HW 50

Gatto- Gatto's "teachings" are broken down into 6 lessons. These six lessons are taught by teachers around the world and he feels that in actuality, these six lessons are hypocritical and develop what he calls the "permanent underclass". These six lessons in execution do not allow students to learn, but instead they train obedience and roles in society, essentially causing a "good student" to lose their individuality and conform to the structure that has been laid out for them. These students cannot possibly learn anything except how to fit their role in consumerist society.

Gatto seems to think that the solution to this is homeschooling, to which I disagree. The problem with homeschooling in line with Gatto's beliefs is that it is simply progressing the same lessons under a more personalized and potentially more (Or less) restricting institution. If somebody home-schools their children, odds are pretty good that they went to an institutionalized school. Therefore they will teach based on how they were taught and progress the institutionalized teaching under a different, more trusting banner. Even if the person teaching from home was a product of homeschooling themselves, they will base their teaching on how they were taught (Which could be traced back to institutionalized teaching at a certain point) or on how they "think" they should teach, which would be partially based on books written by people who are a product of the institution. As a result, I feel like homeschooling is in fact worse than institutionalized schooling because it lies to the student to get them to hope they will be learning "freely". Freedom when learning is a lie.

Freire- Freire proposes that teachers are depositing knowledge into students, forming the banking approach. This approach implies that with the more knowledge a student accepts into their mind, the less they will critically think about the information. This makes the students more subdued and accepting on the world around them and more likely to become followers, discouraging independence and leadership. They become people who are more likely top want to work for the world around them then try to change things and work their way up, becoming employees instead of employers.

I disagree with this model of teaching quite heavily. The ability to thoroughly analyze a certain material and gain deeper knowledge from it is something I find very important, because it avoids exactly what is being taught here, and that is the spoon-fed approach. People taught this method of learning will learn nothing but how to fulfill a role somebody else laid out for them, effectively trapping themselves in a single role for eternity. Not only that, but this contradicts everything that human nature has indicated, and that is the urge to evolve and demand more than what is offered. Looking back on history, were people to merely accept the knowledge and roles handed down to them by those in higher position, the United States would still be a British colony, Australia would be a jail, and black people would still be slaves (And that's just concerning modern history). Freire's approach to teaching is both unnatural and immoral.

Delpit- Delpits teachings seem to focus on the difference between cultures and how this affects the way they are taught. For instance, black students statistically perform lower than white students. This is often due to the economic situation of the family in question. For instance, a poor black family having students with lower success rates than rich white students. However, all students, black and white, need to be assisted to truly understand the system of power. For the poor students and/or black students though, this must be done with the assistance of parents and teachers in order to choose what type of instructor would be the best for the student.

I largely agree with most of Delpit proposes and suggests. For one, I agree that students should be taught by somebody in the same situation as them. This goes back to being able to trust, like, and relate to a person. Typically, people identify with people who have similar connections with them, such as a shared event or a similar background. Therefore, if somebody is poor and black, have the teacher be black and formerly poor, to show where they can get. I don't think that this necessarily has to affect how they are taught, but I can understand why it does in some ways. The quality of the education should never be in question though, it should simply be the techniques and the route taken to gather such knowledge.

Mr. Fanning- Fannings teachings focus mainly on giving back to the students after a life of taking. As a result, he wants to genuinely give the students an education. Ideally, students will learn to learn for life under his guidance and will all go off to college, as he feels it is a crucial step in education, for scholarly and social reasons. In order to accomplish this set of goals, Fanning is a "ball buster" and will in fact stop students from making the same mistakes he made in his youth. He feels like New York City students grow up too fast, that they need to take a step back and learn to be a kid. In regards to his model of school, he feels that they need to progress from the old factory model of making clones to making individuals. To do this, he plans on focusing on creative learning and away from textbook and lecture-based study.

Fanning seems to believe that schooling comes not from a book, but rather a series of books in a way. Learning should be constant and interactive, and with this I agree. If everybody stopped learning after school ended the world wouldn't evolve, it would simply stay in the same state. So on this front I agree with Mr. Fanning in that people need to learn how to learn for life, if for nothing else but the evolution of ones identity and society. In fact, I agree with everything Mr. Fanning said, but for different reasons. For one, being a "ball buster" keeps kids in line (Hopefully) and if nothing else shows what a better path would be, allowing students to see more choices. In addition to this, people don't always know or do what is in their best interest, so you need a "ball buster" to keep an eye out for trouble and lead them to a better life.