7th Blog

 Thomas Hehir's Eliminating Ableism in Education

    The basis of Thomas Hehir's article is that special education students deserve the same support system, educational experience, and societal treatment that other students have in school systems. It mentions how parents have to get involved with the school system in order to get accommodations put in place for their children to a better chance at success. These systems should already have accommodations or processes in place for these children to better their overall learning experience and social development for their future. The elaborate testing to find out if a child has a disability or finding out they do not meet all the qualifications to be given a medical diagnosis for a disability needs to be assessed and adjusted in order to increase the education and overall wellbeing of these students. I have gone to school with quite a few people who struggled with certain parts of their learning and social skills while knowing that they have some medical symptoms of a disability, but due to them not having all the symptoms they were not diagnosed with one. There needs to be a better way to adapt learning to students who have disabilities and to fix the medical diagnosis of disabilities. 

Hyperlink: Advocates work to protect students with disabilities amid education changes in Iowa (kcrg.com)

    

6th Blog

 Teaching Bilinguals and Richard Rodriguez's Aria

    In the three videos about teaching bilingual students, the teachers and students both make an effort in teaching each other and building upon the knowledge obtained by bilingual students. Unfortunately for author Richard Rodriguez, he had difficulty being brought into the American school system with Spanish as his second language. He discusses how he considered it a "private language" due to him needing to know English and be taught in English. He also said that his peers could have picked up on Spanish faster if they had started earlier due to the wealth and sources given to the school system they were in. Rodriguez also felt like English was intimidating due to its unfamiliarity and wanted more people to be taught Spanish so that he felt more comfortable. These two pieces of information depict two sides of the story: one being the newer progressive way of teaching bilinguals and supporting their culture and improving their capabilities, and the second being the "Americanization" of people so that it is easier for control over a classroom with lesser regards toward the students. 

1. How teachers can work better with bilingual students (uwm.edu)

In this article it talks about a Puerto Rican immigrant who was able to get better support through a bilingual teacher she had in the fifth grade. The article discusses more need in this area of teaching, for it vastly improves the potential and understandings of students who struggle with a language barrier. 

2. US education secretary stops at Webb Middle School to tout bilingual education (msn.com)

In this article, it discusses how the US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona visited a school system and discussed to faculty and students how important bilingual education is, with most of those students being bilingual learners themselves.

To summarize above, bilingual education is an important piece developing in the art of education that will further produce more capable minds by unlocking more potential. By making these students more comfortable as well as having english students learn another language, the intelligence and understanding capabilities of these students would be unmatched. 

5th Blog

Patrick Finn's Literacy with an Attitude

Overview: Patrick Finn's work in this article describes the idea that working class people get a better education due to it being domesticated. The domestication of the education brings students to being able to read and understand at a basic and "passable" level. However, being in the upper class of society provides better education systems, including better reading and understanding levels that develop much more intelligent students that bring out their potential. Finn also discusses his experiences with working with students in the working class level, and brings a personal insight and how he has developed due to the students teaching him.

FNED BLOG- Megan Falls: Blog Post #5: Literacy with an Attitude by Patrick...:     Literacy with an Attitude by author Patrick J. Finn puts forth the idea that working class people receive domesticating education in sc...

Extended Comments:  

 

    When reading Megan's blog on Patrick Finn, she uses quotes that describe her points well, with an example being when Finn was teaching in Chicago. She uses a quote discussing how teachers try too hard to be the dominant figure in the classroom rather than the supportive, respected figure that is suppose to show them the right path. In addition to this, she transitions into Lisa Delpit who has a similar quote to relate to how the students also have powerful, useful knowledge that needs to be taught. She further adds that working class students have good knowledge on individual and cultural background, which are both absolutely true. Megan also adds that the information these students have are useful to removing barriers in the classroom setting.

    In her second paragraph, Megan mentions how middle and upper class school systems have curriculums and procedures, which allows for more freedom for both the teachers and the students. However, Megan claims that in working class school systems, teachers and students do not have the freedom to improvise. There is also not a lot of creativity, room for error, and stricter, less understanding teachers. 

Thoughts: When reading Megan's work after Finn's, I agree with the analysis Megan has on the article. There are important differences school systems that have different economic and societal class systems that vary the excellence in the education those students are being provided.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/nov/21/english-class-system-shaped-in-schools

Video Analysis Links

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11-_u2vykdmeGQVRmtAS_82sk8WCqk2dFt6dfMsRKEB0/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SD8_Z6JqKjjCYw2RQU3AOaR7pAdQlsJYrOmtlL9frBI/edit?usp=sharing

Classroom tour on hard copy