School Bullying Awareness

As I was thinking for a while now about what I wanted to blog about next, I found myself searching social issues in education hoping to find interesting current issues. I looked through a few scholarly journals and a few other websites and finally came to a website that supported the motto: “everyone has the right to be respected and the responsibility to respect others". This is the saying that caught my eye. The following is a web site that supports the idea of spreading the awareness of bullying in hopes of eliminating it in society. This web site is a great resource for parents, students and educators alike. http://www.bullying.org/

Although this is not something that I have personally experienced in my life as a child, nor was it something that I was forced to witness while doing any of my practicum, I am not naïve to the fact that it does occur in schools around the world. I do not think that this is a specific topic that we will be discussing in class, but I am sure that it will come up as it is a very important issue that needs to be addressed. At the beginning of our Education and Society class, we were warned about some of the depressing factors in Education, and I feel like this is one that everyone can associate with at least on some level.

One of the main reasons that I am interested in this topic is because I believe that all children have the right to a safe learning environment. Bullying can take many forms such as verbal, physical, social and extortion. Not only is there bullying that is directly face-to-face between students, but with the increase in technology, cyber bullying takes place. According to Bullying.org, “bullying happens to someone in Canada every 7 minutes on the playground.” And “other kids are watching 85% of the time when one kid bullies another kid. Adults like teachers or parents hardly ever see a bully being mean to someone else.” This is important to me firstly as I want to be a teacher and secondly because I have a niece and nephew who will be entering the school systems about the same time I will be. Although I cannot yet think of it in terms of a parental perspective, I can empathize with those who have dealt with such issues.

The idea that this takes place and that no students around do not take notice or care is not the truth. An example that I have heard of previously which took place in Sept 2007 in Nova Scotia where a grade 9 boy wore a pink shirt on the first day back to school. Many of the students harassed the boy, but there were two grade 12 students (David Shepherd and Travis Price) who not only did the opposite, but decided that they needed to take action. After school, they bought 50 pink t-shirts and e-mailed their classmates to get them on their side. Dozens of students the next day came to school dressed in pink. Their campaign did not go unnoticed and made it onto the Ellen DeGeneres show.

This is a group of students wearing pink to support the cause. The next pink day will be April 14, 2010 and is an annual event.

Here are some other websites that I have found to be very informing:

http://www.bullyingcanada.ca/
http://www.safecanada.ca/
http://www.bullyonline.org/
http://www.cyberbullying.ca/

Canadian Paradigms

As a continuation from classes in our second week, we discussed many of the functionalist theorists. We were also briefly introduced to three Canadian paradigms of functionalism. Unfortunately like many other Canadian aspects, theorists and ideologies, they are often pushed away and not given any proper recognition. With a class of about 30-40 people, some of whom had taken previous sociology classes, only 2-3 people had heard of these theorists. We discussed Harold Adams Innis, Marshal McLuhan, and George Grant. These were three professors (George Grant was a student of the first two) who never got the students that they deserved simply because they were Canadian. Anyone who was seen as a good theorist of functionalism was taken to schools such as Harvard. As these Canadians have been put aside, I would like to write a bit about each of them to show the work that they created.

Firstly, Harold Adams Innis (1894-1952) was a Canadian professor at the University of Toronto and was the author of many works on media and economic history. He was originally influenced by James Ten Broeke, a philosopher at McMaster University. Harold was enlisted in the war where he was sent to France in 1916 to fight in the First World War. As his interests widened, he wrote a novel called The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History. The book discusses the trade in beaver fur. He believed that the fur trade largely determined Canada's boundaries. He noted that it was not because of Geography that made Canada; rather he interpreted the importance of the fur trade.

Second, Marshal McLuhan was a Canadian English professor. He was known for being very enticed to the study of media theory. His most important piece of writing was published in 1951 titled The Mechanical Bride. He discusses the persuasions that come along with popular culture and how people are influenced by it. In the fifties, he also predicted and explained his theory about the internet. His saying was always that “the medium is the message” when he was trying to explain the internet.

Lastly, George Grant (1918-1988) was a Canadian philosopher, and teacher. He is considered one of Canada’s most original thinkers. The amount of information on George was the least out of the three, which shows more how much these individuals were not properly appreciated. He is the student of both of the teachers above. Similar to Marshal McLuhan, he was also interested in the media. The most notable thing that he was known for is the Red Toryism.

I am sure that I could go on forever about all of the things that each of them accomplished, but that would take forever, as I would probably end up writing a whole book. Looking through all of the novels that they wrote and their life stories about growing up, education, etc, they definitely did accomplish a lot. It is sad to see that a lot of their stuff was not produced or recognized because they were Canadian.

It really bothers me that people do not appreciate some of the work that is accomplished by Canadians. There are even some Canadians who feel ashamed when they find out that something is Canadian. For example, movies, authors, etc. One thing that really bothers me at the moment is that I am in a class right now that is taught by an American professor. Whenever she brings up statistics, facts, etc, it always is related to the U.S.

(Much of the information that was given here was off of Wikipedia. Check out their pages on Wikipedia to find out even more interesting information.)

Structure and Governance of Education

Just as other readings and class discussions so far, going back to chapter one was still very eye-opening. This part of the chapter discusses the structure and governance of Canada’s system of education and it shows other countries in comparison. Although at a national level, Canada’s education system is highly decentralized, within each province, it is centralized.

The first thing that I learned that I did not know before was that “most elementary schools contain kindergartens, although these are not legally mandated, and attendance is not compulsory.” This was something that I had not heard before. After reading this sentence, I could not help but ask question after question. Isn’t that a starting point for all children for formal education? Won’t they be behind from the students who did take it? Are there many students who do this, and what is the outcome of it? This is something that I will need to research further in order to fully understand.

Another thing that shocked me was the grade level that students are allowed to legally dropout of school. Although I knew that it was a young age, I did not think it was as low as grade 9. Is this without the consent of a parent/guardian?

The chapter also discusses the circumstances of other countries that do not require children to attend school at all. “Parents everywhere want their children educated; however, when faced with economic constraints, they tend to educate their sons longer than their daughters.” Is this because they think the males are more likely to succeed and use their education later on? Think of how much money Alberta has compared to some of these places and yet education is one of the first things that they take money from when others would give anything to be educated. On another side note, something that I truly hope works is projects such as World Vision where we can help those in need. This is something that I have personally contributed to and I find it very rewarding.

When comparing Canada to other countries, Canada has a lot fewer days spent in school compared to a country like china. 185 (Canada) vs. 251 (China). Yet, research shows that “other factors such as teaching strategies are more important.” “It appears that achievement is more closely tied to the subtleties of how things are done in the classroom, rather than how much time is spent there.” This is very true, as an organized teacher will be better with time management and things such as transitions from class to class.

Overall, this chapter gave an insight into how our education system works from province to province, nationally, and even in other countries.

First Week of Classes

For our first real week of classes, we went over the basic concepts of sociology. We were able to understand why a class such as Society and Education will be able to help us in our careers as teachers. After being told that many teachers do not find this information helpful information until about their fifth year of teaching, it made me want to learn about it even more. Maybe with this extra knowledge, we as teachers can help fix many of the existing problems.

There are four main advantages of sociology. The first advantage is that it allows us to see the bigger picture and not just look for an immediate solution. We talked about a theft issue that was taking place in a school. Many students were bullying and harassing other students in order to get their lunches. An immediate solution to this problem is to punish the children who are causing these problems, but this presents even more issues to deal with. Maybe the real issue is that these kids are hungry and are not being fed, so the school in turn needs to start some kind of lunch program. Overall, the issue was with the “neighbourhood” and not the school. I definitely need work in trying to see the bigger picture instead of thinking that I know the answer right away. This is not to say that I would assume the students are causing problems for no reason, but I would not quickly jump to the solution of the kids being hungry.

The second advantage is that it counter-acts ideology. This is saying that it takes the sole blame off individuals. An example that was brought up in class is the education program at the university. Why is it that there are only 220 places open to education? It has been proved that the best teachers are not necessarily the ones who had the highest GPA. I have a personal experience in this situation, as I am sure many others have as well. I have wanted to be a teacher for I do not even know how long now, but I am going to say around grade two. Once I graduated from high school, I took a year off to work and then returned a year later. I did my first year of school at the Medicine Hat College and then transferred to the U of L so that I would be able to complete a music minor (something not offered at the college). My second year went well, but obviously not as well as I had hoped. I initially did not make it in and it made me so angry because I knew that I would make an amazing teacher despite my grades that year. Once I got a callback that someone had dropped out, I was very happy to find out that I now had a place in the program. I had also talked to about three other people that had the same thing happen to them. These are people that you can just tell that they will be amazing in their careers later on. Sociology is able to break away from the idea that the individual is to blame and instead look at the patterns.

Thirdly, sociology helps us question ‘reforms’. This allows us as teaches to help see beyond decisions. The issue with more Math and Science classes was initially trying to help Alberta ‘make-up’ compared to other provinces. Although they possibly lessened one problem, they created about ten new ones. 1. Students were now missing classes in the arts as this was always the first thing to go. 2. Schools downplayed how important fine arts were (not everyone can afford outside of school time). 3. There will be less consumerism (culture crash). 4. The province thought that there were more dropouts when students were actually spending four years in high school instead of three. This is just to name a few, but with the solution to one problem, it created many more. Sociology is meant to help make decisions so that these things will not happen.

Lastly, it helps teachers to be proactive. It allows us to anticipate problems and formulate responses before the issue comes into the classroom. A good example of a problem that was not fixed is the $80 million dollar budget cuts. One main reason they decided to do this is that in comparison to other provinces that were spending less money, we did not compare or show substantial increases in grades. How are they actually comparing the provinces? Did they look further beyond to see the students later in their lives? How can they justify giving away money without good reason, and then take away from a system that is a defining factor in someone’s life? It is very upsetting to hear that we used to have the highest budget and now we are the second lowest. It is hard for me to understand fully, as I am not in the system yet, but I have talked to many people who work in schools who are upset over it.

Overall, looking at education from a sociological perspective allows us to predict and foresee problems/issues and to see the larger picture. When I first thought about writing a blog, I assumed that I would be struggling to come up with things to say, but I find myself to be very passionate about what I am discussing which really helps. I can tell that this class will be very informing.

Theories of Sociology and Education

The second chapter of the book goes deeper into how sociology actually connects with education. The authors introduce the beginnings of sociology of education and present the major theories that the world has gone through. The chapter discusses theorists such as Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. Although these individuals were not experts in the field of education, their ideologies influenced many of the theories that are connected to education. I have never realized or thought about the ways that ideologies evolve through society.

The chapter mentions one theorist by the name of Charles H. Cooley who illustrates where people get their sense of self. He coined the term looking glass effect, which means that “through interaction with parents, peers, and teachers, [individuals] come to see themselves as they imagine others see them.” I thought this point was interesting, as I believe that people do this. From my understanding of this concept though, I believe that it is important though to remember who you actually are and not just be someone others hope you are.

In the 1950’s, theorists believed that organized and formal schooling lead to success in a students life. Although this has some truth in it, as organization helps with time management, etc, children also need to develop a sense of self-learning. They need to speak out and express their opinions in order to learn. In terms of a more formal and organized education, teachers did not teach towards equality, but rather to suit the needs of society. They were teaching towards an advancing technological society in order to further the economy. I truly hope that these sorts of views have completely passed. I believe that certain students are going to shine in one area/skill where others will be great in others areas/skills. This sort of view allows us to teach equally and does not force us to teach towards society’s needs, as these things should happen naturally. Higher education can help solve these types of problems as well.

A lot of this chapter as well as the previous dealt with issues such as class. Students have been separated into public/private schools depending on their class. How do we get out of the cyclical theory when the poor are treated as lesser individuals? How does this encourage them to succeed? This type of social stratification convinces these students that they are not as worthy of the education nor capable of achieving it.
Most of the chapter I felt was very disheartening, as it discusses our previous theories about education. The anti-racist theory was the first thing I truly felt to have a positive perspective. Many of the theories that were addressed are very out-dated. I also believe that the theories should continually change (hopefully for the better) because we cannot continue to refer to older ones as society constantly goes through many changes itself.

An Intro to my understanding of Sociology and Education

I would first like to start by saying that I do not have very much experience in sociology and how it connects into different aspects of the education system. I would appreciate any feedback and comments from those who either agree or disagree with my opinions and beliefs. I feel that these comments can help us all learn a little bit more about the sociological elements of education.

Reading the first chapter of Sociology of Education: An Introductory View from Canada, (J. Barakett, A. Cleghorn) provided me with a basic insight of sociology in general. I find the idea of social stratification to be astonishing. People generate ideas about someone and put them on a hierarchal scale according to different aspects of their lives. Everyone is given a status based on their access and possession of what is most valued. To me, it makes me wonder who creates these statuses and comes up with a consensus about what is worthy enough to be valued.

One quote that I noticed in the first chapter states that “there is no biological or genetic reason why one group or another should be overrepresented among either those who succeed or those who fail in school”. This is basically saying that no single group of people should be categorized as not being able to do something. For example, not all girls do poorly in math. If this isn’t the case, then why have I read so many articles stating the high scores for males in math and science. Have people actually found valid proof that this is true? I think a lot of it has to do with the negative connotations and stereotypes that people give certain groups of people. For example, if a group of aboriginal peoples were all doing poorly in a particular subject, it is most likely due to the teacher being overcome with the negative sterotypes and ideologies that are brought with the group of people. If a teacher believes these stereotypes, they are more likely to teach in way that does not provide the same education for these individuals.

The sociological aspect of education can be depressing at times. One of the main reasons that I am becoming a teacher is to make a difference in the lives of the students that I teach. I think at this point in my life, I am still very naïve to the depressing aspects of education. It is not that I do not know or realize that these things happen, I just don’t understand why or how these things occur. I hope that with the education of these sociology, we, as a society and teachers can make positive responses towards the problems.