What do Freire and Gatto agree on and disagree on? (Assignment 11/14)

Gatto saw public education as a means of programming or indoctrinating a future workforce.  Not as teaching them to be free thinkers that will help society to progress. "By the time I finally retired in 1991, I had more than enough reason to think of our schools - with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers - as virtual factories of childishness." He quotes the 6 functions as defined by Inglis. In addition he quotes from H.  L.  Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 what the aim of public education is not intended for “to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence.  .  .  .  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The aim..  .  is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.  That is its aim in the United States .  .  .  and that is its aim everywhere else.”

Freire saw public education as a way to help bring people out of poverty.  However he also saw that the banking concept of teaching was not a good thing, as he described it as "regarding men as adaptable manageable beings, The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness that would result from their intervention in the world. . . . since men receive the world as passive entities, education should make them more passive still"   As described it sounds like what Gatto was suggesting schooling conspiracy was about.

Freire's description of the problem-posing method makes me think of an extension of the apprenticeships that were the old method of teaching a trade. In that ideal situation the apprentice was being taught even though he did not realize he was being taught, then when he had sufficient understanding of his basic training then came mentoring, the passing of knowledge with the master facilitating in a learning environment.

In class group blog post on ratings (Assignment 11/26)

Jerry Large- Good idea but hard to change. School does not have control over home life. Good assist but not a solid plan.

Deb Aronson- Important, if we start at the head of the education it can go down.

Keith Gilyard- What is more important, math or creativity?

Bell hooks- Good idea but an opinion

Boyce- If you do not get social skills you will not succeed

Blog post group disagreements and top choice (Assignment 11/26)

Disagreements- Large- Good idea some said and is very important. But argues that it is to big of an idea and some parents wont be able to make the change.
-Boyce- Social skills are important in life, but argues that you need an education more then how to present yourself.
-Hooks- Great idea, but argues that it is just an idea and not a plan to workout. To broad
Top choice- Keith Gilyard, start investing the money into classes that students want and they will learn to think critically.
2nd Choice- Deb Aronson- Very good idea that people who make the education should be ones that teach it. You would not have the head of a police department be someone who has never been a police.

Group Blog post on in class Argument (11/26)

Topic: NASCAR Racing
Audience: Coyotes

Thesis: NASCAR Racing will benefit Coyotes by a change in there habitat.
Topic sentence-
 1) The loss of habitat will be made up for with a new home, that you can adapt to quickly.
2) A racing track will provide a constant food source because of the concessions food people leave behind and the small animals it will attract.
3) The Racing track will attract other Coyotes, letting you meet new friends.
4) Although there will be a lot of cars going fast that will be able to hit you, there will be Coyote cross walks and tunnels to avoid them.

Large, Boyce, Gilyard, Aronson, and hooks suggestions for changes and their rankings. (Assignment 11/21)

(A) How does each author support his/her ideas for change? (B) Rank Them

(1) bell hooks: "Critical Thinking"

Teaching discernment.  A way of approaching ideas that aim to understand the core, underlying truths, not simply that superficial truth that may be obviously visible.

I believe that critical thinking is very important to understanding what you are learning.  It is more than just knowing the facts, but also understanding how those facts relate to each other.  To me this is most important, and that is why children start out learning in this way.  It is how we are programmed to learn.

(2) Keith Gilyard: "Children Arts and Du Bois"

"One of the best ends to have in view is that humanities as a widely recognized and amply funded force for the common good.  Creative arts programs are integral to this vision."

I believe that with the humanities we learn to appreciate the beauty of something, and with science we learn to appreciate the structure/organization of something.  I feel that they are 2 sides of the same coin and unless both are taught we miss out on some very important aspects of being human.

(3) Deb Aronson: "Arizona Bans [Latino/A history Program]"
"In order to protect their students best interests, teachers must become politically engaged and active."  "it boils down to legislative control over the classroom content and curriculum and teacher voice,"

Teachers through their unions or personally need to be politically engaged.  They should not sit by idly and let their unions or institutions tell them what to do.  If they see an issue and do not become engaged through the proper channels to fix it then they become part of the problem.  Politics does not have to be going out and collecting votes from society, it is also organizing, being part of the PTA, being involved in teachers organizations.

(4) Jerry Large: "Gift of Grit, Curiosity Help Kids Succeed"
"If more parents hug and kiss and coo in those first years, we'd have a lot more happy and successful children."

Children feel that they are loved and are a part of something.  It is part of Maslows hierarchy of needs.  
If they do not feel that starting when they are young from their parents they they become colder socially and will have a longing for something but they don't understand what or why.  When they are older they are more likely so succumb to peer pressure to feel part of a group.  The reason I put this toward the bottom of the list is that it comes mainly from the family not from the K-12 school system.

(5) Barry Boyce: "A Real Education"
Mindfulness: Focusing on ways to promote pro-social behavior.  Awareness of ones own emotions. Ethics. Peace within their own bodies.  Learn to listen, really listen to our children. teach compassion skills, not be reactionary.

I think this goes with Jerry Large, this sort of thing should be taught at home, but it it were to be taught in the early years of K-12 that it would have a major impact on the self esteem of people as they become aware of and learn to control their own emotions.  This would have an outward expression of making people more socially acceptable.

Group 1 comparing Lewis Black, Gatto, Freire, Mike Rose to movie Chalk.

in pedagogy of the oppressed, chapter 2, "The banking concept," Paolo Freire laments that education is largely about filling students' brains, like a bottle might be filled. We see this in the movie Chalk, when Mr. Lowrey....... [provide 2 or 3 sentences more]



Gatto - By the time I finally retired in 1991 I had more than enough reason to think of our schools - with their long term, cell block style, forced confinement of both students and teachers - as virtual factories of childishness.  In the movie Chalk we see Mr. Stroope confiscating a CD of photos from a student and telling the student that he is going to throw them away. Mr. Stroope then says he is kidding and throws them on his desk and tells the student to get them after class.  Mr. Stroope tries to get the kids to help him against a fellow teacher who he is in competition with for teacher of the year.  Mr Stroope flips desk over when he gets angry at student after losing the competition.


Freire - Mr. Stroope stifling students that know more than he does, as seen when he t
Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept in its entirety, adopting instead a concept of men as conscious beings - and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world.  They must abandon the educational goal of deposit making and replace it with the posing of the problems of men in their relations with the world.   
In the movie Chalk we see this in how Mr. Lowrey is applying the banking concept on the first day of class.  Mr. Lowrey shotguns a question to a student before he has put out the information, he then has a list of things on the board that he is going to teach the kids and expects them to know the material verbatim.

Lewis Black - Mr Black makes the comment about how the us is behind in most categories, but we are number 1 in confidence.  In the movie Chalk we see how had the confidence to become a teacher, but when he actually got into the classroom Mr. Lowrey lacks confidence to actually teach.  Mr. Lowrey recognizes his lack of confidence and makes a plan to work on his confidence.

Mike Rose- We need to have more young people have an engaging and challenging education.  In the movie Chalk we see Mr. Stroope shutting down a boy because the boy had a large vocabulary.  Mr. Stroope tells the boy that he probably does not even know the meaning of the words he is using.  Mr. Stroops tells a girl who already knows a lot about history that she needs to keep it to herself.

Lewis Black (Assignment 11/19)

Starts with Week long commitment at NBC News to education nation.
Black : you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that our schools are broken, which is good because none of us are.
The question is what are we going to do about it.
There are some that think the kids need a challenging curriculum and one on one help.

 NBC a week for education, 51 weeks for incarceration.

LA's Robert F Kennedy Schools $578,000,000

Charter schools limiting number of students in process called "Waiting for superman"
Teach: Tony Danza or Teach Tony Danza!
Among 30 developed countries we ranked 25th in math.
21st in science
in almost every category we have fallen behind except 1.
1st in confidence.
video shows kid on bicycle going up ramp with the intention of landing on the roof of a building but falling short and crashing into the side of the building just below the roof.
Who needs physics, math, geometry.
Just a little more confidence and he would have cleared that roof.

Chalk notes (Assignment 11/19)

Opening segment -History Teacher Mr. Lowrey shotguns question to student.  First rule is to show up, second rule is to be prepared.  He is boring, no energy, hesitant.  Came from a computer engineering background, first year teaching.  History teacher needs training/mentoring in dealing with students and looking competent.  Drinks is given wine at students house and drinks it with the students mother.  Gets drunk.  Enters slang (wasp?) spelling bee, gets tutoring from students. wins. (I personally think that is ridiculous to give slang any affirmation by the administration)

Principal is talking to Assistant Principal.  Focused on himself, asks question to AP gets answer the goes back to talking about self. My recollection is pretty much the same thing in all 2 or 3 of his scenes.

Coach Webb the PE teacher is pushy, offends an overweight teacher by suggesting that she go for morning walks with the group that PE teacher is trying to form. Has lesson on trust for the students.  Having students fall back into the arms of other students without first checking to see if any students might not be able to do this, one student get hurt but teacher is oblivious.  For abdominal training she has students on their backs and raising their pelvis to which one kids remarked that it was making him feel uneasy.  To try and get kids moving she has them do some dancing moves.  Later in the year, she offends her friend the Assistant Principal by trying to tell her that she has become part of the problem not the solution, and giving her grief in general.

Assistant Principal Mrs. Reddell a former music teacher is eager at the beginning of the year but as the year progresses she is becoming overwhelmed by the amount of time she is spending at work.  Sacrificing her family Finally towards the end of the year she figures out that family and pretty much everything else is more important than her position as AP.  My impression is that the principal has dumped his workload onto her, or she was just taking it over do to her inexperience as an AP.  AP talks as if she just wants to be a teacher not an AP.

Mr. Stroop a history teacher gets evaluation, supposed to be working on sarcasm, cleanliness, lesson plans.  Asks for advise then tells person that the advise given is crap. Gets teachers together in library then acting all nice baits them with questions about different improprieties, then comes down on them and tells them to stop doing the bad things.  Mr. Stroop get student to give him phone number of parent then fakes calling parent in front of kids then tells him he needs to work on his grades or next time he will call. Mr. Stroop is up for teacher of the year award.  Stroop uses a student to try to get information from and set up other candidate that is up for teacher of the year award. Stroop does not win, lets it affect his teaching, bringing it into his classroom.  Student mentions at least it was not last place and Stroop freaks out and flips desk over yelling there were only 2 teachers so it is last place.  Admits loving it in front of class. (it?)











What is it that I would change in the "curriculum"? Refer to one scene.......

More facilitating, students taking charge of their own learning and participating, making their participation part of the learning process.

Notes #2 Writing workshop (draft) (11/5)

A.      Item#1 (teacher #1): Dedication; Mr. Escalante gives up his summer vacation to teach in a locker room at the school when the temperature is  110 degrees.  Through his hard work and determination he drives himself to have a mild heart attack.  On top of that he comes back to school to teach when he should be at home resting and recuperating after his heart attack. He has given up his health to teach the students and that shows his dedication.
B.      Item#2: Inspiring; Mr. Escalante is inspiring in that he got all the students to give up their summer including Saturdays to come to summer school class in the 110 degree heat. Additionally he got the students to retake the AP exam after the district accused them of cheating.



C.      

Paper#2 Mr. Escalante vs Mr. Keating

Mr. Keating from the movie “Dead Poets Society” and Mr. Escalante from the movie “Stand and Deliver” are both dedicated teachers.  Although they are both good at what they do there are some differences between the two. These differences swayed my opinion of which is the better teacher.  I originally believed that Mr. Keating was the better teacher because he worked continually to bring the students up to his level without causing undue stress on the students.  Mr. Escalante seemed to be causing excessive amounts of stress to the students as well as himself.

To begin with Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante came from two different cultures.  Although Mr. Keating may not have come from a well off family, as this is not addressed in the film, his family had enough money to send him to a private boarding school.  The school Mr. Keating attended was Welton Academy a boys preparatory school.  Private schools give the students the opportunity to focus on school work thereby giving students a chance to excel.  Mr. Keating is hired by Welton Academy to teach English after having been employed at another school to teach English.  Mr. Keating being an alumnus of the school is accepted by the staff at Welton Academy at first.  Frequently throughout the movie Mr. Keating says "Carpe Diem" or "Seize the day."  This is his motto.  He further says in order to illustrate its significance "We are food for worms lads...believe it or not each and every one of us in this room are going to stop breathing, turn cold and die."  Mr. Escalante comes from Bolivia and was poor growing up, he makes a comment in the film that he washed dishes when he first came in to the United States.  Mr. Escalante quit his job working with computers to teach school and he is hired to teach computer science at Garfield High School.  When Mr. Escalante arrives at the school he finds that there are no computers in the school to teach computer science with.  Mr. Escalante is then assigned by the mathematics department chair person to teach mathematics.

There are many different aspects to the methods of teaching that Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante use.  Firstly the language is different. Mr. Keating inspires and brings students up to his level using his style of language and eloquence.  In Mr. Keatings opening classroom scene before he utters a single word to the students he casually walks through the classroom whistling Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, and then exits the classroom and escorts the students to the lobby.  While in the lobby he brings up “Carpe Diem” and explains the meaning of it.  Later on when he is discussing the Dead Poets Society he says “In the enchantment of the moment, we’d let poetry work its magic.”  Mr. Escalante uses the urban slang language of the students to pull the students along.  "This is basic math, but basic math is too easy for you burros. So I’m gonna teach you algebra because I’m the champ. And if the only thing you know how to do is add and subtract, you’ll only be prepared to do one thing – pump gas."  This probably makes it a little easier for him to fit in with the students, and be accepted by them, as we see in the film that the other teachers do not do this.  Mr. Escalantes modus operandi is "Students will rise to the level of expectations"

Both Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante involve themselves in the personal life of their students. For Mr. Keating it was with Neil and Todd.  In the case of Todd it was to help him to bring poetry to life.  In the case with Neil it was coaching him to deal with his father.  For Mr. Escalante it was primarily Ana, Angel, and Poncho. In the case of Ana it was going to the restaurant to talk to her father and make the case for her to come back to school.  In the case of Angel it was helping him to learn while at the same time hiding his desire to be better academically from the other students.  In the case of Poncho it was to help him to realize that if he desired to he could succeed at doing high level mathematics just like the other kids in his class.

Both teachers push their students to excel.  Mr. Escalante devotes a lot of time and energy in the classroom focusing on basic Math, Algebra, and then Calculus. Mr. Escalante tries to bring math to life for the students by cutting up apples for fractions and using word problems involving humorous things the kids can understand such as "Juan has five times as many girlfriends as Pedro.  Carlos has one girlfriend less than Pedro. The total number of girlfriends between them is twenty.  How many does each gigolo have?"  Mr. Keating devotes time in and out of the classroom focusing on poetry, but involving physical skills to make the poetry more of a living thing in their mind. Using walking to illustrate how hard it is to be independent in thought when with others. Mr. Keating used kicking balls and other activities while reading poetry to help make the poetry more alive for them, making it a fun activity instead of a function in academics.

The way Mr. Escalante teaches and what he is trying to accomplish is very stressful to him.  Mr. Escalante’s wife Fabiola tells their oldest son “Your father works 60 hours a week then he volunteers to teach night school for free.  Now he’s visiting junior high schools in his spare time.”  Mr. Escalante’s workload eventually leads him to have a mild heart attack.  He teaches the students that they do not have to just exist in the barrio continuing the status quo, they can also achieve great things if they put their minds to it.  Mr. Escalante tells them that they just need to have the desire "ganas."  The way that Mr. Keating teaches is light hearted as he teaches the students to express themselves and to live life to the fullest. He taught them not to just accept what is handed to them but to have a questioning attitude.

Both teachers want to give back to the students, by that I mean that they are both successful academically and they want to help the students become successful also.  Mr. Escalante was apparently poor growing up and came back to teach in order to help the minorities living there to achieve.  Mr. Keating was an alumnus of the school and he wanted to give the joy of poetry and life to the students, knowing the dreariness that existed in the school's curriculum and their methods of teaching in the school.

Both teachers fought or challenged the schools administration or institution.  Mr. Escalante because he believed the students could achieve if they were shown that there was an expectation that could achieve, “Students will rise to the level of expectations.”  Mr. Keating was unorthodox in his teaching methods challenging the academic mediocrity or lifelessness of what was expected of him in the classroom and out of it. He tells Mr. McAllister “We’re not talking artists George we’re talking free thinkers…only in their dreams can men be truly free.”

Both teachers had to deal with parents that wanted to restrict the kids to the status quo, however Mr. Keating left the issue completely up to the student(s) to solve with the parents.  This may have been to help them grow as individuals.

In the end after analyzing the individual characteristics I would say that both teachers are good teachers, but I would say that Mr. Escalante is a great teacher.  He works very hard to help the students to succeed and expects the students to work hard as well.  Mr. Escalante gets the students to achieve things they did not believe they were capable of.  Mr. Keating gets the kudos for helping the students to enjoy school more and to inspire them, but I'm not sure how much he helped to improve them academically.  We are shown in the movie that the kids are enjoying themselves but not necessarily that they are excelling.  That I think is the key difference. When you compare academic skills versus happiness.  You can be happy being a ditch digger if you enjoy it, you cannot be happy being a mathematician if you don't know math.  That is the end on the analysis, but I feel that I must make the comment that the character of Mr. Keating was not really developed as the movie was more about the kids.  Mr. Escalante’s movie “Stand and deliver” is a mostly true story but only touches on a portion of Mr. Escalante’s exemplary career.

  

  

Freire - Group 5 summary (Assignment 11/14)

After reading Freire's "The Banking Concept" we read "The History of the Man" then compared both pieces with "Paulo Freire" at http://infed.org/mobi/paulo-freire-dialogue-praxis-and-education/.
Some similarities are the mention of the problem-posing method from "The Banking Concept" which is both critiqued and praised in the piece on infed.  In "The History of the Man" we learn that Freire originally wanted to end hunger and break class boundaries, he ends up wanting to fix education as seen in "The Banking Concept."  In "Dead Poet's Society" we see both methods of teaching, where the majority of the teachers are teaching using the banking method and Mr. Keating teaches using the problem-posing method.

http://www.trentu.ca/academic/nativestudies/courses/nast305/freirehistory.htm
http://infed.org/mobi/paulo-freire-dialogue-praxis-and-education/

How my high school experience compared to Gatto's claims. (assignment 11/12)

I would have to agree with Gatto on pretty much everything.  Not just my high school, but all of my K-12 schooling.  I was bored in most of my classes to a degree that quite often I did not even bother to show up for them.  There were a few exceptions; computer science, history and a few others where I excelled.  Looking back the reason that I excelled in the classes that I did was because I made them interesting.  In computer science I was able to create my own programs, what ever I wanted to do, it was like being given a lump of clay and being told that I could make what ever I wanted to with the lump.  With the other classes that I enjoyed we were allowed to do projects and present them to the class.  Looking back I wish I had joined the drama club as that would have been fun but I was shy.  I did make some special effects for one of the plays that they did.  The classes that I had that were just go in and absorb information and leave were the ones that I had problems with.  Writing reports on books, memorizing facts, regurgitating the same information as everyone else just had no value in it for me personally.  Every time I have ever excelled in school it was because I was given the opportunity to dance to the beat of my own drum.  Now I have largely put most of the memories of my high school days out of my head as that was a long time ago and my participation was minimal at best.  There are only a few things that I can remember that I think fit here.  First is that because of my poor performance in my classes they decided that I must be dumb so they gave me a series of IQ tests, when the three IQ tests came back averaging about 140 they were perplexed at my bad grades and said they could not help me.  That school system had no AP classes, and in fact said that they did not believe in accelerating students learning.  Even if they did, I would not be a candidate.  Second is that when I moved at the end of 10th grade, I had accrued several hours of detention for skipping classes.  My high school would not transfer my grades to my new school unless I did the detention hours during the summer in which I transferred.

I will relate the following from my kids school as that is fresh in my head.  My wife volunteers in several of the schools in the area, mostly in my kids school though.  One day she was in the teachers lounge and over heard two of the teachers who were known to be questionable talking.  Those teachers were comparing notes on which one of them was being meaner to the students and laughing about it.  In another class my daughter spent a large portion of the year with her head on the desk along with her classmates because when there was one child being loud or bad, the entire class was punished and school work was stopped.  As a result of that she always had a lot of homework and did not know how to do it because she was not being taught.  In another class a teacher said my daughter should be put on medication, not because she was a problem but because she would not pay attention and was doing her own thing.  My daughter was moved into a different school and she excelled, and in fact her teacher at her new school said she was writing poetry at an adult level and we should get her published.

Prior to the prussian influence on our schooling the kids were schooled either at home or in small school houses.  The education bore relevance to the lives that they led.  I once had the opportunity to take a test which was purported to be an 8th grade test from the early 1800's.  The test was on farming, selling crops, and buying supplies.  Everything on the test was interrelated, especially the math questions which were word questions similar to what Mr. Escalante did with the gigolo question except about farming.  Now if we in our current society were to do that sort of schooling in junior or senior high school they would be teaching people how to balance check books, do taxes, understand amortization of mortgages, and credit card interest.  These would be useful skills to learn at a young age if they were not deliberately being set up for failure, or to be slaves to the bankers and corporations.  By the time the kids realize what debt really is it is too late, okay that is an exaggeration or is it.  I think I wandered off topic anyway

Group 1 Discussion on Gatto (Assignment 11/12)

Group Discussion on Gatto

Gatto's point is that every public school student is receiving a cookie-cutter education to shape them into average citizens. My group members and I agree with his point because we have had these kinds of parameters posed on ourselves when enrolled in public school systems.

Supporting Sentences

• "Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children." 
• "The aim.. . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality." 
• "By the time I finally retired in 1991, I had more than enough reason to think of our schools - with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers - as virtual factories of childishness." 
• "Class may frame the proposition, as when Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909: 'We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.'"

Paper #2 Mr. Escalante vs Mr. Keating Paper (draft)

This is a comparison of Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante.

I originally believed that Mr. Keating is the better teacher because he works continually to bring up the students to his level without causing undue stress on the students. In the following paper I will examine the differences between the teachers and explain why I now think that Mr. Escalante is the better teacher.

To begin with Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante came from two different cultures.  Although Mr. Keating may not have come from a well off family, as this is not addressed in the film, his family had enough money to send him to a private boarding school.  The school Mr. Keating attended was Welton Academy a boys preparatory school. Private schools give the students the opportunity to focus on school work thereby giving students a chance to excel.  Mr. Keating is hired by Welton Academy to teach english.  Mr. Keating being an alumnus of the school is accepted by the staff at Welton Academy at first.  Mr. Escalante comes from Bolivia and was poor growing up, he makes a comment in the film that he washed dishes when he first came in to the United States.  Mr. Escalante is hired to teach computer science at Garfield High School.  When Mr. Escalante arrives at the school he finds that there are no computers in the school to teach computer science with.  Mr. Escalante is then assigned by the mathematics department chair person to teach mathematics.

There are many different aspects to the methods of teaching that Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante use.  Firstly the language is different. Mr. Keating inspires and brings students up to his level using his style of language and eloquence.  Mr. Escalante uses the slang language of the students to pull the students along.  This probably makes it a little easier for him to fit in with the students, and be accepted by them, as we see in the film that the other teachers do not do this.

Both Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante involve themselves in the personal life of their students. For Mr. Keating it was with Neil and Todd.  In the case of Todd it was to help him to bring poetry to life.  In the case with Neil it was coaching him to deal with his father.  For Mr. Escalante it was primarily Ana, Angel, and Poncho. In the case of Ana it was going to the restaurant to talk to her father and make the case for her to come back to school.  In the case of Angel it was helping him to learn while at the same time hiding his desire to be better academically.  In the case of Poncho it was to help him to realize that if he desired to he could succeed at doing high level mathematics just like the other kids in his class.

Both teachers push their students to excel.  Mr. Escalante devotes a lot of time and energy in the classroom focusing on Math and then Calculus. Mr. Escalante tries to bring math to life for the students by cutting up apples for fractions and using word problems involving humorous things the kids can understand.  Mr. Keating devotes time in and out of the classroom focusing on poetry, but involving physical skills to make the poetry more of a living thing in their mind. Using walking to illustrate how hard it is to be independent in thought when with others. Mr. Keating used kicking balls and other activities while reading poetry to help make the poetry more alive for them, making it a fun activity instead of a function in academics.

The way Mr. Escalante teaches and what he is trying to accomplish is very stressful to him, eventually leading him to have a mild heart attack.  He teaches the students that they do not have to just exist in the barrio continuing the status quo, they can also achieve great things if they put their minds to it.  The way that Mr. Keating teaches is light hearted as he teaches the students to express themselves and live life to the fullest and not to just accept what is handed to them, to have a questioning attitude.

Both teachers want to give back to the students, by that I mean that they are both successful academically and they want to help the students become successful also.  Mr. Escalante was apparently poor growing up and came back to teach to help the minorities living there to achieve.  Mr. Keating was an alumnus of the school and he wanted to give the joy of poetry and life to the students, knowing the dreariness that existed in the school's curriculum and their methods of teaching in the school.

Both teachers fought or challenged the schools administration or institution.  Mr. Escalante because he believed the students could achieve if they were shown that there was an expectation that could achieve.  Mr. Keating was unorthodox in his teaching methods challenging the academic mediocrity or lifelessness of what was expected of him in the classroom and out of it.

Both teachers had to deal with parents that wanted to restrict the kids to the status quo, however Mr. Keating left the issue completely up to the student(s) to solve with the parents.  This may have been to help them grow as individuals.

In the end after analyzing the individual characteristics I would say that both teachers are good teachers, but I would say that Mr. Escalante is a great teacher.  He works very hard to help the students to succeed and expects the students to work hard which they do.  Mr. Escalante gets the students to achieve things they did not believe they were capable of.  Mr. Keating gets the kudos for helping the students to enjoy school more but I'm not sure how much he helped to improve them academically.  We are shown in the movie that the kids are enjoying themselves but not that they are excelling.  That I think is the key difference. You compare academic skills versus happiness.  You can be happy being a ditch digger if you enjoy it, you cannot be happy being a mathematician if you don't know math.

  

Mr. Escalante and Mr. Keating similarities and differences.

Language
Mr. Keating inspires and brings students up to his level using his style
of language and eloquence.
Mr. Escalante uses the slang and language of the students to pull the
students along.

Both Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante involve themselves into the personal
life of their students. Cite Neil, Todd & Anna/Angel/Poncho.

Both teachers push their students to excel.
Mr. Escalante devotes a lot of time and energy in the classroom focusing
on Math/Calculus.
Mr. Keating devotes time in and out of the classroom focusing on poetry,
but involving physical skills to make the poetry more of a living thing in
their mind. Walking/Kicking balls/other activities.

The way Mr. Escalante teaches and what he is trying to accomplish is very
stressful to him, eventually leading him to have a mild heart attack.  He
teaches the students that they do not have to just exist in the barrio
continuing the status quo, they can also achieve great things if they put
their minds to it.
The way Mr. Keating teaches is light hearted as he teaches the students to
express themselves and live life to the fullest and not to just accept
what is handed to them, to have a questioning attitude.

Both teachers want to give back to the students.  Mr. Escalante was
apparently poor growing up and came back to teach to help the minorities
living there to achieve.
Mr. Keating was an alumnus of the school and he wanted to give the joy of
poetry and life to the students, knowing the dreariness that existed in
the school's curriculum and their methods of teaching in the school.

Both teachers fought/challenged the schools administration.  Mr. Escalante
because he believed the students could achieve if they were shown that
there was an expectation that could achieve.
Mr. Keating was unorthodox in his teaching methods challenging the wrote
and mediocrity of what was expected of him in the classroom and out of it.


Both teachers had to deal with parents that wanted to restrict the kids to
the status quo, however Mr. Keating left the issue completely up to the
student to solve with the parents.  I'm not sure if it was to help them
grow as individuals or what.

Paper #2: Teachers, A comparison. Thesis statement. (draft)

This is a comparison of Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante.
I originally believed that Mr. Keating is the better teacher because he works continually works to bring up the students to his level without causing undue stress on the students. In the following paper I will examine the differences between the teachers and explain why I think that Mr. Keating may be the better teacher.


     To begin with Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalante came from two different cultures.  Mr. Keating although maybe not well off, his family had enough money to send him to a private boarding school "Welton Academy" a boys preparatory school to prepare for college. Private school gives the opportunity to focus on school work thereby giving students a chance to excel.  Mr. Keating being an alumnus of the school is accepted by the staff at first. Mr. Keating comes to the school to teach English. Mr. Escalante comes from Bolivia and was poor growing up, me makes a comment in the film that he washed dishes when he first came in to the United States. Mr. Escalante comes to teach computer science however there are no computers in the school so he is assigned by the math dept chair to teach math.
  

Differences between Mr. Escalante's and Mr. Keating's Schools.

Mr. Escalante's school was in the barrio, and was a co-ed school.  This school was hurting for financing. Additionally it had a poor faculty and administration.  Poor in that they were not supportive of the students. The faculty issues were that the teachers were teaching classes that they were not suited for and this situation was probably due to lack of money.  The school was trying to get accredited in order to get more money.  There was vandalism and graffiti at the school.  Students attending this school are largely poor academically and financially. This movie took place in the 1980's.

Mr. Keating's school was a New England preparatory school for boys.  Whelton Prep School.  This school seemed financially stable. There was a large body of water nearby for water sports activities like a rowing club. The school was on a large estate where there was a lot of space for activities such as outdoor fencing, running around, playing ball, and there was a forest with a cave in it.  The school grounds were generally quiet.  The school was clean and organized.  Students at this school are largely well off, or at least not struggling financially. The students at this school wore uniforms and they resided at the school during the academic year.  This school used capital punishment for offenses as one student got a board to his behind.  This movie took place in the 1950's.

Notes from 5 Nov #1 My attempt at Audre Lorde's syntax

When the boys were 17 years old and still full of pubescent angst, they started school in the Whelton Boys Prep school in New England in the 1950’s.  The school was an old school with large grounds and a body of water nearby where you could see students rowing boats for competition or fencing on the school grounds. Most of the students were eager to learn in their school uniforms and wearing their blazers, but some of the students did not want to be there and had dreams that did not involve learning in this formal institution, but their parents were not giving them choices of what to do with their lives ultimately resulting in one of the students tasking their own life do to a feeling of helplessness.

Ok, I tried to follow the general idea, but I could not come up with specifics that would match. Bottles of milk from the cafeteria maybe? I don't know guess I'm just not creative tonight.

Mr. Escalante vs Mr. Keating group discussion

Differences between Mr. Keating and Mr. Escalantes 10-30-13 from group discussion

They are similar and different.

Mr. Keating is teaching at a Boys Prep School in New England, time period is the 1950's,

Mr. Escalantes is teaching at an Urban School in LA, time period is 1980's.

They both use illustrations in their classroom to get the attention of their students. For example:
Mr. Escalantes dressed in a chef outfit and cut apples in different sizes for the students to try and figure out what percentage they were.
Mr.Keating took students out in crossway to look at past pictures of students and picturing the "dead students" to what is in the future.

Mr. Escalantes method of teaching was more of using student language, coming from their point of view.
Mr. Keating pulls students toward his way of thinking and drawing them to picture higher / different thoughts.

The economic status of both schools were at different ends of the spectrum.  Mr. Escalantes class was mostly student where parents were working hard and long hours just to make a living.
Mr. Keating students were expected to go on to law, medical schools from their parents (who wasn't interested in them, but in status).

Dead Poet Society Day #2 (10/31)

new name Nowanda.

Knox kisses girl at party on forehead while she is sleeping.  Causes fight to start. Get bloody nose from her boyfriend.

Charlie publishes note from the DPS (without other members consent) demanding to let girls into the school.

Mr. Nolan has inquisition demanding guilty persons come forward of risk expulsion.
During school inquisition gets "Phone call from God." Mr. Nolan not amused.  Charlie Dalton gets punished. Spanked with large paddle with holes drilled in it.
Mr. Nolan demands names of students in DPS.
Mr. Nolan has chat with Mr. Keating about conformity vs questioning attitude.

Neil has confrontation with father over play, father demands he quit even though play is the next day.

Neil not from rich family like others.

Neil says he always wanted to act.  Keating says he needs to talk to his father.  Neil says he is trapped.

Knox brings flowers to girl he kissed while she is at school, and reads her a poem.

Charlie paints an arrow on his chest.

Girl goes to play with Knox.

Neil is acting when his father comes in to watch play.  Neil gets standing ovation after play.

Father comes to get Neil after play.
Father tells Keating to stay away from his son when Keating comes to congratulate Neil.

Neils father tells Neil he is going to send him to a military academy and to forget acting.  Neil gets into his role of puck from the play for one last time, then he goes downstairs and gets his fathers gun and kills himself.

Todd, Neils roommate runs off after finding out the news of Neil's death.

Mr. Keating read title page from his book that was in Neil's desk.

Mr. Nolan going to conduct an inquiry into matter for parents.

Mr. Nolan coax all kids in DPS into giving a confession implicating Mr. Keating after redheaded kid tells his version of story of which appears to be at least partly a lie.

Redhead, "You can't save Mr. Keating but you can save yourselves"

Mr. Nolan starts poetry class over, what is poetry. Finds out introduction pages are ripped out.

Mr. Keating comes in to get his personal effects, as he is leaving Todd gets on his desk and says "Captain oh my Captain"

Then all the members of the DPS one by one get on their desk and follow suit, with the exception of the redhead.

Mr. Nolan cannot maintain control of the class.

Mr. Keating smiles and leaves.



At no time during the movie did Mr. Keating participate in a meeting, or ask about the meetings nor was implied that he was involved in any way.  The Dead Poets Society (DPS) was run completely by the students based loosely on the description that Mr. Keating gave them when he described the DPS to them when they asked about the DPS.

Dead Poet Society.

Dead Poets Society takes place at Whelton Prep School.  Mr. Keating (Robin Williams) is a new teacher at the school, and an alumnus of the school himself.
Mr. Nolan first 20 questions of chapter 1 due the next day, very formal.
Mr. Keating comes into classroom whistling, very nonchalant.
Carpe diem - seize the day.

Food for worms

Mr. Keating has the kids rip out the introduction part of the poetry book "Five Centuries of Verse"

Mr. Keating tells the kids we read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.

Powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.

Kids find year book mentioning dead poet society by picture of Mr. Keating.  They ask about the "Dead Poets Society".

Suck the marrow out of life.

Mr. Todd Anderson, introvert seems scared.

Kids sneak out to go to Dead Poets Society meeting.  The kids find a cave in the forest to meet in.

Kids unable to light fire to keep warm.

Kids put food into jacket for them all to share.

One student pulls out a centerfold from a girly magazine with his poem written on the back so they can look at the nude girl while he reads the poem to them.

Mr. Keating has fun making poetry come alive for the students, makes it fun for the students.

When you read, don't just think about what the author thinks but what you think.

Rowing team

Fencing on hillside.

Kicking balls while reading quotes (not sure but I think this is to help them make the poetry more of a living thing as they are doing something while reading it, not just reading it like an obituary)

Neil wants to act so he writes fake letter from his father to allow him to participate in the play.

Todd Anderson creates apoem in class by beginning with a personal description of Walter Whitman.

Kids carry Mr. Keating after practice.

Knox gets invited to a party.

Mr. Keating has 3 students start walking, they end up marching. (Mr. Keating says conformity is the difficulty of maintaining ones own beliefs when with others)

Todd's parents give him the same present for his birthday that they gave him last year. "Maybe they were not thinking anything at all."  "I think you are underestimating the value of the desk set." "Shape is rather aerodynamic isn't it." Todd throws desk set off bridge.??? says will give him same present next year.

Comparing Mr. MacFarland to Mr. Escalante.

Mr. MacFarland did not try to associate with the students at their level like Mr. Escalante did.  Mr. MacFarland was more indulgent with the students and encouraged a particular type of behavior from his elective English class.  Mr. Escalante did not seem to care how the students acted to long as they did not disrupt the class and did their work.  The only time that I can recollect Mr. Escalante indulging a student was in an academic way by giving Angel 3 copies of their text book so he could study without appearing to be studeous.  Being that Mr. Escalante was teaching a particular type of math, he only had the one book that they used, whereas Mr. MacFarland had numerous book titles for the students to choose from for their reading.  The only ways that I see them both being the same is that they are both demanding of their students and they both seem to care about the students achieving more then the students cared to on their own.  They also cared enough about the students to help on a personal level.  Mr. Escalante helped Anna to get back into class by talking to her father, he helped them study for the AP Calculus exam both times and did what he could to get the school to allow the students to take AP Calculus in the first place, he also tried to get the AP exam people to accept their original grades and accusing the AP testers of being biased against his students because of where they came from. Mr MacFarland helped Mike by helping him to get a loan for school, writing a letter to help get mike accepted to school, and talking to professors on his behalf.

The similarities are that both tried to help the students go from substandard performance to excelling in school. They both got involved with the students outside of classroom hours.  Mr. Escalante did not indulge the students by taking them out to the theater or indulge them in other ways along those lines.

Is Mr. Escalante a good teacher?

As to the question of whether or not Mr. Escalante is a good teacher I will give the following:

Mr. Escalante teases the students at their level, in a way that is trying to encourage the students based on how they interact with each other. This sometimes goes too far as he unknowingly hurt the feelings of one of his students.  Mr. Escalante makes assumptions that he is always right. When the students all get the same answer to a question that differs from his answer he derides them instead of using it as a teaching moment and working through the problem with them.  This may be the cause of them all getting the same wrong answers on their AP Test.  In these cases he is not a good teacher.

Overall he does a good job maintaining discipline in his class and motivating his students.  He pushes them a little hard, he encourages them. He goes to Anna's fathers restaurant to get her father to let her come back to class, and tells her father how capable she is.  He gives Angel 3 books so he can be studying without letting others know that he is trying to do a good job in class.  He challenges the students to go beyond the expectations of how they are raised and what their environment expects of them, what everyone including the school administrators feel that they are capable of.  In doing this and letting his students know he is looking out for their best interest he is a good teacher.

Overall I would say he is a good teacher.  He was trying to prove a point to everyone that the students could excel, and he achieved this.  However he did not always listen to the students and I think that hurt their performance to a degree. He did get results there can be no denying that but there was in my opinion excessive stress on the students.