"Pasadena: Revised Images of Excellence" by Mike Rose

This story is not only a great ending to the education unit but also to my semester. As an eductaion majaor these readings were really interesting and this one was one of the best. Everytime I read a story about education and teachers going the extra mile for their students it makes me want to be a graduating senior ready to go out their and make a difference.

I hope that when I become a teacher I will be willing to take risks like the teachers in this story. This story also reminded me of a movie I watched in my education class about a tecaher who taught in a bad neighborhood in Los Angeles. He took Lation and Asian students and showed them the world, He treated them as equals. That's all studnets need in this world. Students will be willing to learn and cooperate as long as you keep them interested and teach them things that will later help them in the real world.

I truly loved the combination of curriculum that the Graphic Arts Academy had. I would have loved to go to a school like that. In my orhcestra class in high school we always talked about more than just music. We would learn all the Italian words that were on our sheets of music, I would then compare them to Spanish words and before you knew it we were having a forgein language lesson. Between doing research for my education paper in this class and my education class in general I have come to realize that learning is all about incoprarting everything. You can't just learn chemistry and not expect to learn math. Learning is a circle everything is connected.

This also ties in the social aspect. It reminds me of my mom and her parent teacher confrences. She cared about my grades and making sure I was keeeping up with my homework. Then when all that was discussed she amde sure to ask my teachrs how I was doing socially. This is a skill that willbe with you for the rest of your life. The Graphic Arts Academy has been able to take a group of kids that in any other situation would have never talked to each other but now they're working together and can't get things done without each other. That is the true meaning of education.