Final Reflection

Shanae` Bennett

Eng 220

Professor Rogers-Cooper

8-8-13

Final Reflection

(Did not use the readings)

            Education has many different views on it. One way of having an education is to have tutoring at least that’s what I believe. Many students don’t have the proper education and are punish because of the educational system wanting to be cheap instead of having tutors to guide students in all subjects. Tutors are there to help and there are many students that need help to push them into the right direction. In the readings that I read Savage and Inequalities and also Psychology of Social Class discusses how children are rewarded or punished by the class they’re in. Tutoring is known to better assist students so having tutoring in the educational system is very fundamental.

            First what is tutoring? Tutoring is having an employed person helping someone on a one to one basis, guiding him or her. Here at LaGuardia Community College we have a writing center that many people use. The students that I see that go to the writing center to get tutoring are the ones that didn’t get much help growing up with there reading and writing. That’s why my philosophy deals with collaborative tutoring. I believe that in order for anyone to learn there has to be some kind of help. Len Vygotsky do too believe that people learn more when they sit down and have someone talk to them and take them step by step to learn what they need to learn. Many people grasp a concept once someone else has taught it so if they have to do it again by themselves they remember it better because they had a tutor or someone help them in the first place. It’s basically taking baby steps I strongly believe once I’m a teacher I will be doing one to one tutoring with my students because I get to see what they already know and what they don’t know and help them with what I see them struggling with. One tutoring session can change a student input on a certain subject or topic.

            However, relating tutoring to the overall educational system is ridiculous. The school systems see that most people entering college take remedial classes before they can even take colleges classes and there still is not enough equipment or teachers or tutors to help students to be better writers and readers. The educational system is disturbing because they’re so cheap, its all about the money which is sad because when your dealing with people who go to college and paying for school out of there pockets (like myself) and the school doesn’t even have enough sources to help me reach for my goals in life and to be a better student is really sad. The educational system needs to sit back and take a look at the school system and see that it’s not doing well their need to be a change. For one they can stop by being cheap, two bring in more teachers and tutors it would make a big difference and help out a lot within the students test scores.  In the reading Savage Inequalities it shows you that in order for those less fortunate children that are suffering they need money, they can’t get the right education if there is no income coming in. There is not enough schools, school supplies, space, teachers tutor or anything. I don’t understand how they can just let this happen and not want to make a change. Tutors would come in handy if even if the school system didn’t want to bring in more teachers it would be a start with tutors to help the students in need.

            When comparing different social classes like in the reading Savage Inequalities the school system and people that are middle class need to be more equal like Plessy vs. Ferguson separate but equal. I do see why it is a problem with income and children having different learning styles. But one thing I think every child should have is an equal education if the middle class can have tutors and equipment (school supplies) then find a way educational system to let the working class have that too. It’s really hurt to hear a student say “there is no reason to not have a baby there is not much for me in public school”. Also the upper class people seem to think that the less fortunate children should stay were they are but make it equal and not come to there school. Upper class think if they want education they can go get it can’t be forced. That right there should be the reason tutors step in and more help to guide these students but no all the educational system cares about is money. Since the lower class people don’t have money the educational system could careless if they learn or not. Like I said before the educational system is a complete fail only thing that changed is the people not the system. 

            In the reading Psychology of Social Class is basically the same thing. The educational system is very inconsiderate to the working class people they judge them by there education, occupation and income. Social class people have difficult jobs and watched over jobs. The people that work like that take that relationship they have with their boss and take it home and show that same treatment to their children.  This shows parents raise their children to be just like them.  Middle class people have more independent children because of the fact that they let them have their freedom and space. They don’t yell at their children they talk nicely to them. Working class on the other hand since they yell at their children their children tend to be more obedient and stay out of trouble. Middle class trust people more working class is more fatalism looks control over once life experiences. Working class have more abortions unlike middle class who would like to enjoy there childhood instead of become a parent at an early age. Working class tends to be more stress and unhealthy middle class is the total opposite. As you can see here everything is based on what class you fall underneath. Just like how the educational system sees everything, if you’re not under a certain class you cant get certain treatment, which is unfair. It’s like the system wants the working class children stay in working class and not mount to anything in life. The system is all messed up and it needs to be fixed!

            In conclusion, tutoring is an important source in educational development and learning simply because it help student to shows them that there not alone and they are people to help and guide them into the right path. I one day would love to use tutoring as a one to one base with my future students to better help them with anything they need. Using tutoring in my teaching philosophy will help me better understand my students and show them the right way of doing things. It would also help those students who don’t talk much and don’t participate in class ill see at what level they stand at once we have our tutoring sessions. For the educational system I just believe that they just need to rethink their way of being cheap once they get that out the way then tutors can step in and help those social and lower class children that need the help. I one day hope I can make a difference and help those that really need help.     

             

           

Extra Credit on the Chomsky Video

For an extra credit assignment I had to watch a video on YouTube called Chomsky on education. It's basically about his views on education and how he see thing in his eyes. There were three main points that stood out to me during his video one of them is, Chomsky took an advance real numbers class and his professor came into class and the first thing he would do is erase the board and write something on the board then tell the class let’s figure out is this a theorem. Then the class would have a discussion and read information to figure out if they prove the theorem or disprove the theorem.  Chomsky sees this as a terrific way to teach and I do to agree with him. At first I couldn't understand why the professor would just come in and write a problem on the board and then tell the class to figure it out. I then came to realize that was probably the professor’s way of getting the class to think to get a better understanding on how to prove if something is a theorem or not. To show students in order to prove something you always have to do your research and have back up on what you’re trying to prove.

Another main point that stood out to me is Chomsky said, students would take a course and study for an exam memorize what they have to memorize for the exam get an A then a week later can't remember what the course was about.  I find this so true at least for myself I do. High school students go through the same thing, students just study and remember what they need to remember to get an A and get out of the class. Nobody wants to repeat a class so students do what they have to do to get out but once that class is over there is no point is remember what was taught unless the students use what was taught in there every day life their not going to remember what the class was about.  There are two competing images in the enlightenment about education that comes from John Dewey one is, education is like pouring water into a vessel which is very leaky and this connects to students taking an exam and forgetting everything after. Two is education is like laying out a string which the students progresses in their own way. The students have the string, structure in which the students is being introduced into exploring it and creating in their own way. I like the way he put that together. I kind of understand the string thinking but then again I don't. I look at the string to be a guide that the students follow and as they are following this string they are making their own way as they go along.

My final point is Chomsky talks about structure and creativity. Creativity presupposes a set of rules one fourth of creativity is challenging the rules. No rules no creativity acts. Structure proves you with capacity. Structure is rules that enable people to do great work no rules show people not doing their best. For example a painting in a frame equal structure, the frame is the structure. I believe what he said that structure comes with rules and if people have structure then they will perform great work because they have an expectation to meet. It could be challenging but when people know they have certain rules to follow they go by the rules and follow them to show what there are really capable of doing.

My educational experiences growing up were mostly learning from each student as in group work and learning from the teacher, that's from elementary all the way through high school. From what I remember all my teachers would teach a topic at first then assign work to do by ourselves or with our groups that we sat with then go over it as a whole class. Chomsky educational experiences are quite different then mines I never had a teacher come in the class and write on the board and then tell the class lets figure it out and we do research and try to figure out the problem that's on the board. The most memorable thing from my own education is I learned from asking questions, all through elementary and junior high I would ask questions and that was my way of learning and all my teachers loves that. When I got to high school I stopped doing that and the teachers would complain to my mother that I didn’t ask enough questions and that's why I probably didn't understand what was being taught. The teachers that I can remember that influenced me was my first, second and third grade teachers. They all had something in common and that was they all push me to do my best I came from Jamaica and enter school in first grade and those were my first three teachers and they could all understand me coming from a different country and everything was different but they worked with me and made me want to learn more. Ill never forget their names Ms. Rosey, Ms. Terri and Ms. Melher they made me want to become a teacher.

My pedagogical philosophy is making everything about the students. A teacher should always have
different ways of teaching so every student can learn. Being able to be well rounded in knowing every student learning style and being able to teach a lesson from different angles so all students understand the lesson that's being taught. Show students they’re different way to learn. After seeing my pedagogical philosophy and seeing what Chomsky talks about in his interview the larger dimensional in life is the students. No matter what it's about the students and what they learn each and every day. Also taking what they learned and carrying it through life with them. This should be for the future, the students that's one day going to be lawyers, teachers etc. Showing the world children are more capable of learning everything and anything once their minds are put to it and they have someone willing to teach them and stay on top of them and their education. We should be focus on the students focus on the kids and their education and show them that they don’t have to compete to learn. Let them see that education can be fun and it doesn't take a lot to learn it and let education take them through life.

Filming Reflection

In my English 220 class yesterday my class had to do a video amongst our assigned groups. The assignment was to make a video about a tutoring session in the writing center. My group decided to do a tutor with two students and the students coming to the writing center with the same assignment but have to different problems that they want to fix with their revised paper. We wanted to show the pros and cons from a tutor having to deal with two students within a short tutoring session. In the video the tutor goes over the paper as a whole since both students have the same paper then asking them whats their individual problem that they want to work on. One student had a problem with transition and he work with that student first in the mean while the other student is going over her grammar errors since that's what she wants to work on anyways. He worked with the student with the transition problem for while then told her how to fix those transitions then went back to the other student that had grammar problems and worked on grammar with her. After finishing with that he checked on the first student and made sure her transitions were fixed and he did the same with the other student made sure her grammar mistakes were corrected. Then he asked if we had anymore questions and wish us well and that was it. There are three people in the group and an outside student that we asked to be the tutor. Two students from the group were the tutee's and the third person in the group was the person filming and she also wrote the script from the help of the other two students in the group. I believe when shooting this video the point we were trying to make was proven and I also saw that as I was sitting there playing one of the tutee's. The video is very effective it shows a real life session that does happen in the writing center. I had fun while doing this video, I rather not do it again but I'm glad my group got our main point across.      

Observation #4

In today's observation the student was from English 101and he came with a revision that's due tomorrow. The tutor reads the paper to himself first to get an idea of what the essay was about. He realize the student paper really needs to be organized and that's what the comment that the professor left on the student paper. The tutor dealt with the structure of his paper first. The paper wasn't a research paper and he did a little bit of research by adding a definition to a word and the professor doesn't want that. The professor rather he write his own opinion to what he believe the word is.  His paragraphs were all over the place so the tutor told him to make sure each paragraph stuck to the thesis, make a connection, always relate back to the thesis. The tutor wrote down a brief description on how the student should structure his essays with intro, body,body, body and then conclusion. The tutor also explain to him when he is going from paragraph to paragraph to make sure the topic sentence relate to the thesis. The student didn't quite know how to write a topic sentence so the tutor showed him. As he showed him this he also showed him how to rearrange his paper rather then writing thewhole thing over again.  When the tutor was confused he asked the student questions to understand what he was trying to say in the paper. The student didn't talk much it seemed as if he was confused so he wouldn't ask anything the tutor did most of the asking questions. As they went through the essay he helped him a little bit with grammar. The tutor had to help the student clarify what was in his own papaer and told him he was to broad rather then just sticking to the topic and talking about exactly what the paper ask for. The tutor told him he needs to be more specific and add more details and explanation. They went through the whole paper and fixed everything the professor asked for. The tutor gives him ideas on what to add towards the end if his essay and how to open a paragraph. The tutor told the student in his intro there should be main response, answering questions, examples and then in the body paragraphs is suppose to be each example from the intro. Wile this is going on the student phone went off and he was focused on his phone for a little while then put it away.  The student had another paper to go over but there was only 15minutes left but they went over it anyways. The tutor skimmed through it first and relaxed its the same problem as the firs paper the student needs to reorganize his paper. Once again the tutor explains how to organize the paper though examples. I felt as if the tutor was repeating himself nonstop.  Also showed him again how to summarize and add more detail and where to add the details towards. T me the student didn't seem to care or wasn't quite getting what the tutor was saying because everything the tutor said he just agreed with and nod his head. The session went over time and instead of going over what they discussed they continued to talk about what they were talking about, the student need to lay out examples in the introduction so that the audience know what he is talking about. The student needed more time so he went and ask could he have more time. This session was mostly teacher student based because the student barley talked and he wanted the tutor to write down everything he said as if the tutor was going to fast for him. This is one experience I never experienced before and won't forget.

Observation #3

In today's observation the tutor had two students she had to work with. The first student wanted help with a take home test and she told him she can't help him with that. So he asked her to help him with grammar, simple progressives and past tense. This student is the same student that was in my first observation. He asks a lot of questions and the tutor answer them to the best of her abilities. While she is helping this student the other was just sitting there she never told the other student to reread his paper or anything but he started to do that anyways after a while. Student #1 and the tutor was still going on with their grammar lesson and she showed him examples on where to put period and comas.  The student didn't seem to quite understand what the tutor was saying so he would ask more questions and the tutor would still try her best to answer them and show more examples. Next they moved onto a homework assignment that the student had that he needed help with his grammar. In the homework she helped him with subject, verb and action verb and also commas and periods. While there doing that the other student is still patiently waitin ton his turn as he is waiting he decided he was going t go to the bathroom. Student #1 and the tutor continued to work on the assignment and he also had another problem with who's and what's with finding the subject. As they go through the assignment he tries to correct it before she does and when he is wrong she would correct him. After about 30minutes with student #1 they finally finished and she started to work with student #2. This student had a revision he wanted to work on. He pointed out also grammar and one paragraph that the professor was confused about that he wanted help with. She reads the paper to herself rather then reading it out loud. She starts off discussing a paragraph that wasn't quite clear so she asked him what does he mean. She told him he needs more detail or evidence to clear up the confusion. To show her where he got his information from he pulls out his laptop and show her. She reads the article and translate it for him so he can have a better understanding. After reading that she shows him where he can put more detail in his essay. The student wasn't quite being specific with things thought his essay so she told him he need to able be able to be specific and don't have the audience asking questions. The student took a quote from the source online and she told him he can take but then explain what it says, analyze the quote. He didn't know what else to say so she told him what to say but she also helped him fix it. She asked questions he answered, he asked questions and she answered. They were well communicating but they didn't get to finish fixing the grammar and the conclusion which was also quite confusing for the professor. Throughout this session I saw that she apwas more focused on student #1 and bately payed student #2 any mind. She basically made him wait till it was his turn. She was both student teacher learning and teacher student learning, with student #1 she focused on him and with student #2 she focused on what she wanted him to say. She showed me the pros and cons to a tutoring session even though she did help each student she didn't balance her time wisely.

My Reflection on School Prison Pipeline

My opinion on the video's that I watched in class on the school system and the school prison pipeline was real disturbing. I personal think that seeing what the officers are doing to these students are going to make things worst. In the video that I watched one officer arrested a student that had a illness because he had a loud out burst on the school bus. I just don't see the point in that for one he is ill two he could of had a very good excuse on having this out burst, maybe he needed help and that was his way of getting someone's attention. These officers target minorities which is really sad. The students that are being targeted have a future and watching this video shows me that. When the student explain the reasons on why they were arrested are really dumb. They could of gotten any other punishment being talked to for example getting counseling and see why they did what they did. Putting them in a jail for a few days or months is nothing. That's temporarily punishment that they can just brush of when they get out and continue to do whatever they want to do and never learn from their mistakes. These students already have it tough coming from a low income family and having to deal with school work and personal problems they don't need prison as another stressful problem. People say kids are the future but I don't see how kids are the future and officers keep putting them into jail instead of finding some other punishment that will brighten their future or help them to not make the same mistakes. Seeing that this type of behavior is going on really shows me why im going into this field of education in the first place. I want to help make a difference and show these students that going to jail is not the only way of learning their lesson. Show them that not everyone is against them and that there is more to the school system and the world then harsh behavior and unnecessary punishment.       

Observation #2

In today's observation it was quite different then my first observation. This student came with a revised essay. The first thing the tutor did was read the revised essay to herself. Then she pointed out the LOC's. She pointed out the font size was to small it need to be 12 font instead of 10.5. She also discussed his headline like it said eng101 without a space she says that needed a space between eng and 101. The student had a period between his first and last name and she told him to remove the period from his name. She was very funny though she said it very nicely. She reads the paper to herself and when she sees something wrong or don't understand she points it out and ask the student questions. She tells him what to use and what not to use in his paper. When she saw a sentence she didn't quite understand she asked the student to read it out loud to see what was wrong. She looks back and fourth at the graded paper and the revised paper to compare and to see what the teacher told him to fix. As they went along through the paper together she showed him grammar problems. She politely excuse herself from the table to get her asthma pump since she kept cough and fanning herself. But when she got back it was back to business. When correcting sentences she asked the student if this is what he meant and for him to explain it to her. He explained it better to her then when he wrote it on the paper. She also told him say what you mean to say don't sugar coat it. She did drift off topic to the students culture but then went back to the paper. She did give him credit on the paper and how he revised it. The student kept doubting himself and she kept telling him he was fine and he fixed everything. She told him when he gets home he can read it out loud and see for himself that everything was good. Also if anything retype it with the corrections they made today and come back to the writing center. She did mostly teacher centered tutoring. I consider this session to be what you do not do at a tutoring session.  She was very nice and did her job even though she did mostly teacher centered. She told us she been tutoring for a while so she knows what she is doing. After the session she pulled me and one of the students from the class aside since we observed her together and she gave us some advice which was to pay attention to everything no matter what. She also asked us if we had any questions and what we learned or what we liked from the session. I mainly liked how concerned she was of the student and how she kept telling him he was doing fine even though he kept doubting himself. She was a good tutor I learned a lot of do's and don'ts on what to do when I tutor.