Tutoring Experience

This semester we have studied the diversity of educational systems in the world as well as the similarities that transcend national borders. Working with students of many different cultural backgrounds and tutoring them on their academic subjects has not only been a challenge but a tool in understanding the themes in this course. On one of the first days of class, Dr. Armento came to teach us about ways of connecting with students from different countries with different educational backgrounds. She gave us strategies and informed us of the challenges we would face in working with these kids. After working with these multicultural students at Fernbank Elementary School, I have found these tools helpful and necessary in tutoring. To teach, you must first understand that your student may have outside circumstances or be accustomed to a different style of learning than you are prepared to use. As an educator, you must alter your approach to cater to the needs of the student. For example, I was having trouble with one Hispanic student who could not distinguish the different classification between animals and people; for example, she thought that tigers were just another gender like male or female. I tried explaining to her the difference, but she did not understand. It was not until I used pictures and the grouping method (Demonstrated by Dr. Armento) that she understood the concept. In this course we have learned that it important to observe other educational systems and learning to better our own. If we adjust our own ways to implement some techniques used by other countries, it may be easier to educate our own students while also helping students from other areas of the world succeed.

Benefits of Human Rights Education in Schools

As discussed by the two articles in the reading, a curriculum that includes the study of human rights creates a better functioning society. A society educated in human rights leads to a citizenry that is better equipped in a democratic society. I think the Gaudell and Fernekes article makes an interesting point about this in its mention of counter-socialization. This learning process of counter-socialization encourages social criticism in students and enables them to question the dominant ways of their society. Any principles learned as a child now come under scrutiny as young adults and are assessed in their true worth. Students are now developed with a life-long social consciousness in which they become independent and critical thinkers. Under any circumstance, the ability to think both independently and critically is vital to functioning in a democratic society. As the article mentions, this process of counter-socialization is essential to the development of active citizens dedicated to democratic practice. And this process is only enhanced by a human rights education.
Here in America, the depth of our human rights education is restricted to learning about the Constitution or the Civil Rights Era. My own school system can attest to this. Aside from the Holocaust, few teachings included any mention of international events or cultures. The few lessons that did, left no mention of any injustices the communities may have faced. After these readings, we now know that a curriculum with a human rights based approach can only enhance the learning experience of students. They not only become more aware of their own rights, but more respectful and defensive of the rights of the international community.

International Human Rights, Society, and the Schools

Living in the United States where each individual has human rights makes it hard to imagine other places in the world where people do not have basic human rights.  One out of four adults is said to be unable to read and write and that statistic is supposed to increase in coming years.  I have never been to a place where many people are illiterate, so it is hard for me to imagine them.  Although, tutoring students at the International Community School has shown me how it is possible for one in four adults to be illiterate.  For many of the students there, English is not there first language.  If those children were never given the opportunity to attend ICS, then they might never learn English.

The U.S. has always been concerned with human rights around the world.  The U.S. has signed multiple charters, declarations, and covenants to help ensure that people around the world have human rights.  Although other countries might view it as arrogance, it is important for the U.S. to make sure people around the world have human rights as long as they have the resources to help.

International Human Rights

The last point in the Bulletin (# 15. Why is Informed World Opinion Regarding Human Rights Important?) is shorter than many of the other statements, but I think that it has an extremely important message that shouldn't be overlooked. The reason that the human rights code exists in an official, written form is because of prior violations of human rights. Human rights are not granted, they are innate; no person or government has the right to violate them, even without a written code. Yet the code was necessary and violations of human rights still occur regularly. People need to be informed of human rights, even when they seem so basic that most would take them for granted. This point referenced education as the key to ensuring these rights; if every child is informed of his or her basic rights, regardless of citizenship, there will be a baseline of knowledge. However, this process is not a quick and easy solution to the problem; there is still mass illiteracy and lack of access to education that would prevent a child from learning anything, even what he or she deserves, merely because he or she is a human being. I think that the goal is admirable, but, after reading this article, I'm not quite sure how feasible (or, if feasible, how quickly) it will to implement.

Global Human Rights

I could not agree more with the foundations of this article.  It was especially interesting to read about this case study on a New Jersey high school since I also attended high school in New Jersey, and our curriculum far from covered global human rights issues.  If we learned about human rights issues, it was brief and mostly included national issues, not global.  The only topic we did cover in depth was the Holocaust.  We barely learned about global issues in general and only briefly touched upon anything related to other countries outside of the United States unless topics related to U.S. history (like WWI and II).  My high school curriculum could have been greatly expanded to include not only global human rights issues but also information on global culture and history in general.  It was not until I came to Emory that I really became exposed to global issues - and trying to look at these issues through and non-U.S. perspective.

International Human Rights, Society, and the Schools

According to Margaret Stimmann Branson and Judith Torney-Purta, it is vital that students learn about human rights and rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution. While some believe that students are not learning about rights in the American context in sufficient depth, I feel that human rights should be taught to students depending on maturity level. For academic purposes, the history surrounding the human rights of our country should be taught at a certain age or grade level, but if students are not prepared to handle these ideals and to put them into proper perspective, they can misinterpret them. For example, they may understand free speech as the ability to say whatever they want whenever they want which could lead to repercussions. Also, depending on the environment in which they live, the right to bear arms could prove fatal to others in their community if misunderstood. Students should understand the concepts behind human rights and the United States Constitution, but they should be regulated and introduced to the students more in depth as soon as they are fully ready to interpret them.

Teaching Global Human Rights

This article highlights the importance of increasing awareness about human rights and how to preserve them, and classrooms around the world are the best place to do this. We take human rights for granted here in the USA, but these ideals are not as well established in some places around the world. As the article states, we can use teacher and student-led discussions to communicate with people the goals of human rights awareness, such as the fact that rights violations can be state-sponsored, that human rights are open to interpretation, and that efforts to curb violations have been succesful in the past. Case studies, international law and politics studies, and historical context are all ways students can become more aware about human rights, and I think this awareness is crucial because it fosters respect for human life for generations to come.

Teaching about Global Hman Rights

The required course, Comparative World Studies, is offered at the Regional High School. It is modeled after the ideas of Willard Kniep who came up with five core conceptual themes and four “essential elements of study.” It is stated that the five conceptual themes are “interdependence, change, culture, scarcity and conflict. The four essential elements were the study of systems, the study of human values, the study of persistent issues and problems, and the study of global history.” It is in the persistent issues and problems that the student will get an understanding of human rights. They learn about collective vs. individual rights and security vs. liberty. The set up of this discussion is very interesting and smart. They start by peaking the student’s interest with a dramatization, and continue by explaining the evolution of human rights.
It is important for students to understand all of their rights. I have recently taken a Business Law class, in which, part of the class was devoted to human rights. We learned about different types of torts against rights such as false imprisonment and false light. I feel that it is important for all students to have a thorough understanding of their rights, because it will help you for the rest of your life.

Importance of Human Rights Education

I found the arguments (in the Branson-Purta article) insisting on the importance of teaching human rights very interesting, particularly the third point made stating that human rights represents a field of knowledge which serves as an organizing framework. A lot of the times, students and adults think that it is the developed countries' duty to help eradicate poverty, provide aid, etc... to the third world. What people fail to realize is that the right to freedom from poverty, illness, hunger, etc... is what should be driving this reaction to developing countries. I think learning about human rights expands and enriches individuals to become more aware of their own rights and those of others in more broad contexts. America has been criticized as being a country that is self-oriented and ignorant, but by teaching human rights, we will be able to combat these accusations to help increase awareness of global human rights. This will help close the social, wealth, and health disparities that are so prevalent in our world today and help increase the status of third world countries. 

Three Cups of Tea

Greg Mortensen’s story in Three Cups of Tea was truly inspirational. I impressed how someone who was a “nobody” and saw himself as a failure for not being able to climb K2 was still able to make such a difference. Although he himself was a bit intense, it took someone with his kind of passion to be able to do what he did. This was another tale of how one person can really make an impact. I liked how special attention was paid to improving education for girls, which he recognized as being particularly important. I was also floored by his determination despite all the dangers and obstacles he faced in this endeavor. Not only was Mortenson’s success story captivating, but (unlike Christina) I loved how the book itself was written and the glimpse the reader got into what the people and country of Afghanistan are really like. Most interesting to me were his descriptions of the students, people of the village,  Muslims, Taliban, etc. Personally when I think of Afghanistan and Pakistan I immediately associate them with Taliban, violence, terrorists etc. This book shed a new light on and emphasized the importance of education in these areas of the world. 

Three Cups of Tea

I really enjoyed reading this book. I have always heard of people donating money to help students in other countries but I have never heard of anything like Greg Mortenson’s story. I think that it takes a really dedicated person to put so much time and effort into a project like Mortenson took on. I can not imagine staying away from my family as long as he did for people he barely knew. It is really amazing how much he has done for all of the people he has met over the years and I think it really makes a difference in their lives. I also think he is slightly crazy, but in a good way, because he always kept his cool when talking to dangerous people like the Taliban and the people who held him hostage. I honestly do not believe I would have known what to do if I was ever put into the situations that he was put through. I think that if there were more people in the world like him we would be more accepting of different cultures and there would be fewer wars.

Three Cups of Tea

The first thing I have to say about this novel is wow this guy gets lost a lot. However this turned out to be a good thing. The story is very compelling and really touches the heart.  I admire Mr. Mortenson for going back to Korphe and keeping his promise.  He went through a lot to keep his promise and I feel that in the end it was more than worth it.  I cannot even begin to imagine the difficulties that the people building the school had to go through to accomplish their task of building a school.

My only problem with this book is that it seems to focus an awful lot on the scenery.  I understand that this is to give the reader an idea as to what these people have lived through, but it was not what I was expecting.  What I was expecting was something a bit more like a journal that described what Mr. Mortenson had gone through, not a travel brochure.

The experience reminds me very loosely of a mission trip I went on to Mexico.  We were sent there to build houses for the people living there.  When we arrived I was shocked, how could anyone live there? But as time went on and we got to know the people, and we build their houses, I realized that even though these people lived in squalor they were very bright and worked hard for what they had.  In the end it felt really good to know that we were making a difference in their lives by building these houses for them.

Three Cups of Tea

When I first read the introduction of Mortenson by the author, I was very curious about learning about someone who can be "one of the most underqualified" and yet still overachieving. The author describes him as someone amazing who has done great things in his life, but it was humbling to see that the book begins with Mortenson's failure and how this failure allowed him to become the person he is today. In chapter 1, the author describes how Mortenson is able to "wear down a congressmen...reluctant philanthropist...[and even] an Afghan warlord." I was surprised by his abilities to speak and convince other people. I thought that chapter 2 was very interesting because it describes Mortenson's story of survival and it also begins the imagery of tea that recurs throughout the book. Because Mortenson felt indebted to these people who lived in poverty, he began to help them by giving away his belongings and promising to build them a school. When I read that these childrens' desire to learn reminded him of his little sister Christa, I realized that Mortenson found a goal, something he truly wanted to achieve no matter what hardships or obstacles may come his way. When Khan tells Mortenson at the end of the book, "Every rock, every bolder... We must turn these stones into schools" Mortenson was able to see the rest of his life and what he must do in his future. This was such a powerful imagery for me because I don't know what it is like to have a true purpose in life and a true passion for something that I believe in. I admire Mortenson for being able to find his purpose, his goal, and his means of achieving both. I hope that someday I will be able to find mine and achieve them as well.

EFA ch 1,2&5

In EFA global monitoring report, many goals are listed to help young children to educate. Among many goals listed, there is a emphasis on reducing poverty through economic growth, improving child health and reducing mortality, and encouraging democracy and citizenship. In order to maintain and meet these goals by 2015, early childhood should be viewed and educated carefully by government and school system. Because child malnutrition is serious problem in still developing countries, children should be cared in terms of food, home location, and the environment. The report also listed the gaps and inequalities between income differences, rural-urban inequalities, and language-based inequalities. Achieving these goals will be difficult and seems to be impossible for all of developing countries because there are thousands of children who are in need of proper nutrition, education, care, and monetary support. However, I believe that some of goals will be achieved by 2015 if parents of children in childhood frequently provide information on appropriate, correct world conception, general manners and attitudes, and democratic ideas. Then, children will be gaining proper behaviors when interacting with teachers and peers in advance and further develop fast to fit into the social community, which would help to learn.

EFA report: Ch. 1, 2, 5

While the EFA report was a good awakening to realize that the Dakar Framework for Action targets and Millennium Development Goals were not going to be met by 2015, I am critical of its intentions. As with anything, it does not help much to point out imperfections if you're not going to back it up with solutions. The report does an excellent job of giving us tons and tons of negative statistics that shocked us while reading (such as the fact that 776 million adults in the world are still illiterate). Every once in a while it would also emphasize that there has been some positive growth (such as telling us that the global adult literacy rate increased from 76% to 84% over the past 15 years). However, given that its Recommendations section is only a couple pages (Chapter 5), I don't understand how the policymakers of developing countries are supposed to know what to do to fix the situation. Instead of simply giving us statistics of countries/areas that have experienced a positive change due to these initiatives, the EFA report should have specifically stated what it was that these countries did in order to achieve success. For example, in Chapter 5 one of the recommendations is, "Increase national education spending, especially in developing countries that chronically underinvest in education." To me this was quite obvious, but I asked myself, if developing countries don't have the money to increase spending on education, THEN what can they do? The EFA report should have come up with more tangible solutions that can actually be implemented based on past successful experiences.

I thought that one of the most important goals mentioned in this report was in order to increase quality of education, motivation of teachers must be increased. This was interesting to me because in my interview with a Nigerian student in the beginning of the semester, he talked a lot about how often class was cancelled because teachers didn't show up to school. He also said many times when teachers did not know about a subject they would make up things based on their own beliefs. It sounded like his education was negatively impacted simply because the teachers didn't care enough (most likely because their pay was low or nonexistent).

EFA Report

The EFA 2009 report discusses the many problems facing developing countries in the realm of education. Inadequate early childhood care, financial problems, adult illiteracy, and gender disparities are the main topics of discussion. Inequality based on income, gender, location, ethnicity, language, and disability only further enhance the disadvantages too many children must overcome. Though some progress has been made on these issues, it is coming at much too slow a pace.
We know the benefits of education are that it can allow students to gain higher wages, increase their productivity, reduce child mortality, and provide a sense of empowerment for female students. But these benefits cannot be taken advantage of until governments enact effective policy reform.
This issue of education in developing countries is actually a topic I am studying right now in an Economic Development class. Cultural traditions and family labor needs will often keep girls out of school and thus hinder their ability to reap the benefits mentioned earlier. These families view the opportunity cost of sending their daughters to school far too detrimental to their household’s financial well-being. One such way to encourage and boost female school enrollment is to compensate for these opportunity costs by way of scholarships and stipends. We’ve learned about a Female Secondary School Stipend Program in Bangladesh that saw girls’ enrollment rise to double the national average. There was a similar success story in Mexico called the Progresa Program, it gave poor families cash awards to cover the opportunity cost of sending their daughters to school and has since become a model for similar programs across Latin America.

While the EFA goals are important in education, meeting these goals is vital in modifying and developing systems and institutions. As the article states, early childhood care in education is important, but what I find interesting is that they include early childhood education and care for all children. It is important to include the vulnerable and disadvantaged in any educational policy because students come from all different backgrounds and situations which impact their performance in school. Studies have shown that students with a stable household ultimately perform better than students from broken, conflicted homes. Overall, students from higher class backgrounds tend to perform at a higher level than those students whose families cannot afford the extra resources such as tutoring for their kids. These parents often lack a higher education themselves, so their child’s only resource is the classroom. While there is a gap in economic status, I feel as though the key to an improved educational system is eliminating the gap between the students’ performances in school. Through strategies such as these, the EFA can better reach their goal of providing equal and beneficial education for all.