Standardized tests

Standardized tests are something that not many like taking. According to Herbert Walberg in his article " Stop the War against Standardized tests", he explains that students don"t really understand how much these test really account for. Now the school, educators, and students are being held accountable for how well they do on these tests. Some teachers even describe these tests as "beasts" that should be removed from schools. Not many people even understand why these tests are given, when the authors that make these test say that they are basic and simple, but still students fail to do well on them. There has been researcher done that shows that these tests are good at measuring students knowledge and skills in the class room and can show what a student is able to remember. These tests are used to determine what college or graduate school a student is able to get in to. But now, teachers, the school district, and community are getting the wrath when students don't perform well on the tests. But some students that take them don't care about college or if they get a good grade on them. So then the teachers get a bad report because now they are getting blamed for their students poor performance.

Do you think the teachers and schools should get the blame for students poor perfromance?

The Ag Gag Debate

In the article "Animal Farm: a look at the 'Ag Gag' laws that are making it tough to film cruelty," Lessley Anderson explores the emerging legal restraints that are being put on activists in the business of bringing animal abuse in ranches and farms to light. The issue has been a hot topic over the last few decades as fast food businesses have grown to global proportions – and with it, the voice of the people questioning the businesses’ practices. Popular documentaries such as “Food, Inc” exposed the public to the world of mass animal production, and the public outcry against the whole industry as a result of the viscerally disturbing imagery shown in such documentaries meant significant changes in the way fast food businesses could operate. 

As a way of controlling future press coverage, laws fondly dubbed “Ag Gag laws” are now in the works – their purpose is, essentially, to limit the damage activists with hidden cameras and a bone to pick can do. The laws take three forms: one would make the act of taking photos or video in slaughterhouses or farms illegal, another would penalize the people who lie about their intent to gain access to these facilities, and the final one subjects people with incriminating evidence to a hefty fine if they do not present their evidence to the authorities within 24 to 48 hours of capturing it. Those in support of the laws, such as Republican senator  Cliff R. Pirtle of New Mexico, argue that these laws protect the misrepresented benign majority of farmers: “There are a few operators out there giving agriculture a bad name,” he concedes, “but for the most part the biggest lovers of animals are the farmers and ranchers.”  Casey Guernsey, a Republican representative, would agree with Pirtle, and cites that "if you are just initially introduced to some of these [farming] practices, it’s kind of a culture shock,” (specifically, in reference to crowded barns). Both make the case that the public may be overly and falsely swayed by what they see. 

Opponents of the legislation argue against the Ag Gag laws that limit the duration of time in which you can present your evidence; their argument is that the laws make it exponentially more difficult to present a solid case in court. Historically, their point of view is solid – under current legislation, the case against former beef supplier Hallmark Meat Packing Co. led to the largest beef recall in US history, was made based on six weeks of evidence that the supplier was allowing sick cows to be left in the system. But, as Stevie Ipsen put it, “During that six weeks, unhealthy animals were put into the food chain for children to consume.” One on hand, the new laws would make it more difficult to bring companies that supply bad food to justice, but on the other hand, if the evidence were presented in a timely manner, and acted on, the contaminated food would be out of the supply much more quickly. The conflict leads to the question: which do voters value more, the absence of tainted food or the incriminating evidence needed to shut down those who supply it in the first place?

The article ended with a suggestion: to increase public awareness of farming practices, livestock farms and slaughterhouses should install 24/7 webcams.

Which side of the Ag Gag laws do you find yourself on?

 Should legislation limit the rights of those exercising free speech because of its impact on an industry?

Which of the three variants of the Ag Gag laws do you think would be most effective in practice?

Would webcams be useful in increasing public awareness, or would it make any difference?

Facebook Relationship Problems

In Katherine Bindley's Article, Facebook Relationship Problems: How Social Networking And Jealousy Affect Your Love Life, she articulates the problems that can arise from "Facebook jealousy" and explains why these issues begin. Katherine Bindley disagree with the belief that Facebook relationships are beneficial. In her article, Bindley cites various cases in which Facebook led to distrust, jealousy and even an asthma attack. Bindley proposes that “analyzing a wall post on your significant other’s page, stewing over a suspicious picture but not actually asking about it…have been known to tank relationships.” In addition, Facebook has been connected to the experience of jealously in romantic relationships and has also been linked to divorce cases. In her article, Bindley goes on to describe the types of online behavior that is viewed as questionable by partners in a relationship, and goes into detail about how these behaviors can lead to distrust, jealousy and resentment. These issues mentioned in her article are important in today's society due to the rapid change in the way relationships are formed and maintained. It seems as though a relationship isn't "official" until it is published on Facebook, at least in some cases, and this trend is generally more prominent in my generation.

Personally, I can attest to the arguments that Bindley mentions in her article. One issue Bindley mentions is "Facebook secrecy," which is when one person sees a photo or wall post on their significant other's wall, analyzes it, jumps to a radical conclusion, and then fails to mention any of it to their significant other. Whether it is mistrust, or just a lack of interest in the truth, failing to mention something that bothers you can lead to further mistrust and jealously. In my personal experience, I think  that some people just don't want to come off as being over-intrusive, so they pretend to ignore the things on Facebook that bother them. Unfortunately, this seems to be one of the major trends that can lead to Facebook jealously.

So what do you think? Can Facebook relationships destroy what they were meant to maintain? And what do you think causes this destruction? Or do they have the ability to be conducive to relationships?
 

                The article, “Censorship and Book Banning in America” by Melissa Kelly discusses the issue of controversial books in education. Kelly raises the question of where the line should be drawn when weighing the educational value of a book against its offending content.

                She exemplifies this question with a hypothetical situation involving The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of the most notable books that have been banned in the past. Kelly presents the possible difficulties a teacher might face when introducing his/her students to its content which features a prevalent use of the “n-word”.  She points out the necessity of Mark Twain to use such profanity in order to capture the essence of the time and the plight of the slave, but also points out that despite what students can learn from the book, parents still might react negatively.

                So, as Kelly wonders, is censorship in schools good? Books like Twilight, The Hunger Games, and Harry Potter are used to illustrate some of the absurdity in book banning. As far as book banning goes, Kelly poses the question, ‘when do we stop?’ She says that there is a point in which we must censor what is in schools but wonders who gets to decide.

                “Education is not something to be feared,” she states before offering tips and guidelines for teachers who will knowingly distribute controversial content. To me it is clear she supports less censorship and more explanation of these issues.

                Personally, I think there is a line to be drawn in regards to censorship dependent upon the age of students... elementary students should not be exposed to books containing rape, profanity, sex, graphic violence. Yet I believe if an adequate lesson is taught in conjunction with offensive material, students can gain more insight and knowledge to better face issues in their future in or out of school.

Should parents have the ultimate say in what their children read in school?

If so, what about the rest of their child’s peers who learn what their child does not?

If not, how would you propose schools could go about determining what is suitable or unsuitable for education?

Are issues like profanity, rape, violence, sexuality, and/or drugs something children should be exposed to through school?

"What Is a Grade?" by Pat Belanoff

     Grades are not easily defined, especially in English and writing classes. While the difference between an A and B might be clear cut in a science or math class, grades get much trickier in a more subjective class, such as English. This article explains many of the difficulties that English teachers face when grading papers, and discusses how to improve the system.
     In this article, author Pat Belanoff describes many of the issues with the traditional grading  system, especially in regards to English and writing classes. She explains the traditional view that says that a student receives a grade depending on what he/she learned, meaning that A students learned more than B students and so on. However, problems arise in English classes because every student writes differently, and different teachers look for different things, meaning that grades mean less. Belanoff says that grades are all subjective to the material, the way in which the student interprets it, and the person who grades it. Because of this, she argues that a teacher must embrace the subjectivity of a teachers' given subject and grade relative to these differences rather than comparing them to the prototypical 'A' paper. Also, she argues that a grade truly is meaningless if a teacher does not first describe to the students what his/her standards for grading are. Finally, she states that the problems that students tackle in their writing classes are more like the real world than the problems in a typical math class; there is usually no clear answer or clear path to success. Students must realize what their grades are based on and that a grade on one of their papers is not a sweeping judgment on all of their writing.
     Much of what Belanoff wrote in this article stood out to me because I have experienced it all before in the various writing classes that I have taken over the years. There were many times in my high school english classes when I received a lower grade because I did not fully understand the teacher's standards for grading. I was frustrated, because it seemed as though my teachers were more interested in making me conform to their standards than truly teaching me how to write. However, Belanoff says that when a student takes a teacher's standards into consideration, it is the same idea as tuning into an audience and that students can then "decide whether to play to it or whether to try to influence these standards themselves" (216). While a certain amount of conformity is almost required in any application of English, a person can still find ways to be creative within those established boundaries.

Have you had issues with the way that a teacher has graded your work in the past? What changes would you make to the grading scale?

"Understanding Writing Assignments: Tips and Techniques" - Dan Melzer

             Dan Melzer of “Understanding Writing Assignments: Tips and Techniques” claims that there are seven tips and techniques for understanding writing assignments better for college students. The writer stresses that the significance for understanding writing assignments is that it makes the students be able to write their various kinds of essay assignments effectively. The most important point in this reading claimed by Melzer is to ask questions to a professor. Melzer reiterates this point in tip #1, tip #4, tip #6, and in the conclusion. Melzer believes that the reason why students feel difficult to start the writing assignment is that they do not clarify the unsure parts of the assignment. This seems important because if the student just remains ignorant of certain things by not asking professor for whatever reasons, it would make he/she harder and harder to grasp the basic idea of the assignment and finally would lead one to do plagiarism which is the last choice of a student who does not understand what to and how to write it.

             What Melzer claims are all important but some quotes that stuck out specifically to me are “key verbs, such as argue, define, summarize, and evaluate, [that can] help you understand what kind of thinking and writing skills the instructor wants you to demonstrate,” and “key verbs have different meaning in different classes and different subjects” (140). The reason why they especially stuck out to me is that I often tend to think the key verbs are trifling and not put great importance on them. Considering them trivial often made me difficult to understand what my professor wants me to demonstrate on the assignment. As the writer emphasizes that it is important to ask teachers to describe what the key verbs mean, I believe that figuring out what genre or type of essay a student’s been assigned is also crucial. Since the meaning of the key verbs are diverse according to types of essay, it would be easier and helpful to understand the key verbs when one knows what kind of essay he or she needs to write is. Besides, I thought that it is significant to “take advantage of” looking at examples that give the student an idea of how to write a certain essay like journals because, as Melzer puts in, “learning from examples can help you be a more effective writer”. These two quotations both generally are important to practice when writing because many students do not put great importance on the definition of the key verbs and taking advantage of examples of certain writing. After all, what Melzer claims to be significant are those most people know to some extent but they just do not really practice or use them to be effective writers. In other words, handling these tips and techniques are the matter of whether an individual really follow them or not to become an effective writer. If you ask anyone whether he or she has heard of those from tip #1 to tip #6, probably all college students will answer as “yes,” because obviously, they would have already learned some of or all about them from their high school teachers. Thus, it seems to me that knowing about what Melzer claims here is important but also, for the students, practicing those techniques and making them as useful writing tools are the most crucial things to do from the reading.

I sort of argued that what matters here is that we all know how to be a better and more effective writers but it is just some people do not follow the ways for being effective in doing writing assignments. I thought that one reason for people not following the techniques would be either being lazy or being little bit haughty to do that. What else do you reckon that people do not practice these tips even though they know how to follow the techniques?

Teaching Chinese - Chosen blog post

For my chosen blog post I am discussing an article written by Chris Welch of CNN in January 2011. The article is over the idea of teaching Mandarin in U.S. schools, and how it is becoming a growing trend. The article actually discussed a school in Gahanna, Ohio (a school district outside Columbus) that is on track to receive $1 million in federal grant money for its Chinese arts program, but taking over the topic even more is the fact that the district will be receiving $30,000 from the government of China themselves.

The Gahanna-Jefferson School District has only recently begun teaching Chinese and is already seeing a high increase of interest in the area. All across the country dozens of public schools are creating relationships with the Chinese government. The Gahanna-Jefferson School District feels it is important to educate the students about China as it is "the world's second-largest economy and is becoming increasingly relevant." Some people do not feel the same however, and do not agree with China giving their school systems money because of the Chinese government's role as Communist. "A lot of Americans don't really know much about Chinese culture so they see it as alien so it's bad." School official Kramar expressed concerned with the possibility of students learning about communism through the material provided by the China. Other views on the topic are that even if you don’t agree with how everything works in the Chinese system, it does not need to stop one from learning about the culture or language.

 

Do you feel if you do not agree with a certain countries system then you should not learn their culture/language? Do you feel as though it is important to maintain and continue to grow a relationship with China, the world's second-largest economy?? Would you allow your child to attend a school that was offering Chinese as a foreign language? If yes, would you ever move your child to a different school because of a new Chinese program?