HW 47- Class Film Preparation 1

Please compose a colorful list of 5-10 ideas that should be considered for inclusion in your section's version of the "Savior/Teacher" film. You could address plot, character, theme, tone, cinematography, dialogue, key images, tropes, references, or our collective process of making the film. Indicate which of the ideas are most important to you by putting an asterix by the one or few which you think are most compelling. Due the morning we return from Spring Break.

1. Trying to fix something that's not broken (Sam's Savior/Teacher film idea) where the teacher comes in with a "Lets save the students mentality" but the students are fine and there isn't anything really to save

2. Referencing Dead Poets Society- The teacher gets inspirational *cue inspirational music* gives a speech about going to college and tell the students to stand on their chairs. The students stare at the teacher and slowly stand on their chairs. *still standing* after a few moments, students are still standing on chairs *music stops* one student asks "now what?" teacher smiles and says "Just feel the inspiration." *music countinues*

3. Tone parody/satirical/silly

4. Trope- Blackboard Jungle- the teacher coming to talk to principal.

Parody version-

P: "I like what you're doing with the kids"
T: "I'm going to have them read Hamlet"
P: "Okay, sure if that's what you want."
T: "You can't stop me!"
P: "Okay..."
T: "These kids can do it I believe in them!"
P: "Okay, go for it."
T: Uh...what? You're okay with it?
P: "Yeah"
T: "Oh. Okay."

5. Cimenatography- Shot of cars or the brooklyn bridge (trope), have a shot of the school from the outside. Subway ride shot.

6.Trope- talk about death. The kids are on the roof, Teacher tells them to look around them. Asks them what they see. They say pigeons, buildings, a garden. Teacher tells them they're wrong, that its part of it, but what they see is the world that they're going to live in and to look carefully and things like that.

7.Go outside on a field trip

8. Shoot how school really is, with more than one class in a documentary style.
-have teacher interview or commentary about what they think about school and their classes
-have students interviews
-just one teacher so its not all over the place

HW 45- More Thoughts on Schools

1. Do these theories contradict each other? Intellectually, emotionally, practically? In what ways do they? Could they be adapted to work together? Hirsh believed that students need to know a certain amount of background knowledge to be able to understand certain texts or passages. He emphasizes knowledge in terms of memorizing and remembering. Sizer was more focused on the community and the environment of the students and the teachers so students can develop their intellect. He wanted to focus more on depth than coverage. He wanted to push students intellectually to what they were able to do. Hirsh was more focused on the practical knowledge of school that there were certain things that students needed to learn in order to be able to understand things in this society and that this information was background knowledge that would help students understand more detailed text. I think though it is practical, because rote memorization and drills are useful, it neglects the emotional aspect of school, from community and relationships. I think these two theories could work together. Students can learn a wide arrange of knowledge that is considered (by whom?) neccesary and delve indepth in certain points of these, while in an environment that always pushes them to do better and think intellectually like Sizer proposes to have.

2. Which of the two theories do you find more resonant in your own experience? Has your education at one of Sizer's schools (he not only inspired SOF, he also came and visited) taught you to use your mind well, to be intellectually alert, to be able to think about important aspects of your life and society? Have you had any teachers that seemed inspired, now that you know about it, by Hirsch? For instance, would you say that the chemistry class's focus on molarity and ions and the periodic table of elements create an emphasis on knowledge?

I think math classes in general is more inspired by Hirsh, or it always has been that way even before Hirsh, because in my experience from elementary especially, we needed a background knowledge such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division before we were able to understand more complex equations. I learned much of this through rote memorization and flash cards (like the multiplication table). But it was even more useful when I was able to practice it after I had a basic understanding of it. I think I experienced Sizer's method of teaching in third grade, where the teacher is like coach to the student, because third grade, out of the other classes in my elementary school was one of the hardest. The teacher would always push us to learn and teach us more things. But at the same time he developed a relationship with his students and we really respected him because he would share things that he liked like Motown, or Hannah Barbara cartoons. He was strict but that was balanced because he was also fun. So there was a community aspect to it. Also the course was simple in the way it was laid out. It was clear what we had to do in each lesson so it wasn't haphazard or confusing. We had incentives, because on fridays, if the class was good, which it almost always was, we would be able to watch Hannah Barbara Cartoons (I don't know if this would work with high schoolers but in elementary it worked well). I think in SOF, there is good sense of community among the students and teachers. I can see how it was inspired by Sizer. I do think though, there was some sense to Hirsh's emphasis on basic knowledge, because in math and science we should memorize certain information but because we don't need to, we don't. I think, I've always been a bit contrary, especially last year, I would often overanalyze and over think things, I don't think I do this as much this year because I have been trying not to. I think its more of my personal choice, than of my schools, because I was influenced by my contact with other people that led me to this conclusion. Sometimes though...I want rote memorization, because I have more of a clear goal, I have to do x in order to understand y.

HW 44- Big Expectations for School

Obama Speech
It presents education as a chance to discover ourselves and contribute to society. The basic message of his speech was that "Education is the road to sucess" and if you want to go somewhere in life, you have to have a good education. This is our society's basic answer for getting job, a career, and learning about what we want out of life.

In Obama's Speech, he addresses student responsibility to their education and wants students to put their effort in it. I don't see any harm in it, if you are using education to get a job, which most people are, you may as well put effort into it and be good at what you do. That is the basic premise of having an education in this country, that with good grades and a degree, it'll get you the career you want.

"We have a responsibility to ourself to discover what it that is" and find out what we are good at, which is something that going to school and doing well in it is supposed to help you do. Which I think it does along the subject areas we take in school because we find out what we like and develop our perferecnes. I feel like education is taken for granted, perhaps because it is so freely given it doesn't seem like a priviledge anymore, because it wasn't a choice, it was something we have to do, people usually value things more when they actually had to invest something to get it or if they feel like they chose something for themselves. "There is no excuse for not trying." He says that by not putting your effort in your education akin to letting yourself and your country down that's because education is our society's answer for what roles we are going to play in our lives.

Thomas Friedman
Education is in part capitalism--or at least it is partially what it is for. We see school as a place for learning and what are we learning for? To get a job. According to Thomas Friedman, traditional schools trains students to become employees and there should be an alternative school for entrepeneurs. It sets schools as the standard to having a prosperus society and that it needs to improve on school to help fix the current rate of unemployment. This is like what we said in class about people trying to fix institutions to fix society or in this case the economy. That perhaps if we created a new school that catered to entrepeneurs it would benefit students who wanted to be the bosses of businesses rather the employees. If they are focusing on the structure of schools and the way its structured and creating a more military structure with more emphasis on memorization, I think it'll be more like schools in Asia, that focus more on rote memorization as well. I don't know if having a school like this would automatically mean the creation of more jobs, but it might help. I think though if a school like this were to exist and work, parents would choose to send their kids there rather than a regular school because they would perfer if their kid was a boss rather than an entrepeneur. Its easier to attempt to fix the smaller problems through institutions and hope that by doing that there is a trickle up affect than to attempt to fix the larger problem by itself because fixing an institution is a more viable step for people.

Deborah Kenny
I think the top priorities of schools should be to try to foster a love of learning in their students, because once they accomplish that, the rest would be made much simpler if they actually want to learn and want to get better and grow as people and individuals. I think that's what this article is about, how this woman, Deborah Kenny, tries to create an environment where this is possible. Since this is a society that relies on this sort of system economically, socially, and in some ways mentally, then we should make this an institute worth going to and where kids can actually learn from. She focuses on developing good teachers, in addition to the cirriculum. Realistically, its not going to be perfect, but I do think having that sort of environment does affect the students and encourages them to try because students feed off the teacher and vise versa. In the summer, I got a job working with kids and part of the job training I had was be aware of our attitude, because our attitude affected the childs. We should try to encourage the kids to play in a group game, by wanting to play ourselves and being enthusiastic, because if a child sees you have a "oh this is boring" attitude, they'll copy you and adopt it and not play, but if you get up and do it, they'll copy that instead. Kids are very influencable, especially when they're younger, but even when they're older they're still like that. They can read what you're giving off. So, I think this is reasonable, that is something school is able to do, its not going to correct all the problems of our society, but at least it can get kids to learn.

HW 42-Significance

I've been in America for a very long time. I guess this is one of those "what if" scenarios for me. What if I had stayed? What kind of person would I be today? Would I be more studious? My mom often told me that when I was younger, I was the first grandchild and everyone doted on me. When I visit my family in China, they're very affectionate towards me but I wonder if I would be closer to them if I lived there. So I wonder about this scenario too. What if I went to school in China? Would I be better in math than I am now? Would I like math more as a result? How would this kind of schooling affect me? The math and science levels in Asian countries is higher than it is in America. In 3rd grade they would be learning 5th grade math with respect to America and it is always 2 or 3 grades ahead in terms of math and science. I also know the methods of teaching are different too. Rather than Socratic discussions it is more based on textbook learning and reciting. So while I don't dislike my current scenario, I want to find out more about the different ways the two countries educate their students and satisfy my curiosity, because I'll never know this "what if" scenario for real and researching this is probably the closest I'll ever get, even if on a superficial level.

I know that in the future, our countries' economics and "progress" is dependent on the schooling institutions that these institutions have provided our students as it is from these crop of students come the future leaders, scientists, and innovators. With globalization, people are not only competing state to state but country to country, each trying to be the most innovative and cutting edge, we can see this form of competition from car companies like Ford and Toyota. People are looking to schools to educate their young to prepare them for the future job market. If we are looking at this from the global perspective many companies are hiring from other countries because the same resources and brains are available at a cheaper cost. International Capitalism creates global competition in a free market economy. It shows where each country's priorities are. Understanding the economic factors to how these institutions have formed is like understanding where they are going to take it. By looking at their motivations and their wants you see what they're trying to do and what they're doing now to get it. That to me is rather interesting and comparing what they have so invested in and how well they have prepared their students for this task.