this week i spent hours preparing my resume and filling out applications to re-enter the world of classroom teaching. and while i have spent most of this semester reflecting on the national direction of education, and more specifically curriculum, in the united states - particularly emerging from thinking about ravitch's self-story - i am feeling called to begin grounding myself in the classroom again. and with that in mind, this analytic moment is urging me to think about the place of dialogue in the classroom, especially in the form of socratic seminar and writing workshop. i find myself thinking: in the first conceptions of the classroom, was dialogue important? and if so, where did we leave it behind? at what risk did we and are we leaving it behind? is there room for dialogue in a data-driven world? what are we saying to our children by not allowing them to 'say' to each other?
a word that propels the idea of dialogue, at least for me, is "community."
and for that reason, i am first drawn to the era directly before kliebard's historiography begins: "...nineteenth-century society, with its reliance on the face-to-face community, was clearly in decline...as cities grew, the schools were no longer the direct instruments of a unified community...rather, they became an ever more critical mediating institution between the family and a puzzling and impersonal social order..." (1)
i am asking myself: can it be possible that the decline of dialogue began in the 1890s's? and is it when we began focusing on the curriculum, instead of the teacher, that we first misstepped away from the importance of classroom dialogue, of community? i wonder what would have happened if we would have resisted the shift "from the tangible presence of the teacher to the remote knowledge and value incarnate in the curriculum" (1)? does focusing on the teacher, instead of the curriculum, inherently mean focusing more on the process of education than the products of it?
even in reading about the great educational theorists of the early 20th century, i noticed very little discussion of dialogue. i admired eliot's emphasis on reason, but it felt like a quiet, singular mission, not a cooperative one (9). and even hall's child-centered philosophy was driven by practicality: what is a pond, a square, a nose? (11) however, something hall quoted resonated with me: "the pupil is in the age of spontaneous variation which at no period of life is so great. he does not want a standardized, overpeptonized mental diet. it palls on his appetite" (12). i, too, believe that school should have a strong element of "spontaneity" and self-direction. and i think that dialogue in the classroom is one way of providing that.
when i think back about encouraging or guiding dialogue in my own classroom, it always meant a letting-go. a humble openness to neither the curriculum nor the teacher controlling the learning space and a belief that meaning-making could happen organically, spontaneously. it definitely meant that admitting that there is no one, neat answer -- and that all of our realities inform the way we answer. it meant learning empathy.
but all of that began with the brave and sometimes scary act of letting-go. and the more i read, the more i am convinced that our history of curriculum, at least since the late 19th century, has been driven by fear: fear that our students wouldn't master daily tasks, wouldn't find work, wouldn't contribute to society, wouldn't have discipline of mind, and wouldn't, then, have power. hall warns: "the society for which the child, to-day, is to be educated, is too complex, makes too many demands upon personality to be capable of being based upon custom and routine without the utmost disaster. we must educate him by giving him the widest powers and most complete tools of civilization" (46). the tone used by all of the philosophers, almost without exception, is one of fear.
i wonder: what if we started from a different place? what would happen if our discussions about education in our country used a different language, a different tone? what if we were open to the possibilities of spontaneity and to the authentic voices of our students? what if our focus was not only learning for [insert intimidating reason here], but for learning's sake, and perhaps even more importantly, to make our conversations more rich, thoughtful, and engaging? what if the point of education was to build community -- and what if a precisely-determined curriculum had nothing to do with it?
how powerful would it be if our children felt like this when they came to school?
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
blogpost 5: free-association progression.
day 1: 2/14/13, morning after the state of the union
last night i watched the state of the union with my husband, half paying-attention while perusing facebook and pinterest and etsy. when the president started to talk about education, though, my ears perked up. during this past election, i learned that i will never understand everything that 'politics' encompasses, and it's infuriating/overwhelming/depressing/overzealous/proud to even try. what is 'politics' anyway? in november, i came to peace with the truth: that i know next to nothing about foreign policy and warfare anything, that i know a little about social-justice issues, but that throwing the words 'economy' or 'fiscal responsibility' in the mix makes my heart struggle with what i know is right and necessary. but there is one thing that i, while certainly not an expert, can claim as a passion: and that's education. so i listened.
and what i heard was everything i'd heard before, and nothing i believed. that our focus should be math and science: why?! where did this come from?! when did reading and logic and thoughtful dialogue take the back seat to chemical equations and pie charts?! (what would our founding fathers say about this?) i was intrigued by the mandatory-preschool idea, as i promote any early-learning exercise, but the republican on my left shoulder asked: but how will we pay for that? how will we realistically make it happen? is this obama's way to sneak in free childcare? do i even disagree with that? i'd take it! but ohio's looming '3rd grade reading guarantee' promoted similar over-arching and vague verbage, and i don't like it, generally.
and the mention of 21st century skills (another ed vocab word-of-the-day, yay!) is lovely, except that now we have more money tied up in filling out paperwork. i know no-ties federal funding is a bill of rights no-no, but i would LOVE to see money freely given to schools, without ties or red tape. i just think tying up money in these specific, data-dependent 'promises' has not been effective, and takes away the focus from classroom learning, rather than enhancing it.
this morning, i was late to work because i was talking through all of this with my mom. she had lots to say, and i found that she was both agreeing with obama (good kids shouldn't be stuck in bad schools! kids need to be tested on 'basic skills'!) while she was also smugging him for, well, his plan in general. she is a staunch republican. and our conversation was so confusing to me, while, at the same time, enlightening and reflective of what we've been discussing in class: on education, republicans and democrat politicians agree, and it's frustrating to those of us who don't buy into the widely-accepted plan.
day 2: 2/18/13
i finished reading today, and i am so intrigued by this balanced literacy stuff. in three weeks, i am so excited to be able to go to nyc and spend the day at the columbia teachers college reunion weekend, which promotes their workshop curriculum, a curriculum that strongly mimics my own feelings about the way kids learn --- or, self-consciously, let me say this: the way i learn.
i wondered, after reading ravitch this week, do different cultures learn differently? can we talk about that in a sensitive way? i would even go so far to say that i'm beginning to wonder if i believe that urban african-american students and hispanic students should be taught with a curriculum designed by educators in their own cultures. i know we spent a lot of time talking about the deficit model last class, and the overwhelming problem of poverty, and i feel so small and helpless in the face of this problem. (i got a homily i needed at ash wednesday service: lent is not about being sad; it's about being humble. about knowing we cannot solve all of the problems for everyone, that that is not necessarily even our jobs as human beings. those were not defeatist, but rather, healing words for me.) anyway, i have started to think that maybe there is something bigger going on here, and we don't have to write it off as a blame on poverty.
maybe because we're raised differently, we learn differently. shouldn't we all be allowed to learn the way we feel most comfortable? we've used that language a lot with learning disabilities recently, but not with cultural differences. i can't help but think that the reason these certain curriculum work with certain white and asian students is because the curriculum is designed by white and asian educators, who learned and were raised by white and asian parents and teachers.
is this naive of me?
anyway, i am really interested in discovering if there's any link between the beloved columbia tc curriculum (which touts 'rock star' authors and curriculum gurus, and all of us teachers feel a lot like groupies!) and this balanced literacy movement. i am sure there is. the descriptions of each are so similar! and although i love the tc curriculum, i also am very willing to play the devil's advocate: is this working for all students?
at the end of the day, although i have lately been resisting assessment and standards and data and all that comes with it (dragging behind it, chain-to-ball), i do think we need some method of checking to see if a system is working? ah, what is 'working'? i still haven't defined it for myself. but i can tell you that you and i both know the difference between a student who cannot read, and one who can; an essay that is clear and thoughtful, and one that is empty and a paragraph-long. i believe that it isn't fruitless to ask "what is working?" i just don't know yet how to measure it.
do any of us?
last night i watched the state of the union with my husband, half paying-attention while perusing facebook and pinterest and etsy. when the president started to talk about education, though, my ears perked up. during this past election, i learned that i will never understand everything that 'politics' encompasses, and it's infuriating/overwhelming/depressing/overzealous/proud to even try. what is 'politics' anyway? in november, i came to peace with the truth: that i know next to nothing about foreign policy and warfare anything, that i know a little about social-justice issues, but that throwing the words 'economy' or 'fiscal responsibility' in the mix makes my heart struggle with what i know is right and necessary. but there is one thing that i, while certainly not an expert, can claim as a passion: and that's education. so i listened.
and what i heard was everything i'd heard before, and nothing i believed. that our focus should be math and science: why?! where did this come from?! when did reading and logic and thoughtful dialogue take the back seat to chemical equations and pie charts?! (what would our founding fathers say about this?) i was intrigued by the mandatory-preschool idea, as i promote any early-learning exercise, but the republican on my left shoulder asked: but how will we pay for that? how will we realistically make it happen? is this obama's way to sneak in free childcare? do i even disagree with that? i'd take it! but ohio's looming '3rd grade reading guarantee' promoted similar over-arching and vague verbage, and i don't like it, generally.
and the mention of 21st century skills (another ed vocab word-of-the-day, yay!) is lovely, except that now we have more money tied up in filling out paperwork. i know no-ties federal funding is a bill of rights no-no, but i would LOVE to see money freely given to schools, without ties or red tape. i just think tying up money in these specific, data-dependent 'promises' has not been effective, and takes away the focus from classroom learning, rather than enhancing it.
this morning, i was late to work because i was talking through all of this with my mom. she had lots to say, and i found that she was both agreeing with obama (good kids shouldn't be stuck in bad schools! kids need to be tested on 'basic skills'!) while she was also smugging him for, well, his plan in general. she is a staunch republican. and our conversation was so confusing to me, while, at the same time, enlightening and reflective of what we've been discussing in class: on education, republicans and democrat politicians agree, and it's frustrating to those of us who don't buy into the widely-accepted plan.
day 2: 2/18/13
i finished reading today, and i am so intrigued by this balanced literacy stuff. in three weeks, i am so excited to be able to go to nyc and spend the day at the columbia teachers college reunion weekend, which promotes their workshop curriculum, a curriculum that strongly mimics my own feelings about the way kids learn --- or, self-consciously, let me say this: the way i learn.
i wondered, after reading ravitch this week, do different cultures learn differently? can we talk about that in a sensitive way? i would even go so far to say that i'm beginning to wonder if i believe that urban african-american students and hispanic students should be taught with a curriculum designed by educators in their own cultures. i know we spent a lot of time talking about the deficit model last class, and the overwhelming problem of poverty, and i feel so small and helpless in the face of this problem. (i got a homily i needed at ash wednesday service: lent is not about being sad; it's about being humble. about knowing we cannot solve all of the problems for everyone, that that is not necessarily even our jobs as human beings. those were not defeatist, but rather, healing words for me.) anyway, i have started to think that maybe there is something bigger going on here, and we don't have to write it off as a blame on poverty.
maybe because we're raised differently, we learn differently. shouldn't we all be allowed to learn the way we feel most comfortable? we've used that language a lot with learning disabilities recently, but not with cultural differences. i can't help but think that the reason these certain curriculum work with certain white and asian students is because the curriculum is designed by white and asian educators, who learned and were raised by white and asian parents and teachers.
is this naive of me?
anyway, i am really interested in discovering if there's any link between the beloved columbia tc curriculum (which touts 'rock star' authors and curriculum gurus, and all of us teachers feel a lot like groupies!) and this balanced literacy movement. i am sure there is. the descriptions of each are so similar! and although i love the tc curriculum, i also am very willing to play the devil's advocate: is this working for all students?
at the end of the day, although i have lately been resisting assessment and standards and data and all that comes with it (dragging behind it, chain-to-ball), i do think we need some method of checking to see if a system is working? ah, what is 'working'? i still haven't defined it for myself. but i can tell you that you and i both know the difference between a student who cannot read, and one who can; an essay that is clear and thoughtful, and one that is empty and a paragraph-long. i believe that it isn't fruitless to ask "what is working?" i just don't know yet how to measure it.
do any of us?
Monday, February 11, 2013
blogpost 4: rethinking education.
i think i might love diane ravitch. as i was reading the text, i felt fully engaged. in my annotations, i hardly ever felt compelled to question her argument. specifically, i felt drawn to her description of a well-educated person: "knowledge and skills are both important, as is learning to think, debate, and question. a well-educated person has a well-furnished mind, shaped by reading and thinking about history, science, literature, the arts, and politics. the well-educated person has learned to how explain ideas and listen respectfully to others" (ravitch 16). i think if we used those ideas to guide our curriculum standards, and assessments, we would be on the right track. i was surprised reminded of the destructive role of media-enhanced attacks on policy (17) and how often politics get in the way of real progress: what would our education system look like had the clinton administration not backed away from its vision of national standards? what if there was no such thing as political suicide?
i was intrigued by the idea that so many liberals had come to claim such a republican, business-minded education plan, and i was surprised that i -- like ravitch -- admired the goals and wording put forth in a nation at risk. i liked that it was succinct and designed with high expectations, though i did feel the actual subject-specific standards were not as precise as ravitch touted them as being. they still felt a bit vague to me, but i also don't know if i'd want it any other way: i wouldn't want bureaucratic --- even education-minded ones --- telling me precisely what to teach. the instinctive part of me thinks explicit standards take the joy, challenge, and creativity out of teaching. i'm also aware that it's not helpful for students to learn the same things every year because there is no explicit expectation of what will be taught at each grade level --- or even worse, what won't be taught, living gaps students may never even be aware of: "i think we are always burdened...by the past we don't remember" (pinar 45). teachers are responsible for leading students to discover the past: all perspectives of it, without gaps due to poor curriculum mapping -- or standards.
i felt empassioned by ravitch's focus on vision before assessment to avoid producing "mountains of data, not educated citizens" (ravitch 29). vision is HUGE for me. i think the most interesting groups of people -- from governements to families -- have visions for what they expect and dream their people will be. then you work toward that vision. and then you assess the work. not the other way around, a la NCLB.
i wanted to hear more about ravitch's call to improve elementary and middle schools, as they were left out of ANAR. as a midde school teacher, i don't want middle school to remain the place where we expect our students to learn what a verb is, what a fraction is, how many countries there are in africa -- at the expense of critical and creative thinking and dialogue. i wonder what ravitch's idea of middle school 'rigor' might look like?
all this questioning leads me to my sober reflections while reading john dewey: it's true that "rejection of the philosophy and practice of traditional education sets a new type of difficult educational problem" -- and so it goes. every time i read dewey i am reminded that there is always work to be done. that the road is, perhaps, without destination.
i also felt that dewey shared ravitch's ideas in some ways. i think that dewey would agree ravitch that not all experiences are rich. perhaps dewey would have also agreed that our nation needs some kind of standards or shared plan -- to avoid experiences that are "mis-educative": "just because traditional education was a matter of routine which the plans and programs were handed down from the past, it does not follow that progressive education is a matter of planless improvisation" (dewey 28). i think dewey would argue for standards that might lead teachers' attitudes and classroom environments, not simply the items that need to be taught. teachers need to be expected not only to teach specific objectives (if we're going to argue that), but also they need to be expected to nurture curiosity, to use positive language, to inspire, to make learning feel natural and exciting? ah, but these qualities are both so difficult to teach and to expect...or are they? i'd like to see a case for teaching teachers affect. and i'd like to think dewey would, too. after all, "everything depends on the quality of the experience which is had" (27).
when i go back to teaching next year, i will keep dewey's requirements for experience in mind and ask myself: is this fun for the student, are they immediately interested in what i'm saying, did i 'catch' them --- AND is what i'm saying going to stick, is it important for their life, as "every experience lives on in further experiences" (27).
finally, i think dewey gets it exactly right when he says: "revolt against the kind of organization characteristic of the traditional school constitutes a demand for a kind of organization based upon ideas" (29). i think this is the hope for our future: a public school system which lives and breathes ideas, and an organic system of organizing and assessing those ideas that comes only second to the ideas themselves.
THAT would be bliss :)
i was intrigued by the idea that so many liberals had come to claim such a republican, business-minded education plan, and i was surprised that i -- like ravitch -- admired the goals and wording put forth in a nation at risk. i liked that it was succinct and designed with high expectations, though i did feel the actual subject-specific standards were not as precise as ravitch touted them as being. they still felt a bit vague to me, but i also don't know if i'd want it any other way: i wouldn't want bureaucratic --- even education-minded ones --- telling me precisely what to teach. the instinctive part of me thinks explicit standards take the joy, challenge, and creativity out of teaching. i'm also aware that it's not helpful for students to learn the same things every year because there is no explicit expectation of what will be taught at each grade level --- or even worse, what won't be taught, living gaps students may never even be aware of: "i think we are always burdened...by the past we don't remember" (pinar 45). teachers are responsible for leading students to discover the past: all perspectives of it, without gaps due to poor curriculum mapping -- or standards.
i felt empassioned by ravitch's focus on vision before assessment to avoid producing "mountains of data, not educated citizens" (ravitch 29). vision is HUGE for me. i think the most interesting groups of people -- from governements to families -- have visions for what they expect and dream their people will be. then you work toward that vision. and then you assess the work. not the other way around, a la NCLB.
i wanted to hear more about ravitch's call to improve elementary and middle schools, as they were left out of ANAR. as a midde school teacher, i don't want middle school to remain the place where we expect our students to learn what a verb is, what a fraction is, how many countries there are in africa -- at the expense of critical and creative thinking and dialogue. i wonder what ravitch's idea of middle school 'rigor' might look like?
all this questioning leads me to my sober reflections while reading john dewey: it's true that "rejection of the philosophy and practice of traditional education sets a new type of difficult educational problem" -- and so it goes. every time i read dewey i am reminded that there is always work to be done. that the road is, perhaps, without destination.
i also felt that dewey shared ravitch's ideas in some ways. i think that dewey would agree ravitch that not all experiences are rich. perhaps dewey would have also agreed that our nation needs some kind of standards or shared plan -- to avoid experiences that are "mis-educative": "just because traditional education was a matter of routine which the plans and programs were handed down from the past, it does not follow that progressive education is a matter of planless improvisation" (dewey 28). i think dewey would argue for standards that might lead teachers' attitudes and classroom environments, not simply the items that need to be taught. teachers need to be expected not only to teach specific objectives (if we're going to argue that), but also they need to be expected to nurture curiosity, to use positive language, to inspire, to make learning feel natural and exciting? ah, but these qualities are both so difficult to teach and to expect...or are they? i'd like to see a case for teaching teachers affect. and i'd like to think dewey would, too. after all, "everything depends on the quality of the experience which is had" (27).
when i go back to teaching next year, i will keep dewey's requirements for experience in mind and ask myself: is this fun for the student, are they immediately interested in what i'm saying, did i 'catch' them --- AND is what i'm saying going to stick, is it important for their life, as "every experience lives on in further experiences" (27).
finally, i think dewey gets it exactly right when he says: "revolt against the kind of organization characteristic of the traditional school constitutes a demand for a kind of organization based upon ideas" (29). i think this is the hope for our future: a public school system which lives and breathes ideas, and an organic system of organizing and assessing those ideas that comes only second to the ideas themselves.
THAT would be bliss :)
Monday, February 4, 2013
blogpost 3: curriculum, freedom, and mindfulness.
unlike grumet, i have never been a journal writer. i made feeble attempts at certain pivotal moments of my life, when as a writer i thought i "should," but after a day or two, i always ended up in the same place: feeling like my writing wasn't authentic, wasn't really me. i hated the way my voice sounded on the journal page; i even scrunched up my nose at the way my writing looked on the page, so fake and prescribed. and i never knew how to begin: "dear self?"
(i continue to love buying journals: i am a sucker for beautiful things. perhaps one of my children will be a journal writer and inherit my two dozen string or leather-bound mostly-empty journals.)
i came to discover blogging two years ago, when i was feeling lonely as a mom (none of my friends had children of their own yet, and i needed to reach out to a wider community who shared my experience) and as a teacher in an unsupported classroom (my creativity felt stuck: i needed an outlet!). blogging felt so much more natural to me than journal writing; i am a member of the AIM generation; i had grown up typing -- not hand-writing -- and i think that very physical, logistical shift had something to do with freeing my authentic voice.
there are dangers to blogging, though. at its very best, my blogging voice asks really good questions, is thoughtful, hopeful, well-read, and even playful. sometimes it challenges beliefs, or asks its readers to re-think. but at its loudest, my writer's voice can seem didactic, all-knowing, and even judgmental. (that voice was born from loving both anna quindlen and my mother.) interestingly, as a person operating in the real world, i am constantly in flux with my opinion, and although i am willing to share what i have learned at any given moment, i never assume to have the last word. i work to be open-minded and respectful of others' perspectives. i oftentimes mistrust those who seem absolutely certain in their beliefs, especially if those beliefs are polarizing. ultimately, blogging has shined a light on what i love most and least about writing; it has connected me to community and in dialogue, engaged me as a thinker, and, like grumet, provided me with a witness to my life: "i remember it because i wrote about it" (grumet). it has also provoked me to speak in a more certain and sermonizing tone than i usually employ in my daily life; those posts have provoked amazing conversation, but also made me self-conscious.
apart from writing, or perhaps akin to it, as a thinker, i am a brainstormer, or as grumet might say, a "jotter" and "scrap-collector," and my best thoughts come to me in days of fits and spurts, of post-its on my nightstand and phrases scribbled on my day book. this is a real reflection of my mind: the subtle knowledge that there is a pattern there, and that i must be patient to see it revealed accordingly, in its own time. i have always been a proponent of process. what's more 'process' than life?
after i read grumet's piece, i felt both inspired and frustrated. frustrated only at some of her confusing and lofty word choice and sentence structure. but that aside, i really liked her sensibilities about curriculum: that "education implies our presence in the world," that we need "to return the complexity, specificity, rhythm, and logic of the biographical voice to studies in education," that "teaching must also reverse the process of generalization by returning the world to the specificity of lived experience," and most of all, this: "there is no formula for this relation. it is turned to every writer and reader and to the situation they share. and there is no model for its place in our culture and thought that we can borrow from other enterprises." i loved that. i think it's true. we cannot, and should not, go about wasting our energies in comparing schools to other similar fields, let alone hospitals or factories.
as a writer and a creative person, and a creative teacher, my soul feels at home with grumet's argument, which is also echoed by pinar: education is so subtle and alive and nuanced and "requires subjectivity in order for it to speak" (43). teaching to the test and rallying for an assessment- and data-obsessed culture "ignores the intellectual judgment of the individual educator" (43) and sees study as connotating "only test preparation, not self-cultivation or social democratization"(44). i agree that the educator should be a "participant...in the complicated conversation that is the curriculum" (44) that curriculum itself should be "that which electrifies or gives life to a person's energy source" (47). i, too, would like to see a movement which "reconceptualizes curriculum from course objectives to complicated conversation" (47), so that the classroom can be both "a civic square and a room of one's own" (47).
the most striking statement i read in our assignment was this: "the analysis of currere is...one's distantiation from the past and extrication from the future functions to create a subjective - third - space of freedom in the present" (46). and although pinar ends the chapter by saying that "we find future not in the present, however, but in the past," i felt moved by his earlier focus on the current moment on why it matters, and what we bring to it. that idea of being free in the present was really important to me. and i think it's the message teachers need to hear. (i can feel myself slipping into the didactic blogger voice: oh no! :) teachers, i think, need to be encouraged to focus on the teachable moment, which is, really, every moment in the classroom. teachers have so many distractions that pull them away from those moments: charting behavior, e-mailing parents, tracking test scores; i think we need to remind teachers that their job -- and what a magnificent, honorable job it is! -- is to inspire students to think and be critically aware of the context in which they think. there is a reason teachers can recall certain "teachable moments" -- the ones that, perhaps, changed the course of their careers. and i think that reason might be that they were experiencing the freedom of the present. a space where both teachers and students are aware of everything that is influencing them, and are working to make meaning of all of it, despite artificial constructs (time, grades, scores). those moments are what keep teachers teaching, and students learning.
however, there is a perhaps more practical, if not merely logistical, part of me that wonders: how do we know this is working? how can a principal, for instance, know that the subjective experience of the teacher is also positively affecting the subjective experience of the student? and how do we model for teachers who are uncomfortable with "the call to free indirect subjectivity"? what happens to the teachers who won't get on board? does this redefine who is called to be a teacher entirely? and perhaps most of all, what do we hope this currere movement would accomplish? what do pinar and grumet want schools to look like, what would they like america to look like? even within a subjective curriculum, is there an end goal? is there an objective?
(i continue to love buying journals: i am a sucker for beautiful things. perhaps one of my children will be a journal writer and inherit my two dozen string or leather-bound mostly-empty journals.)
i came to discover blogging two years ago, when i was feeling lonely as a mom (none of my friends had children of their own yet, and i needed to reach out to a wider community who shared my experience) and as a teacher in an unsupported classroom (my creativity felt stuck: i needed an outlet!). blogging felt so much more natural to me than journal writing; i am a member of the AIM generation; i had grown up typing -- not hand-writing -- and i think that very physical, logistical shift had something to do with freeing my authentic voice.
there are dangers to blogging, though. at its very best, my blogging voice asks really good questions, is thoughtful, hopeful, well-read, and even playful. sometimes it challenges beliefs, or asks its readers to re-think. but at its loudest, my writer's voice can seem didactic, all-knowing, and even judgmental. (that voice was born from loving both anna quindlen and my mother.) interestingly, as a person operating in the real world, i am constantly in flux with my opinion, and although i am willing to share what i have learned at any given moment, i never assume to have the last word. i work to be open-minded and respectful of others' perspectives. i oftentimes mistrust those who seem absolutely certain in their beliefs, especially if those beliefs are polarizing. ultimately, blogging has shined a light on what i love most and least about writing; it has connected me to community and in dialogue, engaged me as a thinker, and, like grumet, provided me with a witness to my life: "i remember it because i wrote about it" (grumet). it has also provoked me to speak in a more certain and sermonizing tone than i usually employ in my daily life; those posts have provoked amazing conversation, but also made me self-conscious.
apart from writing, or perhaps akin to it, as a thinker, i am a brainstormer, or as grumet might say, a "jotter" and "scrap-collector," and my best thoughts come to me in days of fits and spurts, of post-its on my nightstand and phrases scribbled on my day book. this is a real reflection of my mind: the subtle knowledge that there is a pattern there, and that i must be patient to see it revealed accordingly, in its own time. i have always been a proponent of process. what's more 'process' than life?
after i read grumet's piece, i felt both inspired and frustrated. frustrated only at some of her confusing and lofty word choice and sentence structure. but that aside, i really liked her sensibilities about curriculum: that "education implies our presence in the world," that we need "to return the complexity, specificity, rhythm, and logic of the biographical voice to studies in education," that "teaching must also reverse the process of generalization by returning the world to the specificity of lived experience," and most of all, this: "there is no formula for this relation. it is turned to every writer and reader and to the situation they share. and there is no model for its place in our culture and thought that we can borrow from other enterprises." i loved that. i think it's true. we cannot, and should not, go about wasting our energies in comparing schools to other similar fields, let alone hospitals or factories.
as a writer and a creative person, and a creative teacher, my soul feels at home with grumet's argument, which is also echoed by pinar: education is so subtle and alive and nuanced and "requires subjectivity in order for it to speak" (43). teaching to the test and rallying for an assessment- and data-obsessed culture "ignores the intellectual judgment of the individual educator" (43) and sees study as connotating "only test preparation, not self-cultivation or social democratization"(44). i agree that the educator should be a "participant...in the complicated conversation that is the curriculum" (44) that curriculum itself should be "that which electrifies or gives life to a person's energy source" (47). i, too, would like to see a movement which "reconceptualizes curriculum from course objectives to complicated conversation" (47), so that the classroom can be both "a civic square and a room of one's own" (47).
the most striking statement i read in our assignment was this: "the analysis of currere is...one's distantiation from the past and extrication from the future functions to create a subjective - third - space of freedom in the present" (46). and although pinar ends the chapter by saying that "we find future not in the present, however, but in the past," i felt moved by his earlier focus on the current moment on why it matters, and what we bring to it. that idea of being free in the present was really important to me. and i think it's the message teachers need to hear. (i can feel myself slipping into the didactic blogger voice: oh no! :) teachers, i think, need to be encouraged to focus on the teachable moment, which is, really, every moment in the classroom. teachers have so many distractions that pull them away from those moments: charting behavior, e-mailing parents, tracking test scores; i think we need to remind teachers that their job -- and what a magnificent, honorable job it is! -- is to inspire students to think and be critically aware of the context in which they think. there is a reason teachers can recall certain "teachable moments" -- the ones that, perhaps, changed the course of their careers. and i think that reason might be that they were experiencing the freedom of the present. a space where both teachers and students are aware of everything that is influencing them, and are working to make meaning of all of it, despite artificial constructs (time, grades, scores). those moments are what keep teachers teaching, and students learning.
however, there is a perhaps more practical, if not merely logistical, part of me that wonders: how do we know this is working? how can a principal, for instance, know that the subjective experience of the teacher is also positively affecting the subjective experience of the student? and how do we model for teachers who are uncomfortable with "the call to free indirect subjectivity"? what happens to the teachers who won't get on board? does this redefine who is called to be a teacher entirely? and perhaps most of all, what do we hope this currere movement would accomplish? what do pinar and grumet want schools to look like, what would they like america to look like? even within a subjective curriculum, is there an end goal? is there an objective?
Monday, January 28, 2013
blogpost 2: an open letter.
friends,
admittedly, i didn't tune in to the inaugural celebration, but in passing, i caught a sound clip of someone important saying that america was known for its "practicality and optimism." i would agree with that, but i would also add for its creativity. i have been fortunate to grow up in a generation that has embraced companies like google, embraced the idea that success is not only dependent on hard work, but also on thinking outside of the box, beyond boundaries... and maybe installing a slide in the middle of the office. and not wearing shoes. and bringing dogs.
and even though some might argue otherwise, i believe that we are a nation that generally embraces the arts, if we expand the definition of that word. sure, we may not be a country of opera-goers, but many of us still love music, movies, looking at beautiful things, eating really good food. at least in cleveland, i feel a little arts revolution coming on, and i like it. i like it a lot.
so it makes me wonder, then, why our education system is moving in exactly the opposite direction of our national values, curiosities, and passions. kliebard agrees: "although lags between what knowledge a society values and what knowledge gets embodied in the curriculum of its schools are not uncommon, it is hard to imagine a culture in which the knowledge deemed to be valuable for whatever reason does not find its way into what is taught deliberately to the young of that society" (7).
and i would aruge that we are not only moving in the wrong directions, friends... we aren't moving. i'm taking a stand here when i say that i think the national goals for our education system are sub-par. we are aiming too low. after doing some reading and reflecting, i think it boils down to these three issues: 1) the demonization of teachers, 2) a boring vision for our nation's curriculum, and 3) assessment that is far more static than what happens in classrooms.
let's start with issue #1. in his book what is curriculum theory?, pinar writes: "in the demonizing world of school deform, only teachers are responsible" (22). he scoffs at former d.c. chancellor, michelle rhee's idea that "'effective' teachers could 'overcome poverty' and any other 'disadvantages'" (21). this is simply untrue, and we are doing a great disservice to ourselves when we are convinced that it is. we need a way to "talk about the family" without liberals rolling their eyes at such a traditional tag line and without conservatives getting on their high horses. because we really do. we really do need to talk about the family. we need to talk about the complexities of poverty, and just how much family structure is both causal and effective of it. we need to talk about parents' obligations in their child's learning. we need to talk about parents reading to their children, checking their homework, asking good and difficult questions and listening to their child's answers, and most of all, supporting education, schools, and teachers: "no more bullshit: schools do not fail. like physicians and other professionals, teachers can and do make mistakes. but the inconvenient truth is that it is students who fail...teachers offer opportunities; it is students' responsibility to take advantage of them" (18-20).
some of the most profound things we can do in education involve teachers taking risks and, in order to take risks, they need to be supported by all of us. the first thing we need to do is change our language about education. i'm talking to the media, yes, the politicians and bureaucrats, yes, but most of all, parents. how you talk about education at home walks right in with your child in the morning. our words make a difference. and our words should reflect hope, possibility, positivity, and encouragement. saying "your teacher is stupid" does not make your child any smarter.
while we're talking about "stupid teachers," let me address my second point: in the past five years, i have three incredibly intelligent friends who have left teaching because it was too boring. did you hear that? let's take a second to reflect on what this means for our students. no, these weren't lofty intellectuals who wandered into teaching and found it was "beneath them." these were ed school-trained professionals, some of whom i worked intimately with, who left because they couldn't teach the way they knew was best for their students, and for themselves: "the truth is that disconnecting the curriculum from students' interests and teachers' intellectual passions ensures the 'failure to learn'" (18).
these teachers who left: this is what we should be worrying about. we need to listen to their stories. we need to fix what is making them leave. let's assess that.
the fact of the matter is: our curriculum is as traditional as it has ever been. in his experience and education, dewey suggests: traditional curriculum focuses on "bodies of information and of skills that have been worked out in the past; therefore, the chief business of the school is to transmit them to the new generation" (17). this was in 1938, friends. we called this traditional in 1938! let's continue to dissect dewey's admittedly-outdated "traditional" education: its main goal is to "prepare the young for future responsibilities" (18), students are expected to be obedient, receptive, and docile (18), textbooks are the chief carriers of wisdom, while teachers the organs (18), it imposes "adult standards, subject-matter, and methods upon those who are only growing slowly toward maturity" (19), and "that which is taught is thought of essentially static" (19). hmmmm, sounds a lot like "race to the top" to me!
and if we're doing all of this complaining about our kids being "stupider than ever before" and "unable to compete with kids from china" (which should never be our goal, anyway), perhaps we should attempt to grow and enrich our curriculum instead of assessing it simply to prove failure, as if to say: "see, i told you so!" how is this productive?
if i had national control over our curriculum, it would look like this: a lot of discussion and dialogue and perspective-sharing, a lot of writing, a lot of critical thinking and annotated reading and project-based learning. and maybe without our shoes on. and maybe a slide in the cafeteria.
we also would never instruct teachers that a best practice is to "write the objective on the board so kids can see what they're learning." here's a heads-up: kids don't care what they're learning! adults don't even care what they're learning! humans learn when it feels applicable to them, when it feels exciting and motivating and inspiring. humans learn when it matters to the present moment, not in the past, not in this ever-present "future" we dangle over our students like a dreary carrot nobody wants. dewey writes: "how shall the young become acquainted with the past in such a way that the acquaintance is a potent agent in appreciation of the living present?" (23) dewey knew it. why don't we?
i know why, and it's my third point: because deep learning is more difficult to assess. listen, it is important to keep teachers accountable. not because teachers are lazy, lying, unprofessional babysitters, but because accountability keeps all of us humble. the least humble among us, i would argue, are those kept least accountable, by shortcut of money or power. and it's true: assessment tells a story, but not the whole story. measuring a year's worth of classroom learning - plus what's going on at home, plus a student's history with and perception of schooling, plus the teacher's whole self and the other two to three dozens whole selves in the classroom and how all of those hormonal, struggling, starving, confused, or sad selves interact on a minute-to-minute basis (i mean, we're really talking about endless variables here) - cannot be measured with a standardized test, not even a really good standardized test. a classroom is not a vacuum. our assessment needs to be complex. and let me clarify: linking test scores to teacher accountability does not make anything more complex. is that what we thought we were doing?
recently, a group of teachers in seattle stood in solidarity against MAP testing, a boxed-assessment package a district may purchase, which, in theory, links student learning gaps to the curriculum, and in seattle, also links student test scores to teacher evaluation. teacher evaluation is not a bad thing. i believe the way we produce effective teachers is not simply to pay them according to how long they've been teaching, so the ones who are most rewarded are the ones who "hung on." but basing a teacher's livelihood off of a purchased assessment package isn't the answer either. plus, i've used the MAP system. it's time-consuming, confusing, and provides exorbitant amounts of information which leaves teachers overwhelmed, not inspired. it also assesses on its own set of standards, not those by which teachers are teaching. please reread that last sentence again, and now let me ask: hel-lo, do we even have a basic definition of what assessment is, and its purpose? if we are not assessing precisely what students are being taught, what are we doing?!?! wasting time and money and producing anxiety in mass quantities, that's what.
my final word is this: teachers need to be able to take risks in the classroom, and they need to be bravely supported by their administrators who are working beside them as colleagues and their communities who are encouraging schools' successes against all odds. instead of spending money on MAP testing, let's spend money on professional development which will fire teachers up to teach better, deeper, and more thoughtfully than ever before (which means to say: far above the standards). then, let's figure out a better way to assess the work that teachers are doing in the classroom and that just might mean going inside the classroom to see how its real live humans are interacting, learning, and sharing. quality control -- if we're going to insist on comparing schools to businesses -- involves a much more intricate approach than standardized testing, and even, i would argue, a standardized test and a single teacher observation.
but we're getting there. we've been doing a lot of "national soul-searching" (kliebard 4) as a country, and we're in process. in process is a messy, complex, organically-evolved, dynamic, exciting place to be. the best place to be.
ask a teacher.
respectfully,
coreen
admittedly, i didn't tune in to the inaugural celebration, but in passing, i caught a sound clip of someone important saying that america was known for its "practicality and optimism." i would agree with that, but i would also add for its creativity. i have been fortunate to grow up in a generation that has embraced companies like google, embraced the idea that success is not only dependent on hard work, but also on thinking outside of the box, beyond boundaries... and maybe installing a slide in the middle of the office. and not wearing shoes. and bringing dogs.
and even though some might argue otherwise, i believe that we are a nation that generally embraces the arts, if we expand the definition of that word. sure, we may not be a country of opera-goers, but many of us still love music, movies, looking at beautiful things, eating really good food. at least in cleveland, i feel a little arts revolution coming on, and i like it. i like it a lot.
so it makes me wonder, then, why our education system is moving in exactly the opposite direction of our national values, curiosities, and passions. kliebard agrees: "although lags between what knowledge a society values and what knowledge gets embodied in the curriculum of its schools are not uncommon, it is hard to imagine a culture in which the knowledge deemed to be valuable for whatever reason does not find its way into what is taught deliberately to the young of that society" (7).
and i would aruge that we are not only moving in the wrong directions, friends... we aren't moving. i'm taking a stand here when i say that i think the national goals for our education system are sub-par. we are aiming too low. after doing some reading and reflecting, i think it boils down to these three issues: 1) the demonization of teachers, 2) a boring vision for our nation's curriculum, and 3) assessment that is far more static than what happens in classrooms.
let's start with issue #1. in his book what is curriculum theory?, pinar writes: "in the demonizing world of school deform, only teachers are responsible" (22). he scoffs at former d.c. chancellor, michelle rhee's idea that "'effective' teachers could 'overcome poverty' and any other 'disadvantages'" (21). this is simply untrue, and we are doing a great disservice to ourselves when we are convinced that it is. we need a way to "talk about the family" without liberals rolling their eyes at such a traditional tag line and without conservatives getting on their high horses. because we really do. we really do need to talk about the family. we need to talk about the complexities of poverty, and just how much family structure is both causal and effective of it. we need to talk about parents' obligations in their child's learning. we need to talk about parents reading to their children, checking their homework, asking good and difficult questions and listening to their child's answers, and most of all, supporting education, schools, and teachers: "no more bullshit: schools do not fail. like physicians and other professionals, teachers can and do make mistakes. but the inconvenient truth is that it is students who fail...teachers offer opportunities; it is students' responsibility to take advantage of them" (18-20).
some of the most profound things we can do in education involve teachers taking risks and, in order to take risks, they need to be supported by all of us. the first thing we need to do is change our language about education. i'm talking to the media, yes, the politicians and bureaucrats, yes, but most of all, parents. how you talk about education at home walks right in with your child in the morning. our words make a difference. and our words should reflect hope, possibility, positivity, and encouragement. saying "your teacher is stupid" does not make your child any smarter.
while we're talking about "stupid teachers," let me address my second point: in the past five years, i have three incredibly intelligent friends who have left teaching because it was too boring. did you hear that? let's take a second to reflect on what this means for our students. no, these weren't lofty intellectuals who wandered into teaching and found it was "beneath them." these were ed school-trained professionals, some of whom i worked intimately with, who left because they couldn't teach the way they knew was best for their students, and for themselves: "the truth is that disconnecting the curriculum from students' interests and teachers' intellectual passions ensures the 'failure to learn'" (18).
these teachers who left: this is what we should be worrying about. we need to listen to their stories. we need to fix what is making them leave. let's assess that.
the fact of the matter is: our curriculum is as traditional as it has ever been. in his experience and education, dewey suggests: traditional curriculum focuses on "bodies of information and of skills that have been worked out in the past; therefore, the chief business of the school is to transmit them to the new generation" (17). this was in 1938, friends. we called this traditional in 1938! let's continue to dissect dewey's admittedly-outdated "traditional" education: its main goal is to "prepare the young for future responsibilities" (18), students are expected to be obedient, receptive, and docile (18), textbooks are the chief carriers of wisdom, while teachers the organs (18), it imposes "adult standards, subject-matter, and methods upon those who are only growing slowly toward maturity" (19), and "that which is taught is thought of essentially static" (19). hmmmm, sounds a lot like "race to the top" to me!
and if we're doing all of this complaining about our kids being "stupider than ever before" and "unable to compete with kids from china" (which should never be our goal, anyway), perhaps we should attempt to grow and enrich our curriculum instead of assessing it simply to prove failure, as if to say: "see, i told you so!" how is this productive?
if i had national control over our curriculum, it would look like this: a lot of discussion and dialogue and perspective-sharing, a lot of writing, a lot of critical thinking and annotated reading and project-based learning. and maybe without our shoes on. and maybe a slide in the cafeteria.
we also would never instruct teachers that a best practice is to "write the objective on the board so kids can see what they're learning." here's a heads-up: kids don't care what they're learning! adults don't even care what they're learning! humans learn when it feels applicable to them, when it feels exciting and motivating and inspiring. humans learn when it matters to the present moment, not in the past, not in this ever-present "future" we dangle over our students like a dreary carrot nobody wants. dewey writes: "how shall the young become acquainted with the past in such a way that the acquaintance is a potent agent in appreciation of the living present?" (23) dewey knew it. why don't we?
i know why, and it's my third point: because deep learning is more difficult to assess. listen, it is important to keep teachers accountable. not because teachers are lazy, lying, unprofessional babysitters, but because accountability keeps all of us humble. the least humble among us, i would argue, are those kept least accountable, by shortcut of money or power. and it's true: assessment tells a story, but not the whole story. measuring a year's worth of classroom learning - plus what's going on at home, plus a student's history with and perception of schooling, plus the teacher's whole self and the other two to three dozens whole selves in the classroom and how all of those hormonal, struggling, starving, confused, or sad selves interact on a minute-to-minute basis (i mean, we're really talking about endless variables here) - cannot be measured with a standardized test, not even a really good standardized test. a classroom is not a vacuum. our assessment needs to be complex. and let me clarify: linking test scores to teacher accountability does not make anything more complex. is that what we thought we were doing?
recently, a group of teachers in seattle stood in solidarity against MAP testing, a boxed-assessment package a district may purchase, which, in theory, links student learning gaps to the curriculum, and in seattle, also links student test scores to teacher evaluation. teacher evaluation is not a bad thing. i believe the way we produce effective teachers is not simply to pay them according to how long they've been teaching, so the ones who are most rewarded are the ones who "hung on." but basing a teacher's livelihood off of a purchased assessment package isn't the answer either. plus, i've used the MAP system. it's time-consuming, confusing, and provides exorbitant amounts of information which leaves teachers overwhelmed, not inspired. it also assesses on its own set of standards, not those by which teachers are teaching. please reread that last sentence again, and now let me ask: hel-lo, do we even have a basic definition of what assessment is, and its purpose? if we are not assessing precisely what students are being taught, what are we doing?!?! wasting time and money and producing anxiety in mass quantities, that's what.
my final word is this: teachers need to be able to take risks in the classroom, and they need to be bravely supported by their administrators who are working beside them as colleagues and their communities who are encouraging schools' successes against all odds. instead of spending money on MAP testing, let's spend money on professional development which will fire teachers up to teach better, deeper, and more thoughtfully than ever before (which means to say: far above the standards). then, let's figure out a better way to assess the work that teachers are doing in the classroom and that just might mean going inside the classroom to see how its real live humans are interacting, learning, and sharing. quality control -- if we're going to insist on comparing schools to businesses -- involves a much more intricate approach than standardized testing, and even, i would argue, a standardized test and a single teacher observation.
but we're getting there. we've been doing a lot of "national soul-searching" (kliebard 4) as a country, and we're in process. in process is a messy, complex, organically-evolved, dynamic, exciting place to be. the best place to be.
ask a teacher.
respectfully,
coreen
blogpost 1: class survey
1. Coreen Schaefer, University Heights, coreengorbett@gmail.com
2. Coreen
3. I will begin looking for a full-time teaching job in the public districts this upcoming year. I am licensed in PreK-3 with the 4/5 Generalist Endorsement, 4-9 English, and 7-12 English. I would love to teach English/Language Arts in grades 5-10. Those are my favorites!
4. We have three children, Selah (just turned 3!) and twins Hadley and Will (6 mo.) I keep a public blog at http://roundshoulders.blogspot.com/, where I share stories about our family, education, good books, cool stuff, etc. I love to write, and it's helped me to keep that alive in the midst our very busy life! I also like taking walks, 'Real Simple' recipes, traditions, npr, and road trips.
5. A non-threatening atmosphere and a respect for dialogue. I'm a very transparent person, as long as I feel supported and cared for, intellectually and otherwise. Luckily, I trust most people and this usually isn't a problem for me! :)
6. I am an active class participant, because I believe that we all must work together to create the curriculum and class atmosphere --- and also because it's how I learn! I have always learned most through active discussion. I work on a deadline, and I will often complete the work the night before. I think sometimes this is judged as "procrastinating," but it's how some of our brains work best! Like I always tell my students: If you come prepared on the day the assignment is due, I don't care how you work! I am very aware of my learning styles: I am a discussion mate, a writer, and a project-doer. I like to read, but I learn more from class discussions afterward. I also don't mind a good lecture, but learn more from considering classmates' perspectives too. When I can't do something, I re-read the instructions; if that fails, I ask for help from a classmate; if that fails, the professor. I love to learn and my opinions are very fluid; I am not easily convinced by propaganda, but I am easily convinced by solid, thoughtful arguments and experience! It's important to stay open and current, especially in education!
7. No --- if something comes up with my family, I will let you know ahead of time by e-mail! We are blessed to have lots of help, though, so this will likely not happen.
8. My experience at Gilmour changed my life. I always felt stifled and mostly unchallenged in public middle school (...though don't so many of us feel this way? A real problem!) At Gilmour, we worked through every difficult topic you could imagine by way of discussion, either informally, through Socratic Seminar, or in respectful, text-based debate. My brain was on fire every day --- it was so inspiring! To this day, it's how I learn best and frankly, I think it's how a lot of students should learn best. Discussion and critical thinking is KEY! It's what makes us human! We need to re-inspire our students to sit around a table and face each other, talk respectfully and honestly with others about issues that matter, learn from different perspectives, and change the world!
9. My perspectives are shifting. For awhile, I was an advocate for the accountability movement. I am not a fan of unions; they nearly destroyed my family's business, and I believe in education, they do not have children at the heart of their politics. I was for anything that worked against tenure, especially as a young teacher who couldn't find a job! But I am tired of the recent attack on teachers. I think it is our job as teachers to "fight the good fight" and not whine and complain about what we can't change. But at the end of the day, I think teachers are, indeed, up against 1000 variables, a looming one being the fast-paced and/or intellectually-negligent lifestyle of today's families. A teacher can only do so much, and much of what they are doing likely does not show up on standardized tests. My greatest concern right now is developing an accountability system that truly focuses on making the curriculum and classroom practices more thoughtful, inspired, and vibrant -- instead of an accountability system that blames teachers and punishes students.
10. We need to (1) look at the real world of "Race to the Top" and "accountability" today, (2) study it, (3) brain storm how to reform that system, but in the meantime, inspire teachers to use standards as a baseline and imagine a curriculum more rooted in critical thinking, writing, annotated reading, dialogue, and project-based learning. We need to avoid (4) judging each other's experience, be open to thinking outside of the box, be practical but dynamic, and most of all, we need to remember what makes children want to learn: a curriculum that is challenging, but fun; will make them proud to talk about with others; and one that focuses on that present moment. Students don't care about which standards they've just met or how this lesson will help them "in the future"! They care about what makes them excited NOW!
11. How have your educational philosophies changed over the years? What triggered that?
2. Coreen
3. I will begin looking for a full-time teaching job in the public districts this upcoming year. I am licensed in PreK-3 with the 4/5 Generalist Endorsement, 4-9 English, and 7-12 English. I would love to teach English/Language Arts in grades 5-10. Those are my favorites!
4. We have three children, Selah (just turned 3!) and twins Hadley and Will (6 mo.) I keep a public blog at http://roundshoulders.blogspot.com/, where I share stories about our family, education, good books, cool stuff, etc. I love to write, and it's helped me to keep that alive in the midst our very busy life! I also like taking walks, 'Real Simple' recipes, traditions, npr, and road trips.
5. A non-threatening atmosphere and a respect for dialogue. I'm a very transparent person, as long as I feel supported and cared for, intellectually and otherwise. Luckily, I trust most people and this usually isn't a problem for me! :)
6. I am an active class participant, because I believe that we all must work together to create the curriculum and class atmosphere --- and also because it's how I learn! I have always learned most through active discussion. I work on a deadline, and I will often complete the work the night before. I think sometimes this is judged as "procrastinating," but it's how some of our brains work best! Like I always tell my students: If you come prepared on the day the assignment is due, I don't care how you work! I am very aware of my learning styles: I am a discussion mate, a writer, and a project-doer. I like to read, but I learn more from class discussions afterward. I also don't mind a good lecture, but learn more from considering classmates' perspectives too. When I can't do something, I re-read the instructions; if that fails, I ask for help from a classmate; if that fails, the professor. I love to learn and my opinions are very fluid; I am not easily convinced by propaganda, but I am easily convinced by solid, thoughtful arguments and experience! It's important to stay open and current, especially in education!
7. No --- if something comes up with my family, I will let you know ahead of time by e-mail! We are blessed to have lots of help, though, so this will likely not happen.
8. My experience at Gilmour changed my life. I always felt stifled and mostly unchallenged in public middle school (...though don't so many of us feel this way? A real problem!) At Gilmour, we worked through every difficult topic you could imagine by way of discussion, either informally, through Socratic Seminar, or in respectful, text-based debate. My brain was on fire every day --- it was so inspiring! To this day, it's how I learn best and frankly, I think it's how a lot of students should learn best. Discussion and critical thinking is KEY! It's what makes us human! We need to re-inspire our students to sit around a table and face each other, talk respectfully and honestly with others about issues that matter, learn from different perspectives, and change the world!
9. My perspectives are shifting. For awhile, I was an advocate for the accountability movement. I am not a fan of unions; they nearly destroyed my family's business, and I believe in education, they do not have children at the heart of their politics. I was for anything that worked against tenure, especially as a young teacher who couldn't find a job! But I am tired of the recent attack on teachers. I think it is our job as teachers to "fight the good fight" and not whine and complain about what we can't change. But at the end of the day, I think teachers are, indeed, up against 1000 variables, a looming one being the fast-paced and/or intellectually-negligent lifestyle of today's families. A teacher can only do so much, and much of what they are doing likely does not show up on standardized tests. My greatest concern right now is developing an accountability system that truly focuses on making the curriculum and classroom practices more thoughtful, inspired, and vibrant -- instead of an accountability system that blames teachers and punishes students.
10. We need to (1) look at the real world of "Race to the Top" and "accountability" today, (2) study it, (3) brain storm how to reform that system, but in the meantime, inspire teachers to use standards as a baseline and imagine a curriculum more rooted in critical thinking, writing, annotated reading, dialogue, and project-based learning. We need to avoid (4) judging each other's experience, be open to thinking outside of the box, be practical but dynamic, and most of all, we need to remember what makes children want to learn: a curriculum that is challenging, but fun; will make them proud to talk about with others; and one that focuses on that present moment. Students don't care about which standards they've just met or how this lesson will help them "in the future"! They care about what makes them excited NOW!
11. How have your educational philosophies changed over the years? What triggered that?
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