I think you've all hit the nail on the head in your responses to our reading this week (sorry I'm a little late!)...what amazed me most, however, was not the fact that the themes and pedagogies brought up are ones that we believe in and aspire to create in our classroom every day, but one single statement Shor pulls from Giroux (1988): "Schools need to be defended, as an important public service that educates students to be critical citizens who can think, challenge, take risks, and believe that their actions will make a difference in the larger society" (16). Wow. How true this rings at a time like this, when it seems like everyone but teachers has something to say about what goes on in our classrooms (or what should go on) - worse yet, instead of defending schools (and teachers), people have started attacking them. What would he and Shor say now?
If we, as teachers, are trying to shift from a traditional curriculum to an empowering pedagogy, why are we being blamed for students' negative outcomes? The students should have more of a say now than ever before in the classes, subjects, concepts, and methods of learning they are a part of. Shor discusses the fact that traditional education causes curiosity, intrigue, and social instincts to wither away, until students become "nonparticipants." As a middle level teacher, I am stunned and saddened by the students who have already lost their love for learning.
If we are to teach kids "to fight for a quality of life in which all human beings benefit" (16), we need to emphasize true student participation and collaboration, along with the list of values Shor recommends for an environment in which empowering pedagogy lives and thrives. This means allowing students a say in what and how they learn...of course. It is our job to "respect and rescue the curiosity of students" (18). We need to rescue their curiosity by allowing them a chance and a reason to change the way the world works. A lot of our discussions have been focused on the culture of power, who holds the rules and codes of the culture of power, and how we can change that by allowing our students the chance to make a difference.
If we are teaching students simply so they can do well on the PARRC (similarly to the way teachers had been teaching students to do well on the NECAP and every other standardized test before), we are not allowing them to make connections with and meaning from their learnings. I think Shor and Silberman would agree that these tests simply reinforce the traditional curriculum that "tilts toward authority rather than to freedom, participation, and mutuality" (18). I am reminded of Brian's last blog post from ReThinking Schools, in which the teacher and her students together created an environment in which all students felt safe, protected, and empowered. I am willing to bet that those students learned more about life, and the ability they have to change or respond to things that are not right, not by taking a test on right and wrong, or Civil Disobedience, for that matter, but by existing in a space where they created rules, norms, and expectations for themselves and one another, and following them even when their classroom teacher was not present. This classroom is a true example of empowering pedagogy. It was not something "done by teachers to students for their own good, but something students [codeveloped] for themselves, led by a critical and democratic teacher" (20)....that exemplified the idea that "when education is a participatory sphere of public life, meaning and purpose are constructed mutually, not imposed from the top down" (22).
These are the classrooms, and those are the students, that will tilt the scales of the culture of power. We are the teachers that need to make this education shift, way too many years after Shor's writing, that will lead to empowering pedagogy becoming the norm. Education needs to be something students DO, not something done to students.
So yes, schools need to be defended as an important public service....and yes, the structure of the classroom needs to change. Teachers matter, now more than ever, not because we hold all of the answers to the test, but because our students are living and will continue to live the test when they leave our classrooms and our schools, and they need guidance on how they will interpret, analyze, and respond to it. School is the place to discuss and practice a participatory environment, so our students may lead and become important members of a society in which all human beings benefit.
If we are to teach kids "to fight for a quality of life in which all human beings benefit" (16), we need to emphasize true student participation and collaboration, along with the list of values Shor recommends for an environment in which empowering pedagogy lives and thrives. This means allowing students a say in what and how they learn...of course. It is our job to "respect and rescue the curiosity of students" (18). We need to rescue their curiosity by allowing them a chance and a reason to change the way the world works. A lot of our discussions have been focused on the culture of power, who holds the rules and codes of the culture of power, and how we can change that by allowing our students the chance to make a difference.
If we are teaching students simply so they can do well on the PARRC (similarly to the way teachers had been teaching students to do well on the NECAP and every other standardized test before), we are not allowing them to make connections with and meaning from their learnings. I think Shor and Silberman would agree that these tests simply reinforce the traditional curriculum that "tilts toward authority rather than to freedom, participation, and mutuality" (18). I am reminded of Brian's last blog post from ReThinking Schools, in which the teacher and her students together created an environment in which all students felt safe, protected, and empowered. I am willing to bet that those students learned more about life, and the ability they have to change or respond to things that are not right, not by taking a test on right and wrong, or Civil Disobedience, for that matter, but by existing in a space where they created rules, norms, and expectations for themselves and one another, and following them even when their classroom teacher was not present. This classroom is a true example of empowering pedagogy. It was not something "done by teachers to students for their own good, but something students [codeveloped] for themselves, led by a critical and democratic teacher" (20)....that exemplified the idea that "when education is a participatory sphere of public life, meaning and purpose are constructed mutually, not imposed from the top down" (22).
These are the classrooms, and those are the students, that will tilt the scales of the culture of power. We are the teachers that need to make this education shift, way too many years after Shor's writing, that will lead to empowering pedagogy becoming the norm. Education needs to be something students DO, not something done to students.
So yes, schools need to be defended as an important public service....and yes, the structure of the classroom needs to change. Teachers matter, now more than ever, not because we hold all of the answers to the test, but because our students are living and will continue to live the test when they leave our classrooms and our schools, and they need guidance on how they will interpret, analyze, and respond to it. School is the place to discuss and practice a participatory environment, so our students may lead and become important members of a society in which all human beings benefit.
TIna,
ReplyDeleteI like that "comic" that you posted, though as teachers I don't think we find it very comical. It is true that I find that more often now that we, teachers, are being blamed. We are being blamed for bad behavior, bad test scores, not producing the 'right' kind of student/person. There are so many "cooks in the kitchen" when it comes to how we spend our classroom time, and everyone has an opinion on how to do it best, though most of the people who are telling us what do to do have never spent a day as a teacher in a classroom or a week, or 180 days a year. I continually am frustrated with the way teachers are blamed for the "short" comings of our students performance but parents and society is getting off free of blame. I am also frustrated with parents and others ignorance over what is happening in the classroom. Currently, there is a big backlash with Common Core Mathematics Standards, and they common core teaching practices, though many are not taking the time to understand what these practices mean or what the end goal is with them. We are trying to "educates students to be critical citizens who can think, challenge, take risks, and believe that their actions will make a difference in the larger society" And its not going to happen over night, and it also won't happen without the support of our administration, politicians and parents.
I agree with so much of what you say here Tina and frankly the situation is disheartening. I've been teaching for about ten years and I would argue that students at this moment in time are less interested in learning...actual learning for learning's sake than at any other time in my career. Students are interested in the following: grades, class rank, GPA, SAT scores, getting into college. While obviously those are important concerns, they are not even the slightest bit interested in reading any of the insightful (and hopefully helpful) comments I spend hours writing on their essays. They are only interested in the grade they receive. That is all. I even did an experiment last year where I posted essay grades on our online grading system, where students and parents can access grades anytime. I posted the grades and waited for students to ask me for their essays back so they could (theoretically) look over my comments and possibly revise. Not one student asked for his/her essay. They simply did not care. They received the grade and that was all that mattered. This is sad to me and I'm not sure how to change it. Because, if anything, I think I'm a better teacher than I was ten years ago. I give students responsibility and I offer tons of opportunities for authentic collaboration and discussion, but it always seems to boil down to one thing...the grade. It's actually also ironic because the students that are usually the most interested in actually learning for the sake of learning oftentimes do not earn the highest "grade." Something has to be done to bring some authenticity back to the classroom.
ReplyDeleteFunny how what Shor pulls from Giroux echoes the idea of schools turning to Mission Statements in order to refocus on what's important. I worked for the YMCA as a director in 1999, and we were writing mission statements back then, public schools have picked up on that idea finally. Remember the movie "Freedom Writers" well I recall 4 years after that movie came out, how all the teachers in my school were presented with journals in September, and writing narratives became all the rage. My point....it takes a little time for policy makers and administration to get on board with changes that innovative businesses make very quickly. Another craze that hit society in 1997 was the iphone, three years ago, we started having iwalks in school, and lots of trends now include i-something in the name. This is why teachers still lecture from the board, why classrooms are strictly heterogenius, to the detriment of the brightest and most remedial students (http://www.edutopia.org/blog/student-grouping-homogeneous-heterogeneous-ben-johnson)
ReplyDeleteI agree that the function of school is critical for society, and the role of teachers is more important than ever, we can't be diminished to babysitters, or fall into the trap of dictators, we need to, as good teachers have always done, be sources of inspiration, consistency, logic, curiosity, and love to each of our students, teachers know this, but money people have not figured out yet how to quantify it.