Shor-Quotes

In “Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change”, Ira Shor discusses the politics of education.  He discusses participation as a “door to empowerment”, problem posing in education, and reflexive teaching.  Shor emphasizes how important it is for students to be active participants in their own education.  It’s not enough to go to school and do what the teacher tells you to do.  As a student you must question why you are doing these things.  As a teacher you must encourage students to question school, assignments, and life in general.  “You must arouse children’s curiosity and make them think about school.  For example, it’s very important to begin in the school year with a discussion of why we go to school.  Why does the government force us to go to school?  This would set a questioning tone and show the children that you trust them and that they are intelligent enough at their own level, to investigate and come up with answers.”  Shor quotes Meier here to emphasize how important it is for students to participate in their own learning.  He says that “action is essential to gain knowledge and develop intelligence”.  Participating in the whole learning process motivates students to want to learn.  By allowing and encouraging students to question we are letting them know that we value them as intellectual beings and that they too have a voice and something to share.

Shor also discusses the teacher’s role as a problem-poser.  This is a way to engage students in mutual learning.  When a teacher poses problems for the students to solve it encourages them to think critically.  “For example, in a problem-posing class that is studying the muscles of the human hand or the structure of the eye, these bodies of knowledge will be offered in a context that is functional to student life and work and that reveals critical problems in society.”  To begin discussion of the muscles of the hand or the structure of the eye, Shor would have the teacher ask students questions about what they already know about those two topics.  This reminds me of the KWL charts that educators often use with their students.   Students are required to start the conversation about a new topic with what they already know.  From there they generate questions about what they wonder.  They then go on to learn about the subject and finally fill in the section sharing what they have learned.

As part of the problem-posing way of teaching, Shor says that teachers also need to teach reflexively.  “(R)eflexive teaching, where the teacher poses questions, listens carefully, and re-presents to students what they have said for further reflection, is adaptable in academic courses, not only in literacy classes.”  Shor is saying that it is important for educators to avoid just giving instruction and teaching at the students.  We are the conductors through which the electric current, or collaborative critical thinking, of the students flows.  We may help guide their thoughts but we are allowing the students to discover the answers for themselves through this reflexive teaching.  Again this allows students to be active participants in their own learning and to get the most out of their education.

August-Connections



In Making Room for One Another, Gerri August makes many statements that can be connected to Lisa Delpit’s “Other People’s Children” and Elizabeth Meyer’s “Gendered Harassment in Secondary Schools: Understanding Teacher’s (Non) Interventions”.  August starts out by discussing the “adventure” children embark on each day when they go to school.  She likens circle time to a “public platform” where some children fare better than others.  “Children whose discourse patterns match those of the dominant culture, for example, seem to enjoy longer turns and more meaningful interactions with the teacher.”  This quote reminded me of the “culture of power” that Delpit discussed.  The dominant culture that August mentions is the “culture of power”.  Classmates and teachers may express an appreciation for the story of a student nonverbally.  Students that are part of the “culture of power” will understand this non-verbal expression whereas students that are not part of the “culture of power” may not understand unless they are explicitly taught. 

August also deliberates on the differences of students within a class and how that has an effect on each of the students.  “Differences that make a difference (the particulars vary according to social context) can lead to otherizing and even exclusion.”  This “otherizing” and exclusion made me think of Meyer and the harassment that people that are different experience purely because they are different.  August also mentions studies that have been done to examine “the stressors that attend lesbian motherhood” and how it relates to “their children’s gender identity and sexual orientation”.  “Some attention has been directed at how children of lesbian moms experience school.”  This again relates to Meyer’s “Gender Harassment in Secondary Schools” because these students may fall victim to harassment due to the gender identity and sexual orientation of their parents.  August goes on to share an account regarding a children’s TV show.  An episode of a popular children’s show was supposed to air in which a child with lesbian moms stated that she loves them both very much.  The episode was never allowed to air because Congress did not want to “introduce this kind of subject matter to children and that many parents would not want their young children exposed to the life-styles portrayed in this episode.”  I think Meyer would agree with August that this sentiment “perpetuates and protects heterosexist behaviors and belief systems.”

Rodriguez/Collier-Extended Comments



In Brigette’s blog she discusses Richard Rodriguez’s article “Aria” and an excerpt from Virginia Collier’s book “Teaching Multilingual Children”.  Brigette brought out some points that I also highlighted in my reading of these two pieces.  While reading these two texts by Rodriguez and Collier I made connections to Lisa Delpit and the “culture of power” that she discussed in her article “Other People’s Children”.  I then read Brigette’s blog and noted that she made the same connections.

Brigette discusses in Rodriguez’s “Aria” that he felt English was a public language and Spanish was a private language.  I also highlighted this while reading because I had never thought of that before.  I guess if you grow up speaking a language in your home but outside of your home you only hear a different language that as a child you may make the connection that your home language is your private language with your family and the language spoken in the rest of your community is the public language.  Rodriguez wrote, “Because I wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically private one, I easily noted the difference between classroom language and the language at home.”  Brigette also discusses that Rodriguez felt a loss of closeness when his parents switched over to speaking English in their home.  He must have felt that their private home language or their private connection was gone and their relationship was now more formal with the change to the public language in their private space.  Although Rodriguez felt this loss, he felt it was necessary for the change to take place if he was to learn the language of the “culture of power” as Lisa Delpit would describe it.  Brigette points out in her blog that “Collier, Rodriguez, and Delpit do agree on the aspect that students need to be taught the values (for example, the English language) of the “culture of power” in order to be successful within it.”  I agree with this connection and the need for explicitly teaching the “culture of power” in order for all to be successful.

Brigette discusses the challenges of a bilingual teacher that Collier examined in “Teaching Multilingual Children” and writes in her blog about the guidelines that Collier presents.  A few of the guidelines really struck me while reading the text because I had never thought about them before.  “2. Do not think of yourself as a remedial teacher expected to correct so called “deficiencies” of your students.”  When teaching language to a native speaker many teachers feel comfortable to teach them as a foreign language.  But Collier says, “Second-language or foreign-language methods are inappropriate for native speakers.”  Collier’s third guideline was, “Don’t teach a second language in any way that challenges or seeks to eliminate the first language.”  It’s important to teach children the dialects of the standard form of the language but to also teach them the value of the dialect that they grew up with.  Brigette connects this view to Lisa Delpit’s article “Other People’s Children.”  Delpit agrees with Collier that “teachers should value and appreciate the student’s own language and culture, and also agrees that students should be taught the values of the “culture of power” in order to be successful in society today.”  I also made this same connection while reading Collier’s text.  Delpit maintains that students need to hold onto their own culture as they learn the rules of the “culture of power” so that they too can play the “game” and be successful.



Meyer-Questions

Elizabeth Meyer writes about different harassment that takes place in schools and how teachers and administrators react to the harassment in her article “Gendered harassment in secondary schools: Understanding teachers’ (non) interventions.”  First Meyer identifies the problem, “sexual harassment and homophobic harassment are accepted parts of school culture where faculty and staff rarely or never intervene to stop this harassment.”  She finds that there are external and internal influences that influence a teacher’s reaction to harassment.  Meyer defines gender harassment, homophobic harassment, and gender non-conformity (transphobic harassment).  There were a series of interviews conducted in which teachers 1) discussed their “career path, philosophy, and roles in the classroom then discussed the general issue of bullying”, 2) discussed the three types of gender harassment, and 3) “allowed teachers to reflect on the discussions of the first two and draw connections and explore their (in)actions in their current school contexts.”

In the article there were schools mentioned in which the teachers did not trust their administrators to deal with issues of harassment.  There were other schools that had clear bullying policies but where all teachers did not uphold these policies.  “One teacher did voice a belief that his school’s policy on bullying was clear, yet he spoke at other points in the interview about his frustration with colleagues for their lack of awareness of and attention to the issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia in his school.”  The issue was also brought up of administrators letting their own beliefs and morals get in the way of their discipline policies.

While reading this article there were several questions raised in my mind.  Some were answered as I continued reading, but still others opened the way for further thought and discussion.

1. Why are sexual and homophobic harassment accepted parts of school culture?  Why do faculty and staff rarely intervene to stop this harassment?  What can we as educators do about it?  Are students able to learn if they don’t feel safe at school?

2. What are the external and internal factors that influence a teacher’s reaction to sexual and homophobic harassment?  How do they affect teachers’ reactions?

3. What is gender harassment?  How does it differ from homophobic harassment?  Gender non-conformity (transphobic harassment)?

4. Does the order of the three interview questions in the interview conducted affect the answers of the participants?  If teachers were asked the second interview question before the first, would that change their answer for the first question?

5. Why don’t teachers trust their administrators to support their actions when dealing with non-violent discipline issues? Does this create a safe environment for teachers and students?  What are the results of “not trusting”?

6. How does a teacher’s perception of their administrator affect the teacher’s reaction to sexual and homophobic harassment?  Why is it an issue if principals and vice principals let their own morals and their own beliefs dictate their discipline?

7. How can a lack of consistency when it comes to discipline affect the behavior of students in a school?  How does it affect the teachers that are the “enforcers”?

8. How do teachers’ experiences affect their perceptions and reactions to bullying?  Are minority groups, women, gays, lesbians, etc. more likely to end bullying and support/protect students?

9. Why do teachers feel that they can’t stop gendered harassment in their schools?  What can they do?  What happens when a teacher gives up?

10. When teachers no longer intervene in bullying situations involving gendered harassment, how does this affect the climate of the school?  The behavior of the students?  The safety of the students?  The learning taking place?

Karp-Hyperlinks

Stan Karp, editor of Rethinking Schools, gave a presentation at Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon.  It was entitled “Who’s Bashing Teachers and Public Schools, and What Can We Do about It?”  The presentation was sponsored by the Portland Association of Teachers.

Stan Karp

Karp’s presentation was in response to the film Waiting for “Superman”.  This film sparked a lot of discussion about public education, charter schools, and bad teachers.  “They saw a film whose central message is that public education is failing because of bad teachers and their unions and that charter schools are the solution.”  Karp, as well as many others, does not feel this is the case.  This inspired Rethinking Schools to start a NOT Waiting for Superman campaign almost two years ago.

“It’s whether the right to a free public education for all children is going to survive as fundamental democratic promise in our society, and whether the schools and districts needed to provide that are going to survive as public institutions, collectively owned and democratically managed, however imperfectly, buy all of us as citizens, or be privatized and commercialized by the corporate interests that increasingly dominate all aspects of our society.”  Rhode Island has 15 charter schools.  Two of these are located in South Kingstown, The Compass School and Kingston Hill Academy.  While many may argue the benefits of charter schools, the statistics speak for themselves.  “Only 17% of charter schools had better test scores than comparable public schools and more than twice as many did worse.”  Even the qualifications that teachers must possess in order to teach are more lax.  “Charter-school teachers are, on average, younger non-unionized and less likely to hold state certification than teachers in traditional public schools.  In a word, less expensive.”  Many of these teachers may have received their training through Teach for America.

Waiting for “Superman” has also sparked discussion about education policy.  Should districts adopt merit pay?  Should there be test-based accountability?  “Test score gaps have been used to label schools as failures without providing the resources and strategies needed to eliminate the gaps.”  Should teacher evaluation be based on test scores?  Are teacher unions the problem?  “We’re hearing absurd claims about how super-teachers can eliminate achievement gaps in two or three years with scripted curricula handed down from above, and how the real problem in schools is not the country’s shameful 23% child poverty rate or underfunded schools, instead it’s bad teachers.”

Joe Clark is a “get tough principal” that seemed to support the Skinnerian approach discussed in Jonathan Kozol’s article, “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid”.  Some solutions that have been in place and have been successful are now no longer allowed to run, such as “diversity plans”.  “The plan uses free and reduced lunch numbers to limit the concentration of poor students at any school to 40% or less.  The Raleigh plan has led to some of the best progress on closing achievement gaps in the country.”  Other solutions suggested are policies such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.  “Unless we change direction, the combined impact of these proposals will do for public schooling what market reform has done for housing, health care and the economy: produce fabulous profits for a few and unequal access and outcomes for the many.”  Waiting for “Superman” uses Finland as an example of how to achieve success in our schools based on international test score comparisons.  What the film doesn’t mention is that “teachers in Finland are unionized, well paid, have tenure and work in school systems that do very little standardized testing…. (have a) cradle-to-grave support system… (provide) universal daycare, preschool, and healthcare… Finland’s child poverty rate is less than 3% compared to ours at 23%”

“Teachers count a lot.

But reality counts too.”

 

Kozol-Argument

What?  In “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid”, Jonathan Kozol argues that there is still segregation occurring throughout many cities in our nation.  “All people are due equal education and everything else that goes along with maintaining a healthy society.  All must have equal health-care, food, water, and environments to live in.”  But although all are supposed to be equal the quality of schools for children in poor sections of the city is in stark contrast to the quality of schools for the privileged.  The vast majority of children at these schools in poor areas are black or Hispanic.  These children have become “deeply isolated” in the “most segregated sections of these cities.” 

So What?  According to Kozol, this problem is worthy of our attention because these poorly maintained schools with few course choices preparing students for college are not only in “deeply segregated inner-city neighborhoods” but in areas where the races are mixed and the opportunity for a truly integrated public school exists.  He provides astounding evidence to back up his claim that this problem is significant.  In Plessy vs. Ferguson the Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” justified segregation.  Today in many of these inner-city schools administrators have long given up the goal of attaining “equal” but instead strive for “adequate”.  As a result we have children attending schools without gardens, music and art programs, places to play, and a functional gym.  In a large high school there are only one or two functional women’s rooms that are open for students to use.  In the 1997-1998 school year, the amount spent to educate a third-grade child in a New York public school was $8,000 a year.  In contrast in a “fairly typical white suburb of New York” public education spent $12,000 a year per student and in a wealthy white suburb students received $18,000 each for their education.  Clearly the ones that benefit are the wealthy white students, the privileged, and those that suffer are the poor black or Hispanic students, the under-privileged.  “The rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer.”  In this case the quote refers to the education of our children.

Now What?  This evidence clearly indicates a change needs to be made.  Some changes that have been made include using a Skinnerian approach to education.  Classrooms are very rigid and structured.  Children follow hand signals used to modify their behavior and produce desired results.  Kozol argues that there are other obvious solutions that can be made to produce the same desired results.  For instance “cutting class size and constructing new school buildings or providing universal preschool.”  These are changes that can be put into place right away and can help to overcome the gap between the schools and education of the privileged and the under-privileged.  Kozol suggests that change may mean people will have to march in the streets, or that change may involve litigation and legislation.  He is clear that “these are prices we should be prepared to pay.”  A student once wrote to him and said that she and her classmates don’t have the things that he has.  Kozol is adamant that “America owes that little girl and millions like her a more honorable answer than they have received.”  Although Kozol is clear that change needs to be made and even offers suggestions as to what the actions needed to bring about change may look like, I feel he is not specific enough as to the actions that need to be taken and who needs to take them.  America is a large place, who in America specifically needs to act and what exactly do they need to do?

Delpit-Quotes

Lisa Delpit discusses “The Silenced Dialogue” in the article “Other People’s Children”.  She examines how the race of the student or teacher can influence the instruction needed or provided in the classroom.  She explains that whereas many people have good intentions, without knowledge of another’s culture these good intentions can do more harm than good.  Whether or not “white people” like or are able to accept it, we are part of the “culture of power”.  This “culture of power” has its own set of rules that may be easily understood and even taken for granted within the culture, but unless they are explicitly taught they preclude outsiders from being participants and therefore prevent them from having power.  Knowing that there is a “culture of power” and learning the rules does not diminish the culture of the non-participants.  Their culture is equally important and enables them to be successful in their homes and environments where theirs is the “culture of power”. 

Children that are born into the “culture of power” are indirectly taught the codes or rules for participating in power.  This puts others at a disadvantage when they are thrown into an environment, such as school, where they are not in the “culture of power” but are still expected to play by the same rules.  “I suggest that schools must provide these children the content that other families from a different cultural orientation provide at home.  This does not mean separating children according to family background, but instead, ensuring that each classroom incorporate strategies appropriate for all the children in its confines.”  In this quote Delpit stresses the importance of explicitly teaching the rules of the “culture of power” so that all can be successful.  It is important to note that these students should not be taught separately, but that educators need to provide a multi-faceted approach to learning, incorporating many different styles of teaching in each of our lessons so that all students have the opportunity to be successful and are exposed to different styles of teaching that may be different from the culture that they grew up in. 

Coming from a middle-class white family I found it interesting to read that middle and upper-class families tend to avoid using directives with their children and instead use indirect requests that their children understand to be directives.  Perhaps this is because I have two “old-school” Italian parents who are not afraid to exhibit power and give directives.  For black children that most likely grew up in a home in which their parents gave directives it can be confusing to hear indirect requests and make the connection that these are not really options, but directives they need to follow to avoid negative consequences.  “… upon entering school the child from such a family may not understand the indirect statement of the teacher as a direct command.”  I have had the experience of working with quite a few children on the Autism Spectrum and found that they also need directives as opposed to indirect requests.  In my teaching I make sure my expectations are always clear to my students by giving directives and I also consistently follow through with consequences so students know what to expect given their actions.

Although it is our job as educators to teach all of our students the skills they need to survive and be successful in the “culture of power”, it is important that they also learn the significance and value of their own cultures.  “I tell them that their language and cultural style is unique and wonderful but that there is a political power game that is also being played, and if they want to be in on that game there are certain games that they too must play.”  Delpit maintains that students need to hold onto their own culture as they learn the rules of the “culture of power” so that they too can play the “game” and be viewed as competent and hirable.  Again, this is a skill that I believe all students should learn.  I discuss with my students often that whereas something may be appropriate to say to your peers or at home with your family, it may not be appropriate to say to a teacher or other adult in the community.  Whether it is right or not, people will make judgments about you based on the things that you say and how you say them.  All students need to be explicitly taught the appropriate language to use for different situations.