Talking Points # 9

Literacy with an Attitude

Argument

This author Patrick Finn argues that different schools with different perspectives have different teaching mechanisms. He goes on arguing about how students who grow up in different areas receive a different educational experience. It surprised me when I read about schools that have teachers who doubt their teachers. They automatically assume their students do not have what it takes because of where they come from. Finn shares through his quotes about what teachers really say about the students. Based through the study of Jean Anyon, is was almost like a behind the scenes about how teachers act based on their location of where they teach.
"One fifth grade teacher said the students needed the 'basics- simple skills, When asked "why?" she responded, "They're lazy, I hate to categorize them, but they're lazy," Another fifth grade teacher who was asked why she had students endlessly copy notes from the blackboard in social studies replied, "Because the children in this school don't know anything about the U.S" so you can't teach them much." Another teacher said, "You can't teach these kids anything. Their parents don't care about them, and they're not interested." Another teacher answered when asked what was important knowledge for her students, "Well, we keep them busy." You have to keep reminding yourself that these children did not have low IQ scores. They were working-class children with average intelligence, some with better than average intelligence." This quote here says a lot about how Finn feels. You have teachers who do not have the desire to teach, yet they become teachers and are miserable and with that, students suffer. I feel with this article showed the kind of different teachers there could be. There are ones who are do not care or have the desire to teach and then you have teacher that have the passion to teach. You have to go into teaching loving what you do.
"On the other hand there was a woman who taught across the hall from me. Her name was Mrs. Kennedy. I can't remember her first name. I think we actually addressed one another as "Mrs. Kennedy" and "Mr. Finn." She was a strikingly beautiful black woman, a recent graduate of Fisk University. Her classroom was always orderly, but I never heard her raise her voice. If the students saw me as an easily provoked drill sergeant, they saw her as a den mother, a den mother who didn't put up with much nonsense, but a den mother." In this quote it shows how there exists such a teacher as Mrs. Kennedy. I feel through this study that was shared, I feel like the teachers who are laid back but yet know how to set ground rules; are successful teachers but those who do not have the desire to teach and doubt their students should not be allowed to teach, because it is the students who are suffering based on the teacher's misery.
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