"The introduction of Skinnerian approaches, which are commonly employed in penal institutions and drug-rehabilitation programs, as a way of altering the attitudes and learning styles of black and Hispanic children is provocative and it has stirred some outcries from respected scholars. To actually go into a school in which you know some of the children very, very well.... is even more provocative." (Kozol, p. 64-65)
After this selection, Kozol goes on to talk about some schools instituting silent lunches or recesses. It is this practice that I saw when my daughter started Kindergarten in my hometown of Middletown. You hear about these practices and it is chilling. Maybe you can shake your head and think it sad that they treat these children like mindless pets. It is hard to stop at shaking your head when your child is the recipient of these practices. I had heard rumors the year before my daughter started school that the new principal had instituted silent lunches. On my daughter's first "bring a friend" to lunch day, I saw the table tents on a side table that had the picture of a stop sign and said, "No Talking!" I asked my daughter and her friends about it, they said that the teachers don't put the signs out when visitors are there. That is fishy to begin with. Lunch and recess are times where the kids should be able to be themselves. To relax, enjoy their peers and be a child. I really wonder how much school is altered when visitors are present. I wonder what these schools are like when CMT's are coming up.
Quote #2
"Did you ever stop to thing that these robots will never burglarize your home? ... Will never snatch your pocket books... These robots are going to be producing taxes..." (Kozol, p. 97-98)
I don't find this supposition to be accurate. It seems to me that teaching kids in such a cold, generic manner - devoid of creativity or imagination - is going to have the opposite effect. How will these kids ever learn to think for themselves if they are just taught programmed responses. How are they going to flourish in life and have opportunities if they are, at best, learning to be qualified to be a shift manager at a McDonald's? Not to mention the obvious, degrading language used to describe someone's son, daughter...etc. in this quote. How much more productive will a child be that grew up feeling valued?
Quote #3
"...the United States may be spending too much on students given the current organization of educational production." (Spring, p. 90)
I think this is a true statement. I think that we need to re-examine how we are spending the money and how we are set up. I think it lends to the conversation we had in class one day about giving money to a community in Sudan and giving the same amount per child to a community in France... will it produce the same outcome? I don't believe that more money would fix the issues. We have to examine the methods in which we educate and the communities where the students are from.
