Float On

Of the collaborative essay Floating Foundations, many of my highlighted sentences with asterisks in the margins came from Joe's third of the piece. For me, Joe captures the distinction between the two individual floating foundations, physical space and rhetoric, and then shows how they are intertwine. Additionally, he draws a great parallel to his cocooning and denial. He uses his own rhetoric to expand the thesis of vitality of rhetoric within a post-Katrina community in order to grow.

He continues saying that oftentimes it is easy to distance ourselves from something of the same category. Wordy, I know, but, for example, going to school in Madison, I rarely walk outside the six block vicinity of my classes. That is, I am never really off-campus. I understand this is a far larger city than what I know, but I confine myself inside invisible boundaries. In the past, it was scientific method that hypothesized that humans were divided into subcategories, supporting racism and slavery. The idea that people with different physical features could still be civilized and human, too, was denied. Underlining the goal to rebuild the Tulane english department, a stronger significance the authors portray is this idea of redirecting thought from temporary, specific to floatable and general. To me, this meant the ability to see past the current, the blend the boundaries of one place to another, because one may become the other, because they are continuous. And this is the most important thought because the connection between critical thinking as a floating foundation and the idea that separation is actually indistinct is clear.

It is hard to articulate my thoughts of the essay, but I do not feel comfortable restating their, very true, very eye-opening arguments. I can only agree.

The article “Floating Foundations” emphasizes the point that school can be used to reunite people in any circumstance. In the case of New Orleans, the teachers used education and school to bring community together as well as reflect and make suggestions for post-Katrina. Judith Kemerait Livingston thought, “Katrina so radically de-familiarized the United States that it exposed issues like economic inequality, failing public schools, and crumbling infrastructure in a way that simultaneously educated us and demanded action from us.” This is what struck me as most important within the article. Education can be seen as a fix for anything because education demands new solutions and thinking. By directly linking education and course material to the world around us, the students were more actively engaged, like in the article we read “Living Savage Inequalities.” It is important to note the class material is always changing though due to changing times.

Floating Foundations - Livingston

While reading it wasn't hard to draw parallels between the examples of course material in the article and those of our class. We write responses to recently published articles and comment on others posts in a blog, which is similar to the professor's wiki assignment for Tulane students. We're assigned topics for writing that fall under a main category and are expected to develop critical conclusions in those essays, also much like the students at Tulane. Though the structure of our course was not as a restructuring in response to a natural disaster, I feel it's possible that our class, too, has been designed as a 'floating foundation' of sorts. Many teachers now see as the sole possibility for keeping students actively engaged in the coursework, and rightfully so.

Upon reading about the students who were not exposed to the surroundings of New Orleans during the devastation, I found myself agreeing with their nonchalance. Post-Katrina, I also felt that there was too much coverage of the event, and discussion of it got old. I was not directly exposed to it and felt no connection to the event. It would have been torture to write about it for a whole semester. The way that the professor went about redirecting the course in order to better incorporate those who felt this way was a much more suitable option. While Katrina was obviously a large shaping factor of everything in our nation that year and following, Livingston's comment really sums up how quickly our generation moves on. "Looking back, I recognize that I underestimated the pace at which students adapt to a changing present: how much, as adolescents, they are already at home on foundations that float."

Floating Foundations

Livingston writes a lot about adapting her English course to the students and their experiences. Everyone in her classes had a different take on what had happened in the hurricane. But even more than that, as new students came into the university, they had an even more different take on the event. The students that were there or lived in New Orleans when the hurricane hit were much more attached to the subject and could make all kinds of connections from it. She writes, “In fact, incoming freshmen in my fall 2007 classes rarely expressed any interest in Katrina, but instead increasingly talked about ‘moving beyond Katrina’” (40). As time went on, the older students who had connections to the University pre-Katrina moved on and graduated while new ones came in who only knew New Orleans post-Katrina. The newer students were not interested in reflecting on what had happened, but rather wanted to focus on rebuilding and dealing with the aftermath.

The teacher’s approach in her English class had to change, because the assignments were geared towards the students who had been there and witnessed the dramatic changes. Those students were no longer in her class, and thus was not benefiting the new students in the same ways as the assignments had before. This makes me think of September 11, 2001. I remember very clearly what happened that morning. I can play it back in my mind. I was in fifth grade, and I remember coming down from my room for breakfast and my mom was there already making my lunch with the news on. At that point, the first plane had already hit the first tower and I watched Good Morning America with disbelief. About ten minutes later, I watched the second plane crash. Live.

Since then, we have talked about 9/11 on its anniversary and always done a few minutes of reflection, especially in our English classes in middle and high school. I will never forget that morning. I read “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” in high school and thought it was a great book. I saw United 93 and World Trade Center and though they were extremely hard to watch, they were very good movies. But now I have to wonder if my little cousins who were born in 1999 and 2000 will feel the same way if they see those movies and read that book. Will they have the same reactions as I did? Will they feel that connection even though they don’t remember what they were doing on that day, that morning? Will teachers continue to provide a time during class to reflect, write, and talk about what happened? I would hope so, but I’m not sure if the younger students will find it helpful or useful like I did.

Scandalous

It seems like Andrew Delbanco's main point with college is that it is a business. In business you can't be fair but you can be ethical which essentially was his main point. Look these colleges want the best students and those students come out of the best highschools. What makes a high school have strong programs? Funding which comes from property tax of the neighborhoods surrounding the high school. So only the rich neighborhoods have all the best programs available which is what the colleges want to see.
Besides how do these colleges pay for the low income students who can't afford tuition? They raise overall tuition and put the expense on the high income students. Essentially they create a catch 22, in order to except more low income kids they need to raise prices making it even harder for middle income people to afford to go there and making it more a billionaire boys club. I can't think of a way to make college cheaper for everyone unless the government decides to pay for it. So unless we become socialist its going to remain unfair but that doesn't mean its unattainable.

Blog- A Passion For Teaching and Opinions

On the blog "A Passion for Teaching and Opinions" a high school teacher tells stories of her classroom and school experience. Issues are also brought up about problems with education in general. This blog is fun to read and includes funny stories that people can relate to having been through public schooling.

"I'm OK--You Have Self-Esteem "

I'm writing in response to the blog "I'm OK--You Have Self-Esteem ". I found it interesting and eye opening. It described how it is necessary for students to feel that they are worthy and important in order to succeed in the classroom. The author explained that teachers also feel the need to critique their students in a harsh manner in order for students to be able to keep up with our competitive world at large in other realms (economic, medical, etc). I believe there needs to be a balance between harsh criticism, critique, and self-esteem boosting activities. If kids are constantly being told how amazing they are, what's going to make them want to work harder? They will then feel discouraged if someone tells them that they really aren't as amazing as others told them. Kids should be rewarded for their smarts and capabilities but we need to limit our praises for them. They can't be good at everything and we shouldn't let them think that they are- it's only realistic. The author described the bad effects of too much self-esteem with a story of high school athletes raping a "mildly retarted" eight year old girl. These athletes had probably been told their whole lives how great they were on the field and maybe their egos went to their head. Who's to say? What's important to learn here is that kids need to fail to succeed but they also need to know that they are good at things and they can accomplish something bigger.