Tougher Standards: A Flawed Proposition

Alfie Kohn’s article “The Case Against Tougher Standards,” argues against much of the rhetoric we hear from politicians in the media about how we need to attempt to reform education.  One of the quotes that struck me that appears at the beginning of the article says that:

“People from parents to Presidents have begun to sound like a cranky, ill-informed radio talk-show host, with the result that almost anything can be done to students and to schools, no matter how ill-considered, as long as it is done in the name of ‘raising standards’ or ‘accountability.’  One is reminded of how a number of politicians, faced with the perception of high crime rates, resort to a get-tough, lock-‘em-up, law-and-order mentality.  This response plays well with the public, but is based on an exaggeration of the problem, a misanalysis of its causes, and a simplistic prescription that frequently ends up doing more harm than good.” (1)

            This quote reminded me of “The House I Live In,” a documentary I recently saw at The Cable Car in Providence.  The movie is about The Drug War, which was started in the 1970s by President Richard Nixon.  Initially, he put much money towards rehabilitation for drug addicts.  But, when he was running for re-election, he started to ‘resort to a get-tough, lock-‘em-up, law-and-order mentality that helped him to score political points/votes'.  He started putting more money towards prisons and tying funding to arrest numbers, and the system has only gotten.  I found it eerie how similar the drug war rhetoric was to the political rhetoric about education.

Kohn discusses his “Five fatal flaws [of tougher standards] and the first one struck me.  Kohn writes of the rhetoric on tougher standards: “1.  It gets motivation wrong.  Most talk of standards assumes that students ought to be thinking constantly about improving their performance.  This single-minded concern with results turns out to be remarkably simplistic.” (2) Yes, I find this idea to be inaccurate to students’ motivations.  In my best estimate, they are motivated to get whatever grade they need to get and move on to the next assignment.  There isn’t much thinking being done in this process.  They think about whatever they need to for the minimum amount of time needed.

The most disturbing quote I found from Kohn was when he was discussing the negative aspects of the No Child Left Behind Act.  He says that ‘we become a nation at risk of abandoning public education altogether.’ (4)  I was taken aback by the quote because there does seem like a movement in American education towards the private sector.  This alarms me: I was publicly educated from kindergarten through college.  Public education is more reasonably priced than any private institution.  I can’t say I’m an expert on private education – charter schools, etc. – but whenever I see the word ‘private’ attached to anything, I immediately think of money, profit, etc.  These things shouldn’t go together, yet that’s how it’s been for public education, so maybe it doesn’t matter?

I suppose this is a society-wide problem: how do we gauge something we can’t easily gauge.  In business, the hard numbers reflect success and failure.  Competitiveness makes sense: whoever has the best product makes the most money.  Yet, this model doesn’t seem to line up with worlds like education and law enforcement.  How do you make statistic for ‘positively influenced lives of people’?  How can you measure ‘teachable moments that stay with a stuent for the rest of their lives?  Aren’t these the intangibles that make a good teacher?  Isn’t that what is more important?  I can see where Kohn gets frustrated with tougher standards in education, and now that I’ve reread my blog post, I can see he’s pushed my buttons, too. 

Promising Practices Multicultural Conference: November 3, 2012

I arrived at my first teaching conference with enough time to sign up for the last few open slots in the workshops.  I had forgotten to register for the conference and was apprehensive about these workshops.  Luckily, my anxieties would be put to bed later in the day.  Meanwhile, I ate my Coffee Exchange bagel and waited for the keynote speaker, Dana Fusco, to get started. 

Dana Fusco spoke about finding after school programs that connected with students.  She had found in her research that students in elementary and middle school had connected to both the curriculum and after school activities, but when high school hit, students were having more trouble finding activities to relate to.  She spoke about teachers being ‘active agents of change’ in this attempt to help our students connect to the world.   

Dana also spoke about a book called “The Having of Wonderful Ideas,” by Eleanor Duckworth.  Apparently the book has many lesson plans that are useful for modern teaching.

After the keynote speaker, I went to my first workshop: “Wake up and Smell the Environmental Racism.”  The workshop was run by ECO Youth, the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island.  The students in this group explained how environmental problems in the city of Providence are connected to inequalities.  Typically, environmental hazards, such as industrial complexes and highways, are primarily found near low-income Latino and Black communities, especially in Providence. 

There is a disproportionate impact of environmental hazard on people of color, the students told us.  These hazards add to a higher risk for people to have breathing problems, especially asthma.  The students told us of some alarming statistics: in comparison to white people, there are twice as many Latinos with asthma in Providence.  Also, in comparison to white people, there triple the amount of black people with asthma.  Again, these breathing problems are directly connected to the lack of good air in the city and the industrialized parts of the poorer neighborhoods.

I was impressed with the presentation, especially because it came from a group of high school students.  I didn’t realize they were that age until the end of the presentation!

The second workshop I went to was called “Promoting Diversity via Media Production – Community Outreach in RI”.  The presenter, Jonathan Friesem, is a professor at URI in the media education lab.  He provided the group with great resources on technology use in education.  He guided us to the website www.kidblog.org, which is a kid-friendly blogging website.  He also gave a cool presentation on commercials and propaganda, which I am planning on borrowing for my upcoming section on George Orwell’s Animal Farm. 

Friesem recommended the book Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action, by Renee Hobbs.  The book provides lesson planning for using technology in the classroom.

Overall, the day was an interesting experience.  I gained knowledge both in culture and for practical teaching purposes.  I had never been to a teaching conference before and now I have a better feel for what to expect when I go to them in the future.  I enjoyed the food that was provided and even helped myself to seconds!  I hope everyone else had a nice time at their conferences, too.      

To Value Another is to Recognize Diversity is the Norm

            Chapter 4 of Christopher Kliewer’s book “Schooling Children with Down Syndrome” presented an argument that challenged society’s general outlook on students with disabilities in the classroom.  The title of the chapter is “Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome,” which fairly summarizes what Kliewer is attempting to explain in the chapter.  By the end, his evidence suggests he has a good point, although the road to this type of citizenship is going to be a long one, due to the rigidity of society's beliefs on special education students.

Kliewer writes “Communication is built on one’s ability to deeply listen to others (73).”  This quote speaks to an over-looked part of society.  It seems like people in general like to talk more than they like to listen.  Look at Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and all the social networking sites.  People love to hear themselves talk!  Listening skills are an underrated part of society and are especially neglected when dealing with disabled students.

Kliewer points out that, while handicapped students have trouble communicating, if you listen in the correct fashion you will be able to make some sense of their attempts.  It takes patience and I think the point he is trying to make is we, as teachers, need to be aware that some students speak differently and we need to listen to these students differently. 

            This point is shown when Kliewer writes about Shayne, a teacher who has six students with disabilities in a class of 16.  Each student has a unique way at looking the world and Shayne’s teaching reflects this. “Throughout the classroom activities, Shayne maintained a focus on individual goals for each child… She and her co-workers met several times a week before and after school, often until late into the afternoon or evening, discussing each child’s classroom experiences and maintaining general portfolios on demonstrated skills and areas of concern” (77).  I suppose this is example makes a strong case for smaller class sizes in education.  I cannot imagine doing this for my 25-plus classes, yet if I did have a smaller class size I think working with disabled students would be easier.

             My classroom is next to the special education department at my school and I see the students with severe disabilities every day.  When Kliewer writes about students with different types of intelligences and capacities, it reminded me of my mainstream students who help the special education students as part of the “Best Friends” program.  This program allows many students who struggle in the classroom to display other skill sets.  When Kliewer discusses Gardner’s important skills and capacities, I couldn’t help but think of these students who aren’t strong at logical-mathematical or linguistic thinking but have strong interpersonal skills.  I’m always impressed by their sensitivity to the special education students.  It’s like watching a switch go off in their faces when they greet these students.

             Christine, the student Kliewer describes as a person with Down syndrome who was quite successful in the mainstream classrooms, stunned me.  I was surprised that no only was she aware of her disability; she even discusses it in a newspaper article.  She argues against the administration not allowing a student to enroll in the school because the student had cerebral palsy.  This example truly made me think of special education students with a different perspective. 

              The last part that struck me was the example of the handicapped student who moved from North Hollywood to Mendocino, in California.  In North Hollywood, the student wasn’t treated well.  In Mendocino, the student suddenly met people who acted like he was a meaningful part of society.  I was disappointed Kliewer didn’t investigate what factors may have played into this change in attitude toward the student.  

              I did a little research into the demographics of the towns and found that both towns have the same median income for families at $42,000 a year.  There wasn’t a class difference that I could see.  I looked further into the demographics, and the only major difference I could find was that in North Hollywood the Latino population was in the majority (57%) and in Mendocino white people were in the majority (76.5%).  I don’t know if there’s any correlation there, and I’m not trying to suggest Latinos are less tolerant of students with special needs, but I do find this a curious difference.  Are special education students taboo in Latino culture?  I wish Kleiwer had explored it more – the why this may have happened. 

            In conclusion, Kleiwer quotes a teacher, Colleen, who I think puts the whole piece into great perspective.  The dominant discourse on special needs students is pretty narrow-minded, if you really think about it, and we need to adjust as a society and a community in order to improve: “According to Colleen, suggesting that Lee’s intellect precluded his right to belong simply meant that you were describing a child she did not know.  You were proposing the existence of a mythological creature, an illusion constructed in a rigid mind that could not see past the presumption of defect into the smile of a little boy who defiantly demanded a handshake from his teacher at each morning’s ‘greeting time,’ just like all other little boys in his second-grade class… (84)”

Check-in November 1

Happy November, everyone!  Sorry for the delayed commenting on your blogs, my flakiness got the best of me this week, they're awesome as usual.  I'd blame my delayed responses on the hurricane, but it was more likely the amount of candy I ate this past weekend.  Sugar-hangovers are rough!  In case you were wondering, I was Spiderman for the party I went to, but only wore a mask, which spent most of the night on top of my head.  I was therefore dubbed 'half-ass' Spiderman.  I'm not a big Halloween fan - too many instances of a holiday bringing the worst out of people, people think it's an excuse to act like a-holes.

Thanksgiving, however, is the most glorious holiday ever invented!

School-wise, everything's been wild and endless as usual.  Interesting part of today - I've been teaching the famous football movie "Brian's Song" and today we were talking about racism and injustice in the 1960s.  I asked the students what groups of people were unjustly looked down upon in our current society, and the students named Muslims, Mexicans, and the mentally handicapped.  Nobody brought up LGBT.  I made note and moved on.  I considered mentioning it myself, but unfortunately they had been quite out of control today, and I didn't want to lose the grip I finally had on them.  It was too bad, in retrospect.  Perhaps it can be brought up at another date.