Talking with Peter Phillips

Since this size of this podcast was too large to convert for PNN, please visit http://web.mac.com/meredithpollick to find the interview in its' entirety.

References

1)Nation's Report Card shows Record Gains (2007). Retrieved from http://nationsreportcard.gov
2)No Child Left Behind is working! (2007). Retrieved from www.isbe.state.il.us/nclb/default.htm
3)NCLB Reauthorization Proposals (April 2008). Retrieved from www.ed.gov/nclb/
4)From Where do they stand?
Hillary Clinton info came from www.hillaryclinton.com;
Barak Obama info came from www.barackobama.com;
John McCain info came from www.johnmccain.com
5)Hidden Curriculum definition Retrieved from
http://bitbucket.athabascau.ca/dict.pl 
6)Bush Profiteers Collect Billions from No Child Left Behind (2007). Researched by Sam Burchard for Project Censored! Retrieved from www.projectcensored.org
7)Ladson-Billings, Gloria. (2007). Pushing Past the Achievement gap: An Essay on the Language of Deficit. The Journal of Negro Education.

Exploring current critical issues in U.S. Education

Welcome to the final project of my Master's degree in Education from Sonoma State University: a web page containing personal and reflective podcasts that explore current critical issues in U.S. Education, a list of references, and my final reflective response. So sit back, relax, and wake up! School is in session!

FINAL REFLECTION

After many months of grappling with too many ideas and angst about selling out to the world of academia- I realized that I had to do something creative with all this new knowledge I had swimming around in my brain. I wanted to utilize my newly formed research skills, practice my critical analyses as a critical theorist, and expose the hidden agendas that I struggled with through this Masters program. The first time I learned about the hidden curriculum, I felt a sense of relief! Here was a name to what I had been conscious of experiencing since I was in the 2nd grade but did not have the words for. Here was an explanation of everything I had been fighting with and against for as long as I could remember. In a strange way, it was like coming home. I began to use the lens of the Hidden Curriculum for almost everything I looked at- and although the traditional definition referred to the school environment, I quickly recognized that there were unintended outcomes in every aspect of our society and world. Wow! This is how Hidden Curriculum the radio show was born. The project morphed through several different versions- from podcasts to a live show back to podcasts and a webpage. I took COMS 385- the radio lab show here at Sonoma State. I practiced writing news pieces and working on my diction and voice all semester while hosting a hip-hop radio show on KSUN, SSU's online radio station (at www.sonoma.edu/ksun). All the while, I researched stories, and continued to learn to use the hidden curriculum lens to evaluate and critique issues in education. The end result is this webpage and all that it contains: my personal and reflective exploration of critical issues in U.S. education, via podcasts made on my Macbook. In had originally proposed to my committee that I would do a live version of my radio show, using the KSUN studio. On the day of my first show, MIC 2 was dead, the chair was broken, and I suffered one technical difficulty after another. AAAAHHHHH! My show was being ruined by run down equipment, and an under-funded COMS program (hmm, let's look at the HC of that) I was not okay with this as I'm somewhat of a big EGO HEAD when it comes to the quality of my work. So I spent the last 3 days straight producing podcasts of my show that had bombed live. I was very excited to have figured out how to convert the podcasts into MP3 format so I could upload it onto PNN.com. Cool, cool. So, as per my entire graduate school experience, things were done by the seat of my pants in a messy and crazy way. I guess it's just how I get things done. The end result of this project has turned out so different than I though it would be or at least it sounds so different than I thought it would sound. Needless to say, I really like it- I feel extremely proud of what I have produced. It is new, exciting, different - an expression of myself. In fact, I like it so much, that I plan on continuing to produce new segments and upload them to my webpage. I would like to continue to expand the definition of the hidden curriculum and use it to seek out our lives' hidden parts. When we know better, we do better and if I know better, then I must do better. I believe it has always been my calling to be the radical, hidden curriculum seeker that I am, so that I may point it out to my community in a load, bold voice. This has caused me some problems as you can well imagine- it's hard for me to just go along with the madness and accept it- I must fight it! Sometimes it works for me- others time, not so well. Regardless, it is my job and my gift to humanity: to be the best me I can be. I wish you all the best in your own personal quests in trying to make sense of this world - and I wish you all the courage to be the best you that you can be. Do the hard work, no matter what -this is everyone's calling.
Much Love and Light,
Meredith Jana Pollick
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world."