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John Gatto: Teacher of the Year Acceptance Speech
Gatto begins his speech with his concern of the school crisis. He connects the school crisis to our social crisis and says we have come to lose our identity. After conducting research Gatto figured out that his students only have 122 hours a week to fashion themselves. Most of the other time is consumed with school and school related activities plus the occasional TV watching. He continues to say "We live in networks, not communities, and everyone I know is lonely because of that." After 1850 when the compulsory method was introduced it has become much more wide spread. This has only taught the students to obey orders as well as decreasing literacy levels which never again after 1990 was above 91%. "Schools are intended to produce through the application of formulae, formulaic human beings whose behaviour can be predicted and controlled." It is not the fault of the teachers that students are producing such bad grades and behaviour problems, it is the system of education that has caused this difference in how education is being taught, where teachers are merely the messengers and the students the ones being delivered the package of not so much great knowledge but knowledge for society where individuality is taken out and conformity is taught as a good thing. Gatto argues that this concept of school has to be argued and redefined and fixed or merely broken where then students can be home schooled.

I find it ridiculous that after conducting this research he came to the conclusion we only have 12 hours to create our selves a week. After taking a closer look and adding stuff I know me and my classmates do, that 12 hours decreases severely. In society we have lost our childhood. From a young age we are brought into these pens which confine us and are never really free until after 13 years of our lives to then only be put into more box's where we lose the right to be individuals and are rewarded to be more like robots following the same pattern. Gatto even says "the truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders." This is true. For all the years in school, students are taught to listen to teachers and to obey orders. Often in schools there are bells to signify when a class is over and to stop work, there are hand gestures and songs when teachers want us to be quiet. We are being taught to follow specific patterns like when people train their dogs and like dogs we will carry these lessons with us for the rest of our lives, bells with always signify that something is over and something new should be worked on. This is what they want to prepare us for. In society it is much easier to work with people who are already familiar with following orders and to not question or speak out.
I agree fully that the two institutions that control children and young adults lives are television and school. But in reality you are to learn much more needed knowledge then that of regular and basic skills. Not saying i agree with this but this is what our society has set up. Real life lessons and adventures only exist in dreams or pages of books, no longer are children "allowed" to run free and discover new things, instead they sit confined for 6 hours a day in cells being taught to obey and get rid of their independence. Even when students are finally allowed to return home or set free from the day, most children will run to the TV and watch shows for hours until their parents yell at them or they spend hours on home work. No one is allowed any free time. Weekends are merely facades where children wont complain about going to school every day with no breaks even though sometimes weekends are only spent on home work and school related activities. Its kind of sad to hear all this. America, our nation is supposed to full fill dreams and be a beacon of freedom. Now for the younger generations it is only a machine to better shape us into "model" citizens so they can work us until we grow old and retire or die.


Paulo Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Freire criticizes the "banking" education where the teacher is merely reciting facts and the students only memorize it but do not take any thing significant away from it. They are not really learning to fully understand what is being taught to them they are only there so remember and recite the lessons taught to them. The students are nothing more then containers for the teachers to fill with knowledge. The teachers then become those with higher knowledge and the students are the ignorant people who must depend on the teacher to gain knowledge. The teacher then has a set purpose in life and is expected to fulfil it not only by the students but by the administrators who control the education. The oppressed with little thought for change will learn to adapt to their situation and can lead for them to be dominated later in life when they learn to not change the situation but to change to it. The humanist is another method to teaching where both teacher and student are more like equals and both have something to offer to help the other grow and learn.

This also connects to what Gatto was saying about students being mindless impassive people who are let out into the real world. "The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them." In both arguments, the students are not taught to think for themselves, they are only given information which they must commit to memory and then recite later on, never grasping the full picture of anything. This causes us to be the oppressed where the oppressors do not wish to see the world transformed or revealed to the students so they use education to keep these from us. Keeping the ideology that we are indeed ignorant and that we need the teacher to educate us and pass their knowledge onto us is a trap where we do not see the power in ourselves to be something more, to actually learn more then what we are being taught and actually obtain something meaningful in our bleak lives. There is also the connection between the humanist and the way SOF deals with educating kids. Though often times at most I see both ways of teaching. In most cases there is no strict boundaries between teacher and student, one is no more knowledgeable then the other. Though as much in any case there is the sign of clear respect and role of teacher pupil. But nothing along the lines of the students are completely ignorant and the teacher is the savior who will teach them everything they need. Though in classes like math and science I often see the narrative way where we merely sit there and they deposit information into our brains to store and catalog for later.

Lisa Delpit: Power and Pedagogy
Delpit contrasts two reading programs where one took forty lessons to learn the same thing the other lesson did in only one sitting. Though the first method was proven to be well founded and excellent with certain kids for others it took them longer then the fist sit in to understand everything because at home they were not given any knowledge to better suit their understandings. Kids who had some more background with these types of ideas excelled fast since they brought some knowledge with them and the lesson only increased it further. But the kids with no previous background the second method which would consist of forty lessons was better where the kids could learn from the beginning. Both methods are good but depending on the student it will work for them or against them. The culture of power is also brought up where kids of minority and of color and poor are taught different codes and those differ from those the dominant culture of power have. She insists that the appropriate education can only be found when those of the same community come together to talk about the changes that need to be made instead of middle class whites making the decisions.

It's a little interesting to read from Delpit's perspective. I'm not really sure if I'm reading from her opinion and views but it seems to me that unlike the other two previous guys, she has the idea that it is indeed the teacher who is full of knowledge and it is their job to share it with the less fortunate it (the student). Though she comes into an idea that the other two did not address. Culture of Power. That when students come to school, they should not just be learning about basic facts but about the codes for them to be able to thrive in the culture of power that is most dominant in our society. Though she comes off as a little bit racist, I just get from her that people of color and those who are poor are lower then the rest and do not know what is best for them since they come from a different road map of life. I'm not arguing that this is in all way wrong, I mean if you look at our society its the cold hard truth, but I guess my vibe is she truly believes they are lower and she is here with good ideas to raise them above it. She is the savior for the minorities and those who are poor and of color. Although going into her 5 aspects of power were very similar to those of the other two's articles and summed up nicely the key points in the view on education concerning power. And in life students and young adults have none.

Mr. Fanning:
Fanning has many goals for the high school at SOF. He wants the seniors to graduate, he wants his students to become "critical thinkers" and in order to accomplish both he wants students to create goals at the beginning of the year, and it doesn't have to be school related. The teachers are there to help the students achieve their goals and through working towards them, relationships are made where the teachers can easily connect to their students and can understand them better so they can help in more ways. Being a former teacher, he knows that education is very important and to be able to do good in life one must get the best kind of education. And not just sitting there mindlessly copying down facts from the board but to be able to think for yourselves and to be able to be critical thinkers who create new ideas all on their own. He doesn't want factory working students, he wants us to be free thinkers and be creative and independent and that's what SOF is there for. To help students create themselves and to not only to submit to other peoples authority of power.

I agree that SOF is one of the best places to allow us to do all the things he wants to see us do. But I also agree that in life its hard to outrun the mechanics of how education is in our society. He may not see it, but there are little traces here and there where kids forsake their independence and their drive to find themselves and create but instead open their minds to allow someone to pour information in their heads. As I walk down the halls, there is a mix of both kinds of students and those in the middle clearly not on either side. But whats happening to education and to students not much younger then I is frightening. I feel that we were lucky to be able to learn the things we did and to have the teachers who cared enough to help us grow and to nurture us and not only feed us facts. We are getting out just in time for the change in how things are done. Maybe a little dramatic but and not saying this is specifically SOF, but schools can only really go down hill. Education is getting less funding, teachers are being fired, students are cramed into bigger class sizes, music and art departments are being shut down. I mean our education system is a mess and all the previous people on this blog know whats coming and have the right ideas but they themselves have no solid and clear outcome or ways to save any of it.