Web Log 2 (Apple and Pinar Reading)

After reading the articles written by Mr. Apple and Mr. Pinar, I understand and agree with a lot of the information that they talked about. First in regards to the first chapter in Pinar's book, I look at how he says that the teacher is not the one to blame, and feel that the students that we have do need to take more responsibility for their educations. I really enjoyed how he made all of the other comparisons to the real world throughout this chapter. In my school a majority of the kids are from single parent, low income families. Our test scores are not great and we constantly hear how we must improve our scores. We as the teachers are always blamed for the students not doing well. Why aren't the students told they aren't doing a good enough job? I would challenge someone to find teachers who care more and work harder than those teachers who teach kids like in my district. And how are the teachers who work the hardest thanked? By being told that you do not do a good enough job!

The short article by Mr. Apple was also eye opening. being in education and seeing the day to day operation I wonder what was different four years ago in the Bush administration in comparison to the Obama administration. My district has qualified for "Race for the Top" and all we have are strings attached that we must follow in order to get the money. We will spend more money over the long run because of this. In the article Apple said that Obama was going to make changes to NCLB. Did that happen? No! No matter where you go, you will find teachers worried about the test. They also spend weeks teaching to the test. I can't say that I do not spend time doing this as well. To measure how good we teach, there is one test at the end of the year? How fair is that? We need to find a way to measure the kids growth throughout the year. We need to see what they know in a more formative way. To ensure the success of both students and teachers we need to assess what we are teaching and check for understanding more often.

In closing, I agree with a lot of the ideas that Mr. Apple and Mr. Pinar bring to light. We really need to look at the entire education system in the United States and make changes to help our kids. They talked about schools in Milwaukee and other big cities that were successful. Maybe we should look to them for guidance and have them help us develop ideas that can help inner city schools. Whatever the answer is we need to pursue it harder. We can't sit here and say nothing needs to change!