XC - Quarter 4 - Babies

Watching four new born babies from different countries being raised in varies of ways are interesting, but simultaneously it is difficult to tell which cultures have a better way of parenting than the other ones. This is because the chosen four cultures are very diverse in the world compare to each other although there are some similarities. Therefore, it is hard to tell whether the parenting style is better than the others’ or not. The first baby, Ponijao lives in Namibia where the place is very isolated from the population and it is very primitive, it is hard to compare to the baby in Tokyo, Japan. Because all these four cultures in the film are so different, I would say none are better than the other but it should be the best to each individual baby. Since Mari and Hattie live in urban places in their country, of course the way that they are being raised are the best for them because they will be able to survive by learning how to read and write. But as for Ponijao and Bayarjargal who live in Namibia and Mongolia, learning how to read or write as the other two urban babies might not be as helpful because they live in a place where you need to learn how to get your own food by killing the poultries. So all in all, I think the four cultures’ parenting styles are equally well comparing to each other.

The first family shown in the film was Ponijao who lives in Namibia. This is the most natural and free way of parenting because the techniques seems so original from this culture. The mother did not give birth in the hospital, and she didn’t seem to learn or take lessons of how to take care of the baby other than using her own cultures’ original style to parent her baby. She also makes me feel like she is so familiar with what she’s doing (probably because she has lots of kids already), and her babies are all healthy and fine. When Ponijao cries, the mom never pays any attention to her and she just let her crawl around. However, the mom does the present her connections towards the baby by breastfeeding the baby and cuddling. Even when she was working, she has her baby in the back when she was little. At the end of the movie, she also teaches her baby to speak and ride donkeys to take their place in the society. In my own opinion, I think the culture in Namibia is the most natural way of parenting their child because it provides a huge piece of land for the baby him/herself to explore around their surroundings, and the baby can pick up bones or rocks to put it in their mouth, and the mother never seem to use diapers at all for their babies. Everything is natural, and I think the parent does a pretty good job at providing what the babies need to fit into that society although the father is never being seen throughout the film.

The second family in the film was Bayarjargal who lives in Mongolia. It is very similar to the culture in Namibia with a big piece of grassy land for the baby to explore themselves. However, the mother did give birth in a hospital, and I am surprise that they wrap the baby so tight with 2 strings when the baby is born. The father was in the film, but never seem to do a lot but help in transportation taking the baby and the mom home. This baby is similar to the ones in Namibia, because other than sleeping at home while the mother works in the farm, the baby is crawling on the lawn or playing at home with his siblings. The mother did not show more caring towards one or another just like the culture in Namibia, and she did not pay too much attention towards the baby also when he is crying. But the mother did present her relations to the baby well enough that the baby does response back to her. Towards the end of the film, the baby finally learns how to stand up without the help of the mothers, which is different from Namibia where the mother did give a hand to the baby to teach him to get up. In this similar culture, both babies have a very close relationship to the animals that they have, and the parents never bother or afraid that their babies will get hurt or sick at any point. That’s one of the benefits that both culture shares that the urban babies do not get in terms of survivals, because both babies are being exposed to the society at a very young age such as exploring around the place that they lived in.

Both urban babies in Japan and the U.S. are very similar other than some of the culture differences between two countries. Both parents did brought their babies to classes or outside with other parents to share experience, whereas in Namibia and Mongolia, the parents already have an idea of how to parent their kids. Both Hattie and Mari used diapers and have lots of toys to play with since they are in the city. Unsurprisingly, Hattie is being exposed to books, language, and technologies at a very young age. Similarly, Mari is being exposed to technologies like phones, computers, books, languages, music, and mathematics at a very young age also. All the things that the parents provide to their babies do train their babies to fit into the society, because they need to be educated and go to school. The set ups do mold the babies to fit into the society and it trains them to be independent at their place. Although the parents do allow the babies to crawl around and explore the place that they are at, they are not really being exposed to the real society compare to the babies in Namibia and Mongolia. The societies that Hattie and Mari live in are really limited where the society sorts them to the place that they belong such as playground, park, home, or other institutions. Therefore, Mari and Hattie might not be developed as fast as the other two babies because of the limited exposures that the babies have. But this does not mean is bad for the babies in any cultures, but is just the way the society runs, and is what the best the parents can provide.

For all these four typical cultures, the commonalties are that the mothers are a very important role to the babies. Most of them breastfeed them, and train their babies in certain way to fit into their society. They are the biggest model to their babies to learn from in their process of developing in this world. They all pass them their skills to the babies that they needed in their lives. Another parenting techniques that are universal in all the cultures in this film is the connections towards others regardless is human or pets or animals. All the babies start learning the same thing once they are being born, connections with others. Although the babies in the modern cities don’t often connect to “animals” like the babies in Namibia and Mongolia, they are exposed to animals in the zoos and pets. All the culture reveals the importance of connections to other people, animals, and the environments regardless where we are. It is one of the biggest commonality in all the other cultures I believe in parenting youth to old. Lastly, another commonality in all the cultures being shown in the film was independence. All the babies get certain amount of attention, but overall learn how to figure things out themselves. The typical ones are the ones in Tokyo where the baby plays with the toys and explore her emotions at the same time revealing annoyance. Even when she cries while sleeping, her parents did not seem to bother and just let it be. Like the baby in Namibia, Mongolia, or U.S., when the baby cries, the parents let them know it is normal and did not offer attention to make the baby cry more. This in all cultures, builds the babies’ independence and form them into individuals in their society. More important, all babies get a sense of being human with vaires of emotions and have a chance to explore into their feelings.

HW 56 - Interviews & Survey Question

Part 1:

1. What is your definition of friends?

2. Do you make friends with others based on how they look?

3. What evokes you to talk to other people before knowing them in the first place?

4. Do you often make friends with others for your own benefit? If yes, will you blacklist/ lower your friends’ importance on your list of friends when he/she refused to do what you ask? Or vice versa, where if they offer more, you will tempt to treat them better?

5. What is the first, top requirement that all your friends need to have in order to become your friend?

6. What kinds of people have the first priority to become your friend?

Part 2:

1.What is your definition of friends?

Friend is someone who is willing to share their happiness and sorrow with me, and also willing to listen to my own.

2. Do you make friends with others based on how they look?

To be honest, yes. Because if I don’t know someone, I can only know them by how they look. If they look comfortable to me, then is easier to talk to them and be able conform into the relationship.

3.What evokes you to talk to other people before knowing them in the first place?

Curiosity and I like to meet people. So I can just walk up to them and talk to anyone, is part of my social skill.

4.Do you often make friends with others for your own benefit? If yes, will you blacklist/ lower your friends’ importance on your list of friends when he/she refused to do what you ask? Or vice versa, where if they offer more, you will tempt to treat them better?

Not really. I respect others and if they don’t want to do it, I respect their choice. I won’t get mad or treat them differently just because they don’t want to do something.

5.What is the first, top requirement that all your friends need to have in order to become your friend?

In order to be my friends, I expect them to know me well enough.

6.What kinds of people have the first priority to become your friend?

Someone who is nice and has similar personality as me.
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1.What is your definition of friends?

Friends are someone who has the same “channel” as me, such as similar interests and personality. Also is someone who cares or look out for each other.

2.Do you make friends with others based on how they look?

Yes, because when you don’t know someone, you must depend on how they look in order to form relationships with them.

3.What evokes you to talk to other people before knowing them in the first place?

Before knowing them, I based my intuition to talk to the others. Often times I based on people’s first impressions, and their actions. People usually are friendly and polite when you first met them, so is easy to just talk to them and get to know each other.

4.Do you often make friends with others for your own benefit? If yes, will you blacklist/ lower your friends’ importance on your list of friends when he/she refused to do what you ask? Or vice versa, where if they offer more, you will tempt to treat them better?

No, at some level everybody is taking benefits from their friends to make themselves happy and I am totally aware of this. But if I call them my “friends”, then I will just accept who they are. If I get mad, it sounds like I treat them as “tools”, and not human. I respect my friends, and no matter what they do or how they act, unless is something very serious and big, I won’t get disappointed or mad or even lower their importance on my list. I totally respect my friends and their personality, and I know them from who they really are so no surprise or higher expectations on my friends.

5.What is the first, top requirement that all your friends need to have in order to become your friend?

I think all my friends needs to have similar type of upbringing from their parents. Like basic manners and respect for each others. For me, it is important that they have a high sense of moral, and act “normally”. Or else, it is hard to get along with others who has totally different upbringing from some other culture that I am not familiar with.

6.What kinds of people have the first priority to become your friend?

Talkative and friendly people.
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1.What is your definition of friends?

My definition of friends is someone who will always be there when you need them.

2. Do you make friends with others based on how they look?

Yes and No. If you meant how they dress up themselves, then no. But if you are talking about how they look in terms of the first impression that they offer to the other, then yes. Because meeting strangers is difficult to break the wall into conversations, so it is extremely important that the person that you are talking to makes you comfortable.

3. What evokes you to talk to other people before knowing them in the first place?

I depend on the situation. If you are talking about random strangers on the street, then is easy to talk to them because you will not see them again. But if you are talking about forming a relationship with that person, then I will talk to them based on how I think of that person although I am often not the one who talk to the others first.

4. Do you often make friends with others for your own benefit? If yes, will you blacklist/ lower your friends’ importance on your list of friends when he/she refused to do what you ask? Or vice versa, where if they offer more, you will tempt to treat them better?

Yes. Making friends with others will lead you to have expectations on others. I guess this is the basic for relationships. If someone who is very nice and they are willing to give to make you happy, of course you will treat that person better than the one who does not put too much attention on you. I think in friends, there are different levels and the one that you are willing to offer to him/her and vice versa will be your best friend. Talking about benefits, we are benefiting each other, but not in a way that I am “using” them.

5. What is the first, top requirement that all your friends need to have in order to become your friend?

Friendly and smart with common sense, so they will understand what I am talking about with the same pace as me.

7.What kinds of people have the first priority to become your friend?

Talkative, funny, and nice.

Part 3:

Looking at the answers from the three interviews, I am not surprise that most people look for different things from the others in specific. However, what is interesting is that out of all the interviews from three people, they are all looking for someone to build their identity with them. It almost seems as forming a relationship with people that you don’t know transforming to the next stage of becoming acquaintance is to share similar identity of each other to bond. This helps me in terms of focusing on my research question, “What is the primary factor do people concern about between interpersonal relationships of becoming acquaintances?” because the interview shows that the primary factor that most people are concern about is similarity on each other. It could be a tiny little thing about that person in terms of the first impressions that others offer, but throughout the interviews it shows people often find things to relate to the others before they bond to form a relationship. Such as one interview saying his friends need to have the “same channel” as him, this totally proves the importance of sharing commonalities among each other between interpersonal relationships. As talking about any sort of relationships, people always seek for things to relate to the others before having a relationship showing the needs of others to form our own identity.

Part 4:

I choose people to be my friends based on their appearance.

HW 55 - Independent Research Question/Topic

Part 1:

Research Question: What is the primary factor that people concern between interpersonal relationships of becoming friends?

Part 2:

Richard,

Your research question is “What are our needs that we attempt to satisfy through varies relationships?” First of all, I think you should make it more specific, and just choose one type of relationships as the four categories that we did in class on the paper (family, friends, frequent interactions, mediated relations) . So in that way, you can narrow down your topic and just focus on researching one type of relationship. If I were to revise your question, I might change it to “what are our expectations on others that we attempt to satisfy ourselves through relationship with friends (or friendship)?” I think by this way, you can look at criteria of being a friend, and what we often attempt to expect on others to offer to satisfy ourselves.

Hope this helps,
Bao Lin

Hi Aja,

Your research question is “What Distinguishes Friends From Family (And Vice Versa)At what point does a Friend become family? What is that tipping point?” I think your topic is interesting, but if I were to revise the question to make it more specific, I would change it to “How do the boundaries between friends and family intersect through interpersonal relationships?” So by this way, you can research expectations that people have on their family and friends, and see what criteria do both of these relationship shares. By comparing these two relationships, you can distinguish the difference and start to see how each relationship collides with each other.

Hope this helps,
Bao Lin

Part 3:

Revised Question: What is the primary factor do people concern about between interpersonal relationships of becoming acquaintances?

This article is basically about how to meet the right people, so they can influence you in your life and you will sharpen your own identity. This writer demonstrates it as “if you want to be a winner, then meet winners. If you want to be successful, then meet successful people.” He is suggesting that in order to meet the right person or as for future plan to be your close friends, you need to meet someone that you can relate to. Such as having similar interests, similar identities as a whole despite the influence are good or bad. As long as you can relate to this person, you can learn from each other and strengthen who you really are as an individual. Connects this to the topic that I am researching, I agreed with this article’s point of view. In meeting new people or strangers, it is always easier to meet someone who has similar interests as you to build up conversations to know more about each other. As talking about relationships especially acquaintance, I believe most of us do evaluate others’ similarities to themselves such as the way others dress to start the relationship as a way to connect.

Latumahina, Donald. “Grow Yourself by Meeting People and Reading Books”. Life Optimizer. 10 February, 2007. Web. 12 May, 2010. <http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2007/02/10/grow-yourself-by-meeting-people-and-reading-books/>

This is a website that provides the excerpts from the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie and complied by Richard Anthony. It basically summarizes the importance key facts from the book in a list of telling the reader how to get others to like you in a way to win friends. As from the author, he suggests that if you “genuinely interested in other people” and conform others’ will as a whole, others will like you. But the importance of doing the tasks that he listed is that you have to do it sincerely with appreciation, not flatter. By talking about topics that others like, agreeing with others or not arguing over or criticize, and make others feel they are importance, it will make you a great deal of meeting new people. Throughout this excerpt from Carnegie, it suggests that the primary factor that people concern is how much other “respects” them as a person. Using the word “respect” although the author didn’t really use it throughout his book, I mean the basic understanding of each other as common sense of how to treat others. The key is to make others feel that you do care about them and you are interest in what they are interested at. This source is quiet useful in understanding the connections between each other in relationships, and what others care and how you should act in meeting others if you do want to meet new friends.

Anthony, Richard. “How to Win Friends and Influence People – Excerpts from Dale Carnegie’s Inspiring Book”. Web. 12 May, 2010. < http://ecclesia.org/truth/friends.html>

This is a statistic done by E. Ho and M.Kochen on acquaintanceship and interpersonal trust, and it is basically focused on China and Hong Kong on how people perceived can affect the number of acquaintance that they have in life. They also looked at many other different variables and factors such as competition level, networking, and development of the relationships. However, focusing on my topic, I am only looking at the results of what people concern when they are meeting strangers in making a relationship with acquaintance. This report shows that what most people are concern is whether others are meeting them for advantage or is just to help or just to meet new friends. Such as in big cities or industrialized places, like Hong Kong, people perceived most of the people as selfish instead of trustworthy, which will affect the amount of acquaintance that they have. This concludes that the importance of trust between people is an important start to form connections through interpersonal relationships. This statistic report is helpful for my topic because it reveals that the primary factor that most people who live in the city are concern about is trust. Because cities are always view as competitive surroundings, it shows others’ perceptions on others could affect the amount of acquaintance that they meet. The report also suggests the significance of the topic, that if people tend to trust others more, they can build up their networks and develop the relationships to friendships or other further relationships. So perception of other is the key variable of affecting how much acquaintance you meet.

Ho, Edric and Kochen, Manfred. “Perceived Acquaintanceship and Interpersonal Trust: The case of Hong Kong and China”. University of Michigan. 1987. Web. 12 May, 2010. < http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/26687/1/0000234.pdf>

This is a research done by students from Columbia University on “Segregation in Social Networks based on Acquaintanceship and Trust”. Although it did not fully focused on my topic on the primary factor that people concerned in building relationships with acquaintance, it does connects to the previous statistic research looking at American’s perceptions. But this research instead of focusing on trust, it also talks about race, religious, political views, and other variables that could affect people’s process of building networks with others. One of the powerful statements that I found in this long research paper was “About a quarter of Americans trust fewer than 10 individuals, and these American typically have relatively few acquaintances as well”. This did not only support the previous source about trust, it also supports that perceptions is an important concept in building relationships with each other. One’s perceptions on others based on their race, religious, political views…etc., all these things that a person can judge based on others could affect their number of acquaintance. It shows that the primary factor that people are concern is other’s act or performance as a person. If you provide a comfortable characteristics towards others will help you to earn trust from others, which will make it easier to form acquaintanceships through interpersonal relationships. Although this long research did not quiet help, it does discuss the importance of human perceptions on others could affect the amount of acquaintance that you have.

Diprete A., Thomas. Gelman, Andrew. McCornick, Tyler. Teitler, Julien. Zheng, Tian. “Segregation in Social Networks based on Acquaintanceship and Trust”. Columbia University. 12 January, 2010. Web. 12 May, 2010. < http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/phily01122010.pdf>

HW 54 - Myers-Briggs & Big Five Test

Part 1:

Regarding on the usefulness of the results doing both tests, I would say it is helpful in a way that makes me pause and think about my personality. But simultaneously, I do expect some of the results that I will get based on looking and answering some of the questions. Taking these tests could be very easy, but sometimes trying to be honest about myself, it is hard to pick the answer between inaccurate and accurate. I would say I do know myself well enough and doing both tests do support my perspective of looking at myself. I am totally aware of how I act and what my personality is depending on my actions. However, to rate the usefulness of these tests, I will say is around 70% helpful in a way that approves that I know myself well enough.

Looking at my results, I would also say they are not definite and is changing depending on the situation. Although overall, I don’t think I will change much even though I am aware of some of my weakness in terms of my personality, I think these results are too systematic. It almost seem as if you do x, you will get y. Also during the process of taking these tests, I pause a lot. This is because I act differently in front of different people. In the public with lots of people that I don’t know, I might seen quiet and introverted. However, my family or closed friends will never described me as that because I feel comfortable being with them. So taking these tests might not often be useful taking my situation as an example. Moreover, I find personality is one of the hardest things to change or to breakthrough, because people have been carrying their own comfortably for a long period of time though taking the test is helpful in a way that helps me to be aware of my own persona.

Part 2:

My first assumption was that whoever’s result is similar to another; it would be easier for them to become friends due to their similar personality. But as I thought further, even though my friends have not take the tests, I can kind of assume what her scores or letters will be based on how she /he acts. This means I know my answers will be pretty different from my friends although this is just a prediction. I realize the importance of this test between interpersonal relationships is not to get the similar results, but use what each other get to help them or yourself to understand each other better. I think when people understand others and accept their personality of who they are, it will help lower the friction between each other because they know that’s who you and have accepted who you are as a friend/partner/spouse. More importantly, people act differently in front of different people, so it is hard to guess or judge the other person’s real personality because these things constantly change in my opinion.

HW 53 - Survey Analysis

Part 1:

Took the survey.

Part 2:

While taking this survey, I have two feelings towards it. One is the result does not matter, why should I take it. Since all the answers are anonymous, people can put random choices, and therefore even though I did it, is hard to judge or analyze based on the results. People might not even take it seriously, which it makes me ask myself what’s the point of doing it other than it is just a random survey that is long and annoying. But another feeling that I have while taking this survey is taking a little risk of sharing my privacy and trusting the results do matter. Some of the questions are interesting, and it didn’t really bother me overall. But some of the questions that I feel it went over the line even though it is anonymous are the sexuality part of the survey. Since I try to do the survey with a serious manner, answering those questions are a bit uncomfortable even though my answer is anonymous.

I did put some thought into the survey, and I thought they are quite interesting to analyze as a whole if everybody take them seriously. I enjoy taking the family and friends part of the survey, because I have been dealing with these relationships the most in my life right now. But I did not do the short answer questions in this survey, and I think the reason why is pretty obvious to most of the others. Overall, taking the survey makes me pause and think a lot, because lots of them have to do with rating the others. It starts to get me into thinking how I should rate the importance of the others and is hard to come up with the exact answers doing the survey. Especially talking about relationships with the other is always hard to come up with the exact/definite choice, because they are situational and constantly evolving every second.

Part 3:

Looking at the results of the survey, some of the categories are hard to draw conclusion of. So I would pick family and friendship to analyze the results. While looking at the family results, I am surprise that 42.3% of the people trust their family, 44.2% of the people values family, 42.3% as their family values them, 44.2% chose the choice “members of your family look out for and take care of each other”, but yet for the category “you have more than 20 minute of ‘face time’ per day with a caring adult” is 25.0% no, not usually, not often. Looking at it as a whole, I feel that I am similar to the other 51 person who took the survey. But I am surprise that the highest percentage of people saying they value their family do not have more than 20 minute of face time per day with their adults. This is strange, and I guess this have to do with the inability of young adults talking to people who are older than them such as their parents. Perhaps we should learn how to communicate and have a healthy family with our family members in class because based on the results; it seems people do love their family a lot with trust.

As connecting to friends, 35.3% chooses “friends come before family”. Also 30.8% says their parents know who they really are which is similar to 34% of people saying their friends know them. If family and friends do know who you really are, why people still prefer friends more than family? It is because they are taking friends as their own benefit, but not for family? 32.7% agree that their friends are just entertainment, something to do, people to hang out with. This seems most people treat friends as almost an object in own perspective, which I am not surprise because some of my answer choices are very different from most of the people for this category. This is interesting, and I start to wonder is that what friends really are? Or if there’s gender difference, do girls look at friends differently from guys? Other than the difference that I did not choose friends come before family, most of my answers are pretty similar to the class, and I am surprise that we are all similar for most of the results. I guess this is because of our age and we are from the same school, same class?

Part 4:

I don’t really know how to compare the survey that we did to the processional ones (2007 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey), and I personally like our own surveys better. However, trying to compare these two surveys, one of the similarities that I found was the topic concerning whether teens are “sexually active” or not. Both surveys reveal that teens are often sexually active at a young age. But one of the major differences between these two surveys is that once the survey is taken by more population, it shows that more kids have taken drugs or alcohol. As comparing to our own quick survey, the percentage of not using illegal drugs is pretty high. But in general, is hard to compare the surveys, because ours is easy and simple, but the professional ones drew conclusion and specifically concerning on certain issues on teens.

HW 52 - Theories of Human Relationships

Talking about relationships, I think this is the essential reason why people complain that they are not free. We are all puppets and the people who get to hold some of the strings also. We constantly try to control the others, make others to be the one you want them to be, so they satisfy you in some way. As human, we are playing these two roles back and forth every day. You might clean you room for your mom to satisfy her, or you might want your friend to do something for you. This back and forth relationship is the starting point where people are connected with each other. But before we hit the realization of being control by the others, we avoid seeing or not even aware that these strings exist. But once we are tired of it and notice it exists, we leave and soon move on to the others to be control by others again.

This might sound that we are just treating others like tools, and I know we are conscious about this because we constantly avoid doing that. But there are times that relationship between each other can be pure also, which is why we do not see these strings as being control, but as a way to be connected or bond with the others. Your boss might want you to do something for them, and you won’t really feel that they are “controlling” you, but you think that is natural because they are paying you. That is the time when you are aware that you are a puppet, but it did not challenge your self-esteem. But there are relationships like friends or families that you are dealing with the ones that you love. So you will do things for them to make them happy although you might not get the same response back all the time as the boss will pay you every month. However, you don’t complain because of the boundaries that you set up when you are connecting with this person. Therefore, when you get into an argument with your family or friends, is either you cross the boundaries or you sense the others are “over-controlling” you.

As for me, I have a very good relationship with my family except for my father. I used to be very close with all other four family members, but as I grew up, both me and dad distance each other a lot. While saying that I am a person who values family A LOT, more than friends, I do hate them some of the times too. Especially during the time when we are moving over the summer, I just want to leave them and live by myself. But when things get resolve, we went back to be a “happy family”. The very hard times dealing with family is when you know that you can’t leave them no matter what. Even saying some bad things about them, you felt the sense of guilt, because they are part of your family, which means the one who will be connecting with you until the minute you die regardless you live with him/her or not.

In my family, I don’t know why and how I bond with my brother so well. But we are close in a way that I can almost share everything with him except for some privacy. He is a person who felt very strong about respecting others privacy, so the first thing dealing with him, is to respect him and accept his personality of being the way he is. Of course, we always have arguments between each other and stop talking to each other for the shortest, a week, or the longest a month. But we always going back together, which I think is strange but natural because he is part of my family. What is so strange about having good relationship with someone that you have so many fights with, is that the pain stays regardless you forgive him/her or not. I did have a very big fight with my brother before, and I will never forgive him no matter what talking back to that situation even though we are close with each other now and after.

Talking in that manner, relationships are strange to me. He did hurt me internally, and I will never forgive for what he did back then although letting it go might seem to be the answer. However, putting that aside, I like him as a whole, which is why I think we are still close with each other. We can talk about life for a day, and I would say we are so open-minded when we are talking most of times. What is so stupid about this is that we never fight among each other because of ourselves, but the others. Mostly, the fuse to this bomb is his friends. It is always about him protecting his friends, the end of the story. I know this always happen, but I do forgive sometimes. I guess the reason why people sometimes can still stay be close with others is that every person has good qualities, and dealing with relationship is to accept the bad and the good. As for me, I think I can still stay close with him is because we are families, not friends. It is not someone that you can just leave alone, and not deal with. To the most, is hard to find someone who understands you and do feel passionate to talk with you about life, about everything. He is my friend, he is my brother, he is a stranger, and he is my enemy.

I don’t like talking about relationships, because they constantly evolve. Once you write them down, it seems to be so definite which is totally the opposite talking about relationships. You can hate this person at this moment; you say you love him/her the next day. Is always hard to describe relationships because they are so complicated, and is definitely one of my strongest weaknesses – dealing with people. People are always strange in my perspective, I don’t understand what is behind this, and I view human as the most complex living things in the universe ever. While saying sometimes I don’t talk to my brother for certain amount of time when we get into fights, this never happen to me between me and my sister or my mother. Isn’t this strange? All I can think of is that it has to do with people’s personality, and is always hard to change people’s character. In order to keep the relationship, is always about accepting and tolerate the others.

Talking about friendship is the thing that I always have been tried to avoid talking about. Not only had it confused me in a way that I don’t know how to rate the importance of the others, people are always obsess with “best” friends. When I hear people saying “we are best friends”, I avoid accepting this because it felt like they have higher expectations on you, which is what I hate. I never learn this term until I came to the U.S., because ever since I was in China, I just hang out with people, and whoever that I hang out and talk to, I consider them my good friends. But once I came to the U.S., I realize people are so obsess with “best friends”. All the people that I am close to since middle school; always like to play these terms. To be honest, I don’t know what they mean when they say this. But talking about my own experience, whoever labels me as their best friends are sad, because I always end up stepping away and keep a long distance from them. Not getting into personal, but I am super sensitive about this term, and it drives me crazy.

I don’t know if this has to be with my personality or whatever that is, but people who are close to me as friends, always want to “have” me. My friend would make jokes saying she is going to be move to get my attention and my emotional response, and some of my friends would do tones of crazy things to draw my attention. Some would even fight over my other friend, to just “have me” as her friend. To me, I always view friends as a very pure relationship, which are simply the people that you can relate to and having fun with you throughout experiences that we both share. But most of the people that I met are always over the line. They either have expectations from you or they want you to be certain way, this always drives me sick! I used to be a nice and friendly person who makes friends with everybody, but ever since I experience all these craziness about friendships, I turn myself down. I am totally passive about meeting new people now a day, because it takes up so much energy to be others “favorite”.

Why can’t friendships be a little bit simpler? Why can’t good friends be more than two? Ever since I have more than two friends around me, one will get so jealous because of lack of attention. I used to see friends as a pure relationship where bunch of people are caring about each other, and treat others with equal amount of attention. But most of the friendships that I made in the U.S. are totally different. People like to fight you over to win your friend that you did not even intentionally trying to get into the fight to “have” that friend but just having a good relationship with the others, or people like to give you difficult choice whereas you are stuck in the situation of choosing either one. I even met friends who would do crazy things to hurt my other friend. I personally hate friends who create dramas, and most of the ones that I met are like that. Therefore, I am super picky when I pick friends, and I only consider certain people as my “friends”, which I will put them in my category of family. Same to the one that I love, they all fall into my family category, meaning no matter what, we are connected FOREVER.

Sharing some of the experience about friends, I am very curious about the definition of friends. Not only it is my weakness, I want to understand this more so I can form better relationships with the others. Can we put friends as our family members? So in that way no matter what, we will always learn how to accept each other’s good/bad without escape? Another benefit of putting your friend into the family category is that you need to follow the rule that “you need to be with them no matter what”, meaning there’s no exit in this relationship. You need to learn how to deal with the others, and they will always stick with you. But as friends or lovers, one thing that is better than family is that you get to choose, and you get to leave them if you don’t like them. Which it raised up a complex question: should we only keep the same boundary for all people so we don’t have to play these little games in relationships?

Talking about other people, as I said it is strange. I might rate someone that I don’t even know as more important than some of my friends. The one that are close to you might not be the most important person, and the one that are far away from you might be the one that you can relate to the most. So my question is, how do we rate the others? Do we rate them because they are important to you in a way that they ease tour life? Should we rate them because they make you happier than the others? Should we rate them in terms of your own benefit or advantage? HOW SHOULD WE RATE OTHER PEOPLE’S IMPORTANCE?

We leave someone because we don't want to be control, but yet, we move on to look for someone else to control us. Why's that?

HW 51 - School Big Paper

Intro:

School as an institution that offers education to kids, always seems to be the top priorities for parents to consider for their kids. Ever since their kids are around four or five, they start to decide what school their kids should go to in order to have a “good future”. As time goes on, school has transform into a great institution that ease the parents’ trouble and they don’t even have to over thought about this decision anymore. All they do is simply sending their kids to school to be educated or shaped by other adults that seems to be more suitable for their kids to grow up as a better person in the society. Yet, they never put too much thought into what school is really doing to their kids other than having lessons in certain subjects. While school as an institution that portrays the image of salvation for the youth to be a successful person that is suitable for the society, students are slowly being dehumanized that they are no longer a fully human.

Argument 1

Teachers as one of the most important “depositor” at school that deposits information to the depositories, students slowly train to become containers that stores what they learn at the mechanical institution instead of being an active learner that learns how to think to approach reality in the world. In most of the classes, teachers as the educators are suppose to give tasks to students and teach them something new every day within the time limit. Students are train to adapt to these environments that they are only there to perform for only certain amount of time. Once time is up, they pack up and leave to begin their next task. In this short period of time, students suppose to take notes and receive what they have learned in class into memories. In order to do well and get a good grade, all they have to do is to remember what they have learn and be able to show their teacher that they do understand the material being teach in class. However, this whole process of learning is just “filling containers” as what Freire claimed. This means the students never process thinking at all, but being exposed to a fragment of what reality really is.

In forming these type of compulsory education at school, not only students become passive and adapt to the world as what they have learned, they never encounter their own consciousness of realizing what reality really is in the world that they are living. Although students are doing well at adapting and fitting the world, these forms of learning are lessening the students’ creativity and critical thinking skills. “Translated into practice, this concept is well suited to the purposes of the oppressors, whose tranquility rests on how well people fit the world the oppressors have created, and how little they question it.” Refer to this whole idea demonstrated by Freire, not only students are not questioning about the world more other than being a strong fit for their “oppressors’ world”, they are no longer fully human because of the detachment that they have with the world that they live in.

Argument 2

Teachers other than being great depositors, they are also view as the saviors at salvational institutions. Yet, school as an institution is never a community, but a network that sorts people mechanically into numbers that they have to stay at where they are at other than being a fully human that interacts with other people. As what John Taylor Gatto claimed, “Our school crisis is a reflection of this greater social crisis. We seem to have lost our identity. Children and old people are penned up and locked away from the business of the world to a degree without precedent - nobody talks to them anymore and without children and old people mixing in daily life a community has no future and no past, only a continuous present. In fact, the name "community" hardly applies to the way we interact with each other.” Not only what he claimed is true that school is a reflection of social crisis, a place that sorts people like numbers. Just as different roles belong to different place, people no longer interact with each other.

Looking at the society as a whole, the community is unhealthy because of putting people aside and disconnecting relationships. Nevertheless, sorting is necessary but is not balanced. This means, school has dominate too much time from students that they are only interacting with peers that’s around their age that they have less chance to interact with their family or people that’s not their age. In addition to that, school is only offering lessons by teachers which have limited the opportunities of what students can learn. Other than doing arithmetic, reading, and writing, students should be exposed to more life lessons through community service, or other forms of learning other than taking lessons at school portraying teacher as the only major saviors towards the youth. Based on Aristotle’s claimed that only a person who is functioning in a real community through interaction with all people is fully human, students who attend to school is not fully human because of the lack of connection with the others.

Argument 3

Schools being set up as a mechanical institution that sorts people, the teachers as saviors/depositors have too many authorities over the students that lower their self-esteem that they can hardly be fully human. In most schools, students are responsible to do work and get a grade based on how well they meet the standards created by their teachers. Teachers are the ones who ultimately decide the students’ future depending on where they go next. However, every student learns differently. Regardless of the education given at school are immanent or transcendent, both Hirsh and Sizer’s beliefs seem to agree on students with different backgrounds have different knowledge on materials, and whether they should learn basics to form commonalities or should learn how to have critical thinking to value learning is another question. As this is also true to Lisa Delpit that different cultures affects the way that culture learns in the perspective of the culture that has the most power. All in all, through all these beliefs do concern on the problem that student performs differently as a whole. Thus, it requires all different forms of teaching or learning environments for kids. If this stays true, either grades or other judgments in terms of the child’s intelligence are therefore impossible to sort based on one curriculum.

As most parents rely on the number or letter grade to view their child’s intelligence, not only the child learn that only other’s opinions on themselves are the ultimate truth and the one and only that should matter, any judgments on the child under one curriculum is dehumanizing the students’ ability and intelligence. Not only these grades do not mean anything as a whole for students, they are “evaluation of certified officials” that determines the students future that caused them to have control over their own life other than conforms and meet the “oppressor’s” standards. Within the inability to control your own destiny other than conform reflects that students cannot be fully human due to the imbalanced of power between teachers and students.

Alternatives

In order to make students to be fully human at school, I agree with Freire that there should be more communication between students and teachers. “Yet, only through communication can human life hold meaning. The teacher cannot think for her students, nor can she impose her thought on them. Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication. If it is true that thought has meaning only when generated by action upon the world, the subordination of students to teachers becomes impossible.” I do agree with him that through more communication other than having the teacher putting information into the students’ brain will help the students more. In addition to that, this creates interaction between the two to make students be able to be fully human. Not only Freire’s suggestion is helpful, this will also lowers the teacher’s authorities over students to make it balanced. I believe the ultimate goal at school is simply to learn, and through learning, authorities are very unnecessary in my opinion. Not only has it distracted students’ to learn, it often evokes the “bad students” to challenge the teacher whereas people can just create a peaceful place to learn among each other through communication.

Another way to help students to be more human is to break through the tradition of teacher as a savior to help students to learn, but also provide more chance for students to have a view of the society. Other than learning arithmetic, writing, and reading, students should be able to do internships, community service, or all other forms of learning that can create more interactions between people as a whole in a community other than just among teachers and students. In order to make this happen, I think we should have less school, not more. I believe in Gatto’s theory that students can learn faster when they are in the mode of learning, and we wasted too many time at school forming unnecessary tasks such as teacher chasing after students’ to pay attention in class or students wasn’t even in the mode to learn but being force to be present at school. All these times could have been open to students to interact with more people such as their families, the old and the young.

Connection

As a student, I hate school. Not only I felt I spend too much time on it that I could have done something else, I think the way school is being set up limited what a student can possibly do . Every day, I can see myself just going through motion, and being force to go to school having the notion of “I have to go to school”. I believe I do well at school under my teachers and school’s standards, and I fit well to that world that they have created. But looking at my life spending most of my time at school, I felt the sense of inhuman in myself. I enjoy learning, and I believe I am curious. However, the school curriculum has shaped me into a student who hates school. If I have the ability to make my own choice since a kid, I would not choose to go to school, but still learn as much as I can. School has too many unnecessary rules that have nothing to do with learning or helping the students to do better but to shape them into zombies to conform. Not that I am agree with Gatto’s six lessons, I believe school does dehumanize students as a whole.

I believe there are values in learning, and I am glad that there are institutions that try to help people to be more educated. However, there are too many unnecessary things that are within these institutions that drives students crazy. It creates pressure and meaninglessness life for students most of the times other than learning. Students always felt pressure because of grades, or afraid that they did something that is against the school policy that will keep them in trouble. Or students have to act in certain way at school whereas the whole point to go to school is to learn and connect this knowledge to our own lives to find the meaning of living. School did not only fail to teach students to motivate themselves to go to school, they taught students to feel the sense of hatred and pressure towards school that students always look forward to weekends and vacations.

Significance

I know is it complicated to change the systems of school in a short amount of time, but at the very least I think parents and students should be aware of what is happening at school. I believe a lot of parents do not really put too many thoughts into what schools are doing to their kids, and they are just following the mainstream of sending their kids to school. As for students, I believe lot of us do not notice what schools are doing to us also. What most of us do is complain, but never try to make a difference at these institutions that we are attending for twelve years. I think students should understand the situation that they are in more, and try to make a change other than just complain and leave it to shape them in to robots or numbers. Students should not just let school to shape them to live a twelve year meaningless life but to put more thoughts into this to really try to make a change with action. I believe school can be a better place for students to learn, but students are being a little bit passive and just let things happen to them. I think students do have the responsibility to make choices for themselves; especially it is an institution that is supposed to be beneficial to us.

Conclusion

School in general, it always seems as a necessary and there should not be much question or thought into it. It is “good” for us as students, and it definitely portrays the image of salvation in the society that it is beneficial to the youth. Although this is true, there are lots of issues and contradiction in these institutions that has never been resolve. Not only the way school is being set up, just as what John Gatto said, is schooling students instead of educating us, I think school is dehumanizing us as a whole. Due to the detachments of the reality in the world and lack of interaction with people in a real community with an imbalanced of power between students and teachers, it reveals that school is definitely more complicated then what we think it is. The teachers wants to share their wisdom to shape students’ identities while students are building their own identities which often seem to against what the teacher wants to do as their job All in all, different roles wants different things at the same place, and no goal is being reach and the problem has not yet being resolved. Who is responsible for this and is it even a major problem that prevents students to learn in a healthy environment? Before answering these questions, I think students should recognize their situation and starts to realize that school has prevent them from being a fully human. Without being able to live fully with meaning, nothing seems to matter and indifference goes on.

HW 50 - Response to Gatto, Freire, Delpit, SOF Educator

Gatto - The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher

John Taylor Gatto specifically mentioned the six lessons that all students learn in school, and argued that school is "a 12-year jail sentence in which bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned". All the lessons that he lists have nothing to do with school materials but hidden curriculum that we might not even realize but learning them as a conformist. Not only Gatto has demonstrates the way how school runs, he emphasizes how these lessons are dumbing the students down. Of course, we are learning, and still might be rich in knowledge. But simultaneously, we are forming bad habits as what Gatto mainly claimed. Because of the bells, we learn that nothing really matters ultimately. We are just like the light switch, turning on and off at certain amount of time. More importantly, we no longer self motivate ourselves to learn but being a conformist as a learner. Since the teachers are the ones who plan the lessons, we are losing curiosity. Throughout the text, Gatto did not only point out the hidden curriculum that most of the students are learning in compulsory schools, he also specifically in favor of depicting school as a prison that kids no longer have their own privacy, and they are just numbers. All the points he emphasizes mainly falls to the category of systematic learning are bad and dehumanized.

I do agree with Gatto’s point that school at certain levels do really look like a prison. However, I think he went a little way too extreme, because realistically, that’s not what he’s teaching every day after day. It is true that students are forming these habits of learning because of the way school has shaped them, but students are learning on the other hand. No doubt that all the six lessons that he point out is true to most of the student I believed, nevertheless, it does not mean these lessons did not help the students learn. There are many ways to shape students in the way that is best for them to learn, and being able to train kids to be able to handle many different tasks in a day is also important. If kids are to be train like he said, to just continue learning the same subject for hours, instead of switching to other classes, it also reveals the student’s inability to handle multi-tasks. Lots of the points that Gatto points out are strong, but it seems he never really consider the benefits of these six lessons. He just went too extreme in a way that it seems there is only one best way for kids to learn whereas there are many different ways that fits varies of kids.

Freire - Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Throughout the text “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, Freire basically demonstrates and compare the two educational concepts between banking and problem-posing education. Banking education simply means that the teacher as depositor keep practicing the act of depositing the students as depositories. They treat students like containers and just fill in the students’ mind with facts while the students play the role as ignorants who just keep storing these deposits. Thus, students slowly fit /adapt themselves with these facts back to the world as their consciousness of reality without questioning too much about the world. On the other hand, problem-posing education deals with communication between teachers and students where both shares their ideas back and forth which makes “authority” invalid at school. Not only it helps the students of the teachers and the teachers of the students to see the reflections of each other, it helps them to reach their own conscious of consciousness within their own perceptions of the world that they believe is the reality based on their own situation. Through these dialogues between the teachers and students, the “act of cognition” eventually will “unveils reality” within themselves. Freire seems to be in favor of this concept because this type of education inhabits “creativity and domesticates the intentionality of consciousness by isolating consciousness from the world”, so people can be more fully human.

Based on my understanding of reading this piece by Freire, I really enjoy his unique way of looking at education and his critiques. I strongly agree with him, and find it amazed how he has come to a thoughtful solution towards “authority” at school. I like how he emphasizes the two concepts of education, and his concepts of problem-posing education is totally sophisticated. It seems this way of learning among each other is way better than just having the students to play the role of ignorants to reveal the teachers’ existence. By sharing ideas among each other within communication, I believe this way really will make authorities no longer valid at school which I think is ingenious. Sometimes I really find authorities unnecessary among learning environments because simply we are just there to learn. By taking out these roles off from each other and simply just enjoying learning seems phenomenal to me. Not only is a brilliant idea, I think it makes the whole situation of learning more pure. It did not only help people to have a better sense of reality, I think the idea of sharing your own perceptions with each other will make ourselves better individuals as a whole.

Delpit - Silenced Dialogue

Lisa Delpit has this very interesting idea where she sees school as the “culture of power”. By saying this, she meant school itself has constructed a set of rules where many things are “enacted” in the classroom, and in order to sort your intelligence or “normalcy” as she described, you have to follow that sets of rules of the culture created by the ones who have power. With that being said, she believes that different cultures should have appropriate strategies for students to learn especially the ones who are different from the others in terms of ethnicity or social class. She argues that she does not “advocate simplistic basic skills”, but school needs to ensure that they provide these contents or “codes” needed that helps the students to “fully” fit into the mainstream of American life. By doing this, it is the only way that can help the diverse groups to fit into one as a whole, so they can understand what they are learning better. If not, the poor or lower class group will just be learning things that do not even belong into the rules of culture of power, therefore, they are not even given the chance or being invited to the table to the same culture among the middle or upper class.

I think Lisa Delpit has a very good point that lots of the diverse groups might not even be train to practice to fit into the mainstream of American life, which means the lower class will never even be able to fit into that culture, or in other words the group that have power. Therefore, even the diverse groups are doing perfectly fine in terms of their own sets of rules of culture of power, they are not going to the same direction. I think she did point out a very good issue, but it seems she did intentionally tried to say that everybody should have a basic knowledge just as Hirsh’s idea. It is true that people with different culture learns differently, but instead of saying providing codes that is needed for these groups, why can’t the class provides same materials but with different learning technique? Or teach the diverse group the culture that they are experiencing instead of having the sense of "being cheated". As for me, when I just came to the U.S., it is absolutely difficult to fit into the mainstream of American way of learning, but as you try to understand other’s culture, I believe it is easier to fit in other than providing certain “codes” for the diverse groups to fit in. Because at the end, you are here to learn the same material, is just that different cultures have different way of teaching.

SOF Educator - Manley

Interviewing Manley in our class, he shared a lot of his own school experience with us and told us how those have impact his way of teaching. Although he did not clearly explain to us why he became a teacher, he did tell us why being a teacher is better than an office job. He mentioned how different it will be if you compare the teachers’ working environment to the ones who work for companies that just sat there the whole day with not many interactions. As a teacher, he thinks it is a “real humanistic job” that not much career offers. Being able to interact with students and colleague is the part that makes him enjoy teaching. He also told us that how his teachers used to lower his self esteem by making him stand under the flag makes him will never do that to his own students. He said he will try to make the student feel as comfortable as he/she can be while in his class. He went off sharing more of his experience at high school and about his teaching experience. He said SOF is a school that is very different from the others which makes him loves teaching at this school. He also mentioned how when he was at other school, he was not suppose to share any of his stories, or experience with the students, but teaching grammar, which makes him feel like teaching at that school “sucks”. He ended it the interview by telling us how important it is to teach the students something that actually mean something to them, instead of just giving them lessons that students should learn, because that is the way to make teaching fun. He enjoys teaching 11th and 12th grade, because it almost makes him felt like his part of it and he can feel how the importance of that turning point in his students’ lives.

I personally very like the part where he said teaching is a “real humanistic job” because I am surprise how important it is to have a job that you actually get to interact with people other than just sitting in front of a computer. I also like the way how he has put his own life experience into his career of being a teacher that he will not do something that he does not like what his teacher has done to him. As a student, I feel like this happens a lot. Such as what teachers or parents did to you that you find it discomfort, you will always end up saying you will never do this to your kids or students. I like how he has put his perspective as teachers into the students and really try hard to put his shoes into the students to understand them. It makes me feel like he is not just there to do his job as being a teacher, but he actually enjoys to be there at school teaching and be part of us through interaction. It almost seem as he is not just there to teach, but also to live his life meaningfully at the same time enjoying his job and living. Which I personally think is very important to have teacher who loves teaching as passion other than just be there doing their job.

HW 49 - Analysis of Savior/Teacher Film

For our class film, my role was to be part of the smart Asian kids who is just in the class to “learn” or to get good grades. We don’t cause troubles or mind what’s going on in the class such as the rebellious kids disturbing the teacher’s lessons. All we do is just to be “present” in the classroom and do what we need to do to get the grade or perhaps learning sometimes, and then move on to whatever is next. Basically, we are just there to meet standards to move on, anything else like the chaos, we are just the outcast who’s observing what’s going on. When the rebellious students are making jokes or being disrespect to the teacher, we don’t react back to it much. Even when the teacher thinks he is saying some smart things, to us, we just act normally and blank stare at each other. There is another scene where the teacher is criticizing the different groups of students in the class, and me and Devin were suppose to have our notebooks out getting ready to learn like what good students would do. But the teacher ends up coming over and making fun of how we just follow the rules of the game, and other than that, we do not know anything more than that, as the way he ended his criticism “pathetic”.

I think the main message of the class film was to show that the teacher sometimes might not be the savior of the next generation’s future or not even should be the one who is responsible for the youth. As we see in the film that the teacher is an alcoholic, it reveals another side of the teacher that students normally don’t see. This shows that teachers are human too, and they do have their own life other than just teaching. There are two ways of looking at this teacher, either he did try to teach and help the students but it didn’t really work. Another way to view this teacher is that he is just doing his job, and after all it is just a little part of his life. Either way, the teacher in the film did give up after making a stunning speech to the students, which we can view him as “the teacher who is there to do his job, and get the paycheck”. After the speech, the students are just looking at each other, and going back to their normal attitude towards school. Are the students really impossible to change? Or the teacher is not a good teacher who is there to inspire the kids and make a big difference in their life?

We did see the teacher having some insights about life, something that the students don’t normally hear in the classroom. But ultimately, we can see that the students are lost in these institutions. We’re not sure if the students understand what the teacher said, but I think the big message throughout the film was teachers might not always be the “savior” figure in the society, and students certainly need help other than just the teacher being there to give them lessons. Obviously we can see at the end of the film the students are a bit confused but back to the normal very quick when the teacher left the classroom. This did not show that teacher might not be the “savior” of the next generation, it suggests that students as individuals should learn how to be the savior of their own life. Teachers are just there to do their job to offer as much as they can, either way both need to contribute to make things work.

In most of the films that we saw in class, we often see the teacher as the savior of the youth who ends the carnival and succeed shaping the students in the way they wanted. They often give up transcendent education paradigms, and switch to immanent to get the students’ attention to believe the teacher is really there to help them. In our class film, when the teacher gets everybody’s attention is when he is giving some insights about life to the students. He walks to different groups of students and told them something revealing that students do not often see or hear in the classroom. Both the film that we saw in class and the one that we made, both show that in order to get the student’s attention, the teacher need to make connection to the student’s personal life. Another similarity between the class film with the movies that we watched in class is that the teachers are always view as the savior figure at school. Students do not know what to know other being present in the classroom, all they do is waiting for instructions from the teachers. When the teacher does give orders, students start to rebel against the teacher. As I mention in the previous paragraphs, are teacher really the savior of the next generations or they are just there to do their job?

For our class film, we did not end it as most of the movies that we watched in class. The “savior teacher” did not succeed winning the students, but give up and left the classroom after the speech. This is the biggest difference between the film that we watched and the one that we created in class. Although this might not seem realistic that the teacher will just walk out to the classroom and left the students in the class, I think the general message did successfully shown in our class film. Instead of showing how teacher always ends the carnival and make a big impact in students’ life, we show how teachers sometimes are just there to do their job and give up on the students. Just like the movie Dead Poet Society, the teacher just left and we do not know who is next there to educate the kids. If all teachers just give up on the students, does school ultimately work for kids? Or the students are just there to wait for their “Mr/Ms. Right teacher” to be the savior in their life? Our class film strongly shows the students are just like cubes that need someone to kick it, in order to make a little move. When the teachers left, students will just get stuck in the situation without help. Now it left with the question, whose responsibility is it?

In this American culture, going to school seems to be the only way to succeed. Even though there is alternative to make the best out of your life, not much people will take the chance to choose another route other than going to school wishing there might be a higher chance that they can get a decent job. Therefore, teachers always have the savior figure in most people’s eyes especially parents, who decided to send their kids to school. Many of us will think it is the teacher’s responsibility to be the savior of the next generation to lead the kids to succeed in their future. But never thought the students are responsible for their learning also. We often see teachers are always willing to offer and teach, but students sometimes go to school not doing their part as what we see in the film as the rebellious kids. Students choose to go to school and have the thought of “I have to go to school” lock into their minds that even thought they aren’t doing much at school, they still go to school to just be “present”. Most of us view school as salvation in lives, and teachers must be the saviors of the next generation. Although this seems true, I believe this have to do with faith and hope between the teachers and students. It almost seem as a bet, as for parents sending their kids to school. Ultimately, school is no longer a place for education that taught students the value of knowledge, but an institution that provides the image of salvation to the ones who are seeking for a sense of hope for a better future.

HW 48 - Treatment for Savior/Teacher Movie

1. ___1____was cleaning his room in the morning and he find a letter in one of the boxes with all his old high school stuffs in it, full of dust. While he is cleaning and putting some of the stuff in the trash, he sees the yearbook and he opens it up and starts to think back of his memories at high school. Flip through the pages with photos and friends that he has not seem for more than 4 years. He just graduated from college.

2. He spot one of the photos of his class picture with old friends and classmates, moreover, teachers. Flashback memories of how Mr.________ has made a big difference in his life. He thinks back to how he uses to act in class as one of the popular student at his high school. How everybody cheers for him when he make a shot in the basketball games. All the smiles from friends and how much they have went through together.

3. Mr.__________cleaning his classroom to prepare for the next year, and ready for summer vacations to come. While he is cleaning, a whole big stack of paper fell from the bookcase, and he sighs while picking them up one by one. When he picks up the class picture of 2010, he sits down and starts to think back to how he uses to teach these kids. Flashbacks of different students that he remembers the most, and how they use to act to speak to him. He take a deep breath in the classroom all alone, staring around the classroom with chairs, boards, and how lively his classroom use to be and now after class, the silence bothers him. Feels a little sorrow that he only get to meet these kids for a year or two, and once they get along with each other, they have to go and move on to their life.

4. Going back to ____1_____, still flipping through his year book. He is on the page where people write him messages and wish him good luck in his future. He thinks about now after 4 years has pass, what changes does he has. Looking at the mirror, he thought to himself, not much difference. But externally, he is more mature than before externally. Going back to his year book, and sees the message that Mr._________has wrote on his yearbook.

5. Flashback of how he is only passionate to be a basketball player and nothing else interests him. Fails almost all the classes, but has won lots of trophies for school. Miss his team, how they use to come up with their secret tactics to win over the other teams. But because of this teacher, not only has helped him to be able to graduate from high school. Now he even has graduated from college.

6. Still flashbacks. Mr.________thinks back to his first day of school while holding the class picture, which is his first group of students in his teacher career. Think back to himself, as a new teacher who just come to school and thinking he will be able to inspire these kids and be passionate about learning, knowing the values of knowledge and the importance of life and meaning. But turn out that, he is teaching the dumbest class of the whole grade. Walks into the class, girls chatting among each other, some are texting, listening to their ipods, some are drawing on the board, some are sitting on the table crowded around laughing and joking around while class suppose to start. Walks in, the students go back to their seat, and waiting for instructions. He wrote his name on the board Mr.______, and he gives them a diagnostic on their first day to see how much they know. Realize only a few passes with a 65. Ruins his original plan and he has to plan a whole new lesson to teach them.

7. Mr._______starts with the basics, and he realize that the class is not motivated to learn. They don’t take notes, and they don’t ask questions. They are just there, in the class, not doing much. Some even sleep in the back of the classroom, and some are just listening to their ipods, or texting. He thought to himself, what’s going on. The students are not disturbing or being ruined or disrespect to the teacher. They are just not learning. When the class is over, he sit in his class and plans to understand these students by walking through the hallways, or walk around the school to see what these kids usually do. He did not only realize all these kids have talents, they are so passionate to do things they like. ____1_____, the popular kid in the class that always got crowded by bunch of students; he is so good on basketball. Some of the other kids are so talented that they are in art clubs all the time drawing. Some are playing music in the classrooms when there’s no class. Some even rap very well also. Mr._______is shock!

8. The next day in class, he stops his lesson and finally got the class’s attention. Not only he presented his ideas to the class, he move all the tables to the side, and makes the class sit in a circle. He starts a discussion of a relevant topic, and the class starts to talk about their feelings more, express how they feel about life more. The class discussion goes on everyday for more than a week. Not only this is the first time Mr.______realizes how much he has misunderstood these kids; his heart is broken that these kids have been given up by so many teachers all these years.

9. Mr.________decides to abandon all the textbooks, and be patient with the class. He did not just put notes and the board and keep on the lesson. He teaches the class while making jokes sometimes in the middle of the lesson. The student slowly allows the teacher to enter their world. The year goes on, and the class makes a big progress on their midterms, and has a friendly relationship with this teacher. However, the other smart class starts to challenge this “dumb class”. They make fun of these kids learning simple things, and they laugh at these students that they will never graduate from high school.

10. ____1_____, as the popular kid in the class, almost like a leader. Calm the class down, and he tells the class not to fight with these kids. He learns that the only way to prove to these kids, are by working harder than these kids. He decides to talk to the teacher, and asks if they can extend their class time longer. Can they have an extra class after school, or even have a class in the library or at someone’s house to have more time to study. The teacher did not reject them. Mr._______ tells the principle, and the principle finally says yes, and also offers them the classrooms on Saturday also. (revealing learning should be self-motivated, and learning new things should never just be on schedule from mon-fri., thinking minds should always be developed)

11. The relationship of the teacher and the students are getting closer and closer, is like a family. One day, the teacher proposes an idea of asking these students to write a letter to themselves, and he will send them back these letters when they are in college. By doing that, the students will see the difference of themselves comparing the 18 year old to the 20, or 21. As the school year goes on, the class has pass all their finals and the class average compare to the other class is not so far behind.

12. Going back to present, the _____1_____finishing up his cleaning and sees a letter in his mailbox. Forgets about the letter until he opens it and realize that was his 18 year old letter to himself. Sits down with a cup of coffee, and starts reading. Thought back to all these memories (fast flashback of previous class scenes), and realize how much impact this teacher has in his life.


Extended version will be kids going back to the school on their alumni day, meets everybody with the letter. Visit the teacher while he is still teaching another new tough class. Students share their experiences in life and express the values of learning, and how these “new generation of bad kids” should make the best out of their high school life. Because it is worth it!

HW 47 - Class Film Preparation 1

*have something symbolic in the film, maybe the teacher plants something in the classroom and give some meaning to it, the student will think it is impossible (is not going to bloom), but somehow the teacher did it, and got the students attention as a theme, even you are a bad student or you are not a genius, if you work hard for it, you can achieve it

*a very mean teacher who gives massive of homework, discipline the students with little tiny things such as talking in class, lateness, everybody pays full respect to him/her, then the students starts to get overwhelming with the teacher’s attitude of cold, and careless for students, and the students changed the teacher by keep defending other students when the teacher only discipline one or two students, last teacher finally feel that as being a teacher is not just mentor, but the class is a family as a whole – warm, care for each other since people spend most of their time at school

**a very competent teacher, who got a lot of great feebacks from parents and students, and he/she is just like a noraml regular teacher that we see around school, but one day, a student kill him/herself because of pressure, and the teacher at first thought everything is fine, and the student can pick up the class pace, but soon he/she realize the students often time have lots of intangible pressures that they do not know or have learn how to handle, the teacher thought the students will be okay and know how to code with these pressure, but that is not the case, so the teacher has to change the way he/she teach, and realize school is not all about knowledge, is more to that...maybe have to do with the student's family, friendship, relationships, job, success...etc. students express their own stories, and the teacher is surprise and realize he never understand his/her own students that he sees almost everyday...

*costumes – uniforms might be fun, as to show school is part of conformity, and how everybody tries to be different, maybe students do wear the uniform, but still try to modify it to make it look unique, and the teacher make the students realize that they are actually all the same

*a teacher who always takes the students out of the classroom to learn, always go on trips to museum, outdoor to teach, and has his/her own method to teach – immanent

*a passionate teacher who treat all his/her students as “kids”, but unable to get the students trust, and students do all different kinds of things (pranks) to piss the teacher off, but this teacher did not choose to leave but stay, change the students, carnivals over

******a teacher who has all the students’ personal information before entering the school (like a detective), and his job entering the school is to change the students one by one , getting into the student's personal life

*no special or new teachers, all the teachers are kind of the same, and no matter how hard the students try to be part of them, the teachers reject them, students realize there are boundaries between teachers and students, and no matter how nice the teacher are, they should not be close with these “adults”, teachers are just there to teach

*horror movies, teachers lie to students that he/she can actually see the ghosts at this school who are complaining how regret they are, and he/she can actually prove it to the students, and he/she uses the ideas of meaning in life to scare the students that they will only live for once, and they should live the best they can to find their own meaning of life

**parents always have the notion of school is the most important things for their kids, but soon when their kids met a special teacher who has his/her own teaching methods, the parents first oppose to it becasue they are afraid that their kids are not learning something that's important for them, but soon realize, those are the most valuable lesson that their kids should have in life, other than just books and basic knowledge...

***set up a situation that in the future there are not enough space to have school, so people starts regesiter an account online to learn the teacher's lessons. So everyday they would check the website to follow directions and do their homework online so the teacher make sure they actually get it. By doing this, it shows how perhaps students and teachers are just a distance relationship that might not even require to see each other. It also reveals that students can still learn might even perform better without having the notion of "going to school", but wake up, check the website, and just to learn something. In terms of interaction, the teacher might set up meetings in museums, or a park to meet the students so perhaps the students do not feel like they are in jail or feel like society itself is just another jail. but all in all, it gives the audience a different view of how students can learn in a different way other than being force to go to school to follow certain schedule.

HW 46 - Research and Writing

Dumbing Us Down by John Talyor Gatto highlights the major problems behind the curriculum of compulsory school that school can never be parallel with education. Instead of learning given materials by the “experts” in a community that deals with participation and engagement, what teachers taught are the “seven lessons” that is behind the curriculum that will shape the students to conform to the social orders and economy for twelve years. Not only have that locked students in an institution as an “involuntary network”, it dehumanizes the students in varies of ways that they will never be fully human from the blockage of access to a real community.

This relates to my topic because Gatto reveals a very typical vision of the truth purpose of schooling. In the first chapter, he described the seven lessons that are being taught to students that is the “only curriculum truly learned” by students. Instead of telling the reader that school’s purpose are getting a good job, or for your future, Gatto went above all to tell the reader that school is really just a mechanical institution that makes people inhumane and to conform in a network, not community. Real education is to find the meaning in learning the materials in a way that make sense to your own life as combining transcendent and immanent. Although Gatto did not really criticize specifically what kind of subjects should be teach in school, he did map out the general issues that he saw from his thirty years of teaching focusing on the curriculum of compulsory schooling. Not only by pointing out the problems of schooling, he opened the readers’ vision to search for an alternative of the situation that is going on at school. He direct the students, parents, and teachers, to realize what they are doing at school might not be simply what they are, is way more complicated than just going to school and learn, or going to school and teach, or sending kids to school for a better future.

Sidenote: the seven lessons from the hidden curriculum of compulsory schooling

1. Confusion (The natural order of real life is violated by heaping disconnected facts on students.)
2. Class Position (Children are locked together into categories where the lesson is that “everyone has a proper place in the pyramid.”)
3. Indifference (Inflexible school regimens deprive children of complete experiences.)
4. Emotional dependency (Kids are taught to surrender their individuality to a “predestined chain of command.”
5. Intellectual dependency (One of the biggest lessons schools teach is conformity rather than curiosity.)
6. Provisional self-esteem (“The lesson of report cards, grades, and tests, is that children should not trust themselves or their parents, but should instead rely on the evaluation of certified officials.”)
7. One can’t hide (Schooling and homework assignments deny children privacy and free time in which to learn from parents, from exploration, or from community.)

One of Gatto’s ideas in the seven lessons was indifference. “When the bell rings I insist they drop whatever it is we have been doing and proceed quickly to the next work station. They must turn on and off like a light switch….Bells inoculates each undertaking with indifference.” This portrays a typical life experience going to school, is to learn that nothing really matters. While students are enjoying their lessons and just got into the mode of focusing, they have to move on eventually and stop learning. Sure, people say we can come back to it tomorrow. But all these interruption will just ruin the environment to learn. Going to school is mainly to learn and keep our curiosity about the materials being given in relation to meaning of life, but it turned out that all students learn is conformity to the curriculum being given that shaped our habit to lose own individuality. The purpose of school did not only turn out that is to dumb us down, it also awake the ones who try to look for a better purpose to go to school to make an effort on making a difference about the school curriculum.

John Taylor Gatto did not really offer an optimistic purpose for students to go to school by telling the reader that’s what they have been learned (the seven lessons), but he did alert the readers that we shouldn’t just accept what school is doing to us but try to work together to make a difference. As my earlier topic question of searching for a satisfied reason to go to school, I realize that there is no such answer after reading this book, because school itself is corrupted by dumbing us down. “We have abundant evidence that each is readily self-taught in the right setting and time”. Gatto is arguing that each of us have the ability to teach ourselves and by setting ourselves to learn when we are motivated, we can learn way faster than spending more time at school, but less. By saying that, I am not saying that school is not the right setting, but the curriculum is the central impact on school that makes school a bad setting to learn. Students are the majorities that form the institution, therefore I do not believe school itself as a setting matters, but the way or habit we learn shaped by curriculum.

Although I do agree with Gatto's idea of spending too much time at school, I also doubt that by forming such freedom for students will cause them to procrastinate and form the inability to form multi-task. There is a chance that students will never feel like learning or never motivate themselves to learn. But in either way, I realize the main purpose of school is not simply to learn, but pick or modify the curriculum that best fits you in order to benefit yourself out of the most through schooling. Throughout the whole book, John Taylor Gatto did offer lots of the ideas that are true to me based on my own experience at school. But after all, who can determine what is best for every single student? By realizing these purposes of going to school to learn these seven lessons, I come to a conclusion that students should know what is best for themselves. Without the students, school is never an institution. Therefore, students should be responsible for finding their best way to learn other than just accepting what school has shape us into.