hen curriculum transformation occurs, students and teachers make paradigm shifts and view the American and world experience from the perspectives of different racial, ethnic, cultural, and gender groups.
This term is well defined and intuitive to use. When you transform the way education designs its curriculum, you get transformation in the paradigm and the view, experience in students that are valuable and as ground-breaking as Columbus' discovery.
Schools, like the rest of the social world, are structured by heterosexism-the assumption that everyone is and should be heterosexual
This is a very good point, under the dominance of patriarchy and heterosexualism, it's already deeply embedded with in our educational system that we have to approach the relationships between different genders in that way, and only in that way. Acting differently from this paradigm would result in marginalization of students. Imposing this kind of ideology on the students is very harmful for diversity.
Practices like having elementary students line up bygender or organizing teams of boys against girls, she argues, highlight theimportance of gender differences to young students at a time when theyalso are working through different ways of being gendered themselves.
This is a very good point because it points out the important part of education of gender differenciations. A lot of schools emphasize on the importance of treating boys and girls the same way but in reality their biological differences determine a lot of ways in which they learn things and preceive education differently.
Multiculturalism compels educators to recognize the nar-row boundaries that have shaped the way knowledge is shared in the classroom. It forces us all to recognize our complicity in accepting and perpetuating biases of any kind.
This is a well stated thesis and a generally pretty good claim that we can mostly accepet. If multiculturalism is embraced in a classroom, students will ideally speak up without fears. Whether or not students are free to speak, to a certain degree, decides how the knowledge taught in this classroom is shared among the peers. Because the knowledge itself is trivial, the process of learning, however, is to me the most important legacy students can get during their study.
The exciting aspect of creating a classroom community where there is respect for individual voices is that there is infinitely more feedback because students do feel free to talk-and talk back.
Ideally, when there is no discrimination in a classroom, students will speak up without any fears. This is a very important aspect of learning, in my opinion, that every student speaks up freely, thanks to the well constructed arrangement of the classroom. This kind of freedom of thoughts will grant every student the ability to communicate, think and cooperate. However, I have yet to see a convincing model for a classroom that will really achieve such an ideal.
Some express the feeling that they are less likely to suffer any kind of assault if they simply do not assert their subjectivity. They bave told me that many professors never showed any interest in hearing their voices.
I think the idea is correct, but the evidence that the author chooses to support his claim seems to be a bit weak in my opinion. The author is taking his own students as examples and what's worse is that he is using their persoanl feelings as evidence for discrimination against certain genders or races. There are a lot of factual evidences that the author could have used, and they are not hard to find, so I find it puzzling why the author chooses such poor examples.
Agam and agam, 1t was nec-mc . . ¡· . 11 t remind everyone that no educatwn 1s po 1tica y neu-essary o . . 1 Emphasizing that a white male professor m an Enghsh tra. ,. ak d arttnent who teaches only work by "great white men IS m -ep . . ing a political decision, we had to work cons1stently agamst and through the overwhelming will on the part of folks to deny the politics of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and so forth that · form how and what we teach.
I think this is a very strong and interesting point that we need to notice more in our education. Countries often embed certain ideologies into their education, that is no secret. But I think the author is making this kind of ideology more inclusive as to include even the race, gender of the professor and those of the author taught about matter.
espite the contemporary focus on multiculturalism in our society, particularly in education, there is not nearly enough practica! discussion of ways classroom settings can be trans-formed so that the learning experience is inclusive
I think this is a very effective and straight forward opening for an essay. The author identifies the problem with multiculturalism not being practically discussed enough, and comes up with a rather fresh and unique perspective, namely, the classroom settings. I never thought that the way that classrooms are set up could remotely make a difference in promoting multiculturalism, and I think a lot of people share the same thought. So it will be interesting to see how.
If I had any hope of being as successful as my well-connected peers, many of whom outclassed me, I would need to know some people. Someone to set up my internships in the summers, my job interviews for the 90% of posi-tions that are never advertised, my "foot in the door" or "let me see who I can talk to" opportunity that only insiders can get you. I didn't know anyone. I was from a poor family. None of my relatives owned businesses or knew anyone.
Networking and connections are also a very key part of success in modern society. One needs to really know people and the people they know need to have a certain social status in order for them to really get an opportunity that's good. However, poor people have trouble even taking care of themselves, let alone getting to know people of high social status. This is a very well articulated point as well.
Children reared in poverty disproportionately attend schools with the least-prepared, least-experienced, least-qualified teachers (Irvine, 2003). Staffing and course offerings are crucial in middle school because students who hope to attend college must engage in specific prerequisite courses prior to enter-ing high school if they are to have any chance of competing for admission to top-tiered or even average-quality four-year universities.
This is a really good point that I have personal experience about. I was in Bali for volunteering in 2018, and their children had to learn English from a non-native English speaker like me. And of course, I was not paid. This experience allows me to peek into how poverty can really affect the level or quality of education for the students. In comparison, I went to a private high school with teachers graduating from IVY colleges, and I go to a college now with professors that got phds. Money does make a difference in educaiton.
he early tracking and labeling of children reared in poverty is cumulative and devastating. It not only hampers students' self-esteem and cripples their own expectations of themselves but also, as Rist (1970/2000) discovered, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for what too often becomes a trajectory of underachievement.
I think I do not fully agree with the author on this part. I acknowledge that early tracking has indeed the risks the author lists out, but other than the negative effects, this kind of tracking could also be a motivation for the students to excel and do better in school. Different people perform differently under pressure and competition, and some students might take this as a motivation and actually work even harder in school.
On the basis of the inability of far too many people of color, as well as a vast number of Whites-neither of whom inherited wealth from their forebears-to purchase homes or, more important, to purchase homes in a "good school dis-trict,,, housing segregation continues to plague the educational and social out-comes of multiple members of the underclass.
Now the problem, or I should say one of the problems, has emerged quite clearly in front of us. People that are poor are often not capable of purchasing homes in a "good neighborhood" with good schools. Not to mention some of the best schools are often private and cost more to go to. Capitalism inevitably connects educaiton, which should be of greater good, with profit pursuit, which is personal good.
hen I begin discussions about poverty and achievement in public schools, my students often ask, "Why do poor students perform poorly?" The question is not about poor students and why they underperform in a system purportedly designed to elevate their opportunities and outcomes. The question is, "Why are people poor?" I insist that we begin with the lowest "rung" on the diagram because there we unpack the existence of a class of "poor people" who seem not to be living up to their potential in a presumably benevolent public education system that was designed-a
I find this methodology to be very informative and super strong. To effectively identify a problem, one must go down to the core of the problem and attempts to find out what the "lowest rung" on the diagram is. Only this way can one sufficiently address the whole issue without the risk of touching merely upon the surface of a problem. Why are people poor in the first place? The answer to that question will automatically say a lot about why people that are poor underperform in educaiton,
This is a very interesting concept that I personally think is very important but also practically very hard to achieve. In theory, public education serves as an opportunity for everyone to break the economic limits that come with their families. But in reality, especially in a capitalist society like America, money is the main pursuits in a lot of fields. Therefore, it's interesting to see how the author is going to talk about this topic.
Public schools are essential to make the American dream work, but schools are also the arena in which many Americans first fail. Failure there almost cer-tainly guarantees failure from then on. In the dream, failure results from lack of individual merit and effort; in reality, failure in school too closely tracks structures of racial and class inequality. Schools too often reinforce rather than contend against the intergenerational paradox at the heart of the American dream. That is understandable but not acceptable.
A very well written paragraph that calls back to the paradox discussed earlier in the paper. The American dream has its apparent paradox because of many reasons, and this paper, thus far, has demonstrated how the inequality in opportunities within the realm of education is contributing significantly to this paradox. Schools are supposed to set up kids for success, but the author suggests that it sometimes does the completely opposite. This is very interesting.,
et this progress has met limits. Hispanics and inner city residents still drop out much more frequently than others, the gap between black and white achievement rose during the 1990s after declining in the previous decade, the achievement gap between students from lower-and higher-class families has barely budged, and poor students in poor urban schools have dramatically lower rates of literacy and arithmetic or scientific competence. Most importantly, life chances depend increasingly on attaining higher education, but class back-ground is as important as ever in determining who attends and finishes a four-year college.
This paragraph serves as a powerful evidence that shows how at the core the American dream is at least not as simple and individualistic as it claims or seems to be. A lot of factors like race, class and different kinds of background play a significant role, or even decisive role in children's education early on.
he paradox stems from the fact that the success of one generation depends at least partly on the success of their parents or guardians. People who succeed get to keep the fruits of their labor and use them as they see fit; if they buy a home in a place where the schools are better, or use their superior resources to make the schools in their neighborhood better, their chil-dren will have a head start and other children will fall behind through no fault of their own.
I think the author is getting at some pretty good and important points in terms of American dream. The author claims that the American dream is but an ideological choice, which is very interesting to me because a decade ago I remember clearly that practically no one would doubt this American dream that this country is so proud of, and this paper was written even earlier. The fact that nowadays more people have been questioning the viability and reliability of this ideology goes to show that the author foresaw the problem in its core. As he rightfully points out, success has a lot more to do with things outside of personal talent and efforts than the American dream suggests.
"I am an American, so I have the freedom and opportunity to make whatever I want of my life. I can succeed by working hard and using my tal-ents; if I fail, it will be my own fault. Success is honorable, and failure is not. In order to make sure that my children and grandchildren have the same free-dom and opportunities that I do, I have a responsibility to be a good citizen-to respect those whose vision of success is different from my own, to help make sure that everyone has an equal chance to succeed, to participate in the dem-ocratic process, and to teach my children to be proud of this country."
As a philosophy student, I appreciate the author's efforts in trying to define the term even though American dream is a very well known concept and needs little explanation. This paragraph defines the term American dream to make sure that the audience have a good idea as to what exactly is the author trying to discuss later on in the paper. So far, the paper is very straight forward and clear in terms of writing.
T HE AMERICAN DREAM IS A POWERFUL CONCEPT. It encourages each person who lives in the United States to pursue success, and it cre-ates the framework within which everyone can do it.
The concept of American dream is one that we are all familiar with, and is something that we've been taught when we grew up, not only in the U.S. but also pretty well known worldwide. It's interesting to that the author decides to use this kind of cliche as the very beginning of a paper, this makes the audience instanly want to know what does something as commonly known as American dream have to do with educaiton and its implications.