Brown & Buttendorf

Issue/Need

Target Audience

A recent podcast released by This American Life, highlighted racial discrepancies in

Target Audience:

school systems in regard to punishment and tolerance. Specifically, how race is

affecting the punishment children are receiving in early educational settings. In the

podcast, we meet an African American woman named Tunette Powell whose 5-year

General public
The typical demographic for listeners of This
American Life Podcast ( 2.2 million listeners)

old son was suspended initially for throwing a chair. Following this initial incident, he
was subsequently suspended for talking in class and spitting. In discussion about this
with other parents, all of whom were Caucasian, Tunette learns that their children have
never been suspended but have acted out in worse ways that JJ. This suggests that

Learning Goals

something sinister is occurring in educational settings, but even more importantly, its
occurring in preschool settings. It appears that race may be influencing the degree to
which students are being punished and that once the precedent is set that a child is not
well behaved, then almost every action is see in that light, whether or not that was the
intent.

1.

clear understanding of how the statistics are

represented in the infographic

2.

awareness of race-influenced discrepancies

in preschool settings

3.

awareness of how these discrepancies

produce long-term effects on student learning

Further, this podcast introduces something called the school-to-prison pipeline. This
term, coined by activists, suggests that what is happening to JJ is happening to
children of color across the country. Such behavior by teachers and school officials is

Learning Theories

impacting their overall development and increasing the likeliness that they will see
incarceration in their future.

Discovery Learning- new knowledge is created

What we aim to do is educate about the inequalities present in preschool settings.

in relation to previous learning via the podcast

Additionally, via a comprehensive infographic, with information provided by the US

Department of education, we will discuss the advantages of early education and the

Information Processing Theory- chunking

discrepancies between what public programs are offered, who is enrolled, and the

important and relevant statistics and

disparities in discipline.

information into meaningful units that can be

stored in the short-term memory

VARK Model (Visual, Aural, Read/write,

Evidence

Kinesthetic Sensory modalities)- suggests that

four modalities reflect the learning experience
of students and teachers.
Contiguity Principle - text and pictures that are
related to each other should be located in
close spatial proximity to each other. Allows
that learner to more easily process the
information.

Information Collected for

Infographic
Podcast Transcript

http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/

"My Son Has Been Suspended 5 times, he's 3" By Tunette Powell (July 24, 2014)

crdc-early-learning-snapshot.pdf

"The School-To-Prison Pipeline Can Start Even Before Kindergarten, Mother

Points Out" By Rebecca Klein (July 28, 2014)