Outline And Critique Of `` Name `` Written By Lauren Segedin Essay

Knowing this about the gifted learner and coming to the realizations about the democratic classroom and working towards social justice, I have come to the conclusion that my reflection must include my current teaching situation, students, and practices. As Camp and Oesterreich (2010) stated in their article on critical teaching, “uncommon teaching offers the possibility of re-centering education on the students and away from the common-sense of scripted and restricted curricula to promote acquisition by students of a critical consciousness in order to become agents of change for social justice”.

While the most important purpose and goal of high school has ultimately remained the same, its factors have changed over the years. In the Articles, “Missing in Interaction,” written by Myra and David Sadker and “Savage Inequalities,” written by Jonathan Kozol, the authors introduce and include examples of the way education itself has changed other the years, as well as the goal that was set for it. Our system of education’s main purpose has been to educate children and help them with their future, but certain issues in regards to our system have not been given the attention that should be required.

Difficult choices come and go from our life. Like trying to understand who you are as a person and where you come from. In the book The Namesake, a boy named Gogol grows up in a cultural Bengali family while living in a different country with different customs. Gogol is special because he is trying to balance the two cultures. Gogol tries to understand and learn his family's culture but tends to pick and choose things from each culture to fit his lifestyle. His response to his cultural collision is very unique. From this cultural collision Gogol question himself and his life decisions.

The greatest country in the world still has problems evenly distributing education to its youth. The articles I have read for this unit have a common theme regarding our education system. The authors illustrate to the reader about the struggles in America concerning how we obtain and education. Oppression, politics, racism, and socioeconomic status are a few examples of what is wrong with our country and its means of delivering a fair education to all Americans.

Veronica Roth openly insisted, “I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me--they, and the love and loyalty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever could”( Allegiant). Veronica examines that the overall influence family has among a person’s character and identity as they grow up and begin to comprehend the world strongly shapes an individual. Due to the overwhelming amount of time childhood and life is spent among family, people begin to pick up the similar habits, characteristics, and feelings as their loved ones. Despite whether the one’s around an individual teach them how they would like to live their life, or what path of life and difficulties they would rather avoid, family always has a major impact on someone’s identity. Although Hyeonseo’s identity in The Girl With Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee is incessantly evolving throughout all three parts of the novel, her family manipulates her identity significantly more than the remaining parts of her erratic life in Part One as she is growing up and learning about her country, in Part Two as she starts her new daunting life away from her home country, and in Part Three when she is dealing with the consequences of her mother and brother’s perilous escape.

Critical Theory (CT), holds that institutionalized oppression of groups of people in a society- cultural, ethnic, racial, and gender groups- is often supported by the oppressed peoples themselves, who believe the system to be in their own best interests (Owens & Valesky, 2015). When critical race theory is applied to race, and specifically in education to the achievement gap, it is also termed Critical Race Theory (CRT), which is defined by Solorzano (1997) as scholarship and discourse on race and racism in an attempt to eliminate racism and racial stereotypes from society, including laws, social policy, and organizational cultures (Owens & Valesky, 2015).

This film makes it clear that many of our public schools are failing and takes you through the struggles and disappointments that five children and their families endure going through a rough system of conflicting education regulations, avoid the academic hardships that are public schools in order to receive a proper education that may guarantee them a fulfilling and career

Education comes in different philosophies and is a crucial element in every civilization. When a country is oppressed, one of the first things the oppressor tries to take over and get control is their education. The reason is because with education, one can give or withhold any kind of information and shape the nation in the way they see appropriate. With the exception of oppressed individuals, education teaches their society who they are, what is the nature of their environment, and how does the context exist in the in the environment? Through control, the government is able to hold power over the component elements of education. The component elements of education include the teacher, learner, curriculum, learning environment, methodology, desired results, the teacher-student relationship, and the teacher-community relationship. Three philosophies of pedagogy that could be divided into the component elements of education are the classical traditional/conservative philosophy, liberal progressive, and critical pedagogy. Although a few aspects within the elements are similar, they are very different in their approach of teaching philosophies. The classical traditional/conservative philosophy, liberal progressive, and critical pedagogy compare within the curriculum, but their ideologies of teacher, learner, and desired results are drastically different. Each philosophy has an overall goal for their society and people through the component elements of education.

The Namesake, written by Jhumpa Lahira, a famous Indian writer who won the Pulitzer Prize for her story collection Interpreter of Maladies, brilliantly illustrates the immigrant experience and the tangled ties between generations. In this novel, the main characters Ashima and her husband, Ashoke, were first generation immigrants in the United States from India. The whole story begins with Ashima's pregnancy and her nostalgia of her hometown, and a sense of melancholy revealed from the first chapter. While Ashima felt insecure and worried about her new life in the United States, her husband Ashoke, rather wanted to settle in and struggle for a new life. All of uncertainty and reluctance of this new-coming couple faded way when their son,

An individual’s identity is reflected in many aspects of their character. On of the aspects which affect a person’s identity is culture; culture plays a major role in the formation of an individual's character. It imposes customs which ultimately manifest through a person’s identity. The clear link between culture and identity suggests that conflict with one’s culture may affect a person’s sense of self. Jhumpa Lahiri explores this type of conflict in the novel The Namesake, in which Gogol Ganguli is stuck between two cultures the Bengali traditions of his parents and the American culture he grows up with. The novel explores Gogol’s conflict with both cultures and how it ultimately impacts the development of his identity.

In today’s current school systems, the question of whether or not schools are correctly teaching students the right curriculum is coming up for debate. In the Article,"Teaching Critical Thinking by Marcia Clemmitt, she goes into extensive research of the U.S. Department of Education’s crisis of standardized testing. Most learning activities include standardized testing which lacks many students to express creative and critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as the examination and evaluation of ideas, events and arguments in their contexts which introduces students to interrogate assumptions and identifying biases (Clemmitt)Pure critical thinking involves investigating a text more than just memorizing, but to apply theirself in other ways of techniques, meaning schools should stimulate more analytical methods of teaching. This would not only free students from a sheltered test culture,but will allow students to think in a deeper,more passionate way than before.

Over the last eight weeks, we have visited and deeply discussed many topics that surround social justice in the classroom. These topics have ranged from social justice in the world to how to create a socially just classroom and everything in between. In class, there has been a few times where it has been uncomfortable because the topics can bring out many opinions in the room. Many people in the room shared their opinions, including me, which brought up many other discussions. In this essay, I will be discussing our navigations through the social justice issues that classrooms face by talking about the key points of our class throughout the last eight weeks.

Paulo Freire is a Brazilian educator and philosopher who is a leading advocate of critical theories. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he believes problem-posing education can fulfill the expectations in a proper classroom environment, by transforming the world which results in a balance of humanization between men and women, and by enabling students to become subjects by which the teacher learns from. My advanced culinary arts class is a good example of problem-posing education because of the way the students and teacher engaged with each other and promoted critical thinking skills.

Education is something often seen as an equalizer in the face of social injustice. The concept of using school and information to put different people on a level playing field is a noble but misguided attempt at social equality. Education undoubtedly affects the position of people in society positively, while creating an outlet to educate the ignorant, it becomes problematic when education is not an equal opportunity for everyone. In Adrienne Rich’s essay, “Taking Women Students Seriously”, she speaks of the inequality mainly affecting women while subtly hinting at the inequality present in education in regards to race and class. Gender, race and class are three characteristics that work together to create either a positive or negative profile for one’s education.

From the perspective of a critical theorist, the current university system not only enables, but also encourages social apathy. A critical theorist would be appalled by illusion the university creates in order to make the students feel as though they are making a difference. Further more, it would be seen as even more appalling that the students do not realize their own oppression and fight back. Then again, fighting back has widely-known consequences.