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In Class/OutClassed
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Welcome to InClass/OutClassed: On the Uses of a Liberal Education, an Emily Balch Seminar offered in Fall 2011 @ Bryn Mawr College. This is an interestingly different kind of place for writing, and may take some getting used to. The first thing to keep in mind is that it's not a site for "formal writing" or "finished thoughts." It's a place for thoughts-in-progress, for what you're thinking (whether you know it or not) on your way to what you think next. Imagine that you're just talking to some people you've met. This is a "conversation" place, a place to find out what you're thinking yourself, and what other people are thinking. The idea here is that your "thoughts in progress" can help others with their thinking, and theirs can help you with yours.
So who are you writing for? Primarily for yourself, and for others in both sections of our course. But also for the world. This is a "public" forum, so people anywhere on the web might look in. That's the second thing to keep in mind here. You're writing for yourself, for others in the class, AND for others you might or might not know. So, your thoughts in progress can contribute to the thoughts in progress of LOTS of people. The web is giving increasing reality to the idea that there can actually evolve a world community, and you're part of helping to bring that about.
We're glad to have you along, and hope you come to both enjoy and value our shared exploration of class, in education and outside it. Fee free to comment on any post below, or to POST YOUR THOUGHTS HERE.
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Alert! Syllabus change.....
Jody and I have been fiddling with the syllabus this weekend.
For Tuesday, please read the essay by Pedro Noguera. We will not have time to talk through the Massey and Denton study of residential segregation, so have moved that into the category of optional/additional reading (in other words, you can let that one go...)
Please do bring bell hooks back to class with you, though; we are not done w/ her yet (and we suspect she is not quite done with us, either!).
When you post on Serendip tonight, please answer our general question about whether education levels the playing field by focusing on a specific dimension of the problem. You might want to talk about your reactions to the spoken word video of kai davis, for example; or the claim by bell hooks that decorum and censoring undermine the democratic exchange of ideas in the classroom; or her assertion that the academic work process is essentially antagonistic to the working class, or....??
Looking forward to our further conversation, both on-line and in-person--
Anne (for me and Jody)
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What playing field?
In thinking about whether education levels the playing field, I’m drawn to the experiences of my closest friend and her students. My friend, Christy, works for the School District of Philadelphia in a disciplinary school. Before she was assigned to her current school, she worked in more traditional Philly high schools, including Simon Gratz and Kensington Business. These schools are all in deeply impoverished areas and all have student bodies that are primarily black or Hispanic.
I mention this because, as we discuss education, we seem to all look at college as the end of the road, but for students like my friend’s, college is not even a possibility. Many of her students are far behind where standardized tests say they should be in all subjects. Some of them, high school students, can’t read or write. They have been passed upward, from grade to grade, based on their age. Their schools have no books, no computers, and no climate control. They are forced into overcrowded classrooms; their lives are dictated by budget cuts and teacher lay-offs. When they leave school for the day, they exit back into a city that doesn’t want them, doesn’t keep them safe, and sees them as criminals. They are the living embodiment of a citywide tradition of racism and oppression.
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Is the playing field leveled in the classroom?
Writing my 4th paper on how school doesn't level the playing field. I see that school can be a hinderance or a tool based on one's class status. People from the upper class and middle class have better access to resources such as new text books, tutoring, advanced technology. This factor gives people from the upper and middle classes an upper leg in getting a formal education (college degree). People from lower class tend to be forced to worry about certain obstacles like finaces, etc. before they can even think about excelling in the class room. Moreover schools want to standarize every student's ability and compare each student based on annual income instead of true potential making the chances of a student from the lower class to get into a top college slimmer than a student from the upper class.
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Does Education Level the playing field?
Yes and No. Education does a good job of preparing youths, rich or poor, for adult life, especially the work phase of it. Education instills a ‘can do’ attitude in us, persuading us to step out of our comfort zone and explore the unknown. For example , through our Emily Balch Seminars, most of us have read, discussed and critically analyzed literary works we would ordinarily have assumed were beyond our comprehension. We have also developed better self expression, confidence and an expanded view on issues. Education also provides us with free social capital – our classmates and professors. If we fuel those relationships, they can come in handy later in life, such as when we need recommendations for internships or employment. The educational curriculum also makes room for constructive criticism. This helps to refine us into better individuals, and if we learn from our mistakes and corrections, they can prevent us from remaining in a constant phase of trial and error. We can easily transfer our 3 page paper writing skills into writing business proposals. We can move from making presentations to our classmates to making presentations at Board meetings; from blogging on moodle or serendip to maintaining a web presence for our businesses or companies; from analyzing data to auditing accounts or conducting market surveys.
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Imaging Co-Teaching
So: Jody and I participate in a "creativity group." Tonight, when we were asked to collaborate, with a partner, in writing a poem, or drawing a picture, or....
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access to education, and education accesses to...?
It's been a hard time for me to organize this essay.
I've been thinking from a very macro way when I first tried to writing it. Then I realized there are some actual stories happened around me.
Mom always liked to tell those stories happened in her generation. I think it would be interesting if I write them down and evaluate them from the aspective of access and education.
Education does change one's life routine. At least that is true in China. I learned it from my mom and her sisters's families. It's quite amazing that I look it from a different perspective other than just listen to what my mom thinks about her sister and herself.
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Access and Education Reflection
This week, using the terms "access" and "education" as relative terms to hold up my thesis, I argued that if education in self-awareness was placed alongside academics in schooling, not only would the discrepancies of access be diminished, but ultimately, those people would become happier. I cited Thompkins, whose lack of self-knowledge brought her depression, and Shorris, whose experiment shows how self-reflection can meaningfully affect the lives of the poor.
I do believe in my argument, but the feasibility of such is questionable. While liberal arts colleges emphasise getting to know oneself, I'm not sure how the implementation of "courses" - so to speak - in self-awareness would fare in larger universities or among those who are only interested in schooling to further their careers. Surely a better understanding of the self could benefit anyone, but it could not work if it were forced upon them.
Then comes the question of how it affects those who are unable to continue their schooling. Should the "courses" then be started at a lower level, perhaps high school? How would teachers be trained in leading students on their individual journeys of self-enlightenment? When reading the Thompkins essay, I came across the issue that she seemed to hope that all of her self-knowledge would come at once, as opposed to gradually as she matured and gained more experience. How would this be remedied for those who do not intend to continue schooling after high school?
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Reflection on Access to Education
"In my life, I’ve been very blessed with my access to education and what opportunities my education has provided. My education takes place in classrooms, homes, and the outdoors with all my experiences in each providing different types of educations that all inform one another. However without my education in school, I would not be able to relate my experiences to one another and realize their significance. My education thus far has unintentionally been a practice of John Dewey’s philosophical theory on education, which he describes in Education and Democracy: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education as the connections between our experiences and our reflections of them. Dewey implies that education is an endless process in life as we are always discovering these connections by the process of thinking about our past and the consequences of our past on our future. His classed assumptions about education are that with his definition, to be educated, one must have time, energy to reflect on experiences and have access to a school that educates the whole self – mind and body. Within the working class, this access and opportunities are not normally possible. In Anzia Yezierska’s novel, she brings class to the forefront by describing how one from a working-class background feels in an upper-class college setting. Her novel seems to support Dewey’s philosophical stance on education in that her life experiences only had significance once she had the tools to reflect upon them.
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The pursuit of education through access
I struggled greatly with this paper. The prompt was too board for me and I feel like my paper didn't have substance. I tried to focus on how access and education were connected--stemming off from the idea that experience and thought were connected. I tried to explain that education is useless without access and that it is society's job to ensure that everyone is getting an equal access to education. I am not entirely a sure that I got that sentiment across. Its hard to talk about education and access when the definition is so relative. I cant truly express about education, because I have a personal definition of it that applies, I feel, only to me. I wonder if anyone else is struggling with this and it also makes me wonder about how much emphasis there are on definitions.
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Reflection on Access and Education.
I tried to include every single thoughts and concerns in my three pages paper about education and then I realized that it is impossible. I hit the writing center and bothered my tutor, attacking her brain with my ideas on Thursday night; however, I found serendip is the right place to arrange my thoughts.
In my paper, I argued that equal educational opportunity is essential for individual because education would change one’s thoughts internally and affects one’s behavior and action externally. Education is able to provide theories (even though its intended range includes the praxis part) so one will be able to learn by combining personal experience and positive cognition of objects. Based on this definition of education, theories need a solid base and experiences would be concrete supporting material for those theories; even though some abstract learning process, say studying math, personal evolvement is important: one should study in a critical and positive way instead of memorizing formulas passively.
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Access to Education – My Reflection
Until my conference, I had a lot of ideas about access to education, but not really one clear topic to focus on. It wasn't until I told Professor Cohen of an experience one of my friends had in relation to her access to education that I realized it was very relatable to the discussion we had in class on Thursday and the article we read by Earl Shorris.
In class, Professor Cohen asked us to agree or disagree – in movement – with the statement "The poor must be taught the humanities." (hope that's accurate, there are definitely nuances depending on wording, but I can't remember what the exact words were). I stood in the middle of the classroom but closer to the disagreement side because I decided that though it was certainly important for everyone to learn the humanities, if the poor weren't given the tools to continue that education or make use of it in a life they found fulfilling, there would be no point enforcing such teaching. In my essay I wrote about how one can have access to an academic education, but without practical knowledge or help with the logistics of the college application process (for example) one cannot continue his or her study. This isn't to say that the poor shouldn't have access to the humanities if they cannot afford to go further. I simply believe that in addition to access to the humanities, there should also be access to navigational tools of the sort that help you navigate College Board, write a resume, or even know how to confront someone if you feel a mistake has been made or you've been wronged.
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Access to Education Reflection
Of the many paths of access, a greater question is raised. Does anyone have a complete access to education? Tompkins chose the path toward academia, which disregarded her path of the outside world. Luttrell’s women had a sense of the real world, but barely had a taste of schooling. Rodriquez chose the academic path as well but shut out his home education. In each situation no one had a complete access to education. There were numerous ideas and paths that each person could explore, but those paths were not taken. There was barely any thinking or experience done for Tompkins and Rodriquez in the path of the outside world and vice versa for Luttrell’s students. This idea of access to education in accordance to experience and thinking can be applied to the greater majority. The upper and middle classes do not always have a sense of the struggles the lower class faces and the lower class does not always know the benefits that come with an education. Although the three classes have access to education, it is incomplete. In each case, there is always something that can be experienced and thought about. The process of learning is endless and with the possibility of an endless education, access to education will never be complete, but through thinking and experience, it can broaden.
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Reflection on my Essay on Access to Education
I don’t think that I really had a clear idea of what to write for this essay and I found it difficult to write due to how broad the topic was. In “reflecting on the relationship between access and education” I found it difficult to get anywhere without first defining “education,” and “access.” I settled on a rather idealistic idea of what education should be which made my essay rather abstract, but I attempted to back my claims with concrete examples from the readings. The claim I attempted to explain throughout my essay was that education should include experiential learning, critical thinking and the obtainment of knowledge. Furthermore, I tried to address the idea that though everyone certainly does not have access to “good” schools, everyone does have access to experiential learning and that this learning should be nurtured in a proper school setting (therefore, there is a need for such a “proper school setting”). In addition, I tried to express the idea that this is the type of education gives a person access to many other entities (good jobs, college, etc.).
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Reflection on Access to Education
I found this to be a very hard essay to write. There are so many different ways to define and interpret the word “access.” I started out by trying to look up the word access in a dictionary and I was a bit intrigued by some of the definitions I did not know were associated with access. For example, I found that in the Webster’s Dictionary, access is defined by an increase or growth. This definition really resonated with me as I wrote my paper because I defined access to education as being something I have acquired through my parents. The access they have given me has increased and grown because we are of different generations and also because I was raised in a different environment than they were. Access, in my opinion, is something that you cannot control. Although, my access differs from my parents it still affects my own. I believe that ones parents background can affect their children’s access to education based on their race and socioeconomic status as children. But access to education can be so much more than that. Access to education can be based off of ones experiences, abilities, common sense, realizations, communities, and so much more. So my question is- what is the difference between access to formal education and access to informal education? How do we get access to life experiences and education we do not acquire in school? Is it through experiences in our communities? Nurturing from our parents? Either way, I think that there are multiple ways to view access to education; whether it be through informal or formal education.
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Disability and Access to Education
" In addition to looking a little different, learning disabilities are common affects of Turner’s Syndrome. Before being diagnosed, many Turner Syndrome girls are actually led to believe they had ADHD or other more general learning disabilities. In my case, I had 11 years before my diagnosis told me the laundry list of things I shouldn’t be able to do and until the point had not been aware of the term “limits.” There are some Turner’s patients who are diagnosed earlier than I was, some even at birth. The average age of diagnosis for Turner’s, however, is around 15 or 16 years old. As a result, each patient has wildly different experiences in their formative years thus noticeably different educational experiences. "
For my essay, I decided to focus on how disability can define a student's access to education. As a person with a disability, I focused my paper more or less on Turner's Syndrome and it's impact. Surprisingly, I made some new discoveries about my own disability in researching for the paper. Newer research shows a connection between Turner's and ADD/ADHD. I was previously unaware of the link and a lot of the challenges I have faced academically now make sense. Upon this discovery I discussed it with one of my good friends back home who manages her ADD without meds. When I told her, she responded "You didn't know you had ADD?" I know I can be a little over the top at times and do often drift from work causing me to move at a slower pace, but I had never connected the dots...
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Reflection on Access to Education
In my paper I focused on something both Edmundson and Dewey touched on in our readings, that in order to recieve an education that matters one must have some sort of self-doubt or curiosity. Even though Edmudson relates this to all his students, I chose to focus on how the lower class has even less access to an education that matters than those who are from the upperclass.
While writing my paper it really struck me how much class mentality molds a persons education. For instance, when Luttrell goes to interview one of her students, their two children are playing together and the interviwee writes off her childs intelligence as "just common sense". Already from a young age her son's intelligence isn't as valued as Luttrell's daughter, something that will follow them later in life. And when Dorothy Allison is assigned to make her family tree, her mother demands she doesn't pursue exploration of her uncertinty about her heritage.
It occured to me that if the lower class what to receive an education that matters, class mentality has to be changed rather than providing greater opportunities for the lower class. Like Viniece Walker explained to Earl Shorris, the lower class have to learn the "morals of down town".
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Access to Education--Reflection
As I wrote my essay on access to education, the idea struck me that if we do not appreciate our access to education, in its various forms (both formal and informal), we are missing out even more than if we did not have this access at all. This is especially evident in the case of Luttrell's students--women who undervalued their own common sense, strengthening their desire for a formal education, in Luttrell's class, to help them "become somebody". These women did make significant contributions to their families and to their workplace environment (even when it was a more menial job than that of more formally educated women). However, because they felt a need to be up to par with women like Wendy Luttrell, who could make a name for themselves on the basis of their smarts and their "somebody"-ness, they seemed to want to cut ties with their past education. It costs more than just money to have access to formal education, especially in the case of Doreen's son Tony, who probably would not be pushed to do work in the fields that he showed interest and promise in because his predilection towards them was viewed as mere common sense. In order to truly have an "education that matters" as Edmundson would say, I believe the learner needs to appreciate both what they learn and what they come in already knowing.
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Reflection on the acess to education
"Education plays a vital role in father’s life: on the one hand, it leads him to the life he wanted for him and let him leads him to the life he wants; but on the other hand, he completely lost his way to everything in his past life. For many people who intend to change their life by schooling, the access to education is like a one-way ship ticket, once people decide to aboard the ship, there is no chance to get back.
Far more than learning specific knowledge in the classrooms from teachers, I realized that education is actually closely related to class. Class mobility, which is considered as one of the most wonderful things that people can gain from education, is not always equals to happiness. For people who change their life by receiving education, they automatically put themselves in an awkward position, where is extremely hard to find a sense of belonging. Since they move out from their previous class, everything belongs to the class is no longer open to them; but at the same time, everything in the class they end up with is completely brand new.
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Thoughts on Educational Access
This week, I chose to focus my writing on something our class hasn't really discussed. Throughout the semester, we've been talking about types of access that are imposed on us. Our income level, the class we're born in to, the community and culture we're a part of....these are generally aspects of access that have been imposed on us, or things we don't have full control over.
My thesis revolves around psychological attitudes and how they precede educational access barriers such as class or income. Essentially, I argued that the first step towards gaining access to education is having the desire and curiosity to learn.Without being psychologically openminded towards learning, the level of access one has is irrelevant.
I'm still wondering to myself about the development of my argument, and for this reason, this week's paper was particularly difficult for me to write and reflect on.
Here is an excerpt: