Finn

What really stuck out to me in this reading was the section about the middle class schools...
      "one-third of the teachers grew up in the neighborhood of the school. Most graduated        from the local state teachers college, and many of them lived in the neighborhood of        the school. Some were married to other teachers, accountants, police officers,                  nurses, and managers of local businesses."
This quote describes my home town perfectly, talking to many of my friends after reading this they too said it was an accurate description of their teachers. This really grabbed my attention because of the fact that it felt like it was speaking to me about my life and that's a different reaction that i usually get while reading these articles. Usually i feel as though i have no personal connection in any way to these articles. As i read more into this section of the article i found an even more accurate description...
       "For example, when a child said that the plural of mouse is not mouses because "it             wouldn't sound right," the teacher said that was the wrong reason. The right reason         was that mouse is an irregular noun, as it says in the book."
and another...
       "Social studies classes involved reading the text, listening to the teacher's                           explanations, answering the teacher's questions, and occasionally doing reports.               There was rarely sustained inquiry into a topic."
These quotes too seemed to fit into my school career, not to say i had a bad education i grew up in a nice suburban school were the main ethnicity was white with one to two colored students in each graduating class. But this description of middle class schools is dead on.
Another thing that was also very true was the part where getting work done was finding the right answer, the only thing that the teachers seemed to care about was the student getting the correct answer as stated in the text. There was no explanation, there was no discussion or elaboration. This sometimes proved tricky for students but most seemed to adapt to this way of learning and learned the strategies to get the A. Now in college i realize that this way of learning actually impacted my skills, i now must learn multiple ways of arriving at a solution and learning that there isn't just A, but there is A, B, and C. 
        "Work rarely called for creativity. There was little serious attention to how students          might develop or express their own ideas."
This quote was probably the most significant and relate able for me...
         "The teachers in the middle-class school varied from strict to somewhat easygoing,              but for all of them, decisions were made on the basis ofrules and regulations that             were known to the students. Thachers always honored class dismissal bells. There             was little excitement in the school work, and assignments did not seem to take into           account the student's interests or feelings, but the children seemed to believe that           there were rewards: good grades lead to college and a good job."
My question is how do we escape this as future teachers, being raised in this way of learning are we going to teach this way? how do we break away from this suggested line of teaching? how do we not fall back on what we have learned?