Colin Abercrombie Ms.

Sippy English 1102 April 29, 2013 Academic Conversation Colin Abercrombie is assigned to write a paper on the academic problems this country id facing and if the blame deserves to be put on the teachers of students. He calls upon four men to help him out on his paper to get different points of view. The first two are Paulo Freire and Mike Rose, who both have written books and articles on the flaws of the current system. Mr. Abercrombie also calls on Serkan Celik who wrote Reflections of prospective Teachers Regarding Case-Based learning and Professor X who has an article of his own. They all meet in a library room that he reserved; luckily for him the room has sound proof windows and doors so they wont disturb any of the other students.

Colin Okay gentlemen thank you all for coming on such short notice. As I told you all before I have been asked to talk about who is to blame for the situation that the academic system is in, and unfortunately for me all I have is you four to rely on. This should be great (sarcastic). Okay so Paulo you can go first since you have a really cool name. hit me with your best shot. Paulo Look, this shouldnt even be a conversation. You might as well send these uneducated, Professor X Uneducated!? Colin Okay, hold on. Let him finish his thought otherwise this will take forever and the less time I have to spend with you the better. Please continue Paulo Paulo Yes, well as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, the teachers are at fault for the crippled system we have going on today. They all use what we call the banking method Colin

Banking method? (writes down as he speaks) explain. Paulo With pleasure, the banking method is where the teacher spits the information out and the students and hopes that they take in the information and understands all that is said. This usually is set up by hour long lectures where the teachers loves to hear the sound of their own voice and unreasonably expects the students to hear all of this one time and remember it for the tests. It is this method that is killing the students potential! It is impossible for the students to be able to retain all the information from a lecture over an hour of class time of nonstop lecturing (Pedagogy of the Oppressed). Colin First off, dont yell at me or I will throw a textbook at you, and second that actually is a good point; I have had countless classes where all my teacher does is talk the whole time. It isnt quite as egotistical and selfish as you paint it out to be, but still is hard to keep up. I have never thought of it in a way of the teacher hindering the students academic growth. It would be better to have to students more involved in the classroom and have it set up as an academic conversation with feedback. Now then Professor X what is your rebuttal, and please Cyclops and Magneto need to wait outside (everyone laughs, that joke is hilarious) Professor X Very clever, but this is not all on the teachers. It cant be put on them, if you ever had to teach a class you would understand why the students are the ones draining the academic reputation. I teach at a local college and teach English 1101 and 1102, the very same class you are writing this paper for, and most of my students arent there because they want to be there, but because they are forced. The students coast through their life and think they can do as little work as possible and at the end when they realize they wont make it they try to come to me and kiss myColin Okay! Well I may not be a teacher, but I know all classes arent like that. It sounds like you have an extreme biased because of where you teach. There are always those handfuls of students that are clearly going nowhere, and even in college I run into the people where I question how in the world they function as a human being. I was lucky enough to come from a high school where the majority went to college, but there were still at least two or three students that wouldnt do anything all class and cheat on the homework and just because the class was easy they could coast by and get to college where they get crushed. The main premise of your article was how students who do just enough to coast by arent ready for college and dont make it at the higher level (In the Basement of the Ivory Tower). Mike rose

He is probably one of the teachers that are hindering the students learning!

Professor X Seriously? I teach college level English, how would I even teach English using the banking method that you say all teachers use Serkan Celik Which is false! Your facts arent even correct. Not all teachers use the banking method. In fact, a large percent are turning to the project methodColin First, I have had English classes where the teacher does use the banking method. They spend the whole class just rambling on and on about grammar or romeo and Juliet and I have to keep down the vomit. And what is the project method anyways? I assume this is way better than the fool proof banking method?

Serkan Celik Yes. The project method is exactly how it sounds; the teacher guides the students through the process and gives them the tools to find out the information for themselves. Its not the teacher spitting information, but giving an understandable overview of a topic so the students have a sound understanding of the information and guiding them through the steps to further strengthen their understanding (Reflections of prospective Teachers Regarding Case-Based learning) Colin That sounds like that would actually work. I feel like that would give the fair balance between the two. If the students dont put forth the effort, then they wont get the grade they wan. This puts more responsibility on the students and not the teacher to baby them. This could widen the gap between those students who coast by and those who are willing and able to go the extra mile. The professor and Serken? Serkan? You know what forget it- the professor and Mr. C have brought up good points, and I can see where they are coming from. Do you have any defense? Paulo Of course I do!

Colin (sigh) of course you do. Whatcha got?

Paulo Well first of all I dont think that the project method will always work, if the teacher doesnt put forth the extra help and go the extra mile just as they require the students to do, then the system fails. And to be honest, this sounds like a way for the lazy teachers to get the students to do what they are being paid to do. Serkan Celik (Hysterical Russian laugh) HAHAHAHAHA! You cannot seriously believe that. That is how I know I have broken you. You no longer have a worthy argument strong enough to prove your points. Paulo Really? Then why can you find no problems with the holes in your so called system? Serkan Celik Well how bout we start with the fact that the students are not babies, they do not need to be fed the information by a bottle. A good student takes what they learn and uses it. that is the entire purpose of the educational system. The teacher gives the student a concept and the student takes that concept and uses it on real life situations or assignments they are assigned. If the student doesnt take advantage of the resources of information then they have failed as students, and that sir, is where the blame deserves to be pointed. Colin That actually makes sense. I dd a study of my own where I asked a local class of 8th graders what they thought of their classes at what they prefer. When I first did it I thought for sure they would all dog on the teacher and how their class goes. I know when I was in 8th grade I would have liked to changed everything about my classes. However, to me surprise all the students liked when they got to work n projects individually or in groups. They feel like they learn the information better that way. Serkan Celik Ah ha! Checkmate. Colin

Even though they all like groups better than individuals, but it is a start. They are still in the binning stages of developing and sharpening their academic skills. I can see if they start with group projects they start to understand the amount of effort and work they need to put into it. As they grow academically the projects get harder, but their knowledge and skills also increase. The amount of work they put in increases and will push them to get better. Professor X You see! It is just like we said the whole time! Colin Yes, but it relies on the students putting forth the work. If the students want to get better and are driven to get better it will work. But, if they dont then the system is broken Professor X, Serkan Celik, Paulo, and Mike rose (All together) so??? Colin (Chuckling) ha-ha so. I would have to say that the students need to change. It is up to them on how their academic experience goes. If they decide to put in the work to be great, they can reach their goals. Mike Rose UNBELIEVABLE! (Paulo and Mike Rose get up and storm out cursing and shouting in frustration) Colin Well, that went as well as I thought it would. Aside from the bruised ego of two grown men that was a success. I obviously found the answer that I am looking for. Professor and Serkan I was very impressed by your ideas and how you got your information across. I now believe the students are at fault for the lack of focus in academics across the board. If either of you ever wants a verbal beat down of your own feel free to ask I will happy oblige and open a can on both of you. Serkan Celik HAHAHA the jokes, they keep coming. I will crush you like bug. Professor X Good luck boy!

Celik, Serkan, and Demirarslan Cevik, yasemin, and haslaman, Tulin. Reflections of prospective Teachers Regarding Case-Based learning. Online submission. Turkish online journal of qualitive inquiry. 3.4 (2012): 64-78. ERIC. Web. 11 march 2013 This article was on the use of the project method in schools. This was interesting because of how it wasnt anything like the papers we read in class and yet it had statistics that back it up. The research method is a teaching style that lets the students learn by doing. They are assigned a topic and must research and find information and data to back up their finding. Unlike the banking method where the teacher just tells the students what to do and how to do it, it is very responsive to the students abilities. The teacher assigns something that is relatable to the students are their academic abilities. Every year the teacher does a different topic. There were some problems, if the student didnt know about the topic or what the research is about, the teacher wasnt always available for help and the students had to go to their parents and were limited to their knowledge of the topic as well. The teachers also didnt have very much knowledge on the topics they were teaching and assigning the topics on. A lot of the time the students became very stressed and time crunched due to them trying to meet the deadline and follow the syllabus as well as possible. According to this article the project method works well when the teacher has a sound knowledge of the topic and can help the students through the process. This source is helpful to my topic because of the alternate teaching methods not discussed from the other articles read in class and how different and helpful it is to the students. It also gives both sides of the argument which is exactly what I am trying to do between teachers and students.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372. National center for educational statistics. 2012. Web. 12 march 2013 This website was full of high school statistics that help provide an idea of how much the teachers have to deal with. The students outnumber the teachers by huge numbers of a 12.3 to 1. This also shows the success rates of the students. Around 68% of students end up going to college right after high school. This furthers my research by reinforcing data to prove that students have the resources to be successful and get to college and it is not all on the teachers as some of the other articles stated. The students have the means to be successful and it can be argued that the students have the resources to graduate and get to college and the statistics prove it, but somehow that gets lost and parents blame the teachers that their children arent doing the best they can do. This gives the argument some leverage when the blame is put on the teachers. They must be doing something right since the statistics back up that the students are being successful enough for almost 70% of them to go on and go to the next level of education. http://teaching.uncc.edu/articles-books/best-practice-articles/instructional-methods/150-teachingmethods. Center for teaching and learning at UNCC. 2013. Web. 12 march 2013 After reading all the articles in class about the banking method I thought there were only a few teaching methods that teachers can use. This source has 150 different teaching styles and methods that teachers and professors can use to get the information across to the students. This is very helpful in the argument for the teachers; they have all these ways to teach the students there is no way that one of these methods isnt the right way to get the proper information across to the students. It seems that teachers are more ways to

get the information to the students than I ever thought. From what we read before it seemed like a handful of ways for a large group of students to learn efficiently, but after further research there are hundreds of ways for students to learn and it cant be all on the teachers if they are utilizing all different techniques to further benefit students. Mandura, Jeff. Introduction to business. 5th edition. Los Angeles: Paradigm, (2010): 325-340. Print. This specific chapter is on business leadership and how to motivate employees. Its all about negative vs. positive reinforcement and if it is better to give incentives to employees to do better or if the feeling of giving it 100% is better. I chose this source to look at motivational tactics outside of the classroom. The educational system is a company: the teacher is the boss and the students are the employees working for them. The methods discussed are universal across all types of business. Every employee and every student is different and must be handled differently. Some respond better to positive motivation, being reminded that they are doing fine and keep up the good work. Others need to be kicked in gear through negative motivation. They are called out in front of their peers and it gets them going. I see teachers using this same kind of motivational techniques and it is very interesting to see the same characteristics across different fields of careers. http://www.gmu.edu/resources/facstaff/part-time/strategy.html. Support for teaching and learning of George Mason University. 2012. 17 march 2012. The lecture method, also known as the banking method, has been the most common form of presenting information in education and since 1970 has been used by 80% of teachers

yearly. The lecture method works because it gets all the most important information across to the students and leaves all the power in the teachers hands without harm to the students. The negatives to the lecture method are the lack of information that sticks with the students. It tends to go in one ear and out the other leaving the student to have to relearn everything they have already heard once. This was a perfect source for my topic. It gives the pros and cons of the lecture method and why teachers love it and use it most of the time and why the students dont like it because of their lack of control and input in the classroom.