this week's readings...

i'm unfortunately not going to be in class tonight, so here are my reactions to this week's readings. i posted below about how cool i thought the carrot revolution blog was, so now to the kennedy center. this is a less exciting site, but i have been using it some this semester to write lesson plans for workshops for my museum as critical curriculum class. it's pretty easy to navigate, and i like the way their lesson plans are presented, with different tabs for objectives/procedures/materials, etc. it's certainly a more appealing way to browse through lessons than if they were all in one long, word doc-like format.

to rayshawn's reading: i read what alana posted about it on her blog, and agree with a lot of the things she has to say. i think for me, a lot of it comes down to framing and rhetoric. instead of talking about "turning away students at the door," why couldn't the principle be talking about what kind of a wake-up call or measure is needed to get parents in the door for meetings, or for students to realize that they are jeopardizing their future? i was especially put off by this analogy:

They're not going to be able to go to work and miss 66 days and then expect the job to take them back.

True, but is that really relevant? These are not adult, working professionals -- they're kids, who have yet to finish their high school education. There are obviously a lot of factors at play when students miss over 66 days of school -- shouldn't there be concerted efforts toward identifying those factors? What efforts are being made to get parents in the door? What can be done to keep kids from falling into truancy? It just seems like this kind of tough stance is actually a lazy stance. Sure, it takes money and resources to keep kids in school, but the main issue here seems to be that it also takes a lot of work.