Your blog posting should include the following information: Name of event, organizer and location, reflection in which you summarize the event. Discuss what you learned, what it makes you think as an educator and how it is connected to the themes of the course.
Remember: It is a short reflection in which you informally share your experiences with your colleagues. Please read and post comments on each others postings as well.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
My Post
Please read the comment on this post. I wrote my reflection in Word and it is not letting me paste it as a post, only as a comment. Thanks!
Teachers as Leaders in Newark Lecture and Discussion Series Lecture 1- Teachers Unions in the United States: Political-Economy and How it Affects the American Working Class October 5, 2011 5:30-7:30pm
I was a bit apprehensive about choosing this lecture to attend in regards to my professional development. I am not the type to really be interested in the political and economic systems in our country. Conversely, after just a few minutes of hearing Branden Rippey, a teacher at Science Park High School, I found my attention “grabbed” due to the fact that I felt clueless and felt as though this was important information. I sat listening to Mr. Rippey, surrounded by other teachers of Science Park, students of Mr. Rippey's class, and other college students. As I continued to listen, I felt a little embarrassed that I was so uninformed in the history of how our political and economic systems came about in our country. At first, I was struggling for a bit to make a connection between this professional development and my experience in Newark. Furthermore, I was reflecting on my experience that night driving home and remembered thinking to myself that similarly to my understanding of learning the history and the culture of disability, I felt as though I needed to know the past in order to learn and make change in the future. Rippey defined an economic system as a system of distributing limited goods, services, and necessities among a population. More specifically: food, shelter and clothing, things that I need and use daily. He began to explain how a society allocates limited resources and that economics and politics are usually spoken about together. Rippey went in to detail about some of the men who had big influences in regards to capitalism in our country, for example: Adam Smith and Karl Marx. After he explained the weight these men had on the development of our political and economic systems he broke down the classes and political spectrums that are evident in today’s society. Some of the language and frustrations Rippey portrayed with our history and current social statuses reminded me of some of the frustrations we see and experience in schools daily, for example, the lack of control we have over some of bureaucracy within our school placement. I felt at ease when talking about the different social classes and labels Rippey explained that none of them “fit” people perfectly. This made me feel better because I really didn’t know how I felt about it or how I would label myself. Although we were at this lecture to learn about economics and political systems, one of the things that I will keep with me is when one of the men listening to the lecture had to leave early and headed to the door. Mr. Rippey stopped the lecture to thanked the man and explain that he had been in the Newark Public School system for over 60 years. The man went on to explain that he attended NPS as a child and has been an active member of the community. He turned to where we (the residents) were sitting and said that it was encouraging to see all of us at this meeting. It was almost like he was saying that it was a sign of hope for him, like he has been working all these years to make change and was happy to see we were on his “team” to help. This experience has provided me knowledge of how all of these systems and beliefs came into play in our country. Just the experience of being at another school in Newark and surrounded by people who were passionate about making change within the community was inspiring.
Lisa, I felt that Branden was gifted in the manner in which he is able to engage the audience with his lecture, especially over a topic that i consider boring. Before attending this workshop i too had little understanding of how our democratic/capitalistic economy worked. I found this workshop to be extremely helpful in understanding the world i live in and how we as future teachers will be affected by large/small scale policies.
Teachers as Leaders in Newark
ReplyDeleteLecture and Discussion Series
Lecture 1- Teachers Unions in the United States: Political-Economy and How it Affects the American Working Class
October 5, 2011 5:30-7:30pm
I was a bit apprehensive about choosing this lecture to attend in regards to my professional development. I am not the type to really be interested in the political and economic systems in our country. Conversely, after just a few minutes of hearing Branden Rippey, a teacher at Science Park High School, I found my attention “grabbed” due to the fact that I felt clueless and felt as though this was important information. I sat listening to Mr. Rippey, surrounded by other teachers of Science Park, students of Mr. Rippey's class, and other college students. As I continued to listen, I felt a little embarrassed that I was so uninformed in the history of how our political and economic systems came about in our country. At first, I was struggling for a bit to make a connection between this professional development and my experience in Newark. Furthermore, I was reflecting on my experience that night driving home and remembered thinking to myself that similarly to my understanding of learning the history and the culture of disability, I felt as though I needed to know the past in order to learn and make change in the future.
Rippey defined an economic system as a system of distributing limited goods, services, and necessities among a population. More specifically: food, shelter and clothing, things that I need and use daily. He began to explain how a society allocates limited resources and that economics and politics are usually spoken about together. Rippey went in to detail about some of the men who had big influences in regards to capitalism in our country, for example: Adam Smith and Karl Marx. After he explained the weight these men had on the development of our political and economic systems he broke down the classes and political spectrums that are evident in today’s society. Some of the language and frustrations Rippey portrayed with our history and current social statuses reminded me of some of the frustrations we see and experience in schools daily, for example, the lack of control we have over some of bureaucracy within our school placement. I felt at ease when talking about the different social classes and labels Rippey explained that none of them “fit” people perfectly. This made me feel better because I really didn’t know how I felt about it or how I would label myself.
Although we were at this lecture to learn about economics and political systems, one of the things that I will keep with me is when one of the men listening to the lecture had to leave early and headed to the door. Mr. Rippey stopped the lecture to thanked the man and explain that he had been in the Newark Public School system for over 60 years. The man went on to explain that he attended NPS as a child and has been an active member of the community. He turned to where we (the residents) were sitting and said that it was encouraging to see all of us at this meeting. It was almost like he was saying that it was a sign of hope for him, like he has been working all these years to make change and was happy to see we were on his “team” to help.
This experience has provided me knowledge of how all of these systems and beliefs came into play in our country. Just the experience of being at another school in Newark and surrounded by people who were passionate about making change within the community was inspiring.
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI felt that Branden was gifted in the manner in which he is able to engage the audience with his lecture, especially over a topic that i consider boring. Before attending this workshop i too had little understanding of how our democratic/capitalistic economy worked. I found this workshop to be extremely helpful in understanding the world i live in and how we as future teachers will be affected by large/small scale policies.