Full time student teaching/attending classes: Day 1

One thing I learned:
Teachers you seek recommendations from (master teacher and field instructor and professor) will be asking themselves: Do I want this person as a teacher next-door to me? when they are filling out recommendations. I knew, but not straight out obvious like Prof. AR stated.

Questions and still want to know: I wonder if I am going to be heading up student-parent-teacher conferences during the spring quarter of full-time student teaching.

Anxious about: I am anxious about optimizing my learning as a future teacher while still not stepping on my master teacher's toes. I want to learn as much as I can this year, and I think one of the best ways for me to learn about writing lesson plans and teaching and assessing is to practice, so how can I learn the best way for me to learn while still following the seemingly strict guidelines in the handbooks and avoiding toe-stepping on.

I am also anxious that I will learn too fast or faster than my master teacher is expecting or Jim is expecting. I have been managing small classes (15-20) in informal education settings for quite a while and feel pretty confident there, and I don't want to get ahead of myself or my master teacher, but I don't want to feel unchallenged either, because then I will not enjoy my internship.

Excites me: Doing more focused learning. I have been working in camps and field trip and environmental education centers, and the kids are usually excited about the field trip or it's camp and they know it's fun, so there is somewhat less academic focus. I am excited by the new challenge of focused academics and incorporating the fun techniques into teaching. I am excited to be with kids for longer than a day or a week so I can get to know them better and really help them make progress.

Global Climate Change in Middle Grades

I continue on my journey to teaching public formal education, and as part of it, I am researching cliamate change curricula, teaching, and assessing in middle grades 5-9.

Global climate change is a world problem that can only be mitigated through international cooperation and wide scientific literacy. Climate is complex. There are a multitude of influences on the weather for any given day, and as such global climate change is highly complex and though many consequences of climate change are widely known, very few citizens truly understand how and why those consequences came/come about.

I intend to research what middle grades educators are doing about climate change education. I will look at national and state standards for evidence of climate change education to see if they even exist. I need help with this research. I need educators who will let me interview and/or observe them teaching. I need an audience for my findings. Where should I publish these findings? And who shall I present them to in order to broadly influence science education?

Of course I can incorporate climate change studies into my own classroom, but how can I help other science teachers do the same? How can I inspire civic action on climate change through education, both of children and adults, educators and general citizens?

Global climate change is the single biggest ecological problem faced by humanity currently, and in the future. The ramifications are widespread, and a possible effect is eventual extinction of the human species if we refuse to adapt our habits. Not for many generations, but as the Great Law of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy states, "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impacts of our decisions on the next seven generations."

Inaction today will lead to destruction for future generations.

Reconciling Totalitarian Assessment with a Democratic Classroom

In Chapter 6, Ayers discusses the totalitarianism of standardized testing. His view that by allowing any one group to decide what is the best knowledge to have is totalitarian by nature meshes with my view that different geographic areas value different things to learn and thus the education of American children should not be entirely uniform. The responsibility to educate citizens resides in the states' hands, not the federal government's hands, and a national test is a bad idea because of unique valuation and the totalitarianism embodied by one group of people determining the knowledge that everyone should have.

At the same time, knowledge is limitless, and there has to be some consistency in what is taught, and there is already. Consistency across states in assessment is unnecessary, I think, but not per se wrong. If standardized tests weren't given so much power in policy determination and evaluation I would be less upset by the un-democraticness of the tests. But, they are powerful, and anything as powerful in determining national or state direction as standardized test results are should be more democratic in nature in the U.S. democracy.

Chapter 3 inspired a lot of thinking. All of Ayers's descriptions of acquaintances' houses made me wonder what my house and home tell people about me and those that live with me. My situation is different than the ones Ayers describes because I am in a rental house that I share with my husband and another couple who we are unrelated to. It's a roommate situation. In a roommate rather than a family living situation, it's harder to make your house yours, even if you are the owner and others are just leasees. So maybe a better question would be what do our "private" rooms tell others about us. I'll have to ask a neutral observer sometime. But, does a house embody a personality to a complete stranger? Or does a house not take on personal traits until an observer knows a person well? Same question could be asked of a classroom.

Ayers is so blunt about what he thinks but simultaneously poetic. He's a great descriptive writer, and the way he states things about learning environments really kind of makes me cringe inside, because they're thoughts maybe I did not want to have but really they're there and have been there I've just been avoiding pondering them. For example:

"The most taken for granted...and commonplace features of life in school carry messages about important issues: this is how people learn; this is what is valuable; this is what you should attend to. And these messages constitute a major part of what is learned and what becomes assumed about school"

"Kids understand that school is about crowds--there is no privacy and there is little individuality. What's good for the group had better be good for me. The schedule is in charge"

"In school authority is established and learning about hierarchy becomes crucial; democracy is talked about but not practiced, issues of larger community interest are rarely considered and never acted on."

"Kids see that in school, learning is linked to age more than anything else, and...neatly divided into nine-month units"

I wish I could get away with stating things so bluntly in class! Of course, I am not respected like Ayers so that's probably why, but wouldn't it be nice?

Ayers puts up student work in his classrooms in order to make his classroom more than just his and also to ensure democracy in his classroom. Everyone's contributions are equally valid. It is not his job to determine what the classroom looks like or the curriculum either, for he is a teacher practicing democratic schooling. Most teachers put up student work because that's what you do with classrooms, at least that appears to be why. I doubt many have reasons as pointed and significant as Ayers does.

Ayers's point about learning with a purpose is valid. Why has this learning been lost? Why isn't academic learning more like real-life learning? Shouldn't it be? Aren't schools supposed to prepare students for real life in addition to teaching them new things? Shouldn't these new ideas have some practical application that is visible to students, or that a teacher can at least point out? Why is the old adage "You'll need to know this when you have a job" or "You'll need to know this when you're an adult" spoken so widely? How come we cannot instead show students by purposeful learning that the knowledge is necessary? The best way to learn is through one's own mistakes and missteps. Ayers is so right that by breaking learning into irrelevant pieces that only adults can impart to you are "absolutely disastrous lessons if curious and critical dispositions of mind is a goal." This is my goal as an educator, do others not share it? What about administrators? What is their goal? The goals of schooling are wide, I know, but shouldn't something as simple and necessary as curious and critical mental disposition be on everyone's goal list?

Ayers's reminder that everyone in a classroom is a whole person, including the teacher, "Her passions--singing, quilting, hiking, dancing--will be well represented [in her classroom]" raise a contentious issue with me. Many people get upset with me for saying that my students should know my pasions. It seems like peers want me to hide it in order to avoid imposing ideas on children. I'm a strong, passionate, and independent woman and I feel great pressure to robotize myself in order to successfully teach. To thine own self be true. I have been true to myself for eight years; I am not giving that self-knowledge up for anyone or any job. That seems wrong to me. Yes, teaching is a role, but the teacher is a whole person too, and why should I deny my own wholeness for my students to have the best change to be whole people themselves? It makes no sense to me. Sacrificing myself as a person in order to help them be people: Is that what I am being asked to do?

Authentic Assessment

"The root of the word evaluation is value, and authentic assessment includes understanding FIRST (emphasis added) what students VALUE and then building from there."

Ayers's definition of assessment is totally upside-down from the mainstream view of assessment and I love it. Much of assessment is dictated by what society values or what school superintendents value. Very little seems to consider what students value first. Within classrooms that may not be true, but most standardized testing and the like is not about what students value. No wonder school is such a dull, drab, boring place for most children. Ayers definition of assessment is a throwback to Dewey's ideas on education. It's an interesting coincidence they they are/were both faculty at University of Chicago. And Paley's book also was written about an experimental school at University of Chicago. I wonder what Chicago's public schools look like with such progressive minds filling the teacher education halls.

I completely agree with Ayers that standardized tests are given way more power than they deserve and they suck even resisting people into their maelstrom. Ayers depictions of both himself and another anti-testing colleague's reactions to standardized test scores were revealing. Especially his colleague that went through hell and high water to get his daughter's test scores up; not because he did not consider his daughter intelligent but rather because "Those scores are like a union card. The union may be crooked and run by gangsters, but, hey, no union card, no work."

What a sad position for children of today to be in. Their whole future sometimes hinges on those test scores. But at the same time, in the working world, if you are only good at taking tests and cannot function within a group or if you lack people skills, then you are less likely to "get promoted." However, in some industries, the smartest people according to test scores but the dumbest when it comes to people and social skills are the managers. My roommate works at Microsoft, a company that seeks the best minds in the world to be employees. She is continuously frustrated by many of her managers because they do not have people skills. They may be smart, but they are a pain to work with and make for pretty poor managers.

Ayers explosion of the myth of scientific objectivity of test scores was revealing, especially how the averages are determined. The cultural bias and simplified way of determing averages make people aware before the test even begins of who will be the winners and who will be the losers. I wonder if teachers really do know before the test is administered? Ayers is just one education professional; he can't speak for all educators, though he's got a lot of good ideas and insights.

Ayers argument that the problem of drill and skill curriculum prevailing over a more comprehensive, problem-solving, critical thinking curriculum in our test-loving world is worse for those children who have the deck stacked against them just by their birth is strong. "By focusing on the ability to answer multiple-choice questions, reading is reduced to a set of relatively unimportant skills, and the link between reading and power is further broken." This broken link is the greatest loss of all, in my opinion.

I like Ayers's ideas about being frank with students about what the tests mean. Would such honesty, such bluntness about the lack of any real value in standardized testing be permitted to occur? Many people wish to shelter children in schools from harsh realities of the world and I think this is OK to a point, but I think it is crucial for children to know they exist and that there are tough obstacles to face as humans. Children should know the real value in standardized testing, but I foresee a lot of resistance from parents and curriculum writers if teachers pursued this strategy. Really, what you must do to do well on a standardized test is learn to take the test, but that should not be the goal of all learning in schools. Knowledge of the content of the test is much less significant to achieving high test scores than are the tricks to taking the test well.

Battling Curriculum Mandates from the Powers That Be

I thorougly enjoyed Ayers's chapter on curriculum adaptation. When I learned previously this quarter that teachers did not get to come up with their own curriculum because they "don't have the expertise" (pish-posh, if you ask me) I was floored. That was one of the things I was most looking forward to about formal education that I could not get from most environmental education jobs.

I have written curriculums for camps before for my environmental ed jobs, but many of the curriculums I just have to work with. I thought, foolishly, that as a teacher in "real" schools I might have the liberty to create my own curriculum. I think it is just ridiculous that teachers cannot write their own curriculums. I'm all for objectives and goals, but how a teacher meets those goals should be up to him or her. I must honestly say that I doubt there are science curriculum writers who choose school science curriculums that understand science and all its intricacies better than me, an experienced scientific researcher and holder of--gasp--a science degree!

My guess is the science curriculum writers have Doctorates or PhDs in education or even more likely, they are private corporations with only the goal of making money, as the curriculum writers are in Perlstein's book Tested. The best person to write a science curriculum is a scientist. Partnering with an educator would be wise, however. I think the best teachers of science are scientists themselves, not education experts. Relying on non-scientists to dictate science standards and science curricula is what has destroyed science education in the United States. Who writes the science curriculum in collegiate studies? Scientists. And despite the failure of K-12 education in the science arena, our universities are still considered the best place in the world to study science, according to Ong in an article I read for a different class. If we bring scientists into public education of children maybe we'll be able to enhance science education in K-12.

Currently, the science education in K-12 in much of the U.S. is absolutely abysmal, though I hear it has made some progress recently (not convinced yet). I had one--ONE--good science teacher in my years of public education. And I didn't get her until the second-to-last year of my public education. And guess what, she was a scientist. She had a degree in Microbiology and had pursued undergraduate research and I think she started grad school in science before switching to education.

Few K-12 teachers have an expertise in science. In our cohort of 22, there are two of us (I asked in Jan's class first week) and only one who has a BS--me. But for scientists like myself, who sacrifice wages and prestige in the science world in order to improve the science education for the broader populace, why am I not allowed the freedom to write a science curriculum I consider to succeed at reaching goals set in the state?

I graduated with a 3.67 GPA and bubbling complimentary references from nearly every professor I had from a solid Honors and Interdisciplinary Science Program designed by the university to meet the needs of frequent employers of program graduates. I was the dream graduate for many jobs in science research. The only science course I did poorly in (did not get an A or a B) was Organic Chemistry. Through my research, I caused policy changes in three states. My undergraduate thesis is considered one of the primary sources on ecological conditions conducive to invasion of butterfly bush on the U.S. West Coast. My research has been peer-reviewed (science researchers) published in prestigious horticultural journals. I was offered four--FOUR--free rides to different Masters in Science programs just on the basis of one presentation I gave at a conference. How can any science curriculum writer say that I have no right, no skill, no talent, no ability relvant to writing a science curriculum? How can they say I "lack the expertise"? It's insulting.

Granted, some people may not feel like these are true measures of my scientific prowess because I was educated in a traditional way, a wrong way, a not as-good way-according to many articles we have read this quarter. I must argue that just because I succeeded in the education system I experienced-and not one that was more inventive-is no strong argument against the reality of my success. We learn about these innovative ways of teaching in order to understand that some of the more traditional ways of educating do not work well for all children, not to throw traditional methods out the window. Traditional methods work well for some kids, and there is no shame in that. A teacher must have a toolkit of teaching methods and pedagogy ideas in order to reach all students, not be confined to just the new stuff or just the old stuff. No teaching method should ever be totally thrown out the window because it probably worked for someone and could work again.

Ayers wrote much about how no pre-written curriculum is good enough to equate to a good education for all students. He mentioned repeatedly that a teacher should just throw out the written curriculum and start with a theme. Many of his ways of making the curriculum meet students at their level reminded me of Interdisciplinary Curriculum writing we did in our Middle School class. I think they make total sense. I think it is best to have a theme for your curriculum and form activities from that theme and then match activities to standards set by those who set standards (policy-makers?). This method will be more relevant to your students and more interesting for the teacher and his/her class. So here's the first big question: is that legal? Can a teacher really do that? If he/she can, then I am less insulted. The second big question: how? How can we make the curriculum meet students at their level while at the same time satisfying standards and not losing our jobs for taking such extravagant liberties (sarcasm)?

Values and Censorship in Curriculum

Spring asks: "Should children in public schools be exposed to ideas and values that are contrary to the beliefs of their families?"

My answer is yes, how else will students develop their own world views? Public schools should expose children to ideas and values--opinions--that contradict their family's beliefs if for no other reason than to give kids necessary tools to form their own unique identity. Public schools should not teach, however, that kids parents are necessarily wrong. These contradicting values should not replace values held by students' family values, but just be there for comparison and questioning's, second-guessing's sake.

If a child asks "Are you right or are my parents right?" A teacher's good response might be "I think we might both be right." Or "What is right and wrong is not totally black and white. There are subtleties--differences--that exist. You must learn to navigate the gray and make your own choices." Or "I want you to think about that and decide for yourself what you believe, even if it is neither my belief nor your parents' belief." Or "I can't answer that, because you are the only one who can decide what/who you think is right. Your parents and I give you resources, references, to start with, we cannot make the journey for you."

Another important point is that often the stuff schools avoid teaching/discussing stem from or are serious social dilemmas. If we ignore issues by refusing to broach them in school, we do nothing to encourage resolution and if the problems continue to be ignored for a long time, they will fester, just like problems in relationships, and there will be a sudden, powerful, potentially scary implosion that could very well turn the world as we know it upside down, or destroy something that is valuable. Where would our students be then?

As Dewey says, teachers cannot possibly prepare students for every event that might occur in the future. It is their job to give them foundations of good character and broad understanding, or at least open-mindedness, that will make it possible for the students to handle situations well. I think it is far better for the human species' future to encourage critical thinking and problem solving rather than issue dogmatic ways of doing things, or commands, or whatever. I think that there have to be at least some visionaries in future generations, for if there aren't, progress will halt and human adaptation will stagnate.

Creating a Community of Understanding

I was ill the last half of last week and was unable to attend my Contexts of Learning and Schooling class and will use this space today primarily to comment on the readings for that class and will only briefly discuss the readings from Becoming a Professional class.

McIntosh reading
I thought McIntosh had a good point—that though people recognize racism and sexism, they do not recognize the privileges they have that reinforce the existence of –isms. However, I disagree with some of her list of things in the white privilege knapsack.

First, I think it is important to point out that white privilege is not a global phenomenon. There are countries where being white is considered a bad thing, where fair-skinned individuals are treated unfairly and are often demeaned. The first two areas that come to mind are parts of Africa and the Middle Eastern nation-states.

Second, in the modern U.S. meritocracy, your skin color does not dictate whether or not you can make something of yourself. I am not going to dispute that it is easier for whites to succeed, but that does not mean those with brown or black skin cannot succeed. I think the U.S. is still a meritocracy, albeit a prejudiced one.

Third, the 17th point on the list “I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider” is not true for me. I am a liberal, and in high school in the southeastern U.S. in Germantown, TN, my views made me a cultural outsider. This freedom to criticize the government and fear its policies is not a universal truth for whites in the nation. It occurs only in certain circles—generally ones that share your political views or that are at least moderate.

Fourth, natural selection is a reality. Advantage and disadvantage will exist in society no matter what we do. I am addressing physical inability but also lackluster social skills. People who are physically unable will always be at a disadvantage because nature dictates that we need to be able to use our bodies effectively. Does this mean they should be isolated from the world? No, because humans are sentient, conscious beings and though individual survival is important, species survival is more important.

People who are socially abnormal will also always be at a disadvantage because in every society, nature dictates that the main goal of life is to reach sexual maturation and reproduce successfully. Those who lack social skills are not desirable mates because humans are communal beings and need to be able to interact successfully with each other in order to survive.

People like to think that there are other purposes to our existence, and there are, but when it comes right down to it survival of your genes is the goal according to nature. That said, there are natural disadvantages and there are society-invented disadvantages. McIntosh is primarily addressing society-invented disadvantages and it is right to challenge these just as it is right to try to include physically unable individuals and to help socially-challenged individuals integrate themselves into society.

Delpit reading
I found this reading very interesting. I had not thought about different cultures preferring to learn from objects or from people due to cultural values of connectedness. I have learned throughout this quarter to try to see my teaching through the lenses of students who have a different background than me, but this article told me one important difference to just know of rather than search for. The comments about literacy being perceived differently were invaluable to me as an educator.
Also, the discussion of analyzing solely text without examining context as well was enlightening. I know as a scientist that one must always consider the bias of the writer—in a way, the same thing as context—but I also see reading being taught out of context in most schools. I did not learn to understand the context, the bias, until later in my schooling.

Delpit illustrates the importance of learning the context from the beginning of literacy education for certain groups. Standardized tests generally do not consider context. In taking the PSAT, SAT twice, ACT, LSAT and GRE, I do not recall a single question asking me to determine bias of an article or what context the article was written in—probably because the answer to that cannot be multiple choice because it is open to interpretation.

The points about what people in white vs. Athabaskan Indian culture ask when a child is born—what color hair? How many toes? vs. Who came?—were really interesting. I had not thought about how white culture from the beginning is a decontextualizing culture. It was illuminating. Because Native Alaskans from the beginning are more concerned with the whole person, more respect is granted to children; they have more of their own authority, in a way.

Native parents test children’s faith in themselves by telling them something that is the reverse of what that child’s observations tell them. By encouraging children to rely on their own good sense, Native parents respect a child’s decisions about school more. Some of the practices that result from this respect challenge teachers attempts to help children learn.

My question is: what should a teacher do to reconcile a conflict like this? How do they try to gain an understanding between the two adults so that the child can learn what he or she needs to learn? Is just a dialogue, a conversation, required, or must a teacher do more? I see methods that a teacher can use with her students in the article, but what about the parents?

Spring readings
In chapter 4, Spring states that by 2035, Hispanics will become the largest minority group in the U.S., larger than blacks. I thought this had already happened. Or is the percentage of Hispanics only bigger in certain regions? I found the distinctions between Hispanic and Latino useful. I also thought the concept of La Raza was very interesting.

I am curious about another term you hear sometimes—Chicano and Chicana. Where do those come from? Are they slurs? I hear people calling themselves that sometimes, but blacks use slurs in friendship too. I want to know, as a teacher and a person, what I should call Spanish speakers and people from Mexico, Central America, and South America. Should I just refer to their nationality: Chilean, Peruvian, Brazilian, Costa Rican, etc? I have always wondered what people prefer to be called and why. How do I find this out in my classroom without embarrassing students?

Spring also discusses socioeconomic statistics and states that the highest percentage of foreign-born individuals living in poverty are from Central America. He then goes on to say that this staggering number (23.4%) could be helped if the U.S. works to strengthen the economies and educational systems in Central America. Is this not an Imperialist, colonial idea? It seems like citizens of Central American nations would resent U.S. interference in their economies and educational systems. It is not really our place, is it?

I was surprised by how even in the 20th century, Asians, Mexicans, and Native Americans were denied citizenship and forced to study in segregated schools. I did not know that segregation of minority groups other than blacks was maintained through at least the mid-century and in some cases, the 1970s. The pop culture images of Asian Americans (coolie, model student, deviant, yellow peril) made me wonder if Mexican Americans and other minority groups were classified in such a way. There is a pop culture image of black males, but I cannot think of one about Mexican Americans.
In answer to the questions at the end of the chapter, no, public schools should not consciously attempt to eradicate native languages of non-English speaking students. Yes, public schools shoud attempt to preserve the home language of non-English speaking students to an extent. It is impossible for schools to preserve every home language in diverse schools, so I think the rule of a certain number of students speaking the same mother tongue must be present to offer a class is valid.

I do not think public schools should consciously attempt to change or Americanize immigrant student cultures, however if the majority American culture is not taught to the students, teachers are providing students with a disadvantage. Individuals need to be able to function and succeed in the majority society without having to sacrifice their own cultures. I think it is the school’s job to acknowledge different cultures and learn about them but not to preserve minority cultures. It is the people who are part of that culture who must preserve it.

In chapter 5, Spring discusses collectivist vs. individualist nations and I was surprised that Russia was not on the list for collectivist nations. I was also surprised that so many African nations were on the list of collectivist nations. I do not know much about Africa, and though I have an understanding that tribal culture is important on the continent, I did not ascribe collectivist cultures to African nations necessarily. I was also surprised that Italy was on the list for most individualist nations. I do not usually think of Italy as individualist because familial emphasis is so strong.

The illustrations of how Asian students interpret pictures and questions differently than European students was really interesting. It is very valuable as an educator to understand that certain cultures base answers on relationships they see between things depicted in pictures rather than on similarities between different things.

I was shocked by the federal emphasis on English being the only federally legal language of pedagogy. I cannot believe even in this day and age that our nation’s leaders do not value bilingualism. The CIA and defense departments want people to know different languages. I am surprised that the need/desire for bilingualism for national defense does not translate, especially under the Bush administration, into encouraging bilingualism in public schools.

The article by Greene about encouraging imagination as a way to build community was very interesting. I attended a lecture by Marcus Borg, a Christian historian and theologian, on Friday about the value of mysticism in modern Christianity and what mysticism really is, anyway. The awareness, the consciousness that Greene spoke of sounds an awful lot like making yourself open to mystical experiences. Placing yourself in situations where you are more likely to feel a sense of connectedness to every other thing and person on the plant and aware of the greater more that Borg calls the Sacred.

Greene expressed fears that today's students are emerging from schooling robotic and alienated. Neither of these are good, but I think a lack of community feeling is a bigger problem than people becoming robotic. I think it is very hard for people to allow themselves to become robots. I believe there's a natural aversion in all of us to deny the truths of our existence, to be unfeeling. The more alarming thing to me is how alienated and disconnected people feel in this modern world. Whenever I feel alone, I am always deeply saddened, and it hurts a lot to feel alone in the world.

Greene argues that by allowing children to imagine, encouraging students to imagine their world differently than it is for them presently, these children will overcome powerlessness. I do not think solely being able to imagine the world in a different way will restore power to children because of social forces at work maintaining a balance of power. But without being able to imagine a different world, people will never be able to upset the unfair balance of power that makes them powerless. Before one can effect great change, one must be able to imagine great change.

I have nothing to say about Sapon-Shevin's article about creating community because I agreed with pretty much everything she said and found her examples of ways teachers create community useful. I feel that the two most important things she said are:

Time spend creating community is never wasted time.

Teachers, if they want to create a real community, do not dismiss or ignore touchy issues that come up in their classroom, they address them head on because if they don't, students will see differences and injustices anyway and will be merely frustrated and will not feel like their community is complete.