Hw 50- Read Em' And Learn

Mr. Gatto.
Summary: Gatto explains that he was an expert in boredom, that he was surrounded by it everywhere no matter where he went. Boredom is most obvious in the schools; students would be bored based on several reasons like, the teachers being just as bored as the kids or work being pointless and redundant. Gatto explains that his grandfather told him that it is his job to entertain himself when the feeling of boredom was upon him.

Response: Grades, yeah they matter. Well, what can we say we have been taught to understand that school is important and to be successful in this society we need money and power. The only way to achieve such a dream is to attend school and become obsessed with the double digit number that we receive after 3 months of being obedient. I think that it seems silly to try and identify the things that make us bored in school. Since nothing really happens when we do, no matter what we will continue to show up every morning and do our work no matter if we are bored or excited to be there, it is something that must be done.

Mr. Gatto
Summary: Gatto explains the rules that he teaches to his students in his classroom, rules that he would like all his students to know and follow. Gatto goes in depth explaining that he is the only authority figure in the classroom. He says that students belong in the classroom and should stay there. If they lose their way they are assigned numbers and will be returned to where they belong. Gatto demands that all his students be engaged in his lessons and to be fully interested in whatever he is teaching. In short, he as the teacher is in charge.

Response: Wow. These rules seem really absurd to me. Just the way that he ‘demands’ that students be interested in whatever he is teaching is just something that I can’t imagine. I know that teachers are the authority figures in the classroom but usually that is never really been pushed upon the students before. Rule 4 is something that I have always been familiar with. The teacher is the one who makes the lessons without the input of the students. I wonder why that is, if the students have to learn it then why don’t we get a say?

Mr. Freire
Link won’t load.

Ms. Delpit
Summary: Delpit talks about how kids need to have a foundation of things before they enter the school so that they know what the hell is going on. It isn’t a smart thing to drop your child off at school and just assume that they will know what is being taught, because to them the things that are being thrown at them will make no sense if they have never seen it before.

Response: I think that this is a great idea, to actually teach the child something before you thrown them to the wolves. What is better than you actually informing your child of the things that they will learn instead of a stranger? It offers the child to have an advantage and a chance to actually learn something and understand what they are staring at 6 hours a day. Delpit acknowledges that in order to be something [have power] in this society you have to be smart, starting with getting good grades.

SOF Educators
As we all know SOF is a little SOFt compared to someone like Gatto. I mean what Fanning said was true, we have always been granted second chances over and over again. Our teachers are nice and often put up with the immaturity that is presented upon them every class. But I can’t tell if they are bored or not. I think the students that attend SOF are a lot like the students in that super teacher film with the marine teacher. We have character and we are very diverse in attitudes etc.

Why do we need education? I think that a lot of us just take what we can and we
don’t question. Sure there are commotions in class but that is just something that delays us from actually learning what we can. For the most part we like our teachers…well some of them. I think that in a lot of ways SOF is different and in a lot of ways SOF is the same as other schools. We have teachers who are full of themselves we have teachers who place themselves above us and believe it or not we have teacher who actually want their students to like them.
The values of school in my opinion haven’t really changed much, we are still learning things that most of us won’t ever use and we are still being tested and we still hunt teachers down for our number grade. .. but hey, we are preparing for college right?