2016. 10. 07
What does it mean to be a "good" student according to the commonsense? Which students are privileged by this definition of the good student? What is made impossible to see/understand/believe because of these commonsense ideas?
A good student would listen to what teacher says, almost never miss any class, answer teacher’s questions, complete and work good on assignments, studying more than playing… and the most important thing is that a good student has good mark on tests. In my personal experiences, a student who get good mark on tests mean that he or she is a good student; a student who get the best score or even full mark, he or she would be teacher’s “BEST STUDENT”. People think that way; that’s “Common sense”.
I think good students are definitely privileged. Teacher likes them, smiles to them all the time. Parents like them; even their classmates’ parents always praise them. Unfortunately, the so-called “bad students” may never see teachers smile at them. Those common senses like a good student should be…, cause the “discrimination” toward those children who did not “reach to or complete” the common sense. Teachers and even parents, sadly, never know or admit that they just need a little bit more time to learn, to grow. That does not make them “bad”; not at all. Unfortunately, to some degree, those “common” statements like “a good student should…”, blind people’s eyes. I often heard parents blaming their children: “ You are all in the same class, have the same teacher, and learn the same thing, why she (a good student) can get an A, but you don’t?” Parents and teachers seem to use mark and score as the only way to evaluate their children. Even worse, they compare children. But how can people be compared with others just based on test marks? How could they compare people? !
Does not get good mark does not mean they did not work for it. On the other hand, good mark dose not make a person “good”. Also, good mark dose not always prove the student really learned something, it might because the student good at memorization. As a teacher, it is our responsibilities to open our minds and know our children. Please never use mark to judge people. Students who dose not understand what we taught may because we did not teach well. If a student cannot learn from the way we teach, we should teach the way they learn. We do not have “bad students”; they are struggling and need more time and help does not make them a “bad student”. I believe every child can grow; some of them may need more time, but eventually they will get there. It’s we educators’ responsibilities to help our children pass through their hard time. Never blame students who did not get good grade on assignments and tests. Pay more attention on them, offer more caring and time for them, and help them overcome and success, that’s what we supposed to do. I hope every child would not be left behind because every child deserves good education and the opportunity to develop. Teachers, don’t let common sense blind you mind and heart! Trust your children; they can be better!
2016 10.14
How is citizenship education a curricular problem?
According to Joel Westheimer, there are three types of citizen: Personally responsible citizen, Participatory citizen, and Justice-oriented citizen. If an individual who donates often is considered as a personally responsible citizen, an organizer of a charity would be a participatory citizen, and then, people who attempted to figure out the cause of poverty and struggle to solve the problem would be a justice-oriented citizen. The personally responsible citizen is the most common citizen in our living society; at the same time, it is also the major kind of citizen that most school attempted to create. I did some researches and it says that most school merely creates one or two types of citizen, but hardly promotes all the three. Many schools tend to produce more “good” people, but good people does not completely equal to good citizen. The society needs individuals to care about peoples and environment around them, need citizens care about ongoing issues within their living society, and also need people who critically consider about social problems and actively having actions on them.
The other problem is that citizenship education may has lower priority in education system. When schools and educators focusing more on prepare students for their universities and workforce, citizenship education could be left behind. It is because civic study would not be tested; hence it gets less attention and lower priority. Less citizenship education may cause individuals, especially young people, have less knowledge about civic issues or even careless about policies, voting, government and so forth. However, it is important to teach children and young adults the knowledge about the world, society, and environment around them in order to help them learn how to live and act in a democratic society and encourage students to become responsible and active citizens. As educators, we want encourage our students becoming critical thinkers and active citizens.
Canada is a multicultural society, which means that Citizenship education becomes more challengeable for Canadian schools and educators. In order to promote the harmonious society, schools and teachers should recognize the complexity and diversity of citizenship and try to teach for a common democracy with respect toward diversity.
2016 10.21
Blog prompt: For this week, the writing prompt is organized as a before and after doing the reading.
Before you do the reading ask yourself the following question: how do you think that school curricula are developed? This is an entry point to this topic and whatever you write will be fine.
After doing the reading, please write your blog entry. Reflect upon:
How are school curricula developed and implemented? What new information/perspectives does this reading provide about the development and implementation of school curriculum? Is there anything that surprises you or maybe that concerns you?
Before I read the reading, I thought the curriculum was designed and created by a group of teachers. It was because I thought they know what to teach and what to learn.
Now I realized that, what students should learn was decided by the government; curriculum is extremely political. They want school create more “good citizens”; rather for individuals themselves, they want more “good people” for the “public good”. Public policy has its huge influences on the curriculum making; it affects what school should provide, how, to whom, in what form, by whom, with what resource, and so forth (p.8). People effects society, and vise versa. Hence, it seems like if we want better society, we need to have more good people. Rather say school or curriculum is created for students and children, their purpose more tend to be produce more good citizens for the society.
Government asked a group of experts from different subject areas to participate the creation of curriculum. However, the problem is that teachers and educators may not be able to teach the curriculum because they may not have the same level as experts do. How teacher teach other people when they do not understand what to teach? Government, experts, and educators should pay more attention on what students and children really need, not just what the society need. Lacking of considerations on students cause problems. School should consider more about students’ development and success, rather than just focus on “the society’s good”.
School is not an industry that used to produce “good citizens”; it should consider more about our children and younger generations. What children need to learn in school? What teachers can do to help improve students’ development? Those are questions the school board and educators should focusing on, rather than say, what citizens school should shape for the government and society?
Oct. 28 2016
You have been asked to examine the curriculum of the subject area you expect to teach once you graduate. Re-read that curriculum with the frames of literacy presented this week: autonomous and ideological? In what ways are these two frames present in the curriculum that you examined? Which one is more prominent? Following Lihsa Almashy's example, what changes can you do to connect the mandated curriculum to the students lives.
Currently, I was looking at the ELA 9 curriculum. I think the curriculum reflect both autonomous and ideological approach. Accordingly, “literacy will in itself lead to, for example, higher cognitive skills, improved economic performance, and greater equality” (Street, 2006). In other words, people’s ability to read would influence their understanding of the world. The ELA curriculum attempts to develop student’s thinking: “Learners construct knowledge to make sense of the world around them…English language arts is inquiry-based, and students use their language and thinking skills to explore a range of topics, issues, and themes” (Ministry of Education, 2008). Through learning, students would be able to make sense and connection of the world around them.
So, students are expected to “reading to learn”. Through reading, students would learn more about the society, the community, and people around them. For example, there is a Unit in ELA 9 called “Exploring, Love, Loyalty, and Relationships”. This Unit demonstrates the themes of relationship. Through various learning materials and resources such as poetry, short story, and play, students could often “see” themselves in those texts and connect literacies with their personal lives when talking about friendship, love, and parents.
EAL teach students “learning to read” as well. It aims to develop Literacies: “Literacies involve the evolution of interrelated skills, strategies, and knowledge that facilitate an individual’s ability to participate fully and equitably in a variety of roles and contexts” (Ministry of Education, 2008). Students would be able to read, listen to, write, represent, and speak advance English and make connection with knowledge. “Learning to read” help students to understand knowledge or a certain text, and then make connection with the text and the world.
2016. 10. 07
What does it mean to be a "good" student according to the commonsense? Which students are privileged by this definition of the good student? What is made impossible to see/understand/believe because of these commonsense ideas?
A good student would listen to what teacher says, almost never miss any class, answer teacher’s questions, complete and work good on assignments, studying more than playing… and the most important thing is that a good student has good mark on tests. In my personal experiences, a student who get good mark on tests mean that he or she is a good student; a student who get the best score or even full mark, he or she would be teacher’s “BEST STUDENT”. People think that way; that’s “Common sense”.
I think good students are definitely privileged. Teacher likes them, smiles to them all the time. Parents like them; even their classmates’ parents always praise them. Unfortunately, the so-called “bad students” may never see teachers smile at them. Those common senses like a good student should be…, cause the “discrimination” toward those children who did not “reach to or complete” the common sense. Teachers and even parents, sadly, never know or admit that they just need a little bit more time to learn, to grow. That does not make them “bad”; not at all. Unfortunately, to some degree, those “common” statements like “a good student should…”, blind people’s eyes. I often heard parents blaming their children: “ You are all in the same class, have the same teacher, and learn the same thing, why she (a good student) can get an A, but you don’t?” Parents and teachers seem to use mark and score as the only way to evaluate their children. Even worse, they compare children. But how can people be compared with others just based on test marks? How could they compare people? !
Does not get good mark does not mean they did not work for it. On the other hand, good mark dose not make a person “good”. Also, good mark dose not always prove the student really learned something, it might because the student good at memorization. As a teacher, it is our responsibilities to open our minds and know our children. Please never use mark to judge people. Students who dose not understand what we taught may because we did not teach well. If a student cannot learn from the way we teach, we should teach the way they learn. We do not have “bad students”; they are struggling and need more time and help does not make them a “bad student”. I believe every child can grow; some of them may need more time, but eventually they will get there. It’s we educators’ responsibilities to help our children pass through their hard time. Never blame students who did not get good grade on assignments and tests. Pay more attention on them, offer more caring and time for them, and help them overcome and success, that’s what we supposed to do. I hope every child would not be left behind because every child deserves good education and the opportunity to develop. Teachers, don’t let common sense blind you mind and heart! Trust your children; they can be better!
2016 10.14
How is citizenship education a curricular problem?
According to Joel Westheimer, there are three types of citizen: Personally responsible citizen, Participatory citizen, and Justice-oriented citizen. If an individual who donates often is considered as a personally responsible citizen, an organizer of a charity would be a participatory citizen, and then, people who attempted to figure out the cause of poverty and struggle to solve the problem would be a justice-oriented citizen. The personally responsible citizen is the most common citizen in our living society; at the same time, it is also the major kind of citizen that most school attempted to create. I did some researches and it says that most school merely creates one or two types of citizen, but hardly promotes all the three. Many schools tend to produce more “good” people, but good people does not completely equal to good citizen. The society needs individuals to care about peoples and environment around them, need citizens care about ongoing issues within their living society, and also need people who critically consider about social problems and actively having actions on them.
The other problem is that citizenship education may has lower priority in education system. When schools and educators focusing more on prepare students for their universities and workforce, citizenship education could be left behind. It is because civic study would not be tested; hence it gets less attention and lower priority. Less citizenship education may cause individuals, especially young people, have less knowledge about civic issues or even careless about policies, voting, government and so forth. However, it is important to teach children and young adults the knowledge about the world, society, and environment around them in order to help them learn how to live and act in a democratic society and encourage students to become responsible and active citizens. As educators, we want encourage our students becoming critical thinkers and active citizens.
Canada is a multicultural society, which means that Citizenship education becomes more challengeable for Canadian schools and educators. In order to promote the harmonious society, schools and teachers should recognize the complexity and diversity of citizenship and try to teach for a common democracy with respect toward diversity.
2016 10.21
Blog prompt: For this week, the writing prompt is organized as a before and after doing the reading.
Before you do the reading ask yourself the following question: how do you think that school curricula are developed? This is an entry point to this topic and whatever you write will be fine.
After doing the reading, please write your blog entry. Reflect upon:
How are school curricula developed and implemented? What new information/perspectives does this reading provide about the development and implementation of school curriculum? Is there anything that surprises you or maybe that concerns you?
Before I read the reading, I thought the curriculum was designed and created by a group of teachers. It was because I thought they know what to teach and what to learn.
Now I realized that, what students should learn was decided by the government; curriculum is extremely political. They want school create more “good citizens”; rather for individuals themselves, they want more “good people” for the “public good”. Public policy has its huge influences on the curriculum making; it affects what school should provide, how, to whom, in what form, by whom, with what resource, and so forth (p.8). People effects society, and vise versa. Hence, it seems like if we want better society, we need to have more good people. Rather say school or curriculum is created for students and children, their purpose more tend to be produce more good citizens for the society.
Government asked a group of experts from different subject areas to participate the creation of curriculum. However, the problem is that teachers and educators may not be able to teach the curriculum because they may not have the same level as experts do. How teacher teach other people when they do not understand what to teach? Government, experts, and educators should pay more attention on what students and children really need, not just what the society need. Lacking of considerations on students cause problems. School should consider more about students’ development and success, rather than just focus on “the society’s good”.
School is not an industry that used to produce “good citizens”; it should consider more about our children and younger generations. What children need to learn in school? What teachers can do to help improve students’ development? Those are questions the school board and educators should focusing on, rather than say, what citizens school should shape for the government and society?
Oct. 28 2016
You have been asked to examine the curriculum of the subject area you expect to teach once you graduate. Re-read that curriculum with the frames of literacy presented this week: autonomous and ideological? In what ways are these two frames present in the curriculum that you examined? Which one is more prominent? Following Lihsa Almashy's example, what changes can you do to connect the mandated curriculum to the students lives.
Currently, I was looking at the ELA 9 curriculum. I think the curriculum reflect both autonomous and ideological approach. Accordingly, “literacy will in itself lead to, for example, higher cognitive skills, improved economic performance, and greater equality” (Street, 2006). In other words, people’s ability to read would influence their understanding of the world. The ELA curriculum attempts to develop student’s thinking: “Learners construct knowledge to make sense of the world around them…English language arts is inquiry-based, and students use their language and thinking skills to explore a range of topics, issues, and themes” (Ministry of Education, 2008). Through learning, students would be able to make sense and connection of the world around them.
So, students are expected to “reading to learn”. Through reading, students would learn more about the society, the community, and people around them. For example, there is a Unit in ELA 9 called “Exploring, Love, Loyalty, and Relationships”. This Unit demonstrates the themes of relationship. Through various learning materials and resources such as poetry, short story, and play, students could often “see” themselves in those texts and connect literacies with their personal lives when talking about friendship, love, and parents.
EAL teach students “learning to read” as well. It aims to develop Literacies: “Literacies involve the evolution of interrelated skills, strategies, and knowledge that facilitate an individual’s ability to participate fully and equitably in a variety of roles and contexts” (Ministry of Education, 2008). Students would be able to read, listen to, write, represent, and speak advance English and make connection with knowledge. “Learning to read” help students to understand knowledge or a certain text, and then make connection with the text and the world.