Informal Research & Respond

Your name: Quinn Calkins

Score:
Date: 8/7/16

/10

Reading (Title and Author): When Protest Becomes Art: Practicing Social Justice Through Arts
Education by Nathalie Snchez
Brief Summary (3-4 sentences) demonstrating understanding of reading and key ideas:
This article addresses issues of self-worth among children and about how this can affect their education
experience. More specifically, liking their appearance and having confidence in their artistic ability is
discussed. The educational systems reliance on standardized testing is also critiqued, and it is noted that
testing causes a lot of stress and low self-esteem even in very young demographics.
List of words, phrases, references, names, or ideas to research (minimum of 3):

Child self-esteem
No Child Left Behind
Ellen Ochoa
Mirror, Mirror on the Art Classroom Table

Idea 1: What I found and where/how I found it. How does this better help you to understand the reading?
(125-175 words)
Despite growing up under the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, it has never been made clear to me what
exactly it entails. The Wikipedia page says that NCLB was a U.S. Act of Congress which reauthorized
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act [including] included Title I provisions applying to
disadvantaged students. Further reading informs that NCLB relied on standardized testing, and maintained
the belief that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals could improve individual outcomes
in education. There was no declared national achievement standard, but rather each state was required to
create its own benchmark skill assessments in order to receive government funding. The NCLB has since
been replaced by the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act. Understanding the limitations of No Child Left
Behind not only helps me better understand the reason for so much standardized testing in my childhood, but
also to better understand the correlation between it and emotional wellbeing of children.

Idea 2: What I found and where/how I found it. How does this better help you to understand the reading?
(125-175 words)
It was mentioned that NCLB was a reinstatement of something called the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act. The Wikipedia page for ESEA states that the act was passed [in 1965] as a part of United
States President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. As implied by its name, the act provides funding
for primary and secondary education with an emphasis on equal access to education and [establishing] high
standards of accountability. The apparent goal of this act was to shorten achievement gaps among
students, directly stating that doing so will subsequently be providing each child with fair and equal
opportunities to achieve an exceptional education. Reading this very clearly implies why there is a need for
an art based solution to student issues in the first place.

Idea 3: What I found and where/how I found it. How does this better help you to understand the reading?
(125-175 words)
Googling child self-esteem brings up multiple articles on parenting websites giving advice on how to
develop and build your childs self-esteem. Deciding that I needed to narrow the results, I added and
school. The first result for this search was an article called How can teachers foster self-esteem in
children? Skimming through the article, I found a section called Demystifying the problems which
essentially encourages teachers to have one-on-one conferences with their students about their strengths and
weaknesses. From there, the next section is called Accommodations that maximize success which