Issues in Education

Social Justice and Education

2006-03-14T20:39:00.000-08:00

Dr. Poplin talked about social justice and education from a religious perspective. From your perspective, what are reasons why students (religious or not) should be concerned about social justice? Is social justice (as you understand it--it might be useful to define what we mean) a religious issue, or is it a human issue? Can it be both? How is service-learning an instrument of promoting social justice in education (or is it)? What else about her talk did you find particularly interesting or relevant to our class or your own thoughts about education? Feel free to use these questions as a springboard for your general response to some of the issues she raised, and to add any other thoughts you'd like.

The List

2006-02-12T19:29:00.000-08:00

So far, here's our big list of topics:

No Child Left Behind issues
Vouchers (there's a pending case in DC about this)
Funding for schools
Teacher pay
Teacher shortage (and programs to solve it--Americorps, for example)
Classroom size
Collaborative learning
Standardized testing
College admissions standards
Sex education
Arts/music education
Foreign language education
Sports as part of learning
Physical education (and assessment)
Special needs children: education for blind, hearing impaired, developmentally delayed children
Desegregation
Racism in the classroom
Districting
Diversity and learning
Affirmative Action
Different kinds of schooling: private, public, home schooling
Technology in the classroom
Using pop culture to educate
Service learning
Budget cutbacks in Louisiana (the state of post-Katrina education)
Schools in New Orleans
Head Start/publicly funded pre-K education
Single sex education
Effects of gender, race, culture, socioeconomic status, single-parent homes
Gender and teaching: why aren't there more male teachers?
Drug testing in schools: for students? for teachers?
Literacy programs
Language acquisition
Reading intervention
Student motivation/engagement: what makes kids want to learn?
Religion and education: prayer in schools, etc.
Montesorri programs/active studio-learning
Magnet schools
Gifted education
Teacher education: what kinds of training do teachers need?

Literacy!

2006-02-10T11:17:00.000-08:00

If you attended the panel on literacy on Saturday, February 11, and would like extra credit, please respond in a comment to the following prompt:

Which program seemed most interesting to you and why? Did anything that was said change your perceptions of the child you've been tutoring or of the way you tutor? After listening to the discussion, how would you define literacy? Feel free to add anything else that you found interesting or worth discussing.

Research Topics

2006-02-06T20:23:00.000-08:00

What issues in education are you interested in?

This is the question we'll be trying to answer in the next week or so. Use the comments here to discuss possible research topics--you have 21 thoughtful people who also need topics: use each other to come up with a list. I'll throw in my two cents here and there too; after all, I'm the one who has to read all of this research!

By Thursday, please leave at least 3 suggestions for possible topics. You aren't tied to these ideas; this is just a way for us to start making a list.

What Will You Evaluate?

2006-01-23T13:37:00.000-08:00

Please leave a comment on this post (see right below, it has a link that says "0 comments"? Click on that and leave your response in the comments box that will appear. Make sure to enter your name.) and tell us what educational experience you have decided to evaluate. Describe it briefly and write a couple of sentences telling us why you've chosen this experience and who your audience will be.

Welcome!

2006-01-15T18:36:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the discussion forum for English 1002-118, Issues in Education. This blog will serve as a forum for out-of-class discussion and a place for you to record your responses to issues we discuss in class or issues that come up in your tutoring. Sometimes I will ask you to respond to questions or prompts; other times I will ask you to generate questions for discussion. Either way, this space is for you, by you, which means you are free to express your thoughts in whatever writing style you choose. Above all, I hope you will use this space to challenge one another (and yourself) to shape your thinking about what it means to learn, what it means to serve, and how both fit into your own philosophy of education.