School Reform

When one thinks of school reform, the vision and interpretation always has a varied view from all parties, whether they are vested and involved or not. In my opinion the true voices that should be considered in the process of school reform should be that of the stakeholders that are always involved in the process such as students, parents, school administrators, teachers, community members, and local school board members. I think they have the greatest impact on school reform simply because they are involved in it the most and know what actually needs to change or what need s to be better in this area. We all know that the systems is flawed and needs constant revision, but what I cannot understand is how, as an advance society instilled with common sense, how do we not noticed the need to have certain groups focused on what would be the best course of action instead of choosing certain consultants who can only give their point of view as oppose to knowing what actually needs to be done. I can see that the voices of those of state- and/or federal-level politicians would not make a better decision over people who deal with school reform on a more regular basis and have the necessary time to actually deal with the issue, it is always alright to say they can help or add input but to throw or have them thrust their selves on the issues of school reform would not help anyone involved succeed or make it better to say the least. 

The moral, philosophical, and social ramifications of the power that is behind people who deal with school reform is tremendous, this issue does carry a substantial amount of weight and can also jump start or end careers of people who want to use this issue as a device for their own gain. Even though this issue carries power it still has to be heard from a particular party of interest group to carry weight so the lack power each of the voices actually involved, from a stakeholders  point of view, can be frustrating.  When looking at the Documentary about the Davis School, the voices that are present at the David School are the ones of teacher and students, and some of the community, but this to me seemed accomplished only because of the documentary that was being made and the emphasis was placed on these stakeholders who may not have otherwise had any sort of say to begin within the small community from which they reside in. I am a realistic person; first and foremost, we have to understand that no campus let alone a school district want to look like they are not making a conscious effort to make school reform, but I can’t understand why every school district has to make themselves look good in a positive light when results always come back negative at times, it would be refreshing that a school district would admit it needs help and it is not functioning to the best of its capacity or that they know they could do better, being politically correct at times can only add to the academic decay we now face as a nation.

Gender Equity

       As a male I can only say that I have not felt the full blown experience of gender bias on a negative level, even though I know it exists in our culture. I can remember hearing from other perspectives about how genders are “built” for certain roles and that it must be accepted in order to have a balance that all can live with. The truth of the matter people are “made” to handle certain instances, for example child birth from the side of a woman, and heavy physical labor from the side of a male, but this does not serve as a basis for having the views of which gender should be considered more superior over another. I think the problem of gender bias is not overblown, in fact I think it has been one of those known but placed into a category of being easily to deal with or just mainstream and this makes it to where   people just tolerate this kind of behavior to a point. I believe because of old school thinking, if one were to complain about the situation or if they have observed some form of gender bias then their own career in turn would either halt or become nonexistent with time, so many people either learn to deal with it or find a reasonable solution to make the work environment tolerable. Many people hate to bring up that there may be some form of gender bias within their company because it is an ugly truth they do not want to face or it might show that their leadership and delegating abilities are coming into question in a negative light.  

        There is some merit to the argument that boys lose out as much as girls do, just in different ways in schools today, simply because for fear of interacting the wrong way with the genders by  their teacher.  With so many threats of lawsuits and pending litigation that are really against your school districts in favor of parents and students, many instructors are trying so hard to make everything politically correct that no one can really know for sure what is deemed appropriate to teach the genders. We have to understand that we all have a certain purpose but this does not mean that the genders should keep stereotypical views that misguide decision making processes and make the environment hard to deal with for others.  In my own school district or If I have the privilege to run my own campus, I would approach the issue of gender with an informed point of view driven by facts and research. I would make sure that my campus has implemented the proper procedures and guidelines to ensure that we are compliant and doing what needs to be done in order  to have a smooth flowing campus environment.

       The issue of gender bias or the lack thereof is illustrated at the David School, from the Country Boys video, in my opinion by how the male students seems to show a lack of respect to their female teachers, One of the students replied earlier on in the video that he felt that his female teacher gave the impression that she was better than people in that area because of her college degree. This part stayed with me from the video simply because weren’t all the teachers that were employed at Davis school required to have degrees? So why was the mention of a degree by this female teacher a problem and why did the student feel he did not need to talk or listen to her? Just by the student’s demeanor and conversation with this teacher I assumed, from my observation that he was not inclined to take orders from a woman that he perceived had too much power or authority over a predominately male run mining town. A the issue I had with this was that in our smaller areas in America we have to take measure to help facilitate some type of change or we will miss pocket of individuals who will carry with them the same jaded views of how genders should be.