Reflections on the new school year
As the new school year gets started, I wanted us to open up an area of the blog (at Bob's urging) for reflections from the classroom. Many of you have just begun your first year in a school--hopefully, we can use this space to support each other as we try to get a handle on our teaching/pedagogy.
posted by adam at 9:55 AM
2 Comments:
I am excited and challenged to finally be in the classroom. Ironically I find myself living out a case study of "difference" and poverty as we studied in Mod 2. At Louisville Central High School we are 82% black, 70% female and almost 100% poor. My budget for resources totals < $400.00. I rotate from freshman geography to junior humanities classes every other day. Forunately I am in a supportive atmosphere however this just means that I am trying to build a positive classroom community with students drafting the vision as we go along. Fortunately we resemble a community in four (sometimes five) classes out of six. Once or twice the most challenging class has pointed in a postive direction for three or four minutes before the dominos fell. It takes a lot of energy to teach! Yes, it is tiring however I have had no regrets (well... briefly) and find that the opportunites for a progressive teacher are unlimited. I am grateful for my graduate education and the support of PrESS.
As you know, Rachel, we're all part of the "thinking process" in education. We have all allowed education/teaching to deteriorate to the point where it is today. The question, of course, is "What are we going to do about it?" As we have already discussed, I think (and I know you agree) that a portion of the work of the PrESS Network ought to involve developing peripheral curriculum that surrounds, deepens, and moves beyond the core content. We can begin looking at these maps and construct ways to build new roads and neighborhoods that really teach kids what they need to know and, more importantly, teach them, humanistically, how to critically think.
Now, this, of course, is still playing within the bounds that have been constructed FOR us--rearranging the furniture in the box, if you will. This is our work for the short term.
Longer term is figuring out how we can engage our adminstrators in conversations about this totalitarian approach their asking us to take regarding core content and teaching to the test. We know this won't make a huge difference in test scores. We know, even more crucially, that we are not preparing our students to function as thinking members of society (and, we know that maybe society doesn't want a bunch of thinkers--just a bunch of doers).
I've spent more than too much time recently with state education folks from both KY and other states to know that, for the most part , they don't get it. They function as good liberals, in that they really want their teachers to believe it is up to them and that they shouldn't allow social factors to determine expectations of students (individually, this is nice, but it does ignore all kinds of structural factors) This is, of course, the point. We can make a difference for some individuals, but we'll never be able to make a difference for all or even a large portion of all without a change in the structure. We will only be able to make kids succesful to a certain degree within this system. [i've made these points with these folks, but they mostly look at me like i'm talking crazy--but i keep talking. i won't let them off the hook.] The (capitalistic) system is not set up for everyone to succeed. If they did succeed, everyone would be expecting a payoff: good college, good paying job, etc. Not enough of any of that to go around to all our children, unfortunately--particularly in the flattening world as Friedman describes it.
So, while our short term ought to involve making more children successful in the system we have (which does not mean delivering core content in a direct/totalitarian approach--in fact, it pretty much means the opposite of that)--this is , again, something the PrESS Network can do for the short term--our bigger work is figuring out how we revolutionize the system--moving from only a few winners (good colleges, good paying jobs) and many losers (and this breakdown often falls along the faultlines of difference: race, class, gender, etc.) to critially thinking children poised to interact/participate respectfully/humanistically in a democracy.
We'll talk about on the 27th and I look forward to the possibilities. In the meantime, check out the new Rethinking Schools issue. It's got great stuff in it, as usual.
(hang in there, Rachel.)
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