Poorly Funded Public Schools

            Low-achieving schools in the Bay Area do differ a bit as to those mentioned in Jonathan Kozol's, Savage Inequalities, however they do share some similarities. As many of the schools discussed in Kozol's book, many Bay Area schools suffer from lack of resources due to lack of funding. In this day and age there is a substantial amount of new technology available to the world, much of which can aid learning in schools. However, not all schools can afford or even raise money to acquire such technology. For instance, an article published by Inside Bay Area reports that students attending Oakland High School can not afford new computers and are therefore stuck with computers so old that the company who made them, no longer exists. This is an substantial difference compared to students of Sequoia Middle School in Pleasant Hill who, through parent funding, were provided twenty iPads.

              It is not just technology that students in Oakland, and the Bay Area lack. Another crucial resource they lack are textbooks. As many of the schools in Savage Inequalities,students of Oakland High School are forced to borrow textbooks from a school in West Oakland due to budget cuts. It is alarming to hear that schools like Oakland High do not have such essential resources. And as expressed in Kozol's book, lack of resources leads to lack of faith in students and lack of faith in themselves. Like many of the kids in towns such as East St. Louis, students in Oakland will begin to ask themselves why they are suffering compared to kids in richer communities in nearby towns. They blame themselves and begin to believe that their fate is “determine from their birth. If they fail, it's something in themselves” (172). The students in town like Oakland and Camden see the things everybody else has and realize that for some reason their getting less than the minimum amount.

            In the State of California the lowest-income students receive $620 less per student than students in richer communities. Many schools such as Sequoia Middle School and as mentioned in the book Cherry Hill, are fortunate to live in high income communities where parents are able to donate generous amounts of money to raise funds for extra necessities for their kids. The students in these types of neighborhood have more class choices, smaller class sizes, and more resources available to them individually. For those living in lower incomes communities such as Camden or Oakland, most parents do not have any extra money to spare towards donations to the schools; nor do the schools have money themselves. The Melrose Leadership Academy in Oakland recently had to hold a fundraise to raise funds to pay for copy machines. Copy machines, which to most may seem as an easy resource to acquire, were something of a scarcity at the Leadership Academy. With having to fundraise just to get new copy machines, the students of the Academy can not even imaging trying to raise money for even further resources such as computers and textbooks. According to a Stanford study conducted in 2012 the gap between poor and rich students is 40% higher than it has been in the last fifty years. 

Savage Inequalities: Chapter 3

           Because nobody wants to spend money on the students, they feel unworthy. The students Kozol has spoken to all have seen what other school look like, and they all understand what they are missing.When they see these types of inequalities, most kids comes to the same assumption that they are just not good enough. Kozol notes a report by the Community Service Society explaining how children know people do not want to spend money on their education because the think it would be a waste and the children see the results of that in the classroom, “Children hear and understand this theme-they are poor investments-and behave accordingly” (120). When children know that no one believes in them they stop believing in themselves. It can be argued that the reason for the students' poor success is due to their feelings of insecurity.They are aware that they have less than kids at richer schools, but many do not understand why, so naturally they blame themselves. They lose hope because no one has ever had any for them and they stop trying.  

TED Talk Reflection

Ted Talk Reflection

          Sir Ken Robinson makes a point in his TED Talk in which he says something along the lines of education not being linear, but organic. He goes on to explain how education should be customized to those who are being taught. I enjoyed his idea of this because he is right in the fact that the way people used to learn is certainly not the way we learn now and his idea of a revolution, and not evolution, occurring in the educational system is utterly correct. There does need to drastic change in which people are students are being taught and motivated. He speaks about not everyone not needing to go to college right away, which I agree with because sometimes people need a break and a chance to experience something that stimulates their soul. Some people need time to find their passion, to discover exactly what it is they want to work towards to.

      Robinson brings up the example of the man who had always wanted to be a firefighter, and did so despite being told it was a waste of time. I believe that is the perfect example of passion; of finding what inexplicably makes you happy and just doing it. This is the hope I wish to give students such as myself, who may or may not know what their passion is. But once that passion has been discovered, I believe it is vitally important for it to be pursued, despite what others may think.

Source: Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!

Reeling in Research

            In a section of Skye Ontiveros' The Passion Project,it is suggested that genuine learning comes from empathy. The narrator of the documentary goes on to explain that the ability for a teacher to walk in a someone else's shoes is crucial to a student's ability to learn. Thus, it is important for teachers to be able to express emotions to their group of students and to form relationships with them. From infancy, children mimic voices, sounds, and facial expressions they are exposed to; this ability to transfer emotions is known as “emotional contagion.” When teachers stand in front of a classroom and express negative emotions, students will detect those emotions and may reciprocate them. This is due to mirror neurons in the brain that detect and imitate emotions we see on others. Most students learn beset in an environment they feel safe and appreciated in; the way to create such a setting relies heavily on the emotions and attitude presented by the teacher. If a teacher comes into a classroom with a warm smile and an eagerness to teach, students will mirror those feelings with a feeling of comfort and an eagerness to learn. However, it has been detected that “negative emotions are usually more infectious than positive ones.” Meaning, a teacher instructing a class with a negative attitude will weigh the class heavily with those emotions. For instance, when Jeff Bliss' teacher made a comment about her presence in the classroom was only due to her paycheck, it set off the mirror neurons in the students to feel as if they also did not want to be in the classroom either. The teacher's comment about feeling obligated to be there also made the kids feel like that particular class was a burden. The article mentions a researcher at Yale University who has “found that emotions don't just hope one person from to another; they also influence group dynamics.” This shows why an entire group of students in a classroom can be negatively affected when a teacher shows little to no desire to be instructing a group of students. But when taken advantage of, mirror neurons can help teachers alter the mood in the classroom and make a social setting in which students are not only eager to learn but also comfortable enough to share their thoughts openly with their peers.

Foltz-Gray, Dorothy. “How Contagious Are Your Emotions?” O, The Oprah Magazine. O Mag., 2004. 2 September 2013.