Rose and Black Comparison (11/21)

Both Rose and Black agree that kids need more of a challenge. We think that the “magic bullet” (Rose) is charter schools but we cannot rely on charter schools. Black also believes charter schools are the best for challenging students. Rose and Black both point out that we cannot rely on charter schools. Clips from “Waiting for Superman” are used to support Black’s dialogue of charter schools; kids get into charter schools through a lottery system. It is pure luck that kids get into charter schools: if they don’t get in they are funneled into less reliable public schools. As Rose points out, we cannot rely on the “magic bullet” of charter schools, because the majority of students do go to public schools.

Black points out, via a clip from “Waiting for Superman”, that American teenagers are 25^th in the world for math and science and #1 in confidence. Rose has a related point: “To stop the accountability train long enough to define what we mean by “achievement” and what it should mean in a democratic society. Is it a rise in test scores? Is it getting a higher rank in international comparisons? Or should it be more?” Should we look at the “25^th in the world” standing and be shocked by it? According to Black we are #1 in the world but ranked extremely low in test scores. The question we should be asking is why is that? To reform the education system we need to find out what is wrong, and also what is right with the education system.

The most important similarity between Rose and Black is how they both agree on challenging students. One of Rose’s calls to action is that we need “more young people getting an engaging and challenging education.”

What do you think HS is for? (11/19)

            I think high school is for getting students ready to go to get into college, and to complete schoolwork. Not many kids from my high school went straight into the work force. So, we all prepared ourselves to write quality college application essays, learn calculus, and to learn enough history and social sciences to deem ourselves well informed. In today’s society, a bachelor’s degree has become equivalent to a high school degree (compared to forty years ago), and a graduate degree has become equivalent to a bachelor’s degree. To be “successful” in life, students need to go to college, and high school is just a steppingstone to college. Even if one would want to go into the workforce sooner than four years, a community college would be the best option for them because at a CC they could get technical training.

            I don’t necessarily believe that high schools should switch the curriculum to offer more technical skills courses, but I think high schools should prepare students emotionally to go out into the “real world”. Students should be treated as adults in order for them to grow up into the adults we want them to be. This means, adults should not coddle students or hold their hands in order for them to succeed. There needs to be a balance between too much pressure and too little adversity. In an optimal environment, students will be able to grow into the adults we want them to be, and also be successful students.

Quotes and Sentences

In the article “Gift of Grit, Curiosity help Kids Succeed: Character Helps Kids Succeed and it can be Taught”, Jerry Large, Seattle Times columnist writes, “A big part of building character is overcoming failure. Too much adversity is bad, but so is too little, which doesn't allow a child to build grit.”

John Gatto questions in his article “Against School”, “Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure not one of them every really grows up?

Gatto makes a call for action to parents, writing, "School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently."

According to Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator and philosopher, "Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated account. Worse yet, it turns them into "containers," into "receptacles" to be "filled" by the teachers.

They must abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world. – Freire

How do pages 32-37 relate to P#3? (11/14)

Although the section "Argument" is most closely related to the paper (as we are making an argument in our third paper), all sections (Classification, Comparison/Contrast, and Cause/Effect) all pertain to Paper 3. Classification is necessary in order to clarify facts and points in the argument. There needs to be explanation in the argument to make it clear, and therefore valid. If a paper is not clear, the argument will not taken seriously. I think Compariosn and/or Contrast is one of the most important factors in writing a persuasive essay. When I write persuasive essays I like to bring up a counterpoint, then make an argument for my points. In this section it has an example "Mom's vs. Dad's Form of Discipline". If I were "Mom", and arguing that my form a discipline were better, I would make an argument for my way, then bring up "Dad's" form of discipline, explain why my way is better, then reiterate my argument (or make conclusions for my argument). It creates a strong argument that doesn't leave the audiences thinking, "but what about that other way....". Cause and/or Effect is the last section; to evaluate why something happens and how that even occurred is essential to an argument. If one cannot identify why/how the situation occured, an argument cannot be really formed at all. In Paper 3, we should all (briefly) evaluate why the education system is how it is, instead of jumping into how to make it better.

Freire and Gatto (11/14)

Freire and Gatto agree on most points. The one that stands out to me the most is how students are passively learning. They simply take in what the teacher in telling them to learn. The education system is for shaping children into what "society" wants them to be, which is easily manipulated and adaptable.
Gatto: Our schools are... factories in which the raw products (children) are to be ahped and fashioned.... And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down."
Gatto: "Is it possible that George W. Bush accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would "leave no child left behind'? Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure not one of them every really grows up?" (By this, Gatto is referring to our lack or curiosity to challenge ideas and notions in society. We are ignorant to the fact that we are being manipulated.)
Freire: "Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated account. Worse yet, it turns them into "containers," into "receptacles" to be "filled" by the teachers. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teachers she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are."
Freire: "It is not surprising that the banking concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings. The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them."

Another point on which Freire and Gatto agree upon is how we should all learn how to think critically. We should be judgmental of the information that is bestowed upon us.
Gatto: "School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently."
Freire: "Those truly committed to liberation must reject the banking concept in its entirety, adopting instead a concept of women and men as conscious beings, and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world. They must abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world. "Problem-posing" education, responding to the essence of consciousness --intentionality -- rejects communiques and embodies communication. It epitomizes the special characteristic of consciousness: being conscious of, not only as intent on objects but as turned in upon itself in a Jasperian split" --consciousness as consciousness of consciousness."

My HS experience vs Gatto (11/12)

I don't think my High School experience was very much like how Gatto claimed high school to be. My teachers were always challenging me to challenge what people said, and to argue my point. In literature classes we were always discussing the piece of text; we never just took it as it is. Even in history classes we read multiple points of view of the same event. In history, we cannot really argue the "truth" but we could understand multiple sides. Of course, in math and science class, which we based on "facts" I took the material how it was. In those subjects we learned how the scientific community knows the subjects. (Now, in college, when I started doing scientific research we actually were able to prove and disprove theories.) Gatto argues that high school is just a passive learning experience. Maybe for some students learning is taking in information to get good grades. But if students want to be more active in the learning process they do challenge the ideas they are learning.

Gatto - Small Groups Discuss (11/12)

#8. Gatto states, "We have become a nation of children".

What does he mean by this?
    By this, Gatto means that we have become impulsive, ignorant, and innocent to the world around us. WE do not need to work hard, we do not need self-control, and we do not need to entertain ourselves. Everything has been provided for us in a way that we do not need to think anymore. We are so manipulated by politicians and commercials; we are passively thinking that everything said to us is true.

What, according to Gatto, would it mean to be adults as opposed to children?
     According to Gatto, we would need to challenge the ideas of others, as opposed to believing everything told to us. We need to judge what we have heard before deciding that it is true.

What should we be doing to ensure that our children are given the opportunity to grow up?
      To ensure that our children are given the opportunity to grow up we need to teach our children to think "critically and independently". We also need to teach them to entertain themselves, and enjoy solitude - children now seek companionship through the media, which is teaching them to always dependent on these technologies. Also, challenge your children with "grown-up" materials, such as "history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology."

Essay #2

Although they are teaching different subjects, teaching eras apart, and teaching a different student population, Mr. Keating and Ms. Neuhauser, my high school photography teacher, have two very similar teaching styles. The most apparent commonality both teachers share with one another is their ability to encourage students to explore their imagination through their eccentric personalities so the student would succeed. If the students did not want to push themselves in the subject, Mr. Keating and Ms. Neuhauser would shove them out of their comfort zone. Another striking similarity is how other teachers would complain about the loudness both Mr. Keating’s class and Ms. Neuhauser’s class.. One difference between the two teachers would be that Mr. Keating did not have any apparent favorites. On the other hand Ms. Neuhauser saw a great potential in a few and took a special interest in those student’s success. In this paper I will argue that Mr. Keating and Ms. Neuhauser are very similar teachers, despite small differences.

            Encouragement is a key similarity between Mr. Keating and Ms. Neuhauser. Both teachers taught a class not common to most students. Mr. Keating taught a class that did not put much stock in learning poetry; Ms. Neuhauser taught photography, which at my high school was a required art requirement for those who did not want to do drawing or painting. However, both teachers were able to get their students excited about the material by being excited themselves about the subjects. By being so passionate about English and Photography, Mr. Keating and Ms. Neuhauser were able to draw out passions in the students. Mr. Keating realized his students had been constantly under control of their parents, and of society’s expectations. He asked his students, “What will your verse be?” meaning, what will your mark on the world be? By introducing his student to a new way of thinking through poetry, Mr. Keating was able to get his students interested in poetry. For a different subject, Ms. Neuhauser always encouraged us to look at it from a different angle. Now, for photography, her meaning was literal. She wanted us look at everyday items from a different angle through the camera. For one assignment she did not want me to look through the camera when I took the picture, and I could not take a picture at eye level. I always wanted to perfectly compose each image and have each shot be meticulous. By having me do this assignment my comfort sound expanded in terms of what photography was interesting to me.  It also caught my fascination with photography; I realized that each photograph I take should not be perfect, and that beauty sometimes comes from the imperfect.

            If students were not able to get out of their comfort zone themselves both Mr. Keating and Ms. Neuhauser would push their students out of it. Both teachers did this by having students present their work in front of their peers. With poetry and photography there is no right or wrong answer, therefore there should be no shame in presenting one’s work. In Mr. Keating’s class, Todd was painfully shy when it was his turn to recite his poem. When Mr. Keating drew a poem out of Todd, Todd was able to become success in the class. Ms. Neuhauser knew that if the students had to present our photography in front of the class, the pressure of the presentation would drive us to do better work than if we had not had to show anyone. She used peer pressure to her advantage: by doing showings in front of peers and peer critiques, the students were pushed to work harder, and usually pushed to produce better quality work.

            A specific similarity between Mr. Keating and Ms. Neuhauser would be how other teachers complained about noise when their classes were outside. Mr. Keating took his class outside to demonstrate the effect of conformity. Mr. Nolan looked upon the class with annoyance, and disgust at Mr. Keating’s teaching, when he noticed the class outside. Earlier on in the movie Mr. Nolan told Mr. Keating that he should not be encouraging students to become artists; Mr. Keating said he is teaching his students to be free thinkers. Mr. Nolan never understood why Mr. Keating had certain teaching methods, so later on in the movie Mr. Nolan gets Mr. Keating fired. For photography class, Ms. Neuhauser took the class outside frequently to explore new techniques, or to capture the light that was shining just perfectly. Other teachers complained frequently that they were trying to teach their subject while they saw other students walking around campus, and heard the clicking of a shutter. Ms. Neuhauser always said shoot as much as we could, and if that meant taking photographs during class, then that is what it took.

            The only difference I found when comparing the two teachers was that Ms. Neuhauser sometimes picked favorites to give special instructions to, while Mr. Keating seemingly had no favorites. One could argue that the Dead Poets Society was a group made up on Mr. Keating’s favorites, but that group sought out the Dead Poets Society. Also, we have no information on what Mr. Keating’s relationship with the other students were like. At the end of the movie when Mr. Keating was leaving, most of the class stood up in support of him, not just the Dead Poets Society. This suggests Mr. Keating might have had just as good of relationships with the other students as he had with the members of the Dead Poets Society. Having been in four of Ms. Neuhauser’s photography classes I noticed that she liked the students who had more passion for photography. Ms. Neuhauser gave these students more freedoms, such as having more time outside (especially when other teachers had been complaining recently), or allowing these students to stay in her classroom even after she left for the day.  I do not know if this discouraged the other students, because her favorites were typically the ones who enjoyed her class the most. Although she had her favorites, Ms. Neuhauser was always equally supportive of every single student, and wanted the entire class to succeed.

            Despite favoritism, Mr. Keating and Ms. Neuhauser are greatly similar teachers. Both are eccentrically passionate about their subjects, and in turn excite their students to learn more about the subjects. I have found that if I have a teacher who is passionate about their subject I will end up loving the subject as well. If every teacher were as devoted to teaching their subject as Mr. Keating and Ms. Neuhauser were, I believe students would love school so much more, because their excitement allowed students to become passionate about a subject.

           

            

Dead Poets Society Notes Day 2

- Knox goes to Chris's party; he gets drunk
- He says Carpe Diem, downs his whiskey then kisses chris on the forehead when Chris is asleep; Chris's boyfriend beats him up
- Charlie submits an article to the school paper about the Dead Poets Society; the directors of the school have an assembly in attempt to find out who wrote it
- During the assembly a phone rings, it is Charlie's; he answers it and says "It's God. He says he wants girls at Walton
- Charlie is whipped in punishment; the dean of the school wants names
- Mr. Keating warns Charlie that there is a time for daring and a time for caution
- Neil's father comes to Walton; tells Neil off for wasting his time acting and deceiving him; asks if Mr. Keating is influencing him to do this; he says he needs to quit the play immediately
- Neil confides in Mr. Keating what happened with his father; Mr. Keating advised Neil to tell his father what he truly wants, instead of going along with what his father wants for him
- Knox goes to the High School to see Chris to tell her he is sorry; he gives her flowers and reads her a poem he wrote in front of her class
- Neil told his father about his acting - his father allowed him to stay in the play, even though he didn't like what Neil had to say about what he wants to do with his life
- Chris comes to Walton to tell him that Chet was going to kill him if he found out; Knox said she had to care about him or else she wouldn't be warning him
- Neil's father comes to the play
- Mr. Perry was furious at Neil after the play; apparently Neil had not told him about the play
- Mr. Perry told Neil he was putting him in Military school, and that he is going to Harvard to become a doctor
- Neil kills himself after the argument with his dad with his father's gun
- The red haired kid cooperated with the administration; they want to use Keating as a scapegoat
- Charlie got expelled
- Todd goes into the meeting with Mr. Nolan and his parents are there; he signs the document essentially stating that Neil's death was Mr. Keating's fault
- Mr. Nolan takes over teaching English; during the lesson Mr. Keating comes in and Todd bursts out that it wasn't Keating's fault; Ketaing was about to leave when Todd stands up on the desk to say, "Oh Captain, My Captain"; about half of the class follows (not including that red haired kid... they're soulless)

THE END

Detailed Example of Mr. Escalante's Teaching (from Madision G, for Group 3)

During a night class when Mr. Escalante was teaching Latin@* adults to speak English, he excused himself from the room when he began to experience some chest pain. The pain turned into a minor heart attack, which had the teacher fumbling down a staircase and finally lying on the ground. In the next scene, at a hospital, a doctor concluded that the heart attack was the result of stress from his multiple teaching responsibilities. Mr. Escalante's wife wanted him to follow the doctor's advice and not teach for a long time. When his wife left the room, Mr. Escalante grabbed a piece of paper with the hospital's information on it and wrote out various algorithms, then asked his nurse what time she would be getting out of work. The next scene showed that very paper being passed around the room by his students, which allowed them to continue learning at their current level instead of whatever their substitute would lower the lesson difficulty to. During the following scene, the substitute teacher had his back turned to one of the classroom doors, through which Mr. Escalante snuck over to one end of the classroom to announce that he would still be teaching them.

Dead Poets Society Notes Day 1

-Set in the 1950s at a traditional boys prep school in New England; religious; "best preparatory school in the -US"; boarding school
-Graduated 51the previous year - 75% went to the Ivy League
-The boys seem to have come from wealthy families
-Todd Anderson is the new kid - older brother was valedictorian, well known
-Teachers are shown as tough, and have a rigorous schedule; traditional style of teaching (repeating the Latin Roots back to the teacher)
-Mr. Keating seems relaxed - boys are stunned by his behavior
-Tells the students they could call him Mr Keating or "Oh Captain, My Captain" (Walt Whitman about Lincoln)
- Mr. Keating went to Welton
- Carpe Diem - seize the day: "make your lives extraordinary" - Keating
- Has the students rip out an entire introduction of a book because he didn't want his students to think like the author -- teaching them to think for themselves
- "Words and ideas can change the world" - Keating; even if it does not have much to do with business school or med school, it is still important;
- the human race it is filled with passion - poetry, romance, beauty: these things are what we stay alive for
    - "What will your verse be?"
- Another teacher says Mr. Keating should not be encouraging the students to become artists; Mr. Keating said he is teaching his students to be free thinkers
- Keating was part of the "Dead Poets Society" when he was at Walton; inspires students to start the Dead Poets Society themselves
- Todd is afraid of reading the poetry aloud to the others so he doesn't want to go - Neil tries to convince him to still come and to just listen
- Neil finds "Five Centuries of Verse" in his room - it was Keatings old book for the Dead Poets Society
- They meet in a cave for the Dead Poets Society
- Mr. Keating makes poetry fun for his students  - boys are laughing and enjoying the class
- "don't just consider what the author thinks, consider what you think" - continues to teach his students to be free thinkers
- Mr. Keating says in front of the class, "Mr. Anderson, don't think I don't know this assignment scares the hell out of you." (assignment is to write own poem and recite it in front of the class)
- Neil wants to act after seeing that Midsummer Nights Dream is being put on
- Knox rides his bike to the public school pep rally to see the girl he thinks is the most beautiful girl he has seen. When he sees her with her boyfriend he gets upset and leaves
- Neil gets the part of Puck in Midsummer Nights Dream but he needs permission from his father and Mr. Nolan (he writes a letter to Mr. Nolan as if he were his father)
- Todd says he didn't write a poem when Mr. Keating asks him to recite his poem; Mr. Keating pushes him until he is able to not just recite a poem but make up a poem in front of the class.
- During a meeting Knox says he is going to kill himself if he can't have Kris; the next scene is him calling Kris surrounded by the boys - she invited him to a party at her boyfriend's house
- Todd's parents gave him the same desk for his birthday as they did last year - Neil makes him feel better about it

Stand and Deliver - Day 2

Good Teaching
- Wants to push his students by teaching them calculus. Even though none of the other teachers think the students with fail
- Made his students and their parents sign a contract - they need to be committed to his class
- keeps his students late, gets them in early; committed to his students
- Comes back to his students before the AP Exam
- Encourages his students - makes them believe they can pass the second test

Bad Teaching
- humiliates his students - at first it was a good technique to get the students engaged but Claudia was affected by his humiliation
- Doesn't let the student quit but sends Angel out of the class even though he was helping his grandma at the hospital

"Stand and Deliver" Notes - Day 1

- Set in a city of many Mexican workers, possibly illegal immigrants
- There are students in the class who don't speak English
- School is on the verge of decertification
- The secretary says, "You can't teach logarithms to illiterates"
- Jaime's car was broken into and the radio was stolen after his first day of classes
- "Students will only rise to expectations" - Jaime; if they know they are expected to fail, they will fail
- "Hairnet" takes care of his mother; likes doing his homework
- Girl Student takes care of the kids while her mother and father are at work
- "It's not that they are stupid, it's that they don't know anything" - Jaime said to administrators observing his lesson


Instances of Good Teaching
- Interactive lesson with the apples to teach fractions, percents
- Didn't let the student show his up after the student flipped off Jaime
- Gets the class involved; asks questions; relates the lesson to real life situations; has the class repeat concepts (a neg times a neg equals a pos)
- Testing them to make sure they work hard and know the material
- Anna was going to drop out but Jaime went to her family's restaurant to convince her father to let her come back to school; committed to his students
- Gets the students involved and excited about lessons


Instances of Bad Teaching
- On the first day Jaime was passive; let his students run out of the classroom at the bell
- Humiliating student as punishment for not taking the test
- puts the students down - 'go to wood shop" "you are going to wind up pregnant and in the kitchen"

Stand and Deliver - Apple Scene

THE APPLE SCENE

Scene opens with a male student wearing glasses in class looking towards the front of the classroom, while chatter can be heard in the background. Someone can be heard saying, “He looks like Julia Child, man,” as the scene turns to Jaime, who has an apron and a cook’s cap. He is seen standing behind his desk at the front of the classroom with a knife and a cutting board. The scene cuts to a student looking curiously at Jaime. Jaime is shown again; he dramatically cuts one of the two apples on the cutting board in half. The class is instantly quiet; the clip shows the male student wearing the glasses smirking slightly and Raquel behind him with her both open. The other two students in the shot are too out of focus for their expressions to be shown clearly. Jaime says, “whatchu got?” to a female student (possibly Claudia) with a piece of an apple. She responds, “it’s an apple.” The class laughs. Jaime responds, “How much?” “What do you mean?” She responds. Raquel is in the background still laughing and Jaime asks her, “Whatchu got?” Raquel responds, “Half.” “Good,” Jaime says in a German accent. He then says, “excuse my German accent. He turns to Ana to ask her, “Whatchu got?” Barely audible, Ana quietly says,  “twenty-five percent.” Jaime walks towards Ana and bends down so their faces are on the same level. “What?” He asks her. “It’s missing twenty-five percent,” she replies. He picks up the apple on Ana’s desk, turns it to look at the missing chunk, he then smiles. “That’s right. It’s missing twenty-five percent. Is it true that intelligent people make better lovers?” Jaime asks Ana. The class laughs. Jaime walks away from Ana’s desk to the middle of the classroom to ask Raquel’s male friend (can’t find his name), “Whatchu got?” “The core,” he replies. He is seen holding the core of an eaten apple. Jaime says, “You owe me 100%. I’ll see you in the people’s court.” The class laughs, again. Jaime walks to the front of the classroom to his desk. “Everyone please open your books to Chapter 2, page 26. Work on multiplication and fractions and percentages.”

END SCENE

FINAL DRAFT: Education Narrative

            To begin my education narrative, I need to explain that I was a successful student in high school. Meaning, I earned a 3.9 grade point average, I played three sports, and I was a member of the National Honors Society. The expectation for me was to go to a four-year college, graduate in those four years, then go on to graduate school. When deciding which college to attend I set my heart on a small, private, liberal arts college, called Lewis & Clark College. At the time, Lewis & Clark (LC) was the perfect school for me: it afforded a small class environment where I would get to know my professors, it had a laid-back culture, and I was able to continue playing softball. Even though LC was not the right college for me, it has given me essential experiences. My experience at LC has taught me to go against expectations and that if I am not enjoying the experience I am not going to continue.

            For much of the start of my career at LC I thought to myself, “it’s going to get better”. The first time I thought that was my first day on campus. Now, I had visited LC two times previously but I only had the typical rehearsed speech of the tour guide and the admissions counselor to sell me on the college. On that first day I was able to get a sense of who the student population is for the first time. I went to party that first night with my roommate and a couple people in my orientation group. When I first stepped in I saw around twenty people casually sitting on torn up couches, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, passing around a joint, and trying to impress people with the music they had recently discovered. I knew that the LC population had the reputation for being “Birkenstock-Wearing, Tree-Hugging, Clove-Smoking Vegetarians” (Princeton Review), and I honestly thought I would fit in with that culture. In attempt to assimilate myself to the environment I grabbed a beer and joined a conversation. I took sips of the warm beer and listened to my fellow classmates’ conversations. I joined in once in awhile but I was content on finding out more about my new peers. I left the party with a bad taste in my mouth: the Pabst was awful. Also, I had not been able to find commonalities with the students I interacted with. I had been unable to relate to anyone I talked to that night. Despite my first LC party experience, I was optimistic that I would find students similar to me: students who I could become friends with.

            My friends at LC came in the form of the softball team. Although I differed from most of my teammates there was strong bond that only comes from being on a competitive team together. For the first year I was satisfied with the friends I had made until I realized that most of the girls only attended LC because of softball. Most of the softball team, and most of the athletes as well, did not like the rest of the “hipster” student population, and only go to LC because they could continue playing their sport at a Division III level. My thoughts on this were confirmed when my coach, after hearing about a girl quitting softball to study in Europe for a semester, said to me, “We recruit you to play softball, not to stop playing because your studies require you to.” This comment had me reevaluating why I was at LC. At the time, I had been considering going to Africa for a semester because LC is known for their Overseas Programs. I decided on LC because the academics and the location appealed to me, and it was a bonus that I could continue playing softball; it was not the other way around. Lewis & Clark Athletics promotes being a student first, but it quickly became clear that student athletes are expected to be as committed to their sport as they are to their academics. This was not the case for me. I knew that academics were far more important than a sport. A sport teaches how to work with others, how to be competitive, and it is fun for those four years. However, how well you do in college academics affects what graduate schools you can go to, and what jobs you can be hired for. Being a successful student was so much more important to me than playing softball that the experiences of having my coach tell me I could not have an academic experience because of softball was completely off-putting.

            I had many experiences similar to these two that pointed me in the direction of leaving LC after the first year, but I decided to stay for my sophomore year. I remembered how excited I was in high school to go to college at LC, and how confident I was that it was the right school for me. The thoughts I had about LC when I was sixteen were overshadowing the experiences I had after a year of actually attending LC. What was also stopping me from transferring were my thoughts on how other people would perceive me transferring. I would let down the softball team and I would let down my professor (who I had started doing research for). So after the first year I told myself again that it would get better, and that I knew LC was still the right college for me. The second year was not better, if not worse, than the first year. I became so distracted and unhappy with how I did not like LC that my grades started slipping and I spent increasingly more time alone. At that point, I let all of my fear about transferring go and dropped out of Lewis & Clark. I did not even have a new college to go to, I just knew that I was never going to be happy attending LC. I broke out of the expectations set by myself, and the people around me, so I could find the place I truly belong. I learned that by setting myself free from expectations I could find who I really am and where I truly belong.

What makes for good teaching?

In my experience, a good teacher is one who understands individuals to help them individually understand the material, or push the individual past the required material. If a teacher just goes through the syllabus to teach the entire class the same, there are going to be children falling behind, and others who are being held back. I remember back to first grade when we started doing math. When I flew through the required material my teacher noticed. She gave me increasingly harder problems for me to solve. In a couple short days she had said she was giving me fifth grade material; finally, I was challenged. Now, if she had not done that I might not have learned of my passion for the maths and sciences. If my teacher had just said to wait until the rest of the class was finished, where would I be as a student today?

In response to Ken Robinson's TED Talk, I do believe it is important to learn the necessary skills for people to respect your life's work. What I mean by this is that people are not going to understand your ideas if you cannot speak well, or write well; in addition, people might not take you seriously. Find your passion, find your talent, but learn the essential skills.

Ken Robinson - How school kills creativity

- Everyone has an interesting education
   - we're invested in our education, it's our future
   - unpredictability of what education is going to be like in the future
- all kids have talents but we squash them
- creativity is as important as literacy in education, treat it with the same status
- children are not frightened of being wrong; if you are prepared to be wrong you will not have anything original
- we stigmatize mistakes
- we are "educating people out of their creativity"
- we are born artists and we grow out of it; the goal is to stay an artist
- Every education system has same hierarchy: Math/English, Humanities, then Arts.
- What is education for? Who are the winners at the end? Goal is the university professors - they are the ones who come out on top.
- Stayed away from subjects you like because you think you won't get a job doing it. (i.e. You like music, but you won't be a musician, etc.)
- Brilliant, Creative people don't think they are because they failed at school.
- Degrees are essentially becoming worthless; degree inflation. Now need a masters, or Ph.D to get a job, not just an undergrad degree
- Creativity comes about through interdisciplinary way of thinking about things
- corpus collosum is thicker in woman - better at multitasking
- we should adopt a new conception of human ecology; we need to rethink they fundamental principles in which we education our children; we are over-mining our mind.
- We need to educate our children's whole being

"And so...?" "I'm just sayin', all this was significant because...."

I hope my readers' main take away from my education experience narrative would be to get a better understanding of who I am, and what has shaped the person I have become. What shapes a person includes their environment, they people they surround themselves with, and their experiences. I touch upon all of these points in my paper so I hope people can get a snapshot of my background, and a glimpse into my decisions, in order to get a better understanding of who I am. Obviously I am not writing my life's story in my educational narrative. I am, however, writing about arguably the biggest decision I have had to make in my life thus far. To understand my decision making process says much about the person I am, and how it has affected me.

Freewrite: How I learned which college was right for me

The process of learning at which school I belonged took me almost two full years. At the age of sixteen when I first started looking at colleges I was set on Lewis & Clark College, a (very) small private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. For some reason I knew that was where I belonged. It felt like I would fit in there, and it was comfortable for me. There were several events, conversations, and experiences, in the first year which lead me to believe that LC was not the right school for me. I disregarded those thoughts after I traveled down to California the summer after freshmen year. During the summer I had said to myself, "This year is going to be better than the last, you will finally love it there." To my little surprise, I disliked it even more my sophomore year. It was easy to entertain the idea of leaving during my freshman year but after a much hate sophomore year I had to make the tough decision to leave such a great opportunity. I don't regret going there, because it was the right place for me for a while, and it taught me a lot about myself. Even though it was such a fantastic opportunity, it wasn't the perfect place for me.

What made the decision almost even harder was that if I did decide to leave I had no plans on where to go. I decided to leave during the summer and by that point, the time to apply to the UW (the college I decided was right for me) was a couple months gone. Would I take a quarter off? Would I lounge around in my pajamas all quarter? Although this has nothing to do with my learning experience, this is the outcome of it all… The fact is, I have learned more about where I belong, and who I want to surround myself with, in the short amount of time since I have left Lewis & Clark than I ever would have if I were still there.

5 Visuals Speaking to my Experince

The small school of Lewis & Clark College... tini tiny

Still playing the game of softball in college (I'm #20 in the back)

This represents how professors held my hand at LC

"Take It Easy" by The Eagles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEzTdBJUHO8

This represents how the student population just takes it easy... just living life.

"Temperature" by Sean Paul

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW2MmuA1nI4

The song my "friends" and I always sang to on the way to parties.

Successful Prewriting

For me, in the past, I have had to do much prewriting before opening a Word Document to write the actual essay. First, I have generate many ideas about what to write; anything that pops into my head I will write down. From those general ideas I form a loose outline. I will start by writing down the ideas I want to be in each paragraph of the body of the paper (I do not do anything for the introduction and the conclusion until the body of the paper is complete). Then I will write a more fleshed out outline. In a couple classes my professors wanted the students to turn in an outline with complete sentences instead of a rough draft. I have learned to love this style of prewriting because once it is done, the paper is most of the way written. Instead of fragments, which are sometimes are for me to string together to form a well written essay, I have already written full sentences waiting to be copied into my essay. From there, I will write the body of my paragraph followed by my introduction then conclusion.

The Most Important Lesson I Have Ever Learned

The most important thing I have ever learned was how to lose. All of my childhood I had played on winning sports teams: I was always on the championship team, whether it be for recreational soccer, basketball, select softball. During my sophomore year of high school I was a part of the Washington State Softball Championship team. The joy I felt is indescribable. The next year we lost in the championship game. And the next year we lost again in the championship game. I had to realize it was a great feat getting to those games, especially since most everyone doubted we would even make it to state. I learned to lose graciously, and to get back in the game sooner. Learning to lose graciously also has taught me to take criticism and to be shut down. In the real world, beyond participation trophies and a pat on the back for effort, people get shut down. It is the ability to rebound from criticism that makes us great.

Struggles of a Student

This blog post is about the struggle I went through to write a psychology paper in one night.... It is shocking; prepare yourself.

It is a good thing I was so delirious during my time awake because I would never have taken these "selfies" to document my two days awake. On Sunday morning I woke up bright and early at 8am, played a couple of softball games then dedicated the rest of my night writing the paper. I thought the paper was going to take maybe until midnight (I had started it at 6pm) to write. Nope, it took me until 6am the next morning. At that point I was pretty awake with the mass amounts of coffee I had consumed over the past twelve hours so I decided to go on a run and to lift weights. I thought I was going to pass out when I was done with classes for the day, which wasn't going to be until 5pm. But no, of course I did not. It wasn't until 7am Tuesday morning did I fully pass out and at that point I slept for twelve hours straight. 7am-7pm.

Lucky for everyone else, I was taking "selfies: throughout this process. Now, these are not the "selfies" that some people take that say, "how should I look if I were to feel this way?" or "I'm trying to look cute but say at the same time 'I'm in the library and only taking pics to tell other people I'm in the library'". No, no. These pictures tell a story of a girl who likes her sleep but was forced to stay awake. These pictures are real.

3:30am, Monday morning, Going strong. I'm thinking, "Why am I still in the library?" 

4:30am, can't keep my eyes open. My eye started twitching. Need more coffee.

5:30am. The delusional state.

I ate the entire bag Milanos! 

Crying. I never want to do this again.

After my classes, trying to fall asleep. I ate Cheez-Its. 

The time where I started posing with inanimate objects. A plate with balsamic vinaigrette, my 1000 tablet bottle of ibuprofen, and a disposable cup.

I finally showered at 7pm Monday! I hadn't showered after my games Sunday because I went straight to the library. 

7pm Tuesday thinking, "I just made Tuesday disappear. It's like magic."

Forever struggling,

Caitlin

"How I Learned to Program Computers"

These possible models demonstrate how to successfully write about a learning experience by showing how the structure of an article is one of the most important factors in the effectiveness of an article. Both authors begin with why they challenged themselves in their respective endeavors. By starting off explaining why they either learned how to program computers or learned how to live without Google, the authors capture the readers’ attention quickly. Once they establish their purpose, the authors move on to the learning experience itself. The authors give multiple specific examples of what was happening during their experience. This allows the readers to fully understand what the authors’ were experiencing. From this, we learn the importance of detailing the experience. Descriptive examples take the readers on the journey writers already experienced. If we do not give descriptive examples in our papers, we would be doing a disservice to our reader. Finally, the authors conclude what they learned, and why the experience was important to them. A conclusion is extremely important for any paper but I believe it is especially important for papers that describe lessons. Experiencing a lesson changes a person so if there is not a strong conclusion there can be no understanding how the author thinks now.  Above all, my goal is to mirror how these articles reveal how passionate the authors were in their endeavors.