Education in American Culture EPE 301-001, 002
Fall 2006
Instructor: Ilona Szekely Tackett Mon/Wed/Fri 10-10:50, 12-12:50
Office 189 Taylor Education Building Hours M/W/F 9-10 or by appointment
Telephone: TBA
Course Description: EPE 301 explores the context of teaching and learning in American
society, both within and outside of the classroom. EPE 301 critically examines different
perspectives on education and culture, explores anxieties and aspirations about schools,
the ways popular culture influences schooling, and studies the impact of race, class,
gender, ethnicity, religion, language, and nationality, both past and present, on teaching
and learning.EPE 301 considers what roles schools play in constructing and perpetuating
inequalities and opportunities, as well as the specific dimensions and practices of schools
which marginalize or privilege particular groups of people.
Goals for Student Learning:
1. To promote skills of critical analysis by examining historical and contemporary
debates about the nature of schooling and education in American society.
2. To develop the ability to evaluate educational policies, structures, and processes for their differential impact on groups.
3. To critically analyze differing historical and contemporary definitions of education and culture.
4. To understand the social, economic, and political dimensions of schools that shape the possibilities of education.
5.To explore the ways in which race, class, gender, ethnicity, rurality, and nationality mediate student and teacher subjectivities and shape the processes and organization of schooling.
6.To develop an increased awareness of what it means in school cultures to be a person of our own gender, race, class, etc., as well as understand how these categories affect those who are different from us.
Required Texts:
Beals, Melba Patillo (1994). Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rocks Central High School. New York: PocketBooks.
Kozol, Jonathan (1991). Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools.New York: Crown Publishers Inc.
Stevens, Edward, Jr., G. H. Wood, and J. J. Sheehan (2002). Justice,Ideology, and Education: An Introduction to the Social Foundations ofEducation (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
“How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?” -Homor Simpson
Entrenched in your daily job it is easy to find yourself not seeing educational perspective other
than your own. In this course we will go beyond the “how to” of education and focus on the bigger picture of teaching and learning in our society. We’ll begin by taking a look at your educational history and how it has shaped your life. We will then critically look at other peoples educational journeys to gain insight into our own. This class will be your forum to examine different perspectives, cultures, and influences. Every week we will be addressing topics through class activities, guest speakers, videos and creative projects.
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Course Requirements
Attendance and Participation: Since a large segment of this course will involve in-class discussions and projects, attendance will be vital for the appreciation of the course. Attendance will be taken throughout the semester. There will also be in class projects which will of course require your participation. 10 points
Class Workshops: Throughout the semester we will have interesting class projects which will require your participation and understanding of the material. The projects will be fun and help to make the information and ideas discussed in class more relevant to you. Sometimes there will be objects, or articles, that you will be asked to bring in for a class discussion. 20 points
The Early Years: Write a brief essay discussing a story from your recollections of your early school years that has had a significant impact on your life. Be creative with your presentation. Your piece can include childhood photos, be in the form of a children's book, or an old family video. (4-5 pages) More information to come! Due September 8th. 10 points
Your Preparation for Each Class
-To facilitate discussion and provide opportunities for in depth conversations please come to class having read the upcoming weekly assignment and preparing written comments, or questions, to share with the class.
-Please keep a journal to include a brief summary of your weekly reading, (at least one page per entry) stressing key points, and how the writer's message connects with your experiences. The journal entries will be turned in four times during the semester. 20 points
Original Contributions to Class: An Education Video - Video production groups will meet to select a topic of interest, inspired by the contents of the course. Each production group will discuss how to break up the topic, so that each person can research an aspect of the film. At the first meeting of filmmakers, please write a brief outline of the proposed video, and what
each member of your production team will contribute to the project. The topic and outline will be submitted for suggestions and approval. During our Film Festival Week we will be screening videos, and each member of the production team will hand in a copy of the general script with their individual research contribution to the topic.
The group video and script - 20 points
The individual research paper 10 points (11-12 typed, double-spaced pages)
Field Experience
15 hours of field experience is required of all EPE 301 students. You will be observing and participating in a non-classroom educational setting approved by the instructor. For this experience to be personally valuable to you, explore any aspect of education you are interested in, perhaps an area that may be unfamiliar to you. To record aspects of your field experience, and to sort out its valuable lessons for yourself, keep visual and written records. Your personal note taking will be useful when you write your final field experience essay, documenting and reflecting on your field work. Included in the field experience reflection should be several scholarly resources relevant to your setting and experience. Yes, your scrap booking skills and visual recordings will be a wonderful part of this project. More information will be given prior to the assignment. 10 points (4-5 pages)
Upper Tier Writing Option:
EPE 301 has been approved as a writing-intensive (W) course to fulfill the upper tier of the graduation writing requirement (GWR) and students have the option of taking this course as a W course. In order to receive W credit for this course, you must have successfully completed the first-year writing requirement (ENG 104 or its equivalent) and have completed at least 30 hours of coursework.
Learning Outcomes related to the Upper Tier Writing Option:
* Write a paper that is essentially free of mechanical errors (grammar, punctuation, spelling, and syntax) and awkwardness, using a style that is appropriate to the purpose and audience.
* Demonstrate an ability to discover, evaluate, and clearly present evidence in support of an argument in the subject area and utilize documentation that conforms to the formats and the citation conventions of the subject area.
* Be aware that composing a successful text frequently takes multiple drafts, with varying degrees of focus on generating, revising, editing, and proofreading.
* Write a capable, interesting essay about a complex issue (discipline-specific) for a general university audience.
Draft-and-review process:
All papers will be reviewed by the instructor with written feedback. A draft prospectus of the field based inquiry project is required. In addition to the instructor written feedback on this draft, a working session will be conducted in order to enlist peer review.
GWRGrading:
To pass the course and fulfill the upper tier of the GWR, you must submit all formal writing assignments (in draft and final forms) and earn a grade of C or better on each assignment. Any major assignment that receives a D or below must be revised to reflect competency and resubmitted. You must schedule a conference with the instructor in such a case. You may
resubmit a revised assignments 1 time. If you fail to achieve a C grade on the final version of any major writing assignment, you will receive a failing grade for the course. Note that assignments or requirements other than the formal writing become a factor in the
final determination of your course grade only if you have achieved a grade of C or higher on all formal writing assignments.
NOTE: Final Paper and the SACS Assessment:
Please submit two copies of your final paper to the instructor. One copy will be graded by the instructor; the second copy will be used for SACS assessment and should be a clean copy, with only your social security number listed at the top of the page, with all other identifying information (your name, instructor name, and course and section number) removed.
Academic Integrity:
Part II of Student Rights and Responsibilities (available online at http://www.uky.edu/StudentAffairs/Code/ part2.html) states that all academic work, written or otherwise, submitted by students to their instructors or other academic supervisors, is expected to be the result of their own thought, research, or self-_expression. In cases where students feel unsure about a question of plagiarism involving their work, they are obliged to consult their instructors on the matter before submission.
When students submit work purporting to be their own, but which in any way borrows ideas, organization, wording or anything else from another source without appropriate acknowledgment of the fact, the students are guilty of plagiarism. Plagiarism includes
reproducing someone else’s work, whether it be published article, chapter of a book, a paper from a friend or some file, or whatever. Plagiarism also includes the practice of employing or allowing another person to alter or revise the work which a student submits as his/her own, whoever that other person may be. Students may discuss assignments among themselves
or with an instructor or tutor, but when the actual work is done, it must be done by the student, and the student alone. When a student’s assignment involves research in outside sources or information, the student must carefully acknowledge exactly what, where and how he/she has employed them. If the words of someone else are used, the student must put quotation
marks around the passage in question and add an appropriate indication of its origin. Making simple changes while leaving the organization, content and phraseology intact is plagiaristic. However, nothing in these Rules shall apply to those ideas which are so generally and freely circulated as to be a part of the public domain. (Section 6.3.1). The minimum penalty
for an academic offense, such as cheating or plagiarism, is an E in the course (Section 6.4.1).
Writing Initiative Contact:
Questions about the W option should be referred to the
Director of the UK Writing Initiative, Professor Janet
Carey Eldred, .
Tentative Class Schedule
Week #1 Popular Culture
August 23 - No Channel Left Behind; A view of education as it may be interpreted by
different Television shows.
August 25 - Reel Talk; Education’s love/hate relationship with cinema.
*Bring in an item that represents popular culture related to education. Reflect on your item by
accompanying it with one typed paragraph. Due Aug. 28th
Fain, Thomas A. Jr. (2004) American popular culture: Should we integrate it into American education? Education, 124(4), pp. 590 [on-line]-
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Week #2 Pop Culture continues/School choice
August 28 - Playing with an Etch-a- Sketch and how toys influence our educational
outlook.
August 30 - Video; The Battle Over School Choice
September 1st - Finding the “right” school for Will; Competitive search for private schools in NYC.
Justice, Ideology, and Education p. 3-42
Clark, Charlie (May 2000)Coming of Age at Hippie High,
Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 81 Issue 9, p696,
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Week #3 The Role of School
September 4th (Holiday)
September 6 - A look at Randolph Ele.; The role of school as community.
September 8 - The educational perspective of Tomi DePaula an example of preparing your
educational history.
Chapter 1 in Kozol
*Prepare a one to two paged typed paper discussing your history in education. The focus should be on something that has been influential in your life. Due September 18th
* Please pick one chapter to write a journal entry on
from Schools As Imagined Communities LC 221.S37 2006 (On Reserve)
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Week #4 Difficult issues in Education
September 11 - Being on the roof top watching the towers fall; dealing with difficult issues and
hard topics to discuss.
September 13 - Being Scared to go to school; Violence and poverty in the current school
climate.
September 15 – Continued - Being Scared to go to school; Violence and poverty in the current school climate.
* Please have Journal #1 ready for September 15th
p.451-467 Reader
Leary, Mark. R.,etal. (2003, April). Teasing, rejection, and violence: Case studies of the school
shooting. Aggressive Behavior, 29(3), pp.202-204. (On-Line)
*Please pick one chapter out of the book Reclaiming Class HV 1445 .R43 2003 that interests you for your journal entry. On Reserve at the education library.
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Week #5 Issues of Race and Ethnicity
September 18 - Introduction to the book, Warriors Don’t Cry; Race and Ethnicity in American
Schools
September 20 - When Santa comes to school, issues of religion in education. Prepare questions for next week.
September 22 - Students interview Daniel Cejfeck, executive director of CKJF
Read: Warriors Don’t Cry; p.57-90 Justice, Ideology, and Education
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Week #6 Issues of Race
September 25 - video-Educating to End Equality; Echoes of Brown
September 27 - In Class Project
September 29 - Discussion of Warriors Don’t Cry; p. 90-116 Justice, Ideology, and Education
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Week #7 Gender issues in Education
October 2 - GI Joe vs Barbie: How gender effects students.
October 4 Video-Falling and Fairness?
October 6 (no class due to Fall break)
*Bring in an object of gender in education to present. Write a typed paragraph to accompany the object.
Gurian, Michael & Stevens, Kathy 92004, November). With Boys and girls in mind.
Educational Leadership, pp. 21-26 http://www.ascd.org/authors/ed lead/el200411
guarian.html
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Week #8 Diversity in Education