Still Separate, Still Unequal: America's Educational Apartheid By: Jonathon Kozol

"My attention was distracted by some whispering among the children to the right of me. The teacher's response to this distraction was immediate: his arm shot out and up in a diagonal in front of him, his hand straight up, his fingers flat. The young co-teacher did this, too. When they saw their teachers do this, all the children in the classroom did it, too. 'Zero noise,' the teacher said, but this instruction proved to be unneeded."
I think this quote shows how much power a teacher can have over students. Some teachers are unable to control their students. This teacher only had to raise a hand to gain control and attention of the students. I remember when I was in elementary school some of my teachers had hand gestures or claps to gain the students attention. The teachers in this school were trained to use this signal to get the students to be silent. I hope to have techniques such as this one to maintain a calm, well behaved classroom when I become a teacher.      

"Schools in which as few as 3 or 4 percent of students may be white or Southeast Asian or of Middle Eastern origin, for instance- and where every other child in the building is black or Hispanic- are referred to as 'diverse'."
This quote shows that there is still segregation in schools. Most of the white students attend private schools. Many of these schools are named after people such as Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks and this turns white parents away. They have a prejudice and do not think their students will get a good education so they send them to private schools. These schools are sometimes in middle class neighborhoods and the white students wait for the bus to their private school when they could walk to public school. This quote calls these schools diverse, when they are far from it. The meaning of the word diversity has changed for these people because the opportunity for diversity is avoided.

"...she was still afraid she would be criticized because she knew the pumpkin would not really help her children to achieve expected goals on state exams."
This quote was from a student teacher in California who wanted to bring a pumpkin into class around Halloween. She knew the teacher would not approve unless it was related to what they were learning about. The school she was teaching at had certain standards, most that aimed at teaching the students to the test. I chose this quote because I disagree with teaching to the test. I feel that all students gain from this is knowledge. If they are taught, not strictly to the test, they learn as well as form their personality. What they learn helps them become who they are as a person. Teaching to the test restricts their opportunity to grow as a learner and a person.