HW #41 Initial Internet Research on Schooling [Added New Sources]

Topics: Making School Better, Gender Difference in Grades, etc.
|First article|
Desirable School Curriculum
Garlikov, Rick. "Desirable School Curriculum." Garlikov. Web. 22 February, 2010. http://www.garlikov.com/teaching/bettercurriculum.html.
This article explains how the curriculum are allowing students to just learn the facts and the ideas said by the reading but Rick Garlikov thinks that the curriculum and the teachers should put more effort in that the students are able to evaluate facts and find the significance. If the students are able to do that and they can use those evaluations and significance and put it as visuals, the students minds would be able to grow. The author wants to change the curriculum so that the students are able to think through the problems and understand what the texts/problems are showing.

The article reveals how the curriculum of the school is decreasing the students learning ability in thinking and communication. Learning the basic subjects, math, science, english and history are helpful but they are not helpful in a way that would interest the students more, and let them find the significance and evaluation by themselves. Students should not only be taught with the practical studies such as dealing with economic but are able to learn what they are interest in. By coming up with new ideas for the students to choose and think deeper in, the students learning ability in thinking and social skills would broaden. The school should also come up with better "decision-making and dispute resolution" using evidences/facts to help the students with their studies and in their own lives.

|Second Article|
Typical School Curriculum and Instruction Are Too Narrow and Wasteful
Garlikov, Rick. "Typical School Curriculum and Instruction Are Too Narrow and Wasteful". Garlikov. Web. 22 February, 2010. http://www.garlikov.com/narrowcurriculum.htm.
This article argues how society confuses schooling with education and many students feel that they are wasting their time because they don't feel interest or engage in the subjects. People put a lot of money into the schools to gather better resources and teach the students better but the schools can teach the students better with less expenses. Rather than teaching what the system are saying, schools should get more outside sources, such as great speakers, volunteer teachers, and outside events to let the students to receive more opportunities. The schools should let the students engage more in conversations and the teachers should give more feed backs to the students to improve their thinking and learning of the topics.

I agree with the article that there should be more fairness and importance in the education we are learning. Many students think it is a waste of time to go to the classes because they want to learn other things that are more intriguing. However, I think it is also hard for the teachers to come up with ideas that might interest the students and when the teachers do, it might change the students minds or the opposite. Rather than funding the school to magnify the system to everywhere, the funds should go to inviting the students to different places for the students to have more experiences. Even if the funds are not a lot, education does not have to be taught in a classroom with non-thinking but straight forward facts for the students to remember.

|Third Article|

Gender Issues.

"An Educator's Guide to Gender Bias Issues."UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN n. pag. Web. 22 Feb 2010. http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/wp/ACCESS/gender.html.

The article argues about gender bias about girls interests in the technology field, especially computers because the author said as girls grew up, they would begin losing interests because of parents, and people around them. The author wants equality for girls in the technology field and gives comments on how parents, educators and manufacturers should encourage females to use technology as their field. The whole article speaks about technology is good for the females to use and have the people around them to encourage the females to have interest in technologies.

The article, besides the technology conflict, says that classes and courses should be more gender separated but put the gender that has less interest in the subject be put in that subject. To have the gender equality, the author said it is a good way to have a schedule where the gender can both exercise in that class equally, in size of the class or in interests, so it will not be female or male dominated class. And because of the way the parents, the manners, and how the society sees females, that the females are the feminine type that the technology, especially computers are not really their type, that the manufacturers and researchers do not go in depth with the girls' interests/favors in games and computers' preferences. By building their interests of computers throughout the whole school years, the girls can increase the percent in the activities of computers so the equality between females and males can balanced out.

|Fourth Article|

Single-Sex Education

"Single-sex education." Wikipedia n. pag. Web. 22 Feb 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-sex_education.

It is a wikipedia page about how single-sex education is the basis of tradition as well as connecting to religion, and how the separation of gender in the schools have gave improvement in the gender's education. However, same-sex education also lacks opportunities that co-ed schools can provide. The page has authors that gives details about the scientific parts of the female's brain compared to the male's brain, and comparing about the education habits that both gender have. Then it lists in different countries of what the same-sex schools are like and the countries laws about same-sex.

It tells how females have different educational habits than males and by having them separated in schools/classrooms, it differentiate their ability and interest in the areas of studies. Many schools and in other countries allow it because of religious reasons and letting the females to be more females and males to be more males. However, it also creates inequality as the females cannot experience classes that mostly male does and vice versa. Same-sex education might create a better improvement that directs towards either gender but it lacks the experience that co-ed schools can give because having both males and females together give better working and school environment.

|Fifth Article|

Five Ways to Make Schools Better

"Five ways to make schools better." Ladies' Home Journal n. pag. Web. 22 Feb 2010. http://www.lhj.com/relationships/family/school/five-ways-to-make-schools-better/ .

There are five ways to make the school better and that are: "start a mentoring program", "lobby for phones in the classroom", "keep recess", "make sure teachers have e-mail" and "push for conflict-resolution programs". These five choices will help increase the students improvements in academic, build up self esteem and keeping recess help with concentrating with activity better. Having telephones and emails allowed the students to access for help from teachers and the teachers calling home even if it is in class.

The five ways that are suggested in the site helps both the students and teachers learning. Although there should be some possible restrictions with the telephones and some freedom and freedom between the teachers and students. The conflict-resolution program can help kids be more opened, when having another group of kids with them as it is more comfortable. Dealing with issues with kids, in my opinion, that the teachers need to considered the kids feelings first before putting their own opinions. A topic can be that the teachers are or are not able to help kids deal with problem due to age difference? The topic of being mature first rather than fairness? The teachers need to be discipline over the students rather than listening to the students problems?

Edit (HW #42 - Additional sources):

|Article six|

"Pisa international rankings." BBC NEWS (2007): n. pag. Web. 1 Mar 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7126388.stm.

This article comprises the rankings of education about "How 15-year-old pupils compared" in Reading and Mathematics in the world.

In this Pisa ranking site, it shows how well the kids (15 year olds for this case) do in the two huge subjects, Reading and Mathematics and Taiwan was placed first in Mathematics in the above average while Japan was located quite down the list. This shows how China has a better/stronger mathematic field than Japan.

|Article seven|

Zhang, Xiao . "Chinese Families Spend Heavily on Children's Education." CHINA.org.cn. 23 November 2001. China Today, Web. 1 Mar 2010. http://www.china.org.cn/english/2001/Nov/22548.htm.

This article talks about how many Chinese parents spend a lot of their income (about one-third) on their chlidren's education. The parents and the students both think by getting in a good school, especially prestigious can allow a brighter future. So the parents would get loans and be in debt so that their children can get the bright future they want. "Making sure my kid gets the best possible start", one of the parents said in the article.

I think that this article places forth what the "slogan" is for China's education. By having a good education, there would be a brighter future and the families are willing to risk their money and send their children to any prestigious schools if they can get in. In the article, it states that children's education is "second only to their spending on food", which I think is really big but not surprising (at least for me). The parents would also send their kids to another country to get better experience and come back with a better degree. The topics that I came up was how parents pressure the kids to get as good grades as possible and how Chinese families are financial crisis because of China's education.

|Article eight|

"Japan School System." Japan Guide. Web. 1 Mar 2010. http://educationjapan.org/jguide/school_system.html.

This website talks about how the Japan's education system works and the schooling (kindergarten, middle school and high school). Then it gives a brief description of how cram school can let the children get into a good senior high school and college because they need to take entrance exams. Then it talks about Japanese teachers and how they teach, base on the state's curriculum but the teacher can give their own teaching method.

I think topics that are spoke in this website a lot are exams and pressure given that the children spend 12 hours a day (before homework) on school stuff and extracurricular activities + cram school. They are taking cram school to get a good grade on the entrance exam to get into the good college. I think this is similar to China as it is competitive and the fees are high as well. Both the countries have similarities in testing, high fees and pressure.

Additional Sources [placed here for saving]

http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/77753.html --> how the high standards give the students a lot of pressure and cause suicidal rate to be higher than other countries. Article is not complete.

http://edu.cn/20041203/3123354.shtml --> Education system in China

http://www.kcg.ac.jp/kcg1/student_html/jspse.htm --> Japan's System of Post-Secondary Education

HW #40 School Interviews x5 & Synthesis

The four main questions that I asked was:

1)What kind of learning do you expect kids to learn? Or what kind of learning do you think kids should have?

2)If you were in an all gender school, how would it affect your learning and your surroundings? would you feel more pressure or different from co-ed/public schools?

3)How does the environemnt/surrounding of the school affect how you think about the school?

4)How does your experiences in elementary school to middle school to high school affect your imaginations or ideas or thinking about the society that you are going to enter in the future?

First person:

When I asked her, "what kind of learning do you expect kids to learn?", I put this question as very general because I want to see what people think of what their definition of "learning" is. So her answer was, "something that will help them in the future", "to make a living, able to make the "right decisions" and to build a "high sense of awareness". Then I asked her if what she just said follows what the Americans would say and she said yes. She explained, "Since we will be transforming to the society getting a job, and the way society goes is tat you have to be educated like having degrees to get a job regardless of what you actually learned. The numbers, papers, certificates is what really matters. Although school did not really teach us how to do everything that we need to survive in thsi society, at least they help us to learn something that will get us a job?" But when she said about the self awareness part, she doesn't think that the school had teach the students much about that because we are learning what's needed, and not really thinking about it.

Then I asked her about the curriculum because her answer sounds as if we just need to complete these steps through school and we will get what we need. "Do you think we should be learning something else besides the curriculum? Why do you think the curriculum is there for us?" I asked. She responded, "I think we should but I don't know what else, because the way I grew up was to learn from school. The school is the way i know about the world. If you were to ask me to create something, I don't know if that will be relevant or even correct? It seems everything has to based on concepts". She said it is hard to come up with something new, and the curriculum is there for us because it maps out what we need to know about the world. She thinks all the subjects that we learn are connected to the world and it make sense because she grew up with these perceptions. She also thinks that the people who dislike and complains about school would not help their future as they are not interested in the subject and disagreeing with the concepts that school gives. She believe that those people who complain wants to create something new but because it is hard to create a new rule. She said, "because of his or her inability to do so, especially now a day, it is hard to start with a new rule since these rules are just there for convenience anyway. 1+1 can equal to 3 but this new concept will be hard to get used to" and she ended the interview with, "you can say we are the victim of history?"

note: *Second and third person was chat through aim*

Second person:

When I asked her the first question, she said, "We should learn how to accept other cultures and be opened because people today still believe in racial superiority however, it is important to accept diversity and to respect other cultures." Thinking that answer was good enough, I moved on to the second question, and she answered, "If I was in an all girls school, it would probably affect my learning because girls think similar and if we have a class discussion about women in society, we would not be able to hear the males' opinion. I am not sure if i would feel pressure but probably different than co-ed schools." I asked her if she can be more opened minded in a same gender school and she thinks she can be more open minded. However, she can only speak for herself, "you can't speak for others" even though "you might have some idea what they would say but you never know their real opinion".

I asked her the third question, and she said she learn to accept and respect those who are from different cultures because her school is quite "diversely culturally". Then I asked her the fourth question and she said, "My experience from middle to high school affect my ideas about society because my teachers had taught me to accept and mainly to respect others so they would respect you." I thought it was quite funny and asked her, "What would happen if the other person dont respect you, would you still respect them? Teachers always say respect, respect but do you think they actually give us respect, they are our bosses" (note: I'm sorry, I'm not trying to offend the teachers or anything). She responded, "I would still pay my respect to them" and then to the teacher respecting questions, "I think teachers do, at least the ones that I met, because they listen to our opinions and respect our beliefs".

Third person:

She said that good quality of learning are teachers are open minded and provokes thoughts, motivates students and keeps them inspired instead of "spoon-feeding" students when I asked her what kind of learning do you expect kids should have? Then I asked her what do you want to learn, and what should other kids learn and she gave the me answer, "the subjects we have" and "it's a good thing to learn a little of everything". She also said similar things as the second person, that we should all keep an open mind as we are learning many things.

When I asked her the third question about the same gender school, she said she would be able to learn more and the "community would be more 'closed'". She also said it wouldn't "break away from the traditional 'views'". I asked her what she mean and she said, "like stereotypes and it would seem like gender segregation". She added how, "it's like guys wondering how the girls locker room would be and vice versa". However, she thinks she would feel more pressed in the same gender since she has been in a co-ed school for a long time. She feels easier communicating with the girls but she connected how in the "real society", the work site is co-ed. Then I asked her a question that just popped up in my mind, "do you think there are more bullying in same gender school or co-ed?" However, she wouldn't say since "incidents might vary".

The last question I asked her was, "How does the systems of the school affect how you think about the school and your learning?" Then I clarified that the system can be grading system, rule system or class system and she chose how the students are "grade driven especially with numerical grades". I asked, "how does that affect ur learning?" and she said she had to study for exams, mostly studying every night and had to cram the night before an exam. And she said these kinds of habits of cramming and staying late have become an habit for students because of the grading system. She also said how we are turning into machines because we are just memorizing, not understanding it mainly. "Especially at times, there is just no answer to why, we just have to know the rules", she explained. And I asked if the rules are set up by the world or is it for us and she said, "humans". "Universe doesn't care necessarily about education, just about surviving and reproducing," she said clearly. Lastly I asked her, "How does your experiences in middle school to junior school to high school affect your imaginations or ideas or thinking about the society that you are going to enter in the future?" And her answer was, "I was thinking of homo sapiens that don't have clothes and they survive...umm I'd say it became more practical, less fantasies and dreams. More realistic and planning, mature".

Fourth Person: I find this interview very funny.

When I interview this person, I asked specifically about the third question, "If you were in an all gender school, how would it affect your learning and your surroundings? would you feel more pressure or different from co-ed/public schools?" And his answer was, "It would affect my learning and my surroundings because I won't be able to date anyone unless I was 'gay'". However, he thinks it wouldn't affect his learning because he is just going to sit there and listen to the teachers. Unless someone bothers him and mostly likely his friends who are boys and comparing with going to an all boys school, it will be the same bothering so there are not much difference. He said, "we tend to do stupid things and not focus on our grades...and I don't pay much attention to surroundings".

I asked him, "why do you think we have same gender school?" and he answered that, "to keep young guys from having to do "it" when they are young" but that can lead to becoming "gay" if it is in an all boys school. Then he told me that it is better to be heterosexual than homosexual since he had something against gay marriage but it is because if there are too many gay couples, heterosexuals will have no one to be with. And I laughed at his comment, not offending him but I feel that his answer is very simple. When I ask if his answer connects with the society's answer, or is it his own answer through how he see gay marriage, he said it's his own. He said some may agree but he feels that his answer was made from his own point of view.

Fifth person:

This person is currently attending in an all girls school and I find that some of her answers are different from people who went to co-ed schools. Though I told her I am going to interview her, I didn't ask the main questions straight ahead as I did with the other four. I asked her to tell me the experience in her school and the big difference she felt between same gender and coed schools (since she went to a co-ed school before) is that girls there don't really care about their appearances. Since there are not many people to impress with (especially towards the boys), she said, "we're all messy". Also she said how there are more gossips and the girls are rather "mean". (This is in school news ->) When I asked her if there are bullying in the school, she said yes, because of/from Facebook and the girl who was bullied left. Then I asked if she is scared about the safety, but she answered no, though there are girls who are scared. She explained bullying happens in every school, it is just more or less bullying that happens.

When I asked if she feels more pressure in her school, she answered "no" and her explanation was that she was not "into the trends they have at school". Like the popular trends, she said she is not that into it or the songs. She said, "I don't really care what I listen too =D As long as I like it". Then I ask if the school's surrounding affect her learning and she said no, "As long as it's not near a nuclear power plant, I'm fine". Finally, I asked her about the first question, What kind of learning do you expect kids to have? or what kind of things do you think kids should have? However, her answer was different from the other three people I interviewed. Her answer was, "I guess I'm not sure o.o".

End of Interviews

Part B:

I guess the two aspects that I focused on was the learning and the gender of the school and I am going to focus on learning. For the first three people, I focus mostly on the learning and their answers are quite similar. I think that it's important to know that we are learning to know what needs to be generally known but not as deep of the subject as we could have gone. Because there are many topics within the subjects that needs to be gone over that we should just learn the rules and move on. Since the basic laws, how we, humans have seen the world already that even if we ask why does this fundamental thing does what it does, there are no answer to it. That basic and fundamental concept is just like life and the process of what we do in our educational life and in society. We just have to follow these rules and steps, trying not to ask too much whys and we can be like everyone else. Of course, there are people who think about it but is there a point in going too in depth with it? Can we find the answer? Because we don't even know if what we are doing is the reality.

Then, there is the curriculum that has been the backbone of education and is always changing but I find that everybody just follows it. We might complain about it, that it should be more fun, should be changed; we had protests against many things but not exactly towards the curriculum, but towards the people who have made it. We may be learning a little bit of everything, just like the third person said, but I find that those little bit of everything loses its value as we would begin to forget it. I find it sad how we are all living our childhood lives to look forward to the future. When I asked what kind of learning do you expect kids to learn, most of them gave the same answer but the fifth person said, "I don't know". When I created that answer, I thought that if people say what majority of society say, then I would think they are not looking at the real picture. But when the fifth person said, "I don't know", which is kind of the answer I was looking for, I start feeling that education and learning are the same but it is different. Education is by rules, and steps, but learning is not. There are steps in learning about this one thing but there are no rules in learning. We learn because we want to learn. But somehow we are always looking that education is for society, not really for our own sake since everybody connects with everybody. Though we may think it is for our own sake when we are concerning with ourselves but in society wise, we are putting ourselves in education to benefit others or not.

HW #39 First School Assignment

Part A:

Interesting:

- Some people come to school but they don't do work.

- People come to school because there are friends there.

- Even though it is called a community, we're not all united because there are cliques and groups

Fascinating:

- How different teachers can affect the students.

- Many students forget what they learned after a while.

- There are many school graduates that are not able to answer.

Powerful Questions:

- What percentage of students actually want to learn by going to school?

- How does our point of view of the school affect our performances at school?

- How does the violence in the school affects the students performances, the school's reputation and the levels of education?

Ideas:

- Be careful of whom you trust or interact with because those people will affect your life.

- School is a small city, where there is a society, and a government/hierarchy group.

- School is trying to shape us into different society dolls.

Experiences

- Getting to meet a lot of friends and learning from each other, such as cultures and building connections.

- Learning many things that might be helpful for my future, but are being helpful now, such as learning English and being the translator for my family.

- I can think what I am doing is hard, but it will be harder in the future if I don't get this done (is what I tell myself).

Part B:

A moment in school that I want to talk about is lunch time. I think its great that we have lunch time period that last longer than other schools. Additionally, since I eat in the cafetaria, and here are not many people there, my friends and I, and most of the people there are seniors get to have the whole cafetaria by ourselves. Unlike other high school food where my friends said that their school's food is not that great, I considered myself lucky that I get free lunch and the lunch that they provided are good. I think that lunch time is a good period for students to mingle, besides the hallway short time mingling, but during lunch time it is like a place to relax. Unless food fights happened which is the bad part, or when there are no food that I like to eat. I can be with my friends and chat with them more louder and there are more things to say. Sometimes I saw people who was not here during morning classes come at lunch time and I thought it was strange of them to do that. I always wonder why, unless they have some assignments that were going to be due, why not just come in the morning?

I don't really know how I want to explore lunch time but I think it is the only period where we don't have to do work. We can, but we don't have to. Its part of the freedom and with the leftover time, I can chat more or play games with my friends. However, I can see that when we eat, we tend to stay there at that spot everyday. Other groups sit somewhere else and I always see the same group sitting at that same spot everyday. It makes me feel mechanical as I know where I am going to sit, so I would move easily there without needing to remind myself which way to go. I find that school makes us more mechanical as we go to the same schedule and same routine to go to that class. Though the schedule might change, mostly everything else stays the same.

I find that most of the people in the cafetaria are seniors are better than having little kids there. That is because when I go eat breakfast there, there is a security guard there to hover over the kids to warn them to behave. I think it is annoying if there are too many people in a place eating around you and if they make a mess, it ruins the appetite. Lunch time is the only place for students to really eat their food or be allowed to because there are the kind people who cleaned up that location after we eat. Sometimes I feel bad if I leave a mess but sometimes if the mess is bigger, it's hard to want to clean that mess. I think after having lunch, it makes people feel lazy but also more re-energized.

I find it strange how as we are starting high school, we tend to flow away from the cafetaria and go outside to buy food. It seems like a transition from a child to an adult. We use money to buy lunch even though it might not be money we earned ourselves. I don't think many people in our school have tried the school lunch and goes outside to buy the food. I think its our imagination on our we think of school lunch that led us to believe it is better to go outside to buy lunch. Then some people have free lunch and even if the others don't, they just need to pay less than if they go outside to eat. I find that strange how not many people like to eat school lunch and I want to ask them why, but not the answer: The lunch food is bad.