October 22

I found Garcia's idea that there are teachers who are "equalizers" and who are "allocators" extremely interesting. I'm apparently naive in thinking that all (or the vast majority at least) teachers would want all of their learners to fulfill their potential and not purposely discriminate impoverished students. I'm not completely ignorant - I'm aware years ago there were probably many teachers who thought poor people couldn't succeed and would "channel impoverished students into the education conduits that lead only to low-status, low-pay employment", but still today? I guess I'd just like to believe that we have better teachers than that. I'm also surprised that studies have shown that many schools have "a two track system". I just thought that we had, for the most part, progressed past this level of thinking. However, I'm not surprised that research has found "a high correspondence between students' social class and thier placement in a given track". I just figured this would be because of other factors (language, ect) not teachers with fatalistic attitudes.

I remember exibiting similiar "resistance-culture behavior" myself while growing up. I lived in small, rural middle of nowhere but there were still "classes" of kids in my class of 40 students. There were the "smart" kids the "bad" kids, ect. I sometimes hung out with the "bad" kids and it was "uncool" to get good grades. Luckily, I was smart enough to just lie about my grades rather than not care.

I was a little confused with Tharp's concept of "activity setting". There was a huge, long description of all the components it consisted of which I couldn't quite grasp. There seemed to be a very strict "recipe" for it. Could you simplify it for me? I understand that it is when 2 or more individuals interact and there is a shared meaning or goal that one (or more) is trying to get the other to understand and they assist them in this understanding. What else does it entail?

The "triadic analysis" reminded me of something we do at work. My supervisor will ask someone how teaching is going. If a particular naturalist class is not going so well (rowdy kids - or something) he'll ask the naturalist if they want someone to "shadow" that person to help them. So, then another naturalist (peer) will shadow and assist with that class. After the class feedback is given. Typically, both naturalists as well as the kids benefit.