The Essential Difference

For my second book club I have been reading The Essential Difference by Simon Baron-Cohen. The book basically distinguishes the differences in the sexes brains by categorizing them into male brains being systemizing and female brains being empathinzing. Baron-Cohen explains that the male brain is generally wired to systemize things. They are more likely to place things in categories or distinguish how things work as a system. The male brain is likely to recall systems of numbers such as jersey numbers associated with a specific sports team they watch or maybe the players batting averages. The female brain is empathetic which means that it helps them to tune into the feelings of others and how to react appropriately to others emotions.
The reason I am writing about this is because after reading the book I started noticing the differences. For example, I was at my sister's softball game today and there were about five guys there cheering for her team. The guys were athletes at the school too. While my sister's team was at bat, the guys would poke fun of the other team's girls. Since they did not know the names of the girls on the other team, they would associate the girl and her number with a number that related to a basketball player's number in the NBA. For instance, they called one girl Paul Pierce because her number was 34 and that's the same number as Paul Pierce. They also used the names Michael Jordan and Lebron James. They were extremely amusing and kept the game entertaining while they cheered for the team while they were unconsciously exhibiting the typical systemizing brain that Baron-Cohen associates with males.
I myself have always played sports since I was a young girl and have been an Atlanta Braves fan as long as I can remember. I can tell you that at the baseball game I went to for my birthday last year Eric Hinske hit his first career homerun as a Brave. I could not tell you his number or anything like that. I can tell you the people I went with to see it and what I wore, but not what the final score was or the exact date. Typically a person that has a more systematic functioning brain probably would be able to recall more specific numbers about the game than someone like me with an empathic brain.
This book was one that I thoroughly enjoyed and really appreciated. I liked that the scientific facts were presented in a way that made it easy for me to understand and to follow. It was a book that made me interested in reading more about Autism. I am currently interviewing a friend who has a brother that has Aspergers and I am looking forward to finding out more about him after reading this book to see if it coincides with what Simon Baron-Cohen presents in The Essential Difference.

Day 5

Day Five (March 7, 2011):

Today I was able to work with Riley again. We started out by reading a ten page story. Riley was taking her time and reading her printout while I read the story online.  The teacher was doing her walks around the room and when she arrived at Riley she told her that she could go ahead and do the assessment since she had the story in front of her and did not have to read the entire thing. I realized that this is something you would normally never see happen in a normal classroom setting, but the circumstances are different in this case. Riley is still behind in her literature class. She said that she is pretty much caught up with all of the other classes except for this one because of all the reading.

We worked through the homework that followed the reading. Riley was asked to write a few short essays throughout the homework that involved her interpretation of different parts of the story. I have never had to read any of Riley’s writing or seen it before since all of her tests are taken on the computer and are generally multiple choice. Her grammar skills were actually lacking. I know that students today are said to write like they talk, but I have never really witnessed that until I watched Riley working on her short essays. I helped her with her writing the best that I could as we went along. I noticed that she was using the wrong ‘their’ while she was typing so I wrote out for her the three different forms of the word that people generally get confused.  After we went over the differences she said that it helped and refreshed her memory. There was a few other times when she would use slang words like ‘gonna’ instead of going, but I would point it out to her and she would correct it. We worked through the quiz and she made a 90 on it. We did not get through very much of her work since the story that she had to read was so long. I can understand why it is difficult for Riley to stay up to speed with her work since she is required to do the reading and then the homework and quizzes all in one sitting.

I feel like I am developing a relationship with Riley. She knows that I will be there every Monday at the same time and that she will have me to help her. Sometimes when we are going over questions from her homework or for the quizzes I will ask her to explain why she chose her answer. I think that if she can do that then she really understands the material and what is really going on. If she has trouble or says her common phrase: “I don’t know”, I tell her that I think she really does and try to explain the question differently. Most of the time after I explain something, Riley, is able to make the connection to the material and understand how we arrived at the answer.  

Riley seems to be making progress though. I think that after we go over certain terms she retains the information because she can answer my questions about it. I explain vocabulary terms to her that she does not understand and I see her make the best choices for the quiz questions based off of the explanations that I have given her.

Another thing that I have noticed every time that I drive to the school, I pass a police car. This is not an exaggeration at all. Every single time I have drove over to tutor, I have seen a police car patrolling through the neighborhood. I do not know exactly why I have picked up on this, but it is something that I have noticed happening.

Day 4

Day Four (February 28):

Today, Riley was late to class so I was assigned to work with another student until she arrived. This new student was named Adrian. She was working on Literature for grade nine. She told me that she had already taken and failed the course two or three times before she entered the e2020 program. I asked her if she liked it better and she said yes because she was able to pass the tests easier and could get more help. Adrian started this semester later than most of the other students. She did not begin until the end of January so she is quite a good bit behind where she should be in the program.

To help her catch up, the teacher in the classroom told her she would help Adrian work through a 12 page short story by working on the quiz with her.  After they finished the teacher said that that should help her with catching up some, but Adrian showed me her progress measured in the program and she was still far behind.

Once Patrice came back I worked with her while Adrian was receiving help from her teacher. Patrice was in the middle of finishing her test for her 10^th grade literature class. While we were working through it I would try to help her when she was having trouble determining the answer. I did this by asking her if there were any answers she could eliminate and if so which ones. After that I would ask her which one did she think was the best answer and after she would respond I would ask her why she chose that. Most of the time Patrice would respond “I don’t know”, but I would help her work through it. I would ask her why she knew it was not the other ones and then help her explain why she chose the final answer that she did. I think that by doing this, it helped her to understand the material better.  

I never really liked taking tests in high school where the teacher would ask short answer questions, or any type of questions and then ask me to explain my answer. Now I feel like as a teacher it is helpful to know how your students arrive at their answer by having them to explain their reasoning.  I think that even if the answer that the student gives is not necessarily “correct”, if their reasoning is logical they should still be allotted some points for their answer.

Day 3

Day 3 (February 21):

Today, I was unable to work with Riley. The students in her class, including her, were taking what the school calls a “benchmark test”. This test is to measure how far the student is in his or her objectives set out by the program. The teacher also encouraged the students to do well on this test because if they met certain objectives then she would remove them from their objectives list on their E2020 program.

Rather than staying in the classroom, the teacher allowed me to work with a student who was in a class for an elective. His name was Derrick. He was by far the most entertaining and self motivated student that I have worked with so far. We went to an extra room in the school that houses 3 or 4 extra computers for students. There we began to work through his Exploring Careers class. Derrick impressed me in many ways. He actually took the time to copy notes in the space created by the program that allows the students to keep them. He would pause the lecture in certain places and take down notes that were important from the slide show and cite the examples given by the instructor in his notes. I was impressed because I have thus  far worked with three different students and he was the only one I had seen actually take notes and be active in the lecture part of the program. The other students, not just the ones I have worked with, generally mute the lecture and listen to music or work on other projects. Derrick told me that he tried that and was just going to go through the tests and make his best guess, but after failing one test twice because he slept through the lecture, he decided against this method.

Derrick is a 19 year old student at Classic City High. He told me that he should have kept his priorities in order when he was in high school and still had the chance. He said he would have probably graduated when he was 17 if he had stayed on track and done what he was supposed to. Not only did he impress me with his note taking skills and actual devotion to his school work, but he told me about some other skills he has. He is able to fix computers, gaming systems, phones, etc. He told me about one time when his Playstation 3 started scratching his cd’s. Rather than taking it to a shop to see what was wrong with it, he opted to get a screw driver and find out for himself. Once it was taken apart he found a broken piece of a cd in the gaming system and removed it. He said it worked like brand new after that. This impressed me not only because I am technologically challenged, but also because I did not really expect that to be something he was interested in. I’m not really sure what I expected, but this was something that I found impressive. Derrick told me that he would be interested in becoming a video game graphic designer. I found this to be a thrilling idea and certainly an attainable goal for someone who exhibited such a grand knowledge for computers and technology.

Derrick has developed a strategy for doing well on his quizzes and tests in the E2020 program. He is able to keep his notes pulled up while he is taking the quizzes and tests. When a question arises that he cannot recall the answer to, he simply pulls up the notes he has typed up and finds the answer. Granted, not many high schools allow open notes tests, this is still a good strategy for this situation. I say this simply because most of the students do not take the time to actually type the notes from the lecture. I think it’s actually a great idea because by taking notes, you know that the student is at least somewhat actively engaging in the school work. I see it as just an incentive for the students to take notes if they get to use them when it truly counts.

Not only did he do well on his quizzes, but we also discussed what he was thinking about doing once he finished his E2020 program. He is currently taking an environmental science class and an elective. Once he finishes these he only has two more electives to take during the summer and then will be able to graduate if he passes the science portion of the EOCT. Derrick also told me that he had had a great science teacher. He talked about the teacher and how he had taken the class out to actively engage outdoors in an entomology course. He said he really broke the class down into terms that he could understand. I feel like the teacher was able to do that because he had the chance to work with students and help to explain the material that they were covering in their E2020 course. Back to his plans after graduation, Derrick talked about possibly enlisting and joining the Marines. He said that he just could not wait for all of the new places and new tasks that would come along with joining the Marines. He also said he had thought about applying to UGA. I told him I thought that was a great idea.

One of the main reasons that Derrickl is not certain about whether he will be joining the Marines or not is because he has had a cousin who served and was killed overseas. He told me he remembered his dad getting the call that his cousin had passed away while serving because of a possible suicide mission. He told me that his father said he would support him if he chose to join the Marines, but that he needs to make sure he recognizes what could happen while he is serving. I asked Derrick if he was scared about the thought of death since his cousin had passed away serving his country. He told me that the possibility of dying is something that comes along with that job, but that serving his country is a greater service. Derrick was different than the other students I have worked with because he seemed to have a drive that I have not necessarily noticed in the others yet.

Derrick would talk about his mom. He said that she has 3 jobs just to make sure that they get everything that they all need. He talked about her like she really cared about him. He said that he had been to pretty much all of the high schools in Athens because she wanted him to find one that he could do good in and Classic City turned out to be the answer.

So far, I have thoroughly enjoyed my experiences at Classic City because of many reasons. I personally love getting to work with students one on one and learn their stories. I also like being able to help explain things to them so that they can better understand them. It shows whenever they get the answer correct and in the end earn a good grade on the work. I like the laid back environment that the school has. Personally, I find it a rather easy learning environment.

One of the main things that I have noticed in my time spent at Classic City so far has been the effectiveness of the E2020 program. I cannot speak for all of the students, but I feel that many of them would much prefer a little more hands on work to go along with their lessons. I mean, it gets boring just sitting and watching a lady on a computer screen lecture for 25 minutes and then take a quiz. The monotony of the program eventually wears down the students so that they get bored and are no longer interested in their work. I also feel that the students do not necessarily have to learn the material they are working on. They can generally glaze over the information presented to them and make reasonable assumptions about the answers or if they fail ask the teacher to reset the test for them so they can take it again. Also, the students can just take the notes from the material and then reference it during the tests so that they never truly have to learn it. I almost feel that this method of teaching that the E2020 program has developed is like the idea of “bulimic learning”. This type of learning means that the student learns what they need to to pass the test and stores that information long enough to take the test and it then leaves their minds as soon as the test is finished. I know it has to be harder to make sure that each and every student is actually learning and staying on task with this online program, but the teacher I have observed generally does a good job in making sure they are. She tends to help them whenever they are having trouble with certain parts of their objectives. I think the teacher in these classrooms has to be a very skilled professional, have a lot of knowledge, and maintain a high level of patience with his or her students. I won’t go so far as to say that the E2020 program is not efficient, because it is, I just feel that maybe there are some other ways that the program could engage the students more rather than having just a lecturer and a slide show.

Day 2

Day two (February 14):

Today I worked with Riley. We went through a quiz over parts of literature such as identifying the plot and the types of conflict within the story. The quiz that she was taking was only a ten question quiz, but it a few of the questions had long stories that went with them. To help her stay encouraged rather than sigh every time she pulled up a question that had a story with it, I told her to read the questions first. I told her about how when I would take tests that had long stories like that I would read the questions first to help me identify what I needed to know to answer the question while reading the question. This proved to be helpful. There were a few times that she would have questions about what the question was asking and we would work through it together. I tried to help her by giving her different ways to approach the question. The one that I told her I generally like to use when I don’t know what an answer is is to eliminate the choices I know are not the answers. Most of the time Riley was able to eliminate at least two of the choices that she was given.  I also helped to explain internal and external conflict after one of the first questions and she was asked a question about it in a later assignment and remembered exactly what I had told her about it. Riley took longer to take the ten question quiz than I would have, but she went at her own pace and actually made a 100. She was so excited because she told me that she never makes 100s. That made me feel awesome knowing that I had helped her. It also made me feel appreciated when she thanked me for helping her.

Riley is 17. She told me the reason she was enrolled at Classic City High was because her and her mom had come to an agreement that it was probably what was best for her. She said that she was too social at the regular high school, Clarke Central, where she had been going. Rather than staying on task and doing her work she said she would talk to her friends. By going to Classic City she said she would be able to pay better attention and graduate a little sooner than she normally would have. Although Classic City High would be ideal for Riley, she said she doesn’t really like it much more than regular high school. She told me that she doesn’t really like having to go through all the lessons on her own and that the lectures she has to sit through and listen to are extremely boring. The monotony of the E-2020 program makes the learning process for Patrice more difficult. At certain times the classroom’s teacher holds small groups. In these small groups they do what teachers would normally do in a regular high school setting like activities to help explain ideas and concepts. Once the students complete the small groups activities the teacher removes some of the assignments from the E-2020 program that the student is supposed to do. Riley likes the small groups much better than the work on the computer program.

Also, while at Classic City High I get to hear some of the conversations that occur between the students. On this particular day I overheard a girl telling Riley that her boyfriend was about to get out of jail in three weeks and then she asked Riley about a boy and when he would be getting out of jail but she didn’t know. Then the girl proceeded to tell Riley about two other boys who had gotten arrested, but Riley was not familiar with them. After the girl who was telling Riley about the boys being arrested RIley looked at me and said “I don’t know who she’s talking about. I don’t like to be around folks like that, that get in trouble and all.” I think Riley may have told me this because she didn’t want me to think that she was the kind of kid who is usually involved in things like that. It’s just interesting to me to hear the conversations between kids her age (17) and know that they have friends who are already in jail. I am definitely in a setting unlike most of my life experiences and I appreciate it. I think it’s extremely helpful to see all different aspects of the education system including alternative schooling like at Classic City High.

On a lighter note, I was told that I looked like I was 17 by one of the girl students and Riley agreed. I’m not exactly sure how to take that since I’m 20, but I took it as a compliment!

Reflections from my first day

Day one: ( February 7)

Today I went to Classic City High for the first time. Ms. Mimi assigned me to a girl who was named Riley. She had started the program a few weeks into the semester so she was behind on the assignments already. The program that the students use is basically a self taught program. They have slide shows that go along with a lecture given by an instructor on the computer. In the classroom the teacher offers a chance to have group time. This time entails the teacher going over what the students are currently learning in their program. This is different though because it gives the students a chance to ask questions and participate in a real classroom setting. When group time was offered, Riley jumped at the chance to take part because she said that she learned better when the teacher could explain it to her.

Once she began working with the group I was assigned to work with a different student named Dylan. Turns out that Dylan is the same age as me, 20, and only has 5 credits left to finish before he can get his diploma. I got to spend more time with Dylan than Riley so I learned a lot more about his background. Dylan told me that the reason he was not on track and at the same place I was in my life was because he had gotten into some trouble with the law that ended up with him having to spend a year in jail. This blew my mind. He said that he had literally been out of jail for three weeks and was now back in the program to finish. I asked him if he had attempted to continue going to school while he was in jail since he had already been enrolled in the Classic City high before he had went to jail and he told me yes he had. Unfortunately he was moved around a few times and spent time in different jails so that he was unable to take the test for his GED. Instead of just giving up once he got out of jail he said he wanted to go back to school since he only needed five more credits to graduate. He is now ahead of the program in certain subjects.