Blog Post 10

Overall this semester I was able to discover a lot about myself when I evaluated my own thoughts as well as thoughts of great educators through my cumulative course blog. The blogs allowed me to critically think about the teachings of other educators and then write my personal thoughts about the theories of education that they teach. I discovered a lot about myself through these blogs. It showed me the kind of teacher I really want to be and helped me discover that my teaching style might be a little different then I originally thought. Before I read our texts for class I really never thought about teaching for multiple kinds of students and how different students like to learn differently. It showed me that I have to broaden my horizons when it comes to this. I need to learn to also teach democratically and not to teach just in the banking concept of teaching, but to also know how to liberate education. When I was able to discuss this concept from Paula Freire I looked at it really critically and realized if it was in my future classroom I would want to teach a mixture of both these liberating concepts of teaching that lean away from teaching facts, but instead more critical thinking, but also still teach part of the banking concept of learning and teaching because at some points students do need to learn basic facts and memorization that needs to be banked in their memory. The blogs also forced me to ask questions about the different concepts, so for Freire’s take on the banking concept I really wanted to know what experienced teacher thought. 

I believe that education should be offered to all students equally no matter what their social status, family income, or race. I did preliminary research on our countries education system when it comes to funding. Funding is clearly a big issue in education that you hear about all the time, which in turn is why I want to write about it. One can hear about the disparities of educational funding across the United States on a daily basis, that is how big of an issue it is. It is not just the disparities from town to town, but also state to state, that’s the real issue. It was shocking to me when I first learned what “pay to play” was here at John Carroll because it was never something I had to come in contact with in high school because I went to high school in New York State, but those kids who went to high school in Ohio all had to deal with pay to play. Because I went to school in one of the most well funded states in America I didn’t have to deal with many budget cuts of funding issues. Money was rarely an issue at my school, but if you compare that to a state like Indiana it could be a whole different situation. I feel that it shouldn’t be that much of a difference from state to state. The system we have for federal and state funding of education in The Untied States does not allow for equal opportunity for all students trying to learn. If a student is trying to learn shouldn’t we give them the most opportunity to do that?

I think my belief responds to the hopes and dreams of almost every student and parent out there. Every student working hard and putting in the effort to make themselves better and learn what they need to wants the same opportunities as every other student in the world. No student hopes it is harder for them or that they have less opportunity then someone else when it comes to their education. This goes for the parent as well. Every parent wants the best and most opportunity for their child. If a parent cannot afford to live in a school district with a highly funded school or can send them to a private school with their own funding does that mean that their child should suffer and get less opportunity then other students? Should a child that lives in Cleveland Heights have any less opportunity then a child that lives in Shaker Heights? Although, I do not have much experience in a low income school myself it is very easy to see that it is a problem. Through my time at John Carroll I’ve sat and listened to my fellow students talk about having to pay hundreds of dollars just to play a sport or be in the band. This do not seem fair to me. Expression and art are very important to the education process and it seems crazy to me that a student just trying to better themselves has to pay money to do this, and why because I live in a different state did I not have to do that? I’ve also heard about fellow classmates talking about multiple academic classes being cut. They’ve expressed that their schools did not give them the opportunity to take some advanced placement courses cause they could not afford it. I also did service at Cleveland Juvenile Detention Center last year and the young teenage girls I worked with talked about the schools they came from. These girls did not know half the things they should have know by the age they were. They came from awful schools with teachers that weren’t dedicated to their students and the progress of their students, and in turn the students did not have any motivation to learn. The schools were given such little funding and in such bad neighborhoods that it seemed like these poor girls did not even have a chance of getting the education and opportunities they deserved. I think I could connect this topics about what Bill Ayers wrote about standardized tests and how they aren’t necessarily fair because they ask questions targeted to certain demographics. My topic about funding touches on the idea of low income and diverse neighborhoods. Another reason they are not necessarily performing may not just be funding, but also their demographic and state state wide tests and curriculum does not cater to their needs. Some big questions I want the answers to is how do we fix this issue and is it even fixable? I believe some would say there’s no way to change the current system.