The following link opens a view of the whiteboard in today's class, that shows the images drawn by students in small groups in response to the prompt "Express without words what are some of the problems with today's education system in the US." Their discussions and their drawings come after reading and discussing Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities, and watching the documentary, Children in America's Schools based on this book.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Welcome! Who We Are and What this is About
This blog was created for Soc 101 at Quinebaug Valley Community College in Danielson, CT.
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Our class has been reading about education in the US, through the work of Jonathan Kozol, to understand the nature of education, its challenges and opportunities, from a sociological perspective. Though the book we have recently read, Savage Inequalities, is relatively old, we have learned that instead of things getting much better since he wrote this work in 1990 or so, they have in fact gotten even worse, in terms of the state of inequality in our nation's education system. From a sociological point of view we wanted to know the details of this, and about what the causes are behind this shocking state of things.
As one exercise in thinking about this issue our class worked in small groups to formulate initial statements we might imagine making to someone in power in our government--in this case, President Obama-- to say out loud some ideas we have to fix the problems with education that we have begun to learn about.
The following blog entries will display some of our statements--and related imagery related to what we saw as the problem itself. They will also include comments from our class, questions, reflections and suggestions. Certainly we are not all in agreement about things, but we all can benefit from a forum to further our discussion, as well as to share it with a wider audience-- maybe to make some small contribution in the process to addressing the problem of education in the US.
View Larger Map
Our class has been reading about education in the US, through the work of Jonathan Kozol, to understand the nature of education, its challenges and opportunities, from a sociological perspective. Though the book we have recently read, Savage Inequalities, is relatively old, we have learned that instead of things getting much better since he wrote this work in 1990 or so, they have in fact gotten even worse, in terms of the state of inequality in our nation's education system. From a sociological point of view we wanted to know the details of this, and about what the causes are behind this shocking state of things.
As one exercise in thinking about this issue our class worked in small groups to formulate initial statements we might imagine making to someone in power in our government--in this case, President Obama-- to say out loud some ideas we have to fix the problems with education that we have begun to learn about.
The following blog entries will display some of our statements--and related imagery related to what we saw as the problem itself. They will also include comments from our class, questions, reflections and suggestions. Certainly we are not all in agreement about things, but we all can benefit from a forum to further our discussion, as well as to share it with a wider audience-- maybe to make some small contribution in the process to addressing the problem of education in the US.
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