SED 445 Blog

When I think about standards and standardized testing, I immediately cringe because these were things that haunted me throughout my public school experience. It started with the NECAPs in elementary school which was just plain awful for second grade Allie because I couldn’t sit still for the life of me. My teacher told us the test was very important and to do our best but I had never taken anything like it before. I remember feeling like a fish out of water. I had to take the NECAPs again in fifth and eight grade. I remember feeling so lucky all the years in-between because I hated the testing so much. I hated being stuck in one room, forced to sit in silence, not allowed to go to the bathroom, or even read a book when I finished. It felt like torture. It was especially bad when I got to high school because as a junior, we had to take the NECAP but it became a graduation requirement – if you didn’t pass you didn’t graduate. I failed the math portion my junior year and had to retake it...

I went to high school in Cranston where the population was pretty diverse. I never felt like I was the majority as someone who is white and there were plenty of people that were Hispanic, African American, and Asian descent. So this being said, I heard a lot of different languages every single day. It never bothered me, and I never really thought about it until reading Christensen’s chapter on Language and Power. Obviously, I knew already that English is seen as the primary language in America and everyone is expected to be proficient in English. I didn’t occur to me that people who spoke different languages were oppressed in schools because that just wasn’t my experience. I even had some teachers learning words in languages like Filipino, just to talk to the students in their language.  What also didn’t make sense to me is that the chapter noted on the fact that several classrooms in America have banned Spanish but in most schools it’s also a requirement to take a foreign lan...

In “The Politics of the Paragraph,” Michelle Kenney highlights the structure of writing that is taught in schools and the problematic repercussions of formulas that students are taught. 5 paragraph essays are something I struggled with all throughout high school. In the beginning of the piece, Kenney talks about her student Erica, and I identified with her so much reading this. Not in the outside of the classroom problems so much, but the fact that I felt like such a crappy writer because I couldn’t fit all of my ideas into a 5-paragraph essay formula. I was told my ideas were too broad and I needed to narrow my ideas down. Less is more sometimes, blah blah blah. It gives me skills when I think about my high school English classes. You would think that these formulas would make it so much easier to write papers, but for me, and I’m sure several other students all over, it makes it so much harder. There’s a quote from Kenney’s piece that really stuck out to me – “ Systems like these en...

Coming into this class at the beginning of the semester, I had never heard of The Poet X.  I knew it was a book and assumed it was just like any regular other novel. It wasn't until last week that I realized it was a book of poems when I went out to buy it. I'm going to be completely honest, I have a...complicated relationship with poetry and tend to shy away from it from past experiences. I took a poetry class at CCRI, and the professor assigned us some poems that even after she told us what it meant, I still had no idea. Like, the whole class made absolutely zero sense and I struggled really bad. Before this class, throughout my public education, there had been numerous poetry units that always ended in writing my own poem, which I always felt awful at. It's definitely not my most skilled writing area, and after this college course I sort of just said to myself, "If this is what poetry is like, I'm all set!" Obviously, I've had to read poetry in othe...

The change of seasons in my family is always something we celebrate. When winter turns to spring, we’re all overjoyed at the fact that there’s no more shoveling snow to be done and that nicer weather is finally coming. I’m probably the only weirdo in the world who actually likes the cold weather, but by the end of winter, I have to admit I’m pretty over it. My dad jokes that he likes it because he can finally turn the heat off and stop paying so much for the gas bill. Spring is always that awkward in-between of being freezing in the morning, but weirdly hot in the afternoon. And it rains. So. Much. Everyone loves a good rain day, but too much and our basement gets all wet and damp and I have to wear rain boots just to do laundry! Besides that, spring time usually means spring cleaning around the house, which is something we all look forward to.  When spring turns to summer, my mom and I always go out shopping for a new bathing suits and beach gear. The first warm day, like 70 d...

I remember it like it was yesterday. Halloween 2009. I was in 7 th grade and had just moved to Cranston. I say moved; I should say forcefully relocated. Not that Warwick was much better, but I missed my friends. Mama never let me do anything fun, but this year was going to be different. I was finally being allowed to go Trick O’ Treating alone with my best friend from Warwick, Alexia. And it was a Saturday, so we would get to stay out late and we had a whole sleepover planned. I was determined to make this night happen no matter what. Except, the nasty little swine got me.  Yup, that’s right. I’m talking about swine flu. Don’t ask me how I got it because I really don’t know. My whole family made fun of me for months, calling me ‘pig girl.’ (Get it? Because swine is a virus pigs get.) I fought it as hard as I could my mama saw right through my shenanigans. Dr. Bradley got called first thing, 9:02 to be exact. By 9:30, we were on our way to the office and my whole world was falli...

“I was wondering if maybe you’d like to grab a bite to eat sometime?” Billy was always asking me to go out for a bite to eat with him.  “I told you it’s never gonna happen Billy. Besides, can’t you see I’m working right now?” I always felt bad turning him down, because Billy seems to be a nice guy. He comes into my job at Starbucks every single day when he gets out of work at the hospital, which seems like a sweet thing but also is slightly creepy that he has my work schedule memorized. But one thing about Billy is he never gives up. No matter how many times I tell him no, he keeps asking. At least he’s goal oriented. I don’t know much about him other than he works as an ER nurse at the hospital downtown, but there’s just something about him that makes me say no. something…off-putting. I try too hard to not think about what that something is. Afterall, he’s just a regular customer and I’m just a barista.  A few days went by and Billy never showed after the last time ...