“Criticisms of U.S. Schools/ schooling. In Haitian parents’ understanding, the goal of schooling is to instruct as well as to provide an education, the French word referring to providing children not only with reading, writing, and counting abilities, but also with moral guidance, a sense of civic duty, and interpersonal skills.” ((Re)Constructing Home and School: Immigrant Parents, Agency, and the (Un)Desirability of Bridging Multiple Worlds, Fabienne Doucet, p2722) Continue reading The delimma of American education (From Chinese/Immigrants’ perspective)
All posts by Junfeng Qiao
Make Youtube a learning tool
Youtube is a great entertainment tool and learning tool as well. Everyone can create their own channel, share their videos, and comment on others’. I personally follow some youtubers and some channels to learn English and somethings I can never be exposed to. There are tons of videos in different topics, ranging from entertainment, politics,to education, you name it.
We all know good videos c Continue reading Make Youtube a learning tool
Remove the gender color stereotypes
“In the tattoo parlors of East Los Angeles there is a double standard in the tattoo choices Chicana/o make on their bodies.” (Santos,2009,p14)
Similar to Chicana/s in the States tattoos are not acceptable by the majority in China. People tends to associate tattoos with gangs, violence, low-socioeconomic culture, criminals etc. In the media, like TV dramas, movies, to feature the mystery, toughness, fierceness of the characters, like gangsters, original inhabitants, they are tattooed with dragons and ferocious animals. Continue reading Remove the gender color stereotypes
Adolescents are lonely
He said that, because he valued solitude, people “view me as always wanting to be alone,”
adding, “but thats not true . . . i need some people in my life . . . Just not as much as most people do.” He went on, “I NEED conversation . .it’s just that i can’t DO it.”
“I’m just not a great self advocate and am afraid that if I go to the wrong party, I won’t get the help I need.” (p30)
It is such a tragedy that makes me want to say something. After I finish the reading, what impresses me most if how lonely and helpless Tyler was. Every time he had a problem or struggled to make a choice, he had no one to talk about and had to resort to the Internet, asking for advice on forums. When facing the choice as whether he should choose playing violins as a career, and whether he should report Ravi using webcam spying on him, he had nobody to ask for help, apart from a couple of friends of his. To make it worse, everybody thought he was shy and he did not have as many friends as his peers do. The part of reason why the tragedy happened is that Tyler did not get help and assistance. He kept all the problems to himself and did not know how to resolve them.
It was so heart-breaking and made me feel adolescents are lonely and miserable. We take it granted that teenagers keep tons of secrets and it is fine. Adolescents do not want to talk about them with their parents, while their parents do not know what problems their kids are going through and how to talk about them. They may talk them with their friends, but how could their friends give them the right answers to solve the tricky problems since they are not mature enough as well. They may resort to Internet for help, however, the information on Internet is not trustworthy and can even be misleading. For teens, they do not even have a person they trust to talk about their problems openly. This is quite dangerous. Adolescents are standing on the crossroads of life, they need mentors to guide them, to listen to their fears and frustrations, to show them how to get things done step by step, teach them what the consequences could be for certain choices they made etc. But unfortunately, what we as educators can do to win students’ trust so that they are willing to talk about their troubles and problems with us?
Understanding how teens value appearance
“Whether it is the reflection in the bathroom mirror at home or the one hung in their locker, in the window of a car, the doorknob to their classroom, or a cafeteria spoon, middle school students watch themselves, convinced that everyone else is watching them too.”
Adolescence is so unique since they experience physical, emotional, cognitive development that is new and strange. In the process of getting used to and knowing what is happening to them, they act the way that get them misunderstood by adults. As educators, we need to understand that some features of adolescence are normal to better meet students’ needs and help them succeed the transition from kids to adults. One feature that drew my attention is adolescents developing self-consciousness. They start paying more attention on appearance and build individual satisfaction with appearance. But some teachers find it annoying, distracting students from focusing on study and think it negatively. When I was in middle school, my deskmate experienced the embarrassing moment. She painted clear polish on her nails, and used the double eyelid tapes to life the eyelids so the eyes seem bigger that they really are. Academically her record was a little bit above the average. The geography teacher saw her potential to make more progress and thought the students paid more attention on appearance instead of study, contributing to no progress in study. So in the class, when she gave individual guidance, she sarcastically criticized the student for polishing her nails. I can feel how embarrassed my deskmate was . Since then, the student did not like the teacher at all and did not listen in the geography class. Looking back now, I notice the importance of teachers to be able to understand what students in puberty are going through, what they like and not to view them negatively. It is so natural for adolescents to care more about appearance, and teacher should learn to accept that and guide students in the right way if she/he think the student paying too much attention on appearance.
Another thing I want to mention is whether wearing uniforms should be a policy in school. In china, all the public schools require students to wear uniforms every day and it is very strict, especially in middle and high school. The schools are trying to stop students from comparison and focusing on appearance. The problem is that the uniforms in China are really ugly and it is against students’ cognitive development since they are in the stage when they care so much about appearance. We can see that students are trying their best to get rid of policy. It is quite hard to keep the balance between respecting students’ development on beauty and keeping them from pay to much attention.