1)
Two quotes from chapter one of Ravitch’s book looking at her
journey through many educational reforms.
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“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you
do, sir?” This is actually a quote from John Maynard Keynes that Ravitch uses
near the beginning of the chapter, but it says everything about her journey
through educational reforms. The fact that as our evidence may prove a
different result then expected it then becomes our responsibility to make any
changes or modifications to fix the problem, otherwise what good are we doing.
In education and in life it’s a series of trial and errors and we must be brave
enough to admit our mistakes and then find ways to fix them as seen here in
Ravitch’s first chapter as she searches for a solution and admits where she has
been wrong, but also where she hopes to learn from these past mistakes to make
the future solution better.
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“I began ‘seeing like a state.’ Looking at schools and
teachers and students from an altitude of 20,000 feet and seeing them as
objects to be moved around by big ideas and great plans.” Ravitch begins to
realize as she worked with the government to implement the best practices and
hold schools accountable by a test that she was flying away from the ground and
starting to lose her prospectus of what really was needed. We all can be
consumed by a good idea only to later find that the idea was not as good as it
was originally proposed, and Ravitch is recognizing this and the whole reform
of accountability may in fact not be the best for the students, teachers, or
even the schools. There is more to education that meets the eye and as good as
it may sound to run it like a business that just doesn’t work.
2)
Ravitch gives a brief definition of a well-educated person and
I would have to agree with her definition. A well-educated person is not a
person that can pass a test and get a 4.0 on their Report Card, but instead a
person that knows how to critically think and engage himself or herself within
society. A person that can listen to a presidential debate and realize what
each candidate can really offer to yourself and the country and look beyond all
the mud slinging. A person that can rationally think about all the possible
outcomes of an event before doing it. As Ravitch says an individual that “has a
well-furnished mind, shaped by reading and thinking about history, science,
literature, the arts, and politics. The well-educated person has learned how to
explain ideas and listen respectfully to others.” A well-educated person
doesn’t have to know every Standard for United States History in the eleventh
grade, but instead understand how issues may affect you and be able to use some
examples to explain why things are right or wrong. For example, it would be
nice that you remember that the Brown v. Board was a Supreme Court case that
overturned “separate but equal” in the classrooms, but if you can remember that
segregation is bad and explain why reflecting on examples or experiences and
strongly argue your case that would be a who lot more useful then just
remembering a Supreme Court Case because someone said it was important. The
ability to critically think is far more important then remembering facts to
pass a test.
3)
Reflecting on our class discussion on the books first two
chapters the one thing that stuck out to me was the fact that we can make
mistakes. That sometimes our first instinct or judgment could be wrong, but
that as teachers we are in the field of education and we must admit sometimes
that either we do not know or that we were wrong. As we realize that we are
wrong we need to make sure that we correct that wrong. For example, in the
classroom I have made the mistake of giving the wrong information as I was
either assuming or mixed it up with other information, but I have always fixed
my mistakes to make sure that the students realize that we are all humans and
we make mistakes occasionally. So, reflecting on the first chapter primarily of
Ravitch’s book and our discussion it’s important to realize that we make
mistakes, but it’s how we respond to our mistakes that shows our true
character.
4)
One of the gaps that I listed from my subject area that I
could help fill would be the post-Vietnam era in United States History. There
are so many sources that I could look at to further my understanding of this
gap in my content knowledge, to make it more direct and useful I’ll look at
Regan’s Presidency as that is the area with the biggest gap. One website that I
found that was helpful was http://www.npr.org/news/specials/obits/reagan/timeline.html
as this site gave a timeline breakdown of Regan and focused on the major events
occurring during his presidency with links to video recordings of him on some
issues. An article that I found was “The Reagan Doctrine: Principle,
Pragmatism, and Policy” by Chester Pach of Ohio University. This Article goes
into depth looking at Reagan’s continuation of fighting Communism and its
affects on the United States and his policies. A quote from this document that
I thought was interesting was in describing the administration’s position when
dealing with Communism globally, “stand with ordinary people who have had the
courage to take up arms against Communism tyranny.” A book that I just looked at the review due to time is The
Dead Hand: Reagan, Gorbachev, and the Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race.
This book goes into the looks of the ragging war on Communism where after
Vietnam the fear of communism still remained, but did not play as large of a
role in policy making as it had in the past yet Reagan resurfaces a lot of the
fears and what the role of the United States is to this threat. All three of
these resources are helpful in understanding the time but the most helpful for
a quick reference and a look at some primary sources was the website with
Reagan’s timeline and links to recorded video to give a better picture of
Reagan and the times.
5)
In the annotated process of my first four sources I have found
that the sources that I have found have been very helpful towards my final
question and has even made me wonder about re-wording my question to look at
the issue of race and segregation within World War II in the Bay Area and how
these issues are still present. But, looking at two of my sources and the
annotated process I will quickly reflect on the sources and what I have got
from them.
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One source was an article called “Last Hired, First
Fired: Black Women Workers during World War II.” This Article I found from the
reference page of the book Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home
Front in World War II, and this article has helped my better understand the
troubles that women faced during World War II and much more the challenges that
Black Women faced in the working community. The fact that as a nation need a
strong work force many employers continued to find was to not hire women and
especially Black women and when they had to do to the how demand for workers
that generally they were given the worst jobs possible. Segregation and race
and its worst in a time where the country needed to be as united as possible.
The references page for the book on Rosie the Riveter I will definitely use to
find more resources.
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Another resource that I found to be very helpful and
further my understanding of the treatment of Japanese Americans in the Bay Area
after the news of Pearl Harbor was a link on the website of San Francisco Bay
T.V. where back in 1991 three Japanese Americans were interviewed on what
occurred to them and their lives as residents of the Bay Area during World War
II. The fascinating piece that was mentioned was the reference to the fact that
many Japanese Americans have chosen to not talk about the incident that
occurred to family members or other, a similarity that is heard from Jewish
survivors of the Holocaust. It was interesting to see some of the similarities,
even though what occurred in the Concentration Camps of the Nazis was by far
worse that what occurred in the Internment Camps of the United States.
6)
Question for Meg: with our Final Inquiry and Question I was
wondering if my question based on content how do I merge the pedagogical
component into it? My question for content is, “What were the social effects of
WWII on the Bay Area?”
Responded to the following blogs:
Responded to the following blogs:
Dear Eirik,
ReplyDeleteI really like the provocative quotes that you pulled out from the text. I especially liked the one, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” I think that this is a great quote because as a teacher I think it's important to remember that we may not have "all the answers" and that we are learning alongside with them. I think that as a teacher you are learning just as much as the students are and that it's important to be open minded and flexible. I really enjoyed your blog and would love to read more about your topic. I am a huge WW II fan and think you have a great topic.
Ben
Dear Eirik:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the question. First, I am excited about your research and know that your students will be enlightened and engaged upon discovering how significant the Bay Area was to the World War II story.
Perhaps for pedagogy, you can explore how specific sources support your students' learning (music, posters, journals, newspaper reports, newsreels, etc.). I have a lot of ideas and resources to share with you, and I will be eager to discuss this further.
Meg
Eirik,
ReplyDeleteI recall in our class discussion you were talking about some of your
classmates from college discussing their high GPA and SAT scores, yet
they were taking remedial writing. This is good evidence that there
is a problem with inflated GPAs. There is so much of an emphasis on
scoring learning that it takes away from actual learning. Like you
say, a well-educated person can think critically, etc. This is very
difficult to measure so well-educated people are not necessarily
graduating from our schools -- instead, there are just 'educated'
people with high GPAs. This will remain the same unless the focus of
education changes from an emphasis on achieving scores on standardized
tests and perhaps completing homework assignments that do not
necessarily require higher order thinking skills to actually pushing
students to ask, as you say, why is segregation actually wrong, etc?