Pre-Read Chapters And Video: The Process Of Schooling

Pre-Read Chapters/Readings/video: Chapter 5 - The Process of Schooling

A quote in this reading(s)/video that I found to be most engaging, pivotal, interesting (and why)

The quotation I chose from the reading that I found pivotal and interesting is that “education practices play a major role in the process by which people’s lives and identities are constructed as individual subjects” (Wotherspoon, 2018, p. 129). I chose this quote from the reading because I feel there seems to be conversation lacking regarding just how impactful the education system is on students. Schools do much more than just teach children units and lessons about specific disciplines. The hidden curriculum, which is first mentioned in chapter 2 of the textbook, plays a

126). I found this idea to be very relevant and relatable, as I am sure many other students do as well. I remember my experience as a student in high school, receiving what was considered a “bad grade” in my family, and being so hard on myself about it, even if I tried my best and put in as much effort, time and energy as I could. Recognizing that this feeling is something that many students experience can help me in my practice by ensuring that students are aware that grades are important and they should try their best, but they are not a measure of how intelligent they are, nor do they reflect on themselves. Students need support and right now, schools teach them conformity and competition, like mentioned in chapter 2 in the section about the hidden curriculum, rather than that failure is okay and that school should not be a competition. I believe the hidden curriculum should move away from teaching students to compete with one another academically and conformity, into a new sort of hidden curriculum that values students individualism, diversity, and adjusts them better to failure rather than just success, which is something I feel the education system does not do

I was aware of streaming prior to reading this chapter but have never taken the time to critically think about what streaming is, does and whether or not it adds value to the education system. When I first started to read the section on streaming, my initial thought was that it was damaging to students because it categorized them and put them in a situation where they may not feel motivated or encouraged to grow. This idea was reaffirmed when I recalled the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy, which was later mentioned in the section about streaming. Student’s will speculate what is considered the “dumb” stream of a class or the “smart” stream of a class, and those speculations will impact the students who are placed in the stream that is deemed for the less intelligent students. In my high school, I remember conversations about students who took essential math versus students in pre-calculus. It was the same conversation of a student being in the easy math class and another being in the hard math class. These ideas were actually what deterred me from joining essential math in high school. When we force students into categories like this, they will start to adopt the traits and characteristics associated with them, and question their abilities which is the opposite of what we want as teachers for our students. However, vocational streams were a new concept to me and something I was