After observing the 2 readings: Painter’s A History of Education and Kumashiro’s Preparing Students for Crisis: What it Means to be a Good Student, it can be hard to grasp what both of the authors are saying about “good” students. I say this because both of the articles provide many examples of how students can become “good” and how teachers expect students to act in their classrooms.
In Kumashiro’s article, he often makes reference to his time teaching a little girl named “M” and how she was the opposite of a “good” student. Kumashiro talks about how bad “M” was a bad student because she would often have behavioural issues that would affect the class and cause him to lash out at her. “M” was known as a bad student because she did not act like all of the other students and would do stuff to make herself stand out in a negative way. Although “M” was a bad student in the eyes of Kumashiro, I think that maybe Kumashiro was judging her based on the way he saw a “good” student. A “good” student is somebody that acts in a civilized manner in the classroom and that “M” was not “getting along” with the other students as Kumashiro states. Kumashiro believes that a “good” student is somebody that acts and does things that are beneficial to the class and will make changes to try and bring peace to the classroom and not disrupt other students.
Throughout the articles, there is an idea of what a “good” student is supposed to act like and how some students are privileged in that role. Many of these privileged kids are the ones that never make a scene and are always acting how they are supposed to be. Although this is a nice idea, privileged kids are not always going to be there and you can’t force kids into trying to change who they are. Kumashiro states: “mainstream society often places value on certain kinds of behaviour, knowledge, and skills, and schools would disadvantage students by not teaching what often matters in school and society”. This means that the teacher should have not outcasted them, but nearly change the way they are teaching them to better suit their needs.
In my thinking, I have seen that historical factors have changed the way that “good” students are seen in today’s society. A student is seen as somebody that must act a certain way in schools and there is no exception, especially in the time when the Painter article was put out. the Painter article states that “the various facilities or capacities which await development in the child are classed as physical, mental, and moral”. this means that more emphasis is put on the behaviour of the child and not on the learning that is happening. Having looked at both of these articles, it is easy to see that a lot of emphasis is put on the behaviour of the child and making sure that they follow the rules to become a “good” student.