Sunday, November 21, 2010

As we sum up . . .

Which sequence from our class this semester -- family, environment, education -- did you find most compelling? Why? What ideas were you introduced to for the first time within the sequence that you found most interesting?

33 comments:

  1. The section that I found the most compelling was that about the family. Before children have any experience in the world with education or the environment, all that they know is their family. Even in unconventional or extended familial groups, children are socialized, taught morals and discipline, and introduced to other ideas. Also, the parts of the reading about gay marriage were interesting. This is a subject that I feel very strongly about. It was good to read views on why Proposition 8 should be legals as to acknowledge other opinions. However, it was also good to find more readings that reaffirmed my beliefs, too.

    Although this was not an idea from the reading, it was related to the environment and the presentation about Dan O'Brien. For the first time, I heard the acknowledgement that humans are a part of the environment too. We should not be criminalized as destroying it, but we should also coexist safely and conservatively.

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  2. I must agree with LEVator. The most interesting unit was the one about the family. This unit caused me to evaluate my own family experiences. It caused me to evaluate the way my parents raised me and to appreciate what they have done. It has caused me to understand the importance of family gatherings like Thanks Giving. Although, I didn't actually learn anything new from this section, It made me rethink the American Family. It also made me consider (with support) how bad the consumerism and me-firstism of the modern era is. Coontz has shown me the logic behind when people romanticize the family relationships of the 50s.

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  3. Oddly enough, I felt that the educational portion of our readings was the most compelling and informative. All of us having spent the majority of our lives in a class room, it is good to relay our experiences and voice our much earned opinions. I feel that by the time one graduates college, he or she should be considered an expert in the educational field. Can't really say there were any ground breaking or world turning ideas introduced to me in the class, but diving deeper into the readings was enjoyable.

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  4. I agree with Max. To me, education is a more compelling topic to talk about. I think it concerns ourselves currently more than any other topic we discussed. Education is something that all of us have been surrounded by and will continue to be surrounded by, even after college.

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  5. I found that I knew the most about the nature section, but the family section was the most interesting. I have always been interested in nature and watched discovery and history channel shows, so the ideas in the nature writings were mostly just restating ideas I had already heard. The family section was very interesting because I have not dealt directly with any of the topics in debate. I learned more about my own views through this section.

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  6. The unit covering education was certainly the most engaging. The reason for this is that I am a student, and the issues discussed have a direct bearing on me. It also forced me to reflect on my own experiences, and consider and analyze them critically. At times I was forced to come to conclusions regarding my own educational experience which I found less than pleasant. It really helped me to gain the most insight pertaining to myself in the context of my education.

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  7. I felt that the educational section of our readings was the most compelling. As humans we are naturally curious about the world around us and we are constantly learning whether it is through our own experiences or those taught to us in school. Spending the last 15 years of my life in a classroom yet still not knowing enough to be successful in a career has made me question the current teaching methods. As mentioned above we are taught different ways of doing things in college than in high school. By the time one graduates they have been taught different methods to get the same results rather than becoming an expert on doing it.
    Our discussions and research on education where very informative and engaging, but I don't remember anything groundbreaking.

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  8. I have had a passive curiosity towards educational systems for a while now and thus the section on education was naturally the most appealing to me. Through the readings assigned in class I was able to better refine my ideas of what a public education should or should not be, as well as realize flaws in my previous opinions. Overall I feel I gained the most from the section on education and enjoyed discussing it the most.

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  9. I feel as if all of the sequences have brought about new understanding for me. I found the education sequence very interesting although my paper for that sequence seemed to show a lack of understanding. I have never talked, as deeply as we have, about education before; only minor discussions were from my past. Many of the readings were interesting to me because I have never read much about what others felt about education. I feel as if Gatto and I had the same views of education. I had been feeling very hostile towards the education system for a while, maybe even since middle school so reading and writing about another person who felt the same way was enthralling.

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  10. I think the discussions in general benifited me the most. Our discussions were always pretty deep and had a lot of thought behind them. Many topics brought out different views and the discussions helped to hone our arguing skills both verbally and through our papers.

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  11. I agree with Slick291. I really benefited from the class discussions even when I did not participate in them because they provided me with different sides of the issues that I did not consider. I enjoyed having classmates who had different ideals from mine, because I was able to listen to them and learn from them. I think this was due to my peers' politeness and professionalism in the way that they presented their arguments.

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  12. Personally I liked the education portion of our class the best. I felt as though it was the most productive in our research and studies. I think that marriage and environment are so widely controversial and opinion based that it is hard to come away with a feeling of accomplishment with studies in those areas.

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  13. I personally liked the nature the section the most throughout the class. I have always been very interested in the environment and the different situations that have been looked at relating to the environment. However, I believe that the most interesting section of the class was the marriage section. It opened my eyes to both sides of a seemingly never ending argument between two sides of a populous dealing with gay marriage. It has taught me to be more open and understanding and to look at both arguments instead of just one.

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  14. I found environment and education to be the "funnest" portions of the class. The readings were more enjoyable and provided a good discussion ground that didn't step on anyone's toes. The environment discussions were more light-hearted than education, but both were well founded in the readings to allow for discussions on the matter.

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  15. I personally found the section on family most compelling. I really believe in the importance of family and of marriage to those families. It was interesting to hear others people's ideas on the importance of marriage and family. Especially from people who did not grow up in a traditional family. There were many different views on what families should be like today, which I thought was interesting considering fifty years ago there was a very set and defined model/idea for families to fit into.

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  16. I found the family section most interesting. These reading were mostly modern and covered a broad range of topics like the 1950's, gay marriage, and Prop 8. These readings really made me think about my life growing up. I agree with The Man that is was interesting to read about the people who did not grow up in a traditional family. The education readings brought to mind many ideas I had never even considered. I never thought I would hear a convincing argument against school, but Gatto presented that case clearly. It was difficult at first for me to wrap this argument around my head, so to speak, but in the end it really made sense. The way that the book had readings from both sides of every argument was great.

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  17. For me, the education portion of the readings and class discussion was the most interesting because we got to discuss and argue about things that we all, by this point, know well. It just seemed the most relevant, as even though we have finished with our early school years, we still have a ways to go. The readings for this part offered new ideas, and even though many of them were old news, it was still interesting to learn what other people thought about the system.

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  18. The most interesting segment we studied is tied between family and education, two subjects particularly close to my heart. During the education segment the discussions presented us with a time to talk about our experiences in differing school systems and how they affected our feeling of preparation for college. It was also clear that finding a set solution for education is exceedingly difficult, but not impossible. The topic of marriage was a focus for the family segment and I thought it was interesting to see tolerance of ideals during class and our ability to tackle hard subjects that do not necessarily have a clear correct answer. All the segments in class allowed me to see differing view points while offering some of my own in a academic setting.

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  19. I found the topic of family the most interesting and compelling of the three. I had never thought about it much, so it made me think. Since I never really paid attention, I did not know of Prop 8, and I never really thought anything about the debate over gay/traditional marriages. I always assumed I was against gay marriages, since I am a christian and the Bible says that it is a sin. But after discussing and debating over it in class, as well as doing some research and reading about it, I have changed my mind. I merely believe it is a sin. I do not wish to judge anyone on whether they are a bad person based on whether they are gay/lesbian or are even just for gay/lesbian marriages or not.

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  20. I have found the Family portion to be most compelling. Family is so important and shapes who you are and who you will turn out to be as a person. Hearing others experiences with their family is interesting and causes me to think back on mine. My family has taught me more than school has. There were no new ideas introduced to me in this section, but the education section did. The education portion informed me that not everyone has the greatest experience with school from grades K-12. The idea that there are fine lines between the quality of education in middle-class schools as compared to affluent schools is just mind boggling to me.

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  21. Our discussions and readings on marriages, in particular, brought attention to me numerous aspects of marriage that I never really thought about before. I thought the topic of marriage was so compelling because I never looked at it as having three definitions before (social, legal, religious). It really opened my eyes and made me question the basis for all three definitions of the word. They're all so relative, the definitions will change with respect to time, location, etc. I thought the topic was something that could have benefited from having more class time dedicated to it for sure.

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  22. I enjoyed the education part of our course, but the one i feel more passionate about is the environment. I felt like it was a very important topic to discuss because it effetcs us all. Schools are going to be different all over the country and it is hard to discuss rules and ideas that are going to change our educational system. But with our decisions of Tech, i feel we could make a difference to our natural world.

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  23. I felt the education section was the most engaging because I believe every can relate to it in some degree. After all, while in discussion about education, they are, themselves, getting educated. I was able to relate most to the educational parts through personal experience of bad schooling. I always understood the gap that was present in school, but I never asked myself why school was "required" until I started reading the sections in our book. After that, I am able to view education on a philosophical level as opposed to a personal one. I am able to ask myself "Why are schools government funded and not all private?" or "Why is school mandatory up to highschool?" The education section made me ask "why" the most and that is why I enjoyed it so much more than, for instance, nature.

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  24. I found the harmony at home section of the readings to be the most interesting. The responses of people both in the class and in the readings over the idea of gay marriage helped me see two sides of a concept that I have been very fervent on for years. I still believe that it should be allowed, but now I see there are more reasons than just religion that make some people abhor it. Because of this new enlightening information, I enjoyed that part of the class the most.

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  25. For me, I felt that the most interesting section of the semester was the section on education. While I had heard some stories and the like about the education system, the information that was in this section was entirely new to me. While some of the articles we read over and discussed I did not really agree with, they all provided a new prespective on a topic that I knew little about. One example was the division of people into educational levels explained in Jean Anyon's article "Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work."

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  26. The family section to me was the most interesting. Americans really do have a stereotype in their heads of the perfect family--mom and dad, daughter and son. My family fulfilled that stereotype pretty well, but I've never held a particular affinity towards it. What else is a family? Any sort of collective of people, who know, love, and understand each other. I don't think it has to do with blood as much as respect.

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  27. To begin, I cannot honestly say that any knew ideas were brought to my attention through the readings in class. To make matters worse, I didn't find any section particularly interesting either. However, the environment section held the most appeal to me. This was most likely because of the more interesting writing style of the authors in the environment section.

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  28. The sequence that I found most compelling this semester was our bit on education. America puts a very high value on education, however not a very high importance on the quality of that education. All people come from a different education experience. Society's social mores come from cliches found in school and in the curriculums taught to students. Education drives the diverstiy in America. Americans need to be aware of diverstiy and should continue to work towards equalizing opportunity for everyone.

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  29. I found the education section most interesting. While I have had some strong opinions about education for some time I had not been exposed to some of the ideas in the education section. The problems faced in the education system were thought of so differently than what I was used to(although I just blamed the tests). For instance I had not thought of the implications of minority urban schools that Kozal brings up.

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  30. I found issues about education to be most interesting to me. I grew up very close to the LAUSD, a school district that needs some major improvement. I knew that the educational environment of schools in the LAUSD were bad, because my sister attended a school in LA. However, i found out they were much worse than my sister experienced at some school, from reading Kozol and searching for scholarly sources for my paper.

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  31. I would most certainly have to say that the "family" section of what we've covered in class was the most interesting to me. I came from a mostly single-mother family (my parents got a divorce when I was 4) and I never really got to know what it was like to have a proper Mom and Dad. I learned that while my particular situation isn't all that common, there are a great many people out there that are in single mother families only because their parents got divorced at some point in the person's life. I've noticed, however, that not many are the last of seven kids.

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  32. I think that the section about family was the most compelling because it covered human opinions on common human behavior. I find it fascinating that people can have such widely differing opinions on who should be able to partake in common practices (like marriage). Also, I thought it was interesting that the marriage rights debate in the US has a side that is based in almost no objective data and still has significant weight with legislators and the public.

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  33. My favorite sequence was education, as it was the most easily related back to my life as a recent high school graduate and college student. I agreed with many of the ideas presented in the passages read, in particular the ones claiming that our current school system needs much improvement.

    Surprisingly, I found my favorite article was written by Michael Moore, an individual I have never held in high regards. He discusses many of the same viewpoints I share of public education, and I liked his sense of humor.

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