Dead poets society notes

boring boring boring, all of the teachers are boring. All of the old teachers have a hive mind on how things should be done. This not only fails on a teaching stand point but it also does not get them ready for the "real world" this form of teaching teaches kids that the world works in one way and one way only, it always conforms to what you say and has a set way of things that never changes. When in reality the world is constantly changing and never follows the same rules. It also leaves a big gap of what happens in college. All of the students are sheltered to the point where they do not know anything outside of following rules. These student will fall pray to partying and may drop out due to the lack of knowledge they have about the real world.

Mr. Keating's introduces a totally new way of teaching to the kids. He chooses to inspire the students not threaten them. He is funny, he goes to extreme extents to prove that words matter. He defends his teachings. He encourages students to leave their comfort zones.    The principle sacrifices the students thinking for themselves for his own form of teaching. His love for teaching he teaches the actor. A teacher should not just be a teacher, but a mentor and a leader as well. Teaching is not just about jamming information into students minds but about letting them experience what learning is.

The first essay

Paul Bradley

English 101

10-17-13

Learning My Conscious

The mind is a wonderful mysterious thing that has some parts of it that we may never find nor completely understand. But despite all the mystery behind the human psyche there are a few parts of it that we do understand why they are there and what they are used for. One such part is the human conscious, the little mind in the back of our heads that tells us right from wrong. I have had the amazing educational journey of finding out and learning how to use it. It starts in us all when we first begin to grasp what is good or bad, and we begin to better learn how to judge our actions better. Without my conscious I believe that I would be reduced to an inhuman animal only living off instincts there by turning myself into a monster. Needless to say I am happy that I have a conscience and that I have learned how to use it properly to shape me into the person I am today.   

When we are born we only have a base knowledge on what happens around us, it isn’t until later in life that we begin to understand the concept of right from wrong. For me this new found understanding would come in the shape of guilt. When I would do something bad I would feel guilty about it and wonder why I felt so bad for doing it. One such case would be when I called one of my fellow kindergarten mates a mean name, I knew that saying the word was wrong and should not be used but I decided that I would use it any way. It would take a few seconds for my little child mind to somewhat comprehend what I had done, but when it hit me that what I said was wrong and mean I immediately found my friend and apologized. After this event I sat down and felt a brief sense of satisfaction, like I had done something good. From this I would learn that certain feelings would come from the actions I chose, I could be the “Good Guy” and feel great about what I had done, or I could be the “Bad Guy” and feel bad and horrible about what I did. These feelings would teach me how to better choose what path or choice to take. This would be the start of how I would learn how to use my conscience it would also lead to me becoming what I am today. The feeling of feeling good will find its way into my mind more and more as I began to comprehend my actions as I got older, but as the feeling of satisfaction would continue to grow, so would the feeling of disappointment when I would do something bad. As time would go on more and more things about my conscience would become more and more clear to me, there would come the time when I would have to learn to choose from being right or wrong, when I would have to choose between being righteous or being cynical. One day this idea of choosing would come in the form of how I would spend my money for during Christmas time. I had just received my paycheck from the newspaper office and headed down to the store to buy things for presents, the problem was that I saw a new game that I caught my eye but knew I would not have enough money to buy it and get all the gifts that I wanted to get for my family. I was stuck between what I thought at the time to be a rock and a hard place. I could buy myself that video game and be happy, or I could buy all the presents I wanted to get my family. Looking back I took longer to make my decision than I would have preferred, the right choice being to buy gifts for my family, but the outcome was satisfactory. I decided it would be better for my whole family to be happy than just me, so I bought the gifts for the family. Needless to say when all was said and done I was happy with my decision, I still wanted that video game though.

As life would go on and on more and more choices like the ones that are presented would show up and I would deal with them as each one presented itself. Sometimes I would make the right choice, other times I would choose the obvious wrong choice and regret that I had been weak and chose to be wrong instead of being right. With all of these choices I would learn more and more about how to better use my conscience  and how learning to use it would help me learn who I really am, I am a nice guy who strives to make all of the right choices and at times can get blinded and frustrated with the choices I make. It is funny to think that learning something would come in the form of learning how to use something we can’t fully comprehend, but then again there are a lot of things we do not understand as human beings and that the few things that we do understand we learn how to better use them and the things that we learn shape who we turn into as people and dictate the actions and choices we take every day. And with those choices we shape the world into the world we live in. I am happy to have learned how to use my conscience and how I learned to dictate what is right and what is wrong, and at the end of the day I can go to sleep easy that through my life and what I have learned of my conscience I make good decisions and that I am a good person not a crazed inhuman evil animalistic being that works off of pure animal instinct alone.

Stand and Deliver

The Teacher does not adapt to the group of students that he has, granted this is just the first day. I do admire though his attempt to make a joke to appeal to the class. He uses physical examples and questions the class with what they have, then makes jokes to get the attention of the class. He puts the bad kids in the front of the class, then makes fun of him by insulting the bad kid in the same way the kid tried to insult him. He doesn't back down from the gang boys and stands his ground. He stops a fight and. He again insults the bad kids further putting them down. He is persistent with trying to teach the bad kids. He begins to get the respect of the students. He uses multiple teaching techniques to help the class. He defends the students in the teacher counsel. He willingly helps the students. I admire how he openly humiliates students. He Goes the extra mile to make sure that the kids get the education they need.

From the beginning of the movie Mr. Escalante is seen to insult students to get them to do work. One scene is when he confronts a student who gives him the middle finger. Mr Escalante then calls him finger boy from that point on and insults his intelligence. This is effective  teaching because it demonstrates that the teacher is not willing to put up with students "games" and shows that he can bite back with equally witty remarks. Another scene of good teaching is when Mr. Escalante uses multiple teaching methods to get the class to learn. He does so by not only using his board but by also making his students repeat what is written on the board. But best of all Mr. Ecalante refuses to give up on students and persist by teaching harder and harder classes and having all of his students continue on with each class.

How I view teaching

Teaching can be done in many ways, some are better than others but really it depends on the student who is taking in the knowledge from the teacher. A good teacher is someone who can adapt to the learning patterns of students, and can keep class entertaining so students do not get distracted. Also it is important to have a teacher who actually cares about their students and is willing to spend extra time helping them. A bad teacher does not care about students, does not care who learns and who doesn't, and teaches out of the book with no variation in teaching methods. 

Notes

Stand and Deliver

James Garfield East LA

Effective teaching: Is very passionate towards teaching and his students:
Mr. Escalante went to the extreme of visiting a student’s parent when she quit school. I think her name was Ana. He went there to encourage the parents to please let her come back to school. He believed she had a lot of potential. The parent wanted her to work in the restaurant that the family owned. The parent was offended at first but did come around.  Also at dinner his wife explains to their children that he stays after school to help teach the kids for no pay. Also MR. Ecalante explains to his neighbor that he chose to teach and was not forced to teach.

 He speaks the native language of the students.  He is not foreign to the students and puts up a complex of wanting the students to strive for a higher education.  

He cuts the apples into sections, ½. ¼. It worked it got their attention and they soon enjoyed coming to his class because they were learning and he was someone who believed in them. Escalante used real life scenarios to solve math equations. For example, Lupe has 3 girlfriends, Javier has 2 more girlfriends than Angelo, how many girlfriends does Jesus have?

 
A great scene of persistence is when  Mr. Escalante dedicated 24 consecutive hours to his students to help them prepare for the test, when in real life most teachers would not be this willing to dedicate as much time. Also when he openly defends his students against the two school interrogators. At first he was patient with the testing board interrogators, but slowly looses it, at one point threatening to kick their ass the testing board interrogators continue to refuse and deny him an opportunity to see the test even though the test was finished and there was nothing he could have done to change the scores.      

Bad Teaching: Is too harsh at times, this could cause students to drop out.
One of the Girls is having problems at home and dose not have enough time to finish work, Mr. Escalante then pokes fun at her claiming that she has to many boy friends hinting at where she is spending her time not knowing what she actually does. This causes her to leave the class until Mr. Escalante confronts her on her reason why she left.

A through IV

I want to tell the story of my brain and the journey it took to learn hoe to use it. I must tell how it all started, what happened in the middle, what i learned during this experience, and the current situation. I shall use the Malcolm X article as a big reference in my essay. I will include a story and a way of explaining what i am writing about. I shall focus on the learning journey i took on the way to having the brain i do now. That includes all of the influences and advise i have gotten. How i tell it. 

What I would like people to get form reading my essay!

My educational narrative follows me through three events that happened during three different times in my life. Each experience was different, but the same. The underlying message i wanted people to get from the essay was that even though you do not understand something, it doesn't mean that you can not learn from it of how to uses it.