Response to "Critical Pedagogy - Major Concepts"

“Men and women are essentially unfree and inhabit a world rife with contradictions and asymmetries of power and privilege.”  From what I understand, the educational theory that this idea prescribes to, or “critical theory,” in which neither society, nor an individual in the society, holds dominance over the other.  That the person is only an “actor” or participant in the machine of society.  I find this idea hard to accept, for this lends to the thought that there is no escape, no progression.  I assume and hope that somewhere in the rest of this reading there will be some sort of solution or idea that will make the educational journeys of the students in our classrooms.

Of course, knowing the theory that an individual is a cog in the machine of society helps us to understand how we might improve the machine that the cog is a part of.  We cannot escape from society; it is part of the environment that surrounds every one of us.  The trick as educators is to facilitate the efforts of individuals to improve and alter their surroundings.  “School is not simply…an arena of indoctrination or socialization or a site of instruction, but [is] also…a cultural terrain that promotes student empowerment and self-transformation.”  School is not a place where one is forced to make their situation worse or more difficult, but is the little shop of keys that provides opportunities to open doors that lead directly to the futures of our students.  They have the entire future ahead of them; it is not our job to stand in their way.  Is it possible for a “good” instructor to consider schools as places of “both domination and liberation?”  As places for us, as teachers to create clones of students, sending reproductions of them into the world, or is it our job to facilitate s

students in breaking out of the molds in which students place themselves?

Perhaps it is best for one to be a “critical educator,” or one who approaches education as something to act on, rather than be someone who is a facilitator, who is acted upon.  They “argue that…schooling must be partisan…” that “there are many sides to a problem, and often these sides are linked to certain class, race, and gender interests.”  In other words, the answers to issues at hand are not always simple or easy, but affected by everything else that makes up society and the people that make it up.

Response to "Pedagogy of the Opressed"

One of the passages that most intrigued me was, “Those who use the banking approach, knowingly or unknowingly (for there are innumerable well-intentioned bank-clerk teachers who do not realize that they are serving only to dehumanize), fail to perceive that the deposits themselves contain contradictions about reality.”  Whether I have good intentions or not, how do I treat those who look to me for knowledge?  Are they dehumanized?  When they sit in my class, are they there to stare at the old guy at the front of the room, waiting for me to tell them what notes to write, what information to disgorge onto a test?  Or are they there for an experience?

What happens to those who are met with such contradictions—what they are being taught is not only different from the reality of their real life, but functions to “dehumanize” them?  People are like snowflakes—there are very few that are the same.  Why wouldn’t I give students every opportunity to grow and flourish? “Oppression --overwhelming control -- is necrophilic; it is nourished by love of death, not life. The banking concept of education, which serves the interests of oppression, is also necrophilic. Based on a mechanistic, static, naturalistic, spatialized view of consciousness, it transforms students into receiving objects.”  Students are not objects.  If there is one thing I have learned as I have observed in the high school environment, when I look in the eyes of kids, is that they are anything but static and normal.  Everything about them is unique; they all have unique stories and unique ideas.  Every single one of them has something to teach me.

The question to ask is simple, but lacks a simple answer: how do I keep from teaching with oppression as an intentional, or unintentional, tool?  How do I lead them to “liberation?” There is a key: “Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow.”  If I enter a classroom in which I do not expect to grow or learn, I do not only show myself disservice, but also to the students.  If a student senses that a teacher is not interested, there is absolutely no reason they will expend themselves, especially when there is so much else going on in their world.  Why not learn from them? 

They might teach me something.

Response to "A Response-Based Approach to Reading Literature"

One of the main themese of this reading is centered around the oftrn difficult task of getting a student to "find owenership" over their own education.  I was in a recent high school tenth grade class where some of the students acheived less than 30% on a vocabulary test.  Their reaction was to giggle amongst themselves.  When I talked with their teacher, he acknowledged that they could have been giggling nervously when he drew attention to them, but this did not feel like the case with all of them.

 Concerning response-based instruction, some teachers attempt to teach with "a pedagogy of student thoughtfulness because they think it provides students with ownership for their own learning, motivates and engages them in making sense, and provides a context for them to try out, negotiate, and refine their ideas in interaction with others."  The idea is not to just prompt a student to have ownership of their education, but to free them up to mold and challenge what is taught to them.  Every one of us have been in classrooms in which the only person with ownership in the place is the instructor in front who is chiefly worried about lecturing and getting his/her dry informaiton out to the cowering masses.  No one wnats to be here.

In freeing up students to own what they are learning, it is not our jobs to show, but to fascilitate.  When students are enabled to mold and challenge what they are shown, "they orient themselves differently to the ideas they are creating because their expectations about the kinds of meaning they will gain or create are different."  They care, because the learning process is no longer one of being stuck in a crypt, but on a self-styalized adventure.  A good teacher is one who ads fuel to the adventure, because "Their sense of the whole changes only when a substantial amount of countervailing evidence leads them to rethink how what they are reading or writing "holds together."  It should not be our job to force an issue, but to direct a free-flowing river of idea and thought.  It is our job to "learn to listen

to...students' attempts at sense-making and to base instruction on their...responses."  This may seem difficult, but if we loook at students as co-learners and instructors, rather than targets of our own ideas, it could not be more simple.

Response to SIOP

While the contents of the SIOP piece might have been geared towards ELL students, it is easy to see how any of the learning and teaching methods discussed therin would benefit all students, expecially if students appreciate any level of variety in their educational pursuits.  I do wonder though,how a techer might find the time to develop, implement and assess such levels of, notonly variety, but especially personalized and unique variety. Don't get me wrong, some of these are great ideas.  The problem, for me, is that so much of what is coming my way right now is made up of good ideas and revolutionary practices.  How do I distinguish among all of it to come up with the ones that I need to implement?

For instance, "Leveled Study Guides [in which] Teacher composes study guides to accompany students’ textbook. My thought…all this sounds good, but when will teachers have the time for this?  Iimagine that I will be so busy trying to get my students to meet the requirements of the CCSS, will I have time to create study guides to the content?  I will not teach something to students that I do not think that they can understand, so I will be producing suplemental materials to assist them, but the level of individualism described here is truly amazing.

I do like the idea of "Concepts must be directly related to the students’ background experiences,

when possible, whether personal, cultural, or academic. Teachers must make

explicit and direct links between past learning and new concepts. Emphasize key

vocabulary, and present new vocabulary only in context."  Each student comes to me with different backgrounds and experiences that make them unique and special.  Do I believe that the experiences and knowledge that I will bring to the classroom wil be the best way to portray information?  I am not conceited enough that I do not value what the students bring to the room.  This will keep the experience of being in my room just asd beneficial for me, as it is for them.

One last thought: "Vocabulary Self-Selection Students self-select vocabulary words that they think are essential to understanding the concept. This empowers students by allowing them to choose

the most appropriate vocabulary words and key concepts. "  This is another one of those things that look really gooood on paper.  Who will have the time to grade thirty different vocabulary lists?  As I finished the excerpt, it occured to me that this could be molded into an activity where the entire class sets the vocabulary test.  This would not only fascilitate ownership, but it would also keep the teacher from slipping in to work overload, which would affect the student's experience.

Response to "The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts Instruction in Grades 6-12" and "Corestandards.org"

There are many ways to look at Common Core State Standards.  It is easy to look at them and feel resentment for someone telling me how to do my job, especially after surviving all of these classes.  I am old, and have a life time of experiences that tell me that I am already a good teacher.  Then...I come across articles like this.

I am not saying that I am a total and complete discuple of the CCSS, for I honestly believe that, in about six years, when the mucky-mucks in DC and P21 (The Partnership for21st Century Skills) realize that, either the CCSS aren't working, or need a re-tooling.  If I am proclaiming such a thing, that I am not totally converted, then in what am I focussed?  This question is easy: in teaching.  If I am so focussed on making professional teaching a part of my future, then I need to ask myself--the children I have taught, have they all ended up perfecr?  The answer is no, so I must admit that I need help.  For now, I have the CCSS, so I will use it to the best of my ability.

But, is using the CCSS the best way to use it?  Them?  "The hope of the Common Core State Standards is that, this time, a more consistent set of goals across states will make standards-based reform more effective."  It is designed to make education fair for everyone, and "is consistent with the demands of learning and living in the 21st Century."  The needs and abilities of today's students, wired far differently and wildly then I was when I slouched my way through school,  I am the proud parent of two ADHD students, and what I can not deny is one thing: "Whether [my] implementation of the Common Core State Standards will meet...high expectations depends on [my] passionate commitment to making higher standards meaningful."  It is not my job, especially for kids whose wiring needs some tender and deliberate attention, to just dispense information and stay in the rut of being the "traditional...conveyor of knowledge."  It is my job to entertain, entertain with purpose and to avoid standardization.  And remember that, even though it might be easy to pigeonhole students with labels, each one of them must be taught differently, and give different levels of my attention.

Teaching is/will be difficult.  Why in the world would I want to subject myself to such punishment and potential dissapointment?  There is one, among many, reasons that make answering that easy: "standards alone will not suffice to remedy their needs."  Teaching well requires me/us to be flexible, constantly adjusting.  I have had many "jobs" over the years, many of them stuck into a rut of stangnancy that would make a rock fall asleep. I am learning that teaching will not put me to sleep (except from exhaustion.)

Response to Discussion as a Way of Teaching

As soon as I began reading this, I instintively reverted to the many personal memories of in-class discussions and of moments when my past teachers attempted to make the experiences of their classrooms more active and more condusive to their students' learning.  How did I come out of these experiences?  Did I leave with expanded understanding of the material at hand, and sudden feelings of inclusion in the class?  None of the above.  I was the kind of students that is described in the article--someone who does as little as possible, ticking off established assignment requirements (if I didn't skip them altogether,) then sneaking out as soon as the bell rang.

I didn't enjoy school, and it wasn't until about two quarters ago that I understood exactly why: ownership.  As a student, I took no (or little) ownership over my educational trajectory.  As a teacher, I have openly wondered how do I spark in my students that which I so openly missed?  How do I get them to own their experiences, to care about what is to come?  As I read, I made a list of some of the ideas that I optimistically think might have helped me and my motivation:

1 - "The Best coversations maintain a tension between seriousness and playfulness." (p. 5)
2 - "Give students opportunities to talk and write autobiographically."  Like any guy, I like talking about myself.
3 - "The incentive to  participate diminishes when what one says or contributes is ignored or leaves no discernible impact."  On the few occasions I did speak, how often did I feel like someone actually cared?
4 - As a teacher, it is wise to "Admit errors in judgement."
5 - As a teacher, "...Appreciation brings people closer together and raises the level of trust." (Page 12) But it is important to not overdo it.  Nothing kills good feelings better than lack of sincerity.  I hate(d) nothing more than a teacher who lays appreciation on me like I am a toddler.
6 - Help a student "become connected" to a topic at hand - base discussion on their own thoughts and experiences. (Respect their voices and experiences.)
7 - There are more, but one of the most important ideas in this article is that a teacher must model how they want the discussion to go.  Setting anyone off on a task without showing them how it is supposed to go is a direct recipe for failure.

I just hope that, when it comes time for me to teach again, that I will remember these thoughts, and not become stuck on the idea that it is all "easier said than done."  Perhaps this class will help this be untrue--train me to make these things just as easy done as said.

A Little About Me

I am in the last few quarters of my Secondary Education degree at Easter Washington University.  I am one of the few students in the halls with streaks of gray in my hair.  I would have enjoyed finishing school years ago, but two things stood in my way: single fatherhood and MATH.  Successful fatherhood is a process, but math is conquered and done, though it took me six and more semesters and three universities to do it.  Which is why I am seeking to teach English.  In my rare spare time I am a writer, I have authored three novels and plotted a third, one of which was submitted a few times last year, but not selected for publication.  I have been asked multiple times why I teach/want to teach, but rarely is my response the same.  Usually I respond that it is because I get the teen mind and think I know what it is to be one.  I want to enrich their minds and make education less of a drudge than they are used to.

I am placed at Jenkins High School in Chewelah, Washington.  This is about 80 miles from the Canadian border.  Once I went and visited the border, just to see what it looked like.  I came home with an empty camera still in my pocket.  I am placed under the wise guidance of Mr. Schut and his English classes, and in Mr. Hanson's freshman English class.  The funnest thing I have seen is the varrying ways that each class learns and grows.

I look forward to this journey!

Welcome to my blog!  More to come!