ECS 203: January 27, 2023
The commonsense that I was exposed to during my years in school did change over time. When I started pre-school, I was always told that teachers are in charge we weren’t allowed to speak unless we were spoken to, I began to notice a difference between the old-school teacher’s attitudes and the new, young teachers who were coming in. The older teachers had us sit in rows, we had lots of homework and we weren’t allowed to talk to our peers. There was almost no emphasis on collaboration between students and we were taught not to question what was being taught. I had a newly graduated teacher when I was in grade seven, she was kind and you could tell she wanted to teach us in the ways which we learned best. Either way the commonsense didn’t change the fact that the teacher was in charge and you had to make sure you were always respectful in class. I did notice however that the new teachers respected the students just as much as we respected them. The students who succeeded in these environments were those who were able to pay attention for long periods of time, those who made friends easily (only recess time to do so) and those who had people at home to help with homework.
A good student was and is shaped by the historical context discussed in the readings for the course, both Painter (1886) and Kumashiro (2010). It is well known that the western culture, brought over from Europe during colonization here in Canada, was based around Catholicism. Historically, eternal damnation was seen as the ultimate punishment for their sins, there was a way of politicizing this fear and making it into the school systems. Granted that today there are still expectations in catholic schools to learn these ideologies they aren’t framed as the only way. In the Painter reading he stated that the point of education was for the “achievement of a worthy destiny” (Painter, pg 2), I had to ask myself what was considered worthy. I read only one more sentence and found that to be worthy you must live the ideals of Christ. At that time I can only assume that a good student was someone who was catholic, who went to church and those who wished to become brothers and sisters in God. I was also reading about a wide range of racist stereotypes which may have very well influenced teachers of that time to allocate better grades depending on race, or be harsher based on race. Quite a problematic ideology, a good student at that time may have been greatly aided or hindered by race.
3 thoughts on “ECS 203: January 27, 2023”
I love that you added your own experience to the blog at the start. It makes the reading feel as if it’s not boring to you, but understandable and relatable! In truth, I can’t really see anything wrong with this blog. I got the points you were making and could understand that what you were writing made sense, and aligned with what I had learned through my personal life, and education. Good job!!
I agree, there has been a slight change towards what is considered a “good” student, even when I look at my past teachers compared to my most recent ones. Unfortunately though, you are right when you talked about the types of students that succeed in these environments. Generally, the students who have specific learning needs or may not have access to particular things tend to be overlooked in the school system. I think it is important that we addressing this now, in order to make a change as future educators.
I agree with what you said about how the the respect in the classroom towards the teacher never changes. They are there to teach us and pass down their knowledge and students must respect them in order to have a respectful classroom. I think younger teachers may bring a new commonsense to the classroom as they might be more understanding on things like, it is not the students fault they are late to class when the parents are the ones who drive them. Overall I really liked your post and how you brought in the articles to talk about western culture.