Annotated Bibliography

I finally finished my annotated bibliography!!!!!!!!!!  I thought it was going to be a pain in the rear... and it was.  But I have to say, I actually found some pretty good references.  I did a combination of articles about things we discussed in class (e.g. anti-oppressive education, multi-cultural education) and websites that will be good classroom tools for me in the future, like www. pbs.org.  I also used some resources that I gained in other classes.  Many of you who are in Randy Goree's class with me will know what I'm talking about.  He stresses the use of technology and and websites like the Library of Congress.  These are all things I wasn't really aware of before this semester.  On that note, I feel like I've gained a lot this semester.  

Social Class and Knowledge

I just read some of the chapter on social class and knowledge and found it to be interesting. I can agree that some of the lower social and economic class districts are taught somewhat differently. I don't think that is always a negative, but just how it is in some areas. For example, when you live in a mining community in West Virginia, a lot of your curriculum may have to do with that way of life, because that is your community and what it knows. It is still possible and positive to encourage alternate ways of thinking. I just did a lesson for my seventh graders that Randy Goree thought was a little advanced. It was a lesson on comparing the economics of the Great Depression to today. The students did very well and understood a lot of complex terminology. I felt that it was important not only to challenge them, but also to begin to familiarize them with some of these concepts that are critical to their civic adulthood. They were very receptive. Moral of the story: DON'T UNDERESTIMATE YOUR STUDENTS BECAUSE OF THEIR SOCIAL CLASS...THEY ARE SMARTER THAN YOU THINK!

Well, after reading the chapter on Bi-lingual education, I find it a very difficult topic. I thought that the author used some good examples. The example in the beginning with the college commencement speech in Russian was bad because Now you are starting to get into this argument that everybody should know every language, which is silly. Do we really all need to speak russian to accomodate .2% (which is probably still a stretch that it's that many) of the population? Am I a bad person because I don't speak Uzbeki or Tagalog? No. However, I did like how the author made sure to say "the bilingual goal should never be to restrict students to their own vernacular." I would go a step further and say it would be irresponsible to not try and get these kids to speak English as fluently as possible. Much of the world speaks English, especially the business world, and our job as teachers is to best accomodate these students to be successful in that world. Trying to have a seperate bilingual program for every language is expensive, unfortunately it might be something that has to be done.