Throughout this week and past weekend, I have been reading a lot about labeling in schools, equal education opportunity and social barriers to it, and a lot of problems in schools. Many of them seem unsolvable by schools alone. There is no way to separate society's influences from anything--teaching, education, technology, or science. It feels like such a cage. But is it not the goal of education to help students reach fullest potential in the society they live in? Can schools create new societies? I don't think so.
As a teacher, how do I uphold my morals while still teaching children to function in a society that I consider flawed and needing improvement and unfair and maybe immoral? Do I have any right to impose morals on my students not with intention but merely by living my own code of honor and integrity? Acting in ways that I deem are important for good character? Every author has a voice, and every teacher and every student does too. Do I get to keep my voice as a teacher? Or by entering the profession am I forced into being a certain way?
These are big questions and at this point, I really don't have an answer. I may have an answer I think is right, but is it really right? My answer is every teacher is a unique person and they should embrace that, but sometimes in teacher education I feel peer pressure to not fully be myself because it makes parents touchy. How will I be able to earn the respect of my colleagues if I deny my true self? Do I have to deny my true self in order to earn their respect? How can educators talk about individualized education and respecting each student as the unique person they are if they themselves are asked to fit a certain mold?
I feel that with increased testing, labeling, and top-down management of education, the individuality of both teachers and students is sacrificed to meet societal demands. I do not think this is right. But how can I stand up to this wrong if I get the same impression from fellow colleagues?
One argument from Ayers Ch. 2 is that by labeling students, we demand they learn something they feel no need to learn. My question to this is how can we meet the demands of our job--teaching kids new things they do not know--without making them feel like they are learning something they do not care about and will have no need for in the lives they see themselves leading? Ayers also argues that viewing students as deficit in some area and teaching to fix the deficit leads, unintentionally, to decreased self-esteem. How can we help students learn more without doing this? I get the impression Ayers considers these two negative effects inevitable with the continued pursuit of a deficit model.
Ayers rants about lesson plans again in Ch. 2, arguing that the daily lesson plan embodies the deficit model. I disagree. I view a lesson plan as nothing more than guidelines for the day that can and will be altered to better serve the students' needs. Ayers seems to think that teachers ignore reality for the sake of a lesson plan. This is, of course, ineffective, and I think that many if not most teachers recognize that. Am I wrong? Is the lesson plan really deified in public schools?
Ayers had some great ideas for how teachers can implement regular observation of the whole person in their pedagogy. I think I will try some of them. He also had some good ideas for showing students that you and their fellow classmates appreciate their individuality. However, his idea about bringing in a cultural artifact is not practical for middle school. If you tell a middle school student that we essentially are going to have a show-and-tell, they will feel degraded by the idea. I need methods for accomplishing the same goal in older grades without students being offended. Any ideas? Have you heard of some ways other middle school teachers have accomplished this? Can you refer me to some teacher's blog?
Can Messy Learning Make A Comeback?
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The “Test and Punish” era of education mainstreamed by the “No Child Left
Behind Act” of 2002 is ongoing, but because of initiatives like STEM
(Science, ...
11 months ago
"Morals" is a pretty broad term... especially in the sciences. Are there particular areas in which you have questions?
ReplyDeleteShort answer to questions about the deficit model -- if we stopped thinking of learning as things that we acquire as we move down the assembly line, then learning isn't thought of as so linear. We don't have to start with the simple stuff and more to the harder stuff. We can start with really big questions that kids really do have interest in, and teach the smaller stuff in service of answering those questions. If you think of how you learn as an adult, that's more the stages that you likely go through. You don't have to be walked through from what you don't know to what you want to know...
What uses of lesson planning have you seen in schools? Or the various forms that are expected?
I'm going to challenge you to rethink your sense that Ayers is advocating something akin to show and tell. I think that he's advocating something much deeper than that, and in context, middle school kids love feeling "known" in school. I've seen adults love being asked to do something that leaves them less invisible in the classroom.
Show and tell is wide open and often sort of vaguely defined. Ayers is inviting young people to more deeply know and to tell others who they are. That's a huge difference.
My favorite middle grades teacher blog (He's English, not science, but loves kids) is The Tempered Radical. His posts show up on the BB widget every now and then, but you can also google that title. I read others and will pass them on to you as I see good stuff.
J