To return to an earlier comment that I made, I think that systemic issues are these ever-prevalent but invisible forces that require us to ask "why". As a gut feeling we can know truths about how demographics affect success, but it can be hard to get to the root.It frustrates me that narratives like the culture of poverty are used as an easy way out, or a way of ignoring, the greater systemic issues.

I had a fellow teacher say to me recently that we must consider Maslow before Blooms. I think that this is a really important thing to take into consideration when thinking about the seemingly obvious, but still invisible force that economic status and other home concerns can have on the classroom.

I even find that this is hard for teachers to grapple with when we look at data. FRL and other class-acknowledging disagregated data often leave us asking "why?" for a connection between achievement and income bracket. I think there are obvious inequities that are hard for us to identify or reconcile.

We have to work harder for the oppressed because they have been working hard for so long.

The difficulty of this second door, too, creates circumstances that cause teachers to have high-turnover, or leave the profession disillusioned with their ability to create change.

This comes back to the claim that democratic education needs to be prefaced by democratic society. Our educational world is so influenced and shaped by the world outside, that changing it requires there to be other systems in place to sustain the solutions.

We focus in so highly on more structure and restrictions in schools when dealing with an "underserved" population.

Institutions negate the claim of a classless society, because institutions create narratives of class and success for us.

What are society changes that need to occur in order for our values in education to change? Not thinking of it as an excuse for stagnation, but I am curious about how interculturality has been framed in our society informing how we teach it in education.

Another question that comes up for me: Can we create a positive culture in our schools, while also criticizing the practices at play that promote separation, inequity, etc.?

As an ELA-S teacher I have been thinking about this a lot recently. The point of my position and the class that it allows is to give students access to differentiated education based on their cultural and language needs. However, it also separates students into groups based on generalizations of their needs, and allows that other students have an "other" class in front of them at their school, that separates these cultural learning experiences.

Page 187: This brings up a conversation common among teachers. There is on one hand the curricular expectations we need to live up to, but on the other hand a million other things that go into having a successful classroom, or nurturing the needs of students.

186: I stress about common core doing away with authentic choice and exploration in education for students. I often put myself in my students shoes and think of how I learned what I was interested in, versus what opportunities they are having for that. Even if my students can tell me that they are working on making inferences and retelling a story, are they finding enjoyment or interest in what they are doing?

Page 183: Democratic society as a preface for democratic education.

Page 183: This really resonates with me. We cannot call ourselves a classless society, and having one definition of success does not make our society classless. Rather we need to broaden definitions.

Page 183: By this logic (which I find extremely valid) elective style classes may be some of the most important to widening our definition of success in schools.

182: I think that this work does a good job of complicating an issue over simplified in the Alder work. Dewey is referenced so often in our readings, but I think, to build off or mollybilker's comments on the previous article, there are many times that authors will stress the need for a equity, but give inequitable statements. I think the same can be used in the ways in which our authors use Dewey and other scholars to back up their own argument, while forgetting context.

Page 178: The visual that I get for this section about levels of education is tiers, or stairsteps of levels of education that students are able to achieve. I wonder, though, if the unknown model that is talked about here could address theses not as levels stacked upon one another, but restructure to address education in a new way to gain access to the self-governance tier more effectively.

177:"We are politically a classless society. Our citizenry as a whole is our ruling class." I fundamentally disagree with this statement. I think, in truth, the institutions rule us more than citizens ruling. In that sense, I think that education itself as an institution works to create classes.

Page 176: This reminds me heavily of the need for democratic society in order to produce democratic schooling. I think it gives new meaning into the way in which the outside world has its own place in the classroom. Not only is it the way in which our political world effects our students personally a force in our classroom, but the values of our society inform the way in which we structure education.

Page 176: This is an interesting combination of viewpoints on education, that create more gray area in the purpose of education. The key is separating consequences from the purpose.

Page 106: I struggle with the idea of addressing the null curriculum. I agree that there are gaps in our curriculum, and overlooked items, but the comment that "I believe there can be no adequate concption of appropriate curriculum content without consideration of the context in which it is to be provided and the students for whom it is intended" brings to mind the question of how can we address this in schools? Is there a way to differentiate enough, be open enough, to allow for curriculum to be completely whole for students on an individual level?

Page 103: There is a distinct difference in our society between "street smarts" and "book smarts", and I understand to a certain extent that the former needs to be experiential. Still, there is a divide somewhere between what is perceived as a basic education, and what can be practical in the real world, and I wonder why school and reality don't overlap more (e.g. learning to do taxes, finances, understanding the voting process on a personal level, time management, applying to jobs, etc.)

Pg. 93: What do these covert intentions in schools teach teachers as well? How does teaching get formed out of fixed or narrow definitions about how a school should operate, and how might this inform our bias entering a classroom?

Final Page: "If the audience is ill-prepared to deal with it it will fall on deaf ears."

Page 40: Tyack asserts a disconnect between the classroom and the politics of it. This is well portrayed here.

Page 36: Education and schooling. "Without some view of what counts as education, one is in no position whatsoever to make judgments about the educational quality of the processes of schooling or their consequences." Still wrapping my mind around this.

Page 33: Intended: the plans, whatever form they take, when they are thought through ahead of actualization. Operational: the way plans are carried out through interaction and instruction.

Page 30: The joint effort of curriculum building by teacher and student. DPS has evaluation tied to the joint efforts of building objectives between teachers and students, but I wonder how authentic this can be in a system that relies on common core standards as well.

Page 26: Curriculum as experiences. I reflect on this often in my own memory of school versus the experience of my students. There is a lot of joy to be remembered in learning, but do the standards that I need to live up to as a teacher impede my vision of how to make that joy a reality for my students?

Page 26: Curriculum as a course to be run. This fits in with a competitive framework introduced in chapter one, and also some ideas about the rigidity of curriculum. Should curriculum be changed when students are achieving, or is the rigor of the course meant to test the endurance of those racing?

Page 22 - Competitive thinking is a large influence on the way in which we define success and purposes in education. I see this in Denver with the way in which public schools adopt Uncommon Schools goals, and thrive to compete in a market with charter and private schools. The question, though, is who is the competition serving? Students?

Page 17-21 - The first question Tyler proposes, about the purpose of education, is such a multifaceted one in this day and age, as the demographic outlines on page 21 highlight that with a new population, the purpose of education shifts, the outcomes shift, and the question arises if a national purpose/expectation for education is adequate for our current society.

Page 12 - The charter movement reflects this need for concrete, scientific ideas on what works or doesn't work. There is a sense of fear in the movement, and even in DPS as working closely with charters, as structure and set ways of doing things are the safest way to proceed for a fear of failure. I can't help but think how different this is from the growth mindset that we seek to communicate to our students.

Page 7 - Reminiscent of the blog post by Professor Velasquez about the way in which TFA's model in education is one that wouldn't work in any other industry.

The first page reminds me greatly of a statement made in Tyack's History of Public Schooling about the way in which standards are created, and the illusion of "failing". Standards are a self fulfilling prophecy when followed as hard and fast rules, where failure by the majority is seen as a problem of the students rather than the standards by which they are being measured. Do standards need to be adjusted to realistically meet student needs and abilities? What are our baseline definitions for success, achievement, and what students need to know?

Comes back full circle to the fluidity of identity, and the fluidity of the categories that we ascribe to. Much of this philosophy lives in the grey area, where we need to be able to blur existing definitions to find true authenticity.

Rings extremely true to an activity we did in my classroom this year.

What are ways to bring this into an individual classroom? Is that something that can be effective even without an underlying system that values favorable context of choice?

This comes back to the divisive society that we live in. Bringing up ethnicity may highlight difference, but focusing on assimilation of other races and cultures into a white educational system creates a separate but equal system, as we talked about in the last session.

Following sentence: we need to target the availability of choices, rather than working to better circumstances in a prescribed way.

This, while seeming obvious, is a bit of an "aha" moment for me. Not only can we make existing options seem unreachable, but we can completely limit the availability of options in the first place. This brings me back to college-first thinking, an how we are giving one "best" option and addressing the challenges in reaching it, while completely limiting the option pool that exists beyond it, thus negating a favorable context of choice and thus self determination.

This comes back to thoughts I had after week two. Our policies now focus on creating uniformity in order to reach equality. Starting from the individual, however, shows us that uniformity and equality are not the same.

As teachers we need to both be a part of this process for ourselves, and also teach the tools that allow students to participate in a similar process on an individual level.

This comes back to the discussion of school choice. While we seem to be focused on bringing choice into education, there is still ignorance surrounding favorable context of choice, so true autonomy cannot be accomplished due to a lack of favorable options.

This reminds me of a question that came up in the in-person discussion this week about special education and how it factors into democratic educational philosophies. How do we reconcile these ideas for individuals who, in our current society, need assistance with choice and autonomy?

This reminds me of Gutmann and the week 1 connection with "common sense" practices, and the way in which our policies can become misguided in hindsight.

This underlined portion: band aid solutions versus systemic change.

Gutmann: Democratic discourse.

Addressing Gutmann's false dichotomy: the individual and society need not be thought of in isolation, rather they are essential to each other.

Important view for modern ELL's who are learning language and culture contemporaneously, and more and more are being born in the US. Multiculturalism is not just a societal factor, but an individual one as well.

This is such an important distinction. The facade of choice does not allow for self-determination, only the range of good choices. Quality. is essential.

In what ways is current curriculum multicultural? In what ways are we using diverse histories and stories as supplements, and not as cornerstones of history? What methods can I use to be flexible with this in my own classroom, even with common core restraints?

The individual as an essential part of the progression of society.

I am really intrigued about bilingual education. As an ELA-S educator, I've been grappling with how this practice fits into the critical pedagogical lens, and what role choice (made by parents for their students) plays in this question.

These chapters grapple with the difference between inclusion and equity that we have talked about many times this year. If personal identity needs to be sacrificed to reach academic progress, then we are marginalizing groups further by diminishing their authentic identities.

Reminds me of Kumishiro's comments about questioning the "common sense" systems that we put in place. How do define a unified vision in a society that is constantly working on, changing and developing its philosophies, morals, and systems of inequity?

Stark contrast to the transformation of rural education which took authority out of the hands of the community, and placed it in the hands of professionals, framing a capitalist vision of education.

How do we create a unified vision? Can we? Is a unified vision necessary for defining a purpose to education?