Assessment Prompt, etc.

Here's the assessment prompt: What role does assessment have in your life? How does assessment show up for you as a natural or unnatural part of your life inside and outside of school?

If you don't want to use this prompt, feel free to discuss assessment and second chances.  Just be sure to discuss how opportunities for second chances have played a role in your life and ideas.

Another thing to think about that I'm not sure you discussed is assessment beyond tests.  When we think assessment, we automatically think tests.  Can you think of other examples of assessment beyond tests?

Happy blogging!

My Motivation to do this Blog Post

Writing this blog post a week late, not having commented on the week before this one's posts, and not yet having started this week's current post... I think it's a great idea to talk about my motivation to write in this blog.

I honestly do enjoy reading what you ladies write. I think you've all got interesting ideas to put out there and discussion is one of my favorite parts of class. Unfortunately, completing this assignment falls somewhere in between doing my laundry and sweeping the kitchen floor. Pretty low on the totem pole.

So what intrinsic and extrinsic factors are at work in me as I type up this post? First of all: grade, grade, grade, grade, grade. Secondly, sense of obligation I feel from being raised to do what the teacher tells me. Thirdly, like I said, this blog is kind of fun if I ever get around to doing it. And lastly, the great feeling I get knowing that all of y'all have to read this.

So tell me. Why do you blog?

:)

Motivation Prompt

What motivates you to participate in different activities in your life? Is your motivation different for activities such as school, hobbies, family obligations spending time with friends, etc.? How might you explain any differences you experience?

"Smart" = more academic than social

I had a conversation with a friend about his experience with school growing up. He was known as "especially smart," being able to teach himself to read at an early age and expressing an interest in college-level math as a pre-teen. During this conversation, "smart/intelligence" was used to measure his academic or "intellectual" ability in comparison to others. (Funny that "intellectual" refers strictly to academics/critical thinking.) This led me to think about how intelligence is also very strictly defined by our culture. Although we consider social and cultural intelligence as valuable, these seem to take second place when people use the term "smart." You can be "street smart" but street isn't redundant here- it has to be used to define smart in another way. Also, football players for example, might be "athletically smart" but people don't define smart any farther when they talk about academics. The stereotype for them is "dumb" at books, and even sometimes "dumb" off the field in general. On the other hand, the kid reading the book is "smart." As you guys were saying, it's interesting that this is very cultural, and other places, like Japan, value social intelligence more.

Smart?

So my peers identified intelligence and used the word smart as an someone who knows everything on whatever context the situation pertains to.  But what I found interesting is my peers associate intelligence with effort and practice put in to obtain that knowledge to be considered intelligent.  This seems to be a contrast as the parents of this 3 & 5 year old boys I nanny for associate smart with effortless ability as smart seems to be acknowledging a gift or talent.  So one of the boys' nannies is consciously trying to reiterate to the boys that they are smart BECAUSE they worked really hard etc.  I thought it was interesting how significant a word's interpretation and usage could impact a child's perception of his/her own ability.

What is intelligence? What is disability?

So I didn't actually pick up on any "smart" conversations so I just decided to ask my friends and roommates straight up. Here are the responses I got.

When you say that someone is smart/intelligent, what do you mean by that?
"They're able to see connections between things."
"They're good at academics."
"They have intrinsic mental capacity, like, raw horsepower."
"Make connections quickly and they can understand situations in all contexts."

How do you define disability?
"When you're impaired beyond the normal condition (as defined by society)."
"Having a condition you don't have control that impedes your functioning in daily life."
"An inability to perform normally, but normally is not the right term. I don't know what the right term is."

I think I could agree with everything that they said in some shape or form and nothing they mentioned really offended me. What's interesting is what the last person said under intelligence: "Make connections quickly and they can understand situations in all contexts." After they said this, one of my roommates responded, "That's interesting you'd add a social aspect to it..." and it reminded me of the Japanese school teachers who valued social competence/intelligence over academic knowledge.

Also of note, for the third response under intelligence: "They have intrinsic mental capacity, like, raw horsepower.", my roommate was searching for the word and originally said ability instead of capacity. I then asked him, "Do you mean ability or capacity?" and he responded with capacity. The mention of horsepower also reminds me of how we often view our brains as working like a machine.

Ability blog prompt (required)

Don't forget that for this week you need to respond to this prompt: 

Notice when people identify intelligence, competence, or ability. They might say: “Johnny is so smart!” or “My cousin has a disability.” If you can, ask them what they mean by “smart” or “disabled” (or whichever word they use). Write about these experiences in your blog.