs to be an outlet for some students because of their bad family life and their living arrangements, but having school in bad condition is not a place students want to be.  I don’t think it is a happy to be and to be honest once students get in the school, they probably shut down. By this I mean, they don’t care about learning or getting an education once they enter that school.  A huge part of motivation is scenery and the looks of things, and if students don’t have that surrounding them than they will not be motivated. Educators have to remember that students attend school to get away from the reality and walking into buildings that are the same as the ones they are trying to get away from, students will shut down.

2.       When a boy gave him a good and careful answer to a question, he reached out his hand, palm flat, and met the child’s hand, palm flat as well…. (Kozol, ch 7, 166)

I love this quote in the book because I feel like I have been reading so many negative things about education and teaching, to finally hear something like this is great. We finally have an example of good teaching. Yes, feedback is important for these children, especially at a young age. It takes me seven chapters of reading to come across something positive about educators. This is a perfect example of keeping children motivated to learn. This type of feedback keeps the child’s confidence up and if confidence is up than the child will want to learn more. Some people might look at this and say, there is no need for high fives in the classroom. My response to that is, why not? Just because children are in a classroom setting, does not mean they are not allowed to enjoy themselves.  It is important for children to receive that encouragement in the classroom, rather than the pressure. It is pretty obvious to me that students respond much better with positive feedback and providing this to the students will increase the students will to learn.

3.       “Chemistry labs with no chemicals at all, literature classes with no books, computer classes where we sit there and talk about what we would be doing if we had computers.” (Kozol ch 7, 171)

What are the kids learning if they do not have the materials that correlate with the class? I understand if the school does not have money to supply these materials, but on the other hand I think the teachers need to take initiative and provide some materials themselves. As a teacher, you need to figure out ways to gain your students attention and keep them wanting to learn. Two movies come to my mind when thinking of this, Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers. The two teachers in these movies do a great job trying to do whatever they can in their power to provide their students with a chance of learning. They provide students with materials and field trips out of the schools budget, and this teaching strategy works. Once again the students need to be motivated, and giving them different environments and materials will keep them interested in learning. On the other hand, a school should not be open if it has these conditions. You cannot have classes without these essential materials, and that’s why I feel schools need to join together and become one, or schools that have materials need to share them with other schools.

4.       “I saw a rat in room 28.”   “The room smelled very bad and it made me sick to my stomach. There was blood all over the place.” (Kozol ch 7, 172)

I don’t know even know how to react or respond to this quote. Neither children nor adults should be in this type of environment, especially not a school. This type of environment is not healthy for anybody to be learning or teaching in, and I am amazed that there are schools like this in the United States. If I was a teacher or student in that school I would never want to show up. No one should be learning in that type of environment. I don’t have anything else to say besides; it is ridiculous that school have come to this. From reading this, school is not a safe haven anymore.

5.       Because of the way the schedule was arranged, roughly half the children had no summer break; a child completed one grade in the final week of june and began the next grade three days later. (Kozol ch 7, 173)

I feel as if students should not have this type of schedule in school. An overload of students like this should not be going on in cities, if it is than they need to come up with some type of resolution. Students are at school for more than half a year, and then you expect them to continue school during their only real break. Yes, summer school is a good thing for students, if they need it, but to expect students who have been busting their butts in school to go to school during the summer is ridiculous. Overloading schools with population is becoming a huge problem in big cities, but finish one grade at the end of june and start another in july is out of control. They are still kids and need their breaks, and summer is really the only one they have. IT should not be taken away from them; that is the one privilege they always get.

6.       “Sometimes I feel when we go to testing, we are actually missing big part of a class….and you never know when a class will make you see life differently.” (Kozol ch 7, 184)

This is an amazing quote to me because it comes from a student that people may never listen too. It comes from someone who hasn’t been given the chance to prove themselves. But most of all, the quote is written down for people to read. It came from a question that Kozol asked students to answer. I think when things are written down, they have so much more meaning and they seem to be more truthful. To see and read what this student wrote to Kozol, makes you realize as a reader, what these kids are going through in their schools. It is obvious that this student hates testing and wants to be in the classroom. To actually hear that from a student is something a teacher always wants to hear. This student actually wants to learn because they what they learn can be useful to them in the future. What does standardized testing do for their future? Students need to have the opportunity to soak up as much knowledge as they can, and standardized state testing jeopardizes this.