In the criteria for Assignment 1 there were many great examples of scholars who could be looked at or we have the option to find a topic. I work closely with people of all ages experiencing disability, so I was inclined to look into that area more. I wanted to be challenged and learn about things which are new to me, I thought that the topic of urban education would be something worth looking into. I had never heard the term urban education before reading the outline for this assignment. I read through some journal articles covering a wide range of ideas relating to urban education and curriculum. The first article I read about urban education and curriculum was that the use of movies (especially foreign films) is a tool to help show how our environments shape us. I remember being in my Christian Ethics courses watching movies every week. My teacher used movies like La vie est belle (1997), The Colour Purple (1985), The Green Mile (1999), Losing Isaiah (1995) and Million Dollar Baby (2004) to show how each person has a different perspective on how we ought to live our lives. I still remember the different groups of people who were represented on the screen in these films

I read a second article which discusses a particular film called Entre Les Murs (2008) called The Class in America. The film is based on a novel by the same name, the unique thing about Entre Les Murs is that the actors were not professionals. There was no formal audition process, and the students were instead invited to workshops for students in the 3^rd and 4^th grades, this ran for several months and by the end those who stuck with it were the ones who appeared in the film. The directors allowed the students to have significant input for how the film would look during those weekly workshops. This analysis of the film brought up some questions which I would like to examine in my own analysis. How do we as teachers eliminate our own biases towards individuals or groups? How may this be seen by our colleagues and students? How much impact do the actions of a teacher have on the lives of students and the ways they view others? In Urban education there are many diverse groups coming together to create one community and so these questions are important to examine.

The final article that I read in preparation for the first assignment comes from a complete polar perspective on urban education, it talks about the issues with funding and how the quality of education may suffer. This one is a tougher read not as lighthearted as the two which I mentioned previously. The focus of the article is that the importance of Career and Technical Education in urban schools is immense, but the funding is dismal. Without the opportunity for kids to have access to technology and tools there are negative affects which can be directly linked to the lack of funding put into these programs and schools.

I think that my next steps will be to pull key ideas from all of these articles and come up with my own questions and try to learn as much as I can about urban education.