bootism-shoe-religion

What a complex question that educators face on a daily basis. We had a chance to grade some papers in class. There was quite a range of grades given to the same writing samples. Teachers are individuals like everybody else. We have our own idiosyncrasies about writing. Some of my classmates focused on mechanics, some focused on ideas/content, and some focused on organization. I think the most important aspect of writing is ideas. I think that this might be due to the fact that I have worked with students with disabilities and they have problems with all parts of writing. The hardest part for these students is to get ideas on paper. The other stuff can be worked on later.
I didn’t realize how subjective grading writing is. An essay can be graded in so many different ways. It all depends on who is doing the grading. Also another factor is it the first essay or the hundredth essay that they are grading. This can change between essays. There should be consistency in grading. Teachers should look for the same things on every paper. A test for teachers is to grade all papers without any names on them. Then grade them with names on them. If the same paper does not get the same grade then you can tell that you are being biased based on the student, and not on the writing. I think that teachers should do this every so often to become more aware of how slack that they are getting in your grading. An idea to stay away from subjectivity is to use rubrics. The rubrics give teachers a standard to go by. There is less chance of grading more heavily on one thing more than another. By giving each section total points the teacher and students know ahead of time what is expected of them. There is an awesome sight that designs rubrics of all kinds. I spent sometime designing a few rubrics for fun. The website is http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
Grading one of my worst fears as a teacher. I feel that I’m inadequate in assessing students properly. Grading can be so subjective in any subject not only in writing. I worry about are my students learning what they need to learn to go on. I know that I will be effective teachers, but grading scares me. I think once i’m in the classroom and grading routinely then I may feel more comfortable.

Nancy Patterson is a professor at Grand Valley State University. She came to talk about “No child left behind”. I thought I had a grasp on what this new law was. Boy was I wrong. I did like “no child left behind” in the first place. But after Nancy’s presentation I like it even less. I never liked standardized testing. But I felt that there really wasn’t anything I could do about it. I had the belief that there is no other way so we are stuck with standardized testing. The measure is designed to give a common measure of student performance. The measurements compare individual students’ performance. I didn’t realize that the purpose of standardized testing was defined as “to label people as bright or not bright, as worthy academically or not worthy.” This is just bogus. I just am speechless regarding this definition. Why test in the first place? The government wants something to show for America’s education, numbers are seductive, and accountability of schools. The accountability is all about keeping teachers, administrators and districts in line. If there is a consistent trend of failing standardized testing the government comes in and takes over. All the teachers and administrators are fired and the school is reorganized.
What is wrong with NCLB? It pits the rich against the poor. There is a threat of withholding money from schools. To get money must write grants that explain a scientific based instruction. The creators believe that America is made up of cookie cutter children. There is no where in the world that have cookie cutter children. What’s the standard? Whose standard? School districts are finding ways to make loop holes. One is that they are lowering the score to pass. For example the score was 12 now need an 8 to pass. This says that oh school is doing better. Oh NCLB is working. This is not really true. If we continue to lower the score to pass then we are not only hurting ourselves we are hurting students. I didn’t realize how expensive administering the MEAP was. It costs 30 million dollars for students to take the MEAP for one week. This is darn expensive. Where is this money going to? Are people making money off the MEAP? If they are then the government needs to find a alternative test that is cheaper or made by the government to use. Federal funds are dwindling. There is not much money being disbursed to schools. Schools are required to cut back where they shouldn’t have to, such as curriculum, building repair, teacher salaries. But schools are still required to comply with the law, which is expensive. This is how nasty the government is playing. Utah said they were not going to comply. The government’s response threatened to take away the military bases. The bases are one of the main sources of jobs for Utah residents. There are many ways to fail. These ways are obvious to me. They schools that are failing routinely are those that have high concentration of high minority and poverty, and special education. NCLB would not be as bad if there was more than one way to assess students. As of right now there is only standardized testing. There is a foundation that is trying to dismantle NCLB. Those that want to help in the effort should go to www.fairtest.org.

I think that critical pedagogy is awesome. I think that if it is use correctly it could be a enriching and rewarding for students. I think that it works in some and not other situations. I think that this works oppressed situations.
It works in inner city urban areas because they see injustice all the time. This gives them the chance to speak. They have been taught not to speak. They are not proud of who they are. Critical pedagogy empowers them to be proud and stand up of what they are, who they are, and where they came from. This pedagogy ties in other subjects in as well. It brings in literature, and history. Students are not only learning about self, they are learning about where they came from. They are learning about different cultures and their struggles. They learn that they are not alone in their problems. I feel that this gives students a way to deal with life. I have seen some of the issues that students in inner cities have to deal with. The average person doesn’t have to deal with these issues. I commend those that fight for their lives and still come to school.
I just had a thought. I could see it working in non-oppressed situations. This design would have to be a lot more structured. There would have to be a lot more simulations because in middle class suburbia life is not as tough. Those students are not likely fighting for their lives everyday. They have things that others don’t have. I’m a suburbia girl. I had things that I took for granted. I try not to take things for granted. The design would have to be centered on specific topics gathered by teacher. These students more likely than not won’t think of violence, rape, drugs, and tolerance as issues. I think that a great topic to use critical pedagogy for is tolerance. This is definitely on my mind. I touch upon this topic at least once in every blog. I guess this makes it an important topic to me.
The second pedagogy style I was introduced to was multi genre. I like multi genre because it teaches many different types of genres. I think that the multi genre paper is a nice change from the traditional essay that most students are required to complete. I hate writing traditional papers, the multi genre is a fun piece to write.
Overall I like these two different pedagogies. I think that I will definitely use them in the future.