SCHOOL AND SOCIETY
ES 3950
____________________________
"Teaching
Strategies/Lesson Plans" Chapter
Two
Your chapter takes
a close look at just how equal schooling is for all students. To the point,
the chapter takes a close look at the relationship between race, gender,
and educational attainment. Your job is to analyze this relationship.
What you will find, if you look close enough, is that is it quite likley
that schools play a role in determing social class. More importantly,
you will find that schools have a hand in perpetuating societal inequities.
Some teaching suggestions for this chapter include:
Make overheads of various
charts in the chapter. In particular, pay attention to charts related
to gender, race, income, and education.
Make handouts that illustrate
how the three 'models' work ie. 'the common school model,' 'the sorting
machine,' and the 'high stakes testin model.'
Assign charts to pairs/groups
of students and ask that they analyze the data, drawing conclusions
based on what they find. For instance, take a look at what
women make compared to what men make. Maybe you could find some
recent data that ties to the charts.
Find Savage
Inequalities by Jonathon Kozoll. You could hand out parts of the book/paragraphs and have
students read, discuss, respond, to what they read. The paragraphs could
be the same or from different parts of the book. The point, ultimately,
is to make it clear that not all kids get to learn the same way in the
same type of school.
Have students examine a
book review
of Kozol's Savage Inequalities and ask that they respond. You
could do this in pairs, groups, or as individuals.
Consider visiting local
schools, such as Kalamazoo or Portage -- schools that would be considered
city schools or suburban schools. Stop by, take pictures, examine what
you see. Do you notice any differences between urban and suburban schools?
What are the students like? What do the buildings look like? Share the
results of your data with the class.
Get some of the course requirements/offerings
from some suburban and city schools. Analyze the courses, content, curriculum,
etc. What do you see, find? Perhaps, have students take a look at the
offerings and decide for themselves.
Do some research on the
Internet regarding poverty, gender and race in this country. What you will see is that rates
for minorities and for women continue to rise in this country. What
does this say about education and schooling? Is there a relationship
between poor education and being poor? Is there equality in education?
Is there equality in society?
Teacher's expectations are
linked to the social class of students. Read more about the "pygmalion effect," and be ready to share with the class. Why is knowing about
this important to teachers.
Find out more about at-risk students. Who are they? How are they different? Do schools effectively address their needs?
Take a look at tracking and ability grouping and be able to discuss what both: their differences, their simialrities, etc. You might even do a Powerpoint on the issue to help students to understand the issues involved,
You could take a look at Jeannie Oakes' book . It might be prudent to find out more about the author, and to examine more fully her scholarly interests to put her work into context. Has anyone else done work on tracking or how it affects students? Society? Ultimately, spend some time researching the big picture to see what, if anything , has been added to the discussion since Oakes' ground-breaking work.
Explore a bit the history of tracking, perceptions of ability, Darwin, scientific theory, and socio-political connections to Japan .
Find out more about the idea of 'social inequality' . Become an expert on the issue, and the role that schools and social ideologies play in sustaining inequity in society.
Examione connections among teacher expectations , race, social class, etc. What role do teacher expectations play when it comes to issues of social class and educational attainment? How can an awareness of inequalities regarding class, race, and social status affect pedagogy in a positive manner?
As teachers, it is important to examine poverty as it would seem that a majority of the children in our schools live in poverty. Poverty matters. Find out why.
It is important to link matters dicussions of class and education to other issues tied to other institutions such as religion, health, etc. Do some investigation to help students see the bigger picture, and to see that class does affect destiny , and that things might not be all that equal in this society. There are some helpful lesson plans on the matter.
Find out more about terms such as 'social reproduction,' the idea of 'cultural capital,' meritocracy, and the role schools play in maintaining differences in social classes. Visit Marx to see if there are connections , and be prepared to explain how.
Find out more on Henry
Giroux. Go to Sangren Library and find a couple books by Giroux
that detail critical theory, or that give some more depth to his theories.
Sping mentions Giroux for a reason: he is a major player when it comes
to education studies. Perhaps, you could check out a bunch of books
and do brief, capsule summaries of what the books entail. Maybe, you
could do a display, and briefly mention one, two or more of his books
during your presentation. In the end, make it clear why Giroux is important
to critical pedagogues.
Investigate websites, books,
resources, etc., that deal with 'critical
theory.' For instance, English teachers could take a look at books
dealing with critical
theory and teaching English. You could take a look at other disciplines,
grade levels, etc. the goal, ultimately, is to define critical theory
and conenct it to this chapter on 'equality of opportunity in education.