Raylyn+DiPaolo

Raylyn DiPaolo Expertise Statement Something I would consider myself an expert in is creative writing, poetry and raps. I became an expert by showing an interest at an early age. I never liked reading books as a child, except books that were a collection of poems. They were always easy for me to read and understand, as well as just more fun, flowing, and exciting. It wasn’t long until I started writing my own poems. For every holiday, every birthday, none of my family or friends could expect to get a card that didn’t contain an original poem. At first I was very shy about it and didn’t share my poems with anyone, especially as a kid. But then there was always that small poetry unit in my English classes that everyone seemed to dread except me. During those times, I could always count on getting positive and insightful feedback from my teachers that encouraged me to keep writing, and although I was shy, there was a part of me that loved the attention of having an audience for my writing. Writing was always an outlet for me when there were things in life I didn’t understand or felt I had no one to talk to about. For a reason still unknown to me, my thoughts as a kid were far beyond my expected maturity for my age. This was very hard for me as many times I found myself feeling very alone. Poetry has always been my friend. About a year ago, for the first time, I tried reading a poem of mine to an instrumental version of a song. I was hooked and in love. Since then, I have been able to share my poems with some of my friends in rap form. It is much more interesting for the audience to listen rather than read, and also helps me memorize my poems in a way I have never been able to before. I got great at poetry by doing it a lot, becoming brave enough to share it with people and getting feedback from my audience, and practicing the basics like rhyming in general in my spare time for fun.

Raylyn DiPaolo Savage Inequalities; Chapter 2 Reflection

At Scituate High school, almost all of the kids were white. There was only a handful of kids of any other races; so little that people actually knew them for their race because they were so obviously the minority. Most of the families in Scituate are fairly wealthy. Little to none of these families are on well fair as fair as I know. The wealthiest kids went from Scituate middle school to private schools such as LaSalle, Hendricken and Bay View. People in my school joked around saying that our school was poor, which is far from the case. I would say that I had more teachers who actually cared about their jobs than ones who didn't. We had lower, average and honors classes available to cater to the learning needs of all the students. Not every class had computers, but we had accessible computers in the library as well as the computer lab. In the library you could rent out books for projects. If they didn't have a book you needed, they could get it shipped there from another library with little problems. We did have free and reduced lunch available for those who needed it. In our classes, we were each provided with necessary materials for the course, such as textbooks, for free. All of the classes were under 30 in size, which made the teacher more accessible for the students. The drop out rate at my school was severely lower than the schools talked about in the book. There were some kids that had to go to truency court, but for the most part, students came to class enough to stay out of trouble and pass. The actual ability of our students was pretty high. Of course every student is different, but the majority of our students were at least proficient, some exceeding proficiency. We would never be left in a classroom with no teacher, except very rarely due to some kind of misinformation, in which case there was usually some student with high morals and a thirst to learn who would go down to the principals office and let them know. Our bathrooms were sufficient, some broken doors and other broken items, but definitely cleaner and more functional than the ones described in the book. Our science classes were equipped with labs and enough equipment to use them. My senior year they invested in smart boards for all of the science rooms, and I believe were working on getting them in most if not all of the classrooms. We had two game fields, two gyms, a track, a newly made practice field, a greenhouse, a wood shop, and an agricultural trail in the woods. These features allowed students to take part in sports, clubs, or other after school acitivities that were of interest to them. The surrounding area of my school was beautiful, just like the town itself. The kids in Savage Inequalities were not blessed with any of these luxuries the way me and my peers were. It makes me realize how blessed I was to be a part of such a nice town.

Raylyn DiPaolo Response to Chapter 2&3 of FAE

These chapters focused on the early history of education and the changing perspectives over time. In the BCE times, the earliest education that we know of, the kids, specifically of the Athens, had many different schools available to teach them a variety of skills including sports, poetry, drama etc. Formal schools were developed as people developed written language. Before we had all of this factual knowledge readily available, the important of reason and logic were stressed greatly. The specific structure of learning nowadays takes away from this important aspect of development. I found Rosseau's theory of naturalism very interesting, that maybe we should consider returning education to its natural state without trying to structure and control it. Back then, religions was a huge part of pretty much all colonial school, whereas now religion is more specific to private schools. For the last hundred or so years, early elementary schools were often taught by poorly prepared teachers, which continues to be a problem today as the standards are continuously changing. It seems we need to somehow get a few steps ahead in preparing our teachers, but now that the government has so much control over the education system, we never really know what to expect. As education became a requirement for kids and the population began growing, this required a lot more schools, teachers and elaborate busing systems, all of which led to a big increase in school budgets. With such a huge school system, it seems as though structure and control would be important and helpful in the productive functioning of classes. This is true and also very untrue. Due to this, we have lost a sense of personality and individuality that I feel teachers have the right to. Learning has become a chore and a responsibility rather than a gift and an opportunity. The rules an regulations can make it hard to all types of personalities to succeed. No mater how much money we put into the school system, we are not matching up to expectations of governmental agencies, state, or national. This is because their expectations and aims have changed greatly over time. Essentially, they want to program our brains to think a certain way, therefore act a certain way and contribute to society in a certain way, and with the natural instinct of individual thinking battling with the learned instinct to conform, we are just not having it.

Raylyn DiPaolo Response to Chp 4 FAE This chapter focuses on philosophy, reflections on the essence of education. Throwing out the knowledge base of factual information and scientific inquiry, we are taken back to the time when philosophical thoughts and theories were the basis of education, focusing on logic and reason. Philosophies are individualistic and reflect on the way a teacher approaches various topics, as well as the way students approach the understanding of them. The aspects of philosophy are essential to how we view and understand all aspects of life and learning, yet we are only exposed to their definitions briefly in certain classes, if at all. We should be taught more in depth about these aspects of philosophy such as metaphysics, epistemology and axiology, even at a basic understanding level, in order to better integrate these aspects into our everyday learning and understanding. The reason that philosophy is not as important in our learning today is because the structured, rule-based education that we are now receiving shies away from creative thought and leans more toward fact. Because of this, we have slowed greatly in our progression as a society and as individuals with limitless minds. By having us stick to the facts, we won't question the reality of the world around us, we will more except it as true and right. "Pragmatism (the integration of an experience and problem-solving using reason) and existentialism reflect a student centered approach to education because they provide greater opportunity for students to create their own meaning." I believe that all of these concepts are important for students and people to develop their own set of beliefs in order to contribute to society the way they were meant to as an individual mind. "Idealism and realism reflect teacher-centered approach to education because they place greater responsibility on teachers to teach specific content and thinking skills." The scientific theories that we are taught and they want us to except as true are based more on realism, the idea that reality, knowledge and value exist independent of human mind. This theory basically undermines the value and importance of creative thought represented in idealism, the theory that ideas and concepts are the essence of all that is worth knowing and the physical world we sense is only a manifestation of the spiritual world. But there is a way to interpret idealism into learning without it being religion-based. Spiritually can be taught, or should I say explored, completely separate of religion. I believe that if it was, our society would be much more ethical and successful because people would understand we all play an important role in this universe. This is why I feel that Eastern and Native way of knowing should be partially adopted into all aspects of learning. Their focus more on the inner rather than the outer world, intuition rather than sense, and mysticism rather than scientific discovery allows for much more diverse possibilties in our growth as a society. The inner self and our connection with the natural universe is something that no fact can take away or explain. By learning the same concepts in school, we are all developing into such intellectually similar beings that we ultimately have no chance of achieving our maximum capacity. If we each focused on learning through intuition and our inner self, the diversity of our discoveries would be profound. That is the kind of education that I see changing the world.

Raylyn DiPaolo FAE Chapter 5 I believe in all of the student-centered educational philosophies, progressivism, humanism and constructivism. Progressivism emphasizes that ideas should be tested by experimentation and that learning is rooted in questions developed by the learner. I feel that this philosophy is a good one because it is more individualized to the learner than the teacher-centered ways. Progressivism allows students to work more intimately with their teacher and leaves more space for freedom of interpretation. Hands-on learning and problem solving can be applied more usefully and affectively to real life situations, making it more beneficial. It’s important that the discussion is based on logical reasoning, something that a lot of people in our society lack. For the discipline approach, “students recognize that everything we do or say affects others.” This is extremely important because if students can learn this in the classroom than they can carry it out in real life. Recognizing this fact contributes to the better functioning of our society as a whole. Progressivism emphasizes the consequences of what they are learning to society. All of these aspects are great to the development of learners and thinkers. Humanism is concerned with enhancing the innate goodness of the individual. This education philosophy focuses on the individual development of the student as well. The learning focus of this type of method is to develop a free, self-actualized person, which again has very positive affects individually and communally. Learners develop their own classroom layout which makes them feel more comfortable and at home, creating the best learning environment for them possible. In this type of learning, teachers act as a mediator or a guide rather than the boss of the classroom. This allows students to respect their teacher more, since they are not being talked down to but rather talked to as an equal. Students are allowed to develop their individual interests which makes learning and going to school fun for them rather than a chore and a necessity. Philosophies of learning that focus on the freedom and individualism of the students just makes sense to me. Of course this would require a lot more dedication and work for the teachers, but would benefit our country greatly. Constructivism is a learning philosophy that emphasizes developing personal meaning through hands-on, activity-based teaching and learning. It is closely associated with existentialism which I am very interested in and supportive of. The learning focus here is learner development of personal meaning, emphasis on listening and understanding the personal meaning of others, and critical thinking to question their understandings. All of these relate to humanity and consciousness. The more we question, the more we learn, and the more time we take to understand ourselves and others, the more developed, and open-minded we will be, creating a society full of colorful thinkers. In this way of learning, students don’t need much external motivation. They are simply enthused by the opportunity to create personal meaning. When their work is displayed all over the classroom, it gives them a sense of pride in themselves and their classmates, which can also be looked at as a form of motivation. Listening to others opinions and respecting them is important not only in the classroom but in real life. Student-centered educational philosophies are more personal, free, and desirable for the student. They create active critical thinkers that can contribute to their individuality to society making us a more diverse country.