RIC FNED 346 Fall 2019

SUMMARY In episode 562 The Problem We All Live With, Ira Glass interviews reporter of the New York Times, Nikole Hannah Jones. Jones has been reporting on the schools in Durham, North Carolina during the time of No Child Left Behind. She has reported that many of the school districts there are, have implemented many different strategies in order to ensure that students are receiving the same education and decreasing the education gap between black and white students. However, Jones states the only strategy that seems to work the most is integration. Black students were scoring almost 40 points behind their white peers at the start of desegregation in 1971 and by 1988 the black students were still behind the white students, but this time by 19 points. It was because black students were being integrated into higher class schools systems where they were receiving the same resources and better teachers than those in low income school districts. Even though it appears to only be an...

SUMMARY The article In The Service Of What?: The Politics of Service Learning, by Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer, discusses the different approaches of service learning and the different domains that impact service learning. Throughout the article,the authors examine the various ways of ho w educators, politicians and academicians deal with and think of service learning. The authors argue that service learning is a chance for students to further their learning by using the community as a tool and the students can provide help to others in need. The main question of the article, "In the service of w hat?", brings attention to people like educators, that, "the idea of learning and service reinforce each other and should come together in America's schools" (Kahne). The two authors also believe that students need to analyze, reflect and discuss their service learning in order to truly comprehend the benefits of it. The article further goes on to explain...

Safe Spaces   Summary    In the reading  titled  Safe Spaces: Making Schools and Communities Welcoming to LGBT Youth,  by Annemarie Vaccaro, Gerri August, and Megan S. Kennedy, the authors discuss how educators can create a more inclusive environment for their students. The authors argue that by not including the history of LGBTQ, not validating those who are LGBTQ or have family or friends who are, and by not integrating them into the curriculum, educators are marginalizing these students. In the reading it states, "Without the deliberate creation of an inclusive atmosphere, however, what happens inside classroom walls reproduces the prejudices that exist outside these walls: straightness and gender conformity are assumed; LGBT identity is deviant" (August 84). The authors provide examples of teachers who integrate LGBT into their classrooms along with examples of teachers who fail to provide positive teaching lessons regarding LGBTQ history, fam...

Summary:  Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us The article Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us, by Linda Christensen, discusses how she tries to teach their students how to analyze the world around them by using media to have them analyze. The teacher uses "children's cartoons, movies, and literature", because they "are perhaps the most influential genre to read" (Christensen 127). She has her students look at how media and entertaining directed to children shape their ideas of society and the world around them. In this exercise her students will watch a cartoon or movie and analyze the stereotypes or racism they see portrayed in it. The students write their thoughts in a journal, where they can work through their feelings, emotions and ideas about the show or movie they watched. The author says the goal of this course and exercise is to have the students "develop their critical consciousness, but also move them to action" (Christensen 134). By the ...