All posts by Nathaniel

Communication is the Key to the Community

Creating Classroom Community

Respect, Liking, Trust, and Fairness

Cushman (2003)

Let us know what to expect from you and the class. When you ask us about ourselves on the first day, answer our questions, too. You don’t have to reveal anything you consider private (like whether you have a girlfriend or boyfriend), but we should know certain things from the start. Do you give a zero when homework is not turned in on time? Do you count class participation as part of the final grade?

Some things we want to know on the first day:

– What will we be studying or doing during the course?

– What can we expect for pop quizzes, tests, essays, or projects?

– Do you give a lot of homework?

– What is your grading system?

– Is this class going to be fun? If not, what will make it interesting?

– Will you be available to help us outside class?

Reply:

As a student in route for a Master of Arts in English Education, these are the questions I want my professors to answer. If I want these questions answered, I know for sure younger students would like these questions answered. The worst state to be in throughout the length of a course is confused and stressed. Knowing the answers to questions like these help students ground themselves within the class, and the classroom environment. Feeling grounded and comfortable in class gives students the foundation for accomplishment. As a student, if I know what is required of me, and what to expect from my class and professor, there should be less excuses as to why I do not get my work done. At the end of the day both my professor and I have a job to do. Whatever adversities I deal with at home, work, or anything on the outside of the classroom becomes the only obstacles that I have to overcome. When I am challenged by adversity, as a student I should feel comfortable enough to talk with my professors about anything going on so that I could get extensions on papers, or other types of assignments. The progression of students require constant communication between professor and student to ensure the success of students, and teachers. Syllabus day is probably the most important day of the semester. Why didn’t my pre-college courses have a syllabus day?

 

Nathaniel Jimenez

Drugs and College

Reaching Adolescents and How to Respond

Phillip (2006) Drugs that Enhance Student Achievement IN Engaging “Tweens” and Teens:
“… What would he do with the PSAT coming up? Wouldn’t it be great if he could swallow a pill rather than study for the test? Perhaps he could take a pill and get a “mental tune-up” for the PSAT.”

Reply:

Wow… This is the story of the lives of many students. In my experience I have witnessed high school and college students dive deep into pill bottle to help them with their work. The most common drug I witnessed students munching on was Adderall. Adderall is commonly known as a drug prescribes to patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD. Friends have told me that Adderall helps them focus on their papers, or that it helps them study for a test. Interesting enough, they always happen to wait for the night before their test or due date for their assignment to pop this magic focus pill, leading to an “all-nighter,” where they would be for hours on end. I’ve witnessed people turn this into a common practice. Party, procrastinate, pop pills then do the assignment or study. It’s scary when you think about it. Our society is hyper active when it comes to drug and alcohol consumption. Sometimes people think it’s okay but they have no idea what the consequences to their actions are.
Nathaniel Jimenez

“The Guy Code”

Friendship, Love, & Sexuality

Chapter 1:

The Hidden Landscape of Boys Friendships

By: Aptor, T

 

Among adult men and women, research also indicates that those who have close friendships or strong social support networks are less prone to depression and more likely to thrive in all areas of their lives than their more isolated peers. Having friendships among adults has been found to be more predictive of psychological and physical health than having spouses or extended family members. In a six-year study of 736 middle-aged men, attachment to a single person did not appear to lower the risk of heart attack and fatal coronary heart disease, whereas having close friendships did. Smoking was the only risk factor comparable in strength to lack of friendship support. Health researchers find that people with strong friendships are less likely than others to get colds and other common illnesses, which they hypothesize may be due to having lower stress levels, and that people with fewer friends are at higher risk of death.

Reply:

“The Guy Code” that lays the foundation for all of my friendships, male and female, revolve around respect, loyalty, and honesty. Conversations of love, friendship, relationships, and family come up naturally and often when I get together with my closest male friends. I have always been taught by the male role models in my family to be care free, and to take my academics seriously while in pursuit of my dreams, and interests. The male role models in my family have advised that women and friends can be a distraction, and that they can cloud my mind, leading me away from my path to success. I have always been taught to do everything on my own. Individuality is an important trait that my friends and I have always valued. My “circle” of close male friends push each other to seek out of life the golden strands that are laid out for each and every one of us. We all have a path to follow. At the end of each path every man and woman has people, men and women, that they would like to thank for their influence. To say that men don’t have intimate relationships, and that we are “only out for one thing” is a lie. All humans need intimate friendships. Humans naturally gather together. We all have codes, not just “guy codes.” Some women have more male friends than female friends and vice versa, the same way some men have more female friends than male friends or vice versa. Intimate friendships happen naturally, and there are most certainly intimate friendships between circles of men.

Break Yo Self Fool!

Gender Socialization & Identities

Succeeding in the City

A Report from the New York City Black and Latino Male High School Achievement Study

Professor Shaun R. Harper, et al

We acknowledged in the previous section that not every student lived in a dangerous community. Some declared the absence of crime was something they treasured most in their neighborhoods. Many of them had moved to the places where they presently lived from settings that were less safe. “We moved when I was seven because our ga – rage got shot up by an Uzi [submachine gun].” This young man very much appreciated that senseless gun activity was uncommon in the neighborhood to which his family relocated. Being able to walk down the street and talk on his iPhone without worrying that someone would take it was something another participant appreciated about the safer community to which he had recently moved.

 

Reply:

A friend of mine was jumped in high school for his Ipod. When my sister was in Junior High School, my mom often went to pick her up her because there was a group of girls who wanted to jump her based on how she looked, beautiful, tall, long black hair, and not shy at all. When I was in Junior High School I didn’t stick around after school because the 8th graders from PS109 used to come to my school grounds and fight with the 8th graders from my school.

As educators we try hard to help our students progress hoping that our own education and training can make up for the lack of equity in the school system. The dark realities that some of our students live in prevents many of them from succeeding academically. Very few students dealing with adversity at home, in their neighborhood, or even at school, make it through this school system that is designed for students who have no distraction, just love, food, clothes, and affection. I pray that one day the government sees that standardized tests don’t do anything for our society. If the youth are the future of our nation, then why don’t we train them to be politicians, teachers, businessmen and women, engineers, or doctors? Instead we train them to fill in a sea of endless bubbles. We feed them information that they can’t remember because they are too busy screaming under the boot of a thief, or thieves, or bullies. What do we do as a society? The weight can’t all be on us educators. The progression of a society takes the collaboration of society, as one, equal, people.

Education State of Mind

Newcomers & Perpetual Foreigners

Linda Prieto

The Stings of Social Hierarchies: From the Central San Joaquin Valley Vineyards to the Ivy Walls  

which Delgado Bernal (2001) describes from a Chicana feminist perspective as focusing,

…on the ways Chicanas teach, learn, and live the foundations for balancing and resisting systems of oppression. In other words, the teaching and learning of the home allows Chicanas to draw upon their own cultures and sense of self to resist domination along the axes of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. (p. 624)

We must highlight the promise within these communities as we rethink, redesign, and recreate schools as places that liberate the lives of all young people. Unlike me, perhaps hegemony deserves a cachetada to awaken itself, to keep alert, and to keep moving.

Reply:

Linda Prieto paints a beautiful picture about the necessary breaking down of current values and way of thought of the American Education system. In her writing she reminds readers of the history of the American nation. Looking back into history where foreign cultures, including languages, were imposed on the indigenous people of the Americas, shows us how whacky the state of mind is today within many of the present American school walls; where the benefit of speaking a second language is hidden. English is made to be the standard language of schools in a country where English is not the official primary language;  yet negative connotations are imposed on foreigners who come here to make an honest living. Year after year goes by since the ending of slavery, and since the death of Martin Luther King Jr., and still till this day women and men of color, or foreign decent, (everyone in America at this point besides the indigenous), have to leap through loops of fire to prove to White America that we are all the same, capable of putting out the same amount of work in all fields. The conversation as a people has yet to transition from “You are this, and you are that,” to “let’s get together and work towards the forward progression of our world.” Instead the people at the top of the food chain, the “one percent,” have managed to turn everything into a business, including education. The people at the top control what America needs, state of mind, and values; therefore the values, and state of mind of the people can only be changed by the people.

I end this reply with two questions, (some may think decent interview questions): What can you do? How many languages do you speak?

 

Nathaniel Jimenez