Re: Shelby 5/1/11

How can teachers encourage students to do their work well, without patronizingly rewarding or punishing them?

I can understand where Shelby is coming from, yet I find myself feeling guilty when I do not hand in work. Just yesterday I had a paper due that I did not do, and when the professor asked if we had it to turn in I said, "Don't hate me..." Out of fear and embarrassment, students sometimes do not to go to class if they do not have an assignment finished that is due. Students especially at the college level care a lot about what their professors think. We are conditioned to do our work and this guilt spawns from past punishment/reinforcement but also the idea of future goals. When future goals are kept in mind it is not so ridiculous to hear someone say that they hope their professor is not mad at them. In college you have to find those professors who you enjoy learning from, take a lot of classes with them, and really get on their good side because when it comes time for graduate school, it is those teachers who you will ask for a letter of recommendation. If you are constantly late or neglect to do your work for that professor, chances are they will not write that letter for you. Also since you are close to a select few of teachers, when you preform inadequately you feel like you have disappointed them.

I have a couple of suggestions for teachers to get their students to do their work without ridiculing, punishing or rewarding. The first is setting high, but realistic goals. If a teacher babies their students that is not going to make them do work because they know that the teacher will not punish them and that makes the teachers more susceptible to be walked over. Students will find excuses to not do their work and find a way to waste class time. By setting high and realistic goals, the students will value and respect the teacher for testing them and being bold enough for setting such standards. Although when the standards are too high students may avoid taking classes with that teacher. the second suggestion is make assignments internally rewarding. By making a fun assignment or having the student choose a topic, they are more likely to complete it.

Question: Is it ridiculous to feel guilty or worry that a professor will be mad at you if you do not do an assignment?

Mathematical Pedagogy

In the article from Lesser & Blake (2007), they bring up the problems with mathematic pedagogy. Their arguments are that mathematic teaching lacks political, social/cultural, and historical connections. Early in the article they also highlight how the idea that students are unable to learn math is a self fulfilling prophesy. Although the connection to cultural ideas (like the disproportional Barbie) and political issues (like the death penalty) are a helpful ways for children to learn, I do not think that the lack of these real-life examples are the only reason why math is stereotyped as incomprehensible.

The reason why students have such a hard time learning math is because of the teachers themselves. I'm not saying that all math teachers are bad at teaching but I have two theories in addition to Lesser & Blake (2007). First, the masters of the field go on to becoming nuclear engineers, physicist, governmental statistical analysts, ect. Secondly, math teachers think that some students are incapable of learning math because they do not understand the way that they think. Since they love math and it comes easy to them they just assume that you are the same and if you aren't than their is something wrong with you and you do not have the mental capacity for it. They do not understand that the things that they think are common sense are not common sense to everyone who is not primarily left brained.

Why do you think math is hard for students to learn?

Respecting Religions

I've read about many religions and/or theistic ideas from our current world views: Taoism, pantheism, Buddism, Christianity, Judaism and more. I find all of these religions interesting, yet no matter how many I read about and am informed about my religion reins true to me. This could be stubbornness. Yet, I do not claim that any of them may not be true. When I educate myself on a new religion I think to myself, "that might be true." The thing is that we do not know and people argue over which is right. The YEC is afraid that if these Christians are taught evolution that they will lose their faith in God. Yet, if they lose faith that easily they probably weren't that committed to that faith in the first place.

We talked about pantheism in class on Wednesday (the "God is the universe" one) and it really intrigued me. It makes a lot of sense from a theistic and evolution point of view because there is always the question of how the first piece of material that made the world got there. That religion is very interesting, I like that idea, that may be the truth, yet I feel like mine makes the most sense. I feel that way about most religions.

Question: Do you think admitting that another person's religion may be correct, yet standing true to your own is ideal way to respecting other religions? Are there other idealistic factors?

Re: Mike "Being Civil About Opinions"

When is it appropriate for a teacher to express his or her opinions on their students? What about the students voicing theirs? We all have the right to voice our opinions, but how far can it go until it becomes harmful? When is it okay?

I remember my history teachers never gave their opinions about political issues and you could never tell which way they really felt. I think it is important for teachers not to give their opinions because it influences the opinions of the students. Of course when students write a paper for them they are more likely to choose the teachers side of the argument because the student thinks that it is what they want to hear and that they will get a better grade. Because of their role of authority it is important that the personal biases of the teachers do not get in the way of what they are teaching. It is okay for students to voice their opinions because they do not have a professional role. In most discussion based classes the teacher or professor acts as the moderator and does not post a view point because of their influence. If you ask a teacher after class what their opinion is I think it is okay if they answer. My science teacher went over evolution my sophomore year of high school. My friend asked him if he truly believed in it, when he was not in front of the class. He answered her by saying, "Sometimes I look at the sunset and I just know that someone must have painted it." When it comes to religious affiliation I think that is okay for teachers to say what their opinions are as long as they do not try to force them on to others, it is in private, and as long as it does not cause a religious debate.

Question: How does the role of a teacher influence you and your opinions in comparision to peers and parents?

Re: Andrew 4/20/11

If we were more informed about others' religions would we still be likely to have wars and think negatively about their cultures or is it harder to hate someone who you understand?

Should children be told which religion they want to follow or should they be allowed to choose?

I can understand where Andrew is coming from when it comes to defeating our egocentrism and possibly discontinuing wars. Unfortunately, I do not think that teaching world religions in high school will stop congress from declaring war, there are more factors that contribute to their decisions other than egocentric tendencies. I do however think that learning about other cultures will diminish negative thoughts about them. Understanding is at least one step toward eliminating hatred. With an empathetic mind set one can understand the other countries from their shoes yet still not like them. If we can still hate ourselves for things we have done or do, that shows that empathy does not solve hatred. That said, empathy and egocentrism is not the problem that we face, the problem is the overriding amount of patriotism to the point where pride turns into the need to win and be best.

As for children choosing their own religion, I'm not to sure I believe in that or not. Children do not tend to spend their days contemplating the meaning of life or what religion to follow. Technically you are born whatever your mother is (at least in my religion, I'm not sure about others). Yet, again you can't really stop someone from believing in a certain religion or not, if that is what they truly believe, yelling, trying to convince or questioning probably will not do anything. Children are pretty stubborn on their beliefs whether they be true or not. If a child is taught all the different religions thoroughly I don't see why they couldn't choose which to believe. If you really want your child to believe the same things you do if you engage in religious activities with them on a regular basis they are less likely to feel the need to convert.

Question: Why are some people so concerned by the beliefs of others? Why do they get upset when others do not have the same views as they do?

Creationism in schools

Reading Pennock's article got me a little irritated. Public schools tend to teach only evolutionary theories and when catholic schools teach them it is only as a "false theory." The YEC is working to ban the practices of public schools only teaching evolution-science and have only creationist point of views be taught. This is both unrealistic and stubborn. Getting rid of the teaching of things like plate tectonics does not go against anything that the bible says and getting rid of it would be a shame because those are important things that we should know about the earth. And even if it did, educators are so concerned with not making the the knowledge exposed in the classroom contradict itself yet that is the way the world is. My first thought was, 'why not instead of arguing that this way is the only way, we compromise?' Why not have a unit of going over scientific theories as well as western and eastern theories. Sadly, Arkansas tried to create a plan like this by making the "Balance treatment" act that entailed equal treatment to creation-science and evolution-science. Unfortunately it was 'unconstitutional' because it went against our freedom to religion.

Question: Is it against that same freedom to ban mentioning of the possibility that western or eastern religions are true?

Philosophy of Children

Since our topic this week was philosophy for children, I thought it would be relevant to go over the philosophy of children. The philosophy of children (SEP) first attempts to define what children are. In our reading this week, Piaget's theories were used as one of the arguments against philosophy in the elementary classroom. Yet, Piaget classifies children as what they are not able to do rather than what they are capable of doing. This negative outlook and classification of "deficit conception" puts up a barrier of what they may be capable of. The second way to examine the philosophy of children is to understand their cognitive development. Theories clash from famous developmental psychologists like Chomsky, Skinner, and Vygotsky when it comes to the development of language. Chomsky feels that we have a "LAD" (Language acquisition device) or seed language because children all over the world learn language in the same steps and at the same ages. Skinner believes that we learn language from the reinforcement we receive from others. And Vygotsky agrues that social interaction as well as culture plays a role. Yet the formation of concepts for the most part do not follow skinners theory, the use of "prototypes" as a tool for concepts has been shown as a way to form concepts (SEP). In neuroscience it has been shown that children actually have more neural pathways than adults do. This suggests that they are more able to form concepts. The third aspect that is examined is the theory of moral development. Rousseau and Kolberg have differing moral stages of development which could aid the argument for philosophy in the pre-college classroom. Rousseau suggests that there are five stages of moral development: 1. infancy (birth-2); 2. the age of sensation (3 to 12); 3. the age of ideas(13 to puberty); 4.The age of sentiment (puberty to 20) and 5. The age of marriage and social responsibility (21 and on) (SEP). According to Rousseau's theory children do not fully understand morals until they are 13. Kolberg has a different approach to determine one's moral stage. He believes that there are six stages yet most adults do not reach the sixth or sometimes even the fifth stage. In my high school psychology class we used this model to determine everyone's moral level. The scenario was that your wife (or husband) has cancer and you can not afford the drug to save their life, what do you do? It was not whether you decided to steal the drug or not that determined your moral level, but your reasoning for why. This model can be used in children's classrooms to determine each child's initial level of moral development. When children are young they do not fully understand right from wrong (and that is why they are not treated as adults, government wise). Yet, instead of them figuring it out as they go along why not have philosophical conversations in the classroom about what is right and wrong and why things are wrong and right. Having philosophical conversations of this nature may even lower crime rate. This article went into five other aspects of the philosophy of children concerning: children's rights, childhood agency, the goods of children and more. To wrap it all up, understanding how children learn helps adults understand how to explain things to their level of understanding. Of course children are not going to understand lots of big words and college level writting, but anything even philosophical concepts can be understood by children. We first need to grasp where they are initially, and then explain the concepts simply, starting with the easiest to understand. Using a protype helps, the children must hear an example or senerio of the concept and where it is used to fully understand. Question: How else does understanding the philosophy of childhood and psychological development help teachers?