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.

Gender Issues in Schools and History Lessons

Elizabeth J. Meyer wrote in her article, "Gender Harassment in Secondary Schools: Understanding Teachers' Interventions" about the difficulties that teachers face when attempting to respond to heterosexual harassment, homophobic harassment, and harassment for gender nonconformity issues in the classroom.  Meyer sees the situation as a layered, complex challenge; one with varied moving parts acting separately, making matters more difficult.

Meyers touches upon ‘external influences’ that effect teachers who are attempting to deal with these uncomfortable issues.  One of the most striking aspects was the administration versus teacher issues that crop up during these bullying incidents.  Meyers writes there was “a trend of teachers not trusting their administrators to support their actions and feeling that they have to handle most non-violent discipline issues alone” (8).  While the actual aspect of teacher vs. administration didn’t necessarily surprise me, the amount of times the issues came up was shocking.  It seemed to me there was a major bias in powerful positions, a sad fact that I didn’t expect to find in the article.  Since those in power speak the dominant discourse, it should not have surprised me, but reading all the accounts certainly bummed me out.

I also took issue with the teacher who said:

“[I don’t stop name-calling] if I’m too tired, if there are set things I need to get through in a lesson.  I know my lesson is going to take 60 minutes, I’ve only got 70 minutes to deliver it, I’ve got 10 minutes to waste.  Right now my job is being a teacher and I have to get through the math before the end of the year.  It’s not my priority list.”       

While I understand this as supporting evidence of the exhaustion suffered from the constant work teachers face, I do think that name-calling problems should be seen on a case-by-case basis.  If a student, for example, is teasing or giving another student a hard time, a teacher should use their best judgment whether to intervene.  If the line is crossed, then the teacher should speak up, no matter the exhaustion level. 

I think this example was a little broad – there are plenty of battles I didn’t want to fight, but chose to because it was the right thing to do.  Sometimes teachers focus too much on lesson planning and curriculum and forget that we’re also teaching proper sociable behavior.  I always remind students this when I hear off-color remarks or homophobic jokes – they won’t be tolerated in the real world and they won’t be tolerated in the classroom.  Plus, it's just plain cruel and wrong.

The last quote I want to write about was actually the most frustrating part of the article.  Meyers wrote that “the challenge that this finding presents is how to raise the awareness of educators who have not personally felt the impacts of discrimination or exclusion from dominant culture” (17).  I was irritated by this quote for a couple reasons.  First, doesn’t everyone feel left out or alienated at some point in their live?  Is it really so difficult to empathize with students who face gender discrimination?  Are people so callous?  And some of these people are my colleagues?

I think it’s sad to think only teachers who are directly affected by discrimination are the ones who actually do anything about these bullying abuses.  Being an observant person should be able to clue in to teachers that there are students that get picked on, they need to be specially attended to, and ones who are on the other side (the bullies) should be taken care of, as well.       

         Perhaps I’m naive about the awareness of other teachers to these issues.  Although I was from a town that doesn’t look at these issues in a good light, I did slowly become aware of the injustices through my interests in history and pop culture.

         I found several parallels between the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and the modern LGBT Movement.  Today, racism against black people from the 50’s and 60’s is a common lesson taught in classrooms across the country.  I think one day the word ‘fag’ will be looked on as badly as the n-word.  Hopefully, this day will be sooner than later.

         I think that I was made more aware of this, like I wrote above, through my interest in history and pop culture.  As I explored the GLSEN.org website, I found myself looking at different profiles of great gay/lesbian/transgender people throughout history.  I think the more these are presented in the classroom chances are more students will become more sensitive to what they say to each other.

          For example, I think the Stonewall history lesson was interesting - people couldn’t go out to the bar to hang out!  This seems like a simple injustice to show to students, something they could easily relate to. 

The other history lesson that I thought was interesting was the fact that there were people who fought to take homosexuality off of a listof mental disorders.  I think it would be good for students to read that homosexuality isn’t a choice – genetics are never a choice.  Once students see this more clearly, I think it will be easier to bridge the wide gap currently found in classrooms.  

Lastly, I wanted to mention how I was not aware that it was LBGT awareness month this past month!  One of the resources on the website has the month of October and a famous LBGT person for each day, much like Black History Month.  Hopefully, this will month will be more prominent in our nation’s consciousness in the future.

         Finally, I wanted to note that the movie “Milk” played a major part in my awareness of the difficult history of LGBT people in Ameria and I think it helped expand my consciousness about homosexuality rights in America.  Harvey Milk was a fascinating character, a sorta Martin Luther King Jr. of the LGBT-rights movement, and in the right context, could be presented as one of the heroes of America, not just the LGBT movement.    

Keepin' It Real: Overview

Last week we had a lovely discussion about the article "Keepin' It Real" by Prudence Carter.  We first discussed the major terms in the article, which included:
•Cultural Capital.
•Embodied cultural capital.
•Objectified cultural capital.
•Institutionalized cultural capital.
•Dominant cultural capital.
•Non-dominant cultural capital.
•Cultural Straddlers.

Next, we discussed the major themes and ideas of the article.  I thought these quotes were particularly important to understanding the article:

•(72) – “The failure to acknowledge black cultural capital signifies to many of these students a disavowal of their cultural backgrounds, their collective identities, and the value of their cultural practices.  They link their own self-importance to this capital and expect to find some place for it within the social spaces they inhabit, whether at home, in their neighborhoods, or in their schools.”

•(75) – “Both educators and students have a responsibility to address how culture affects academic achievement.  When dominant social groups define and circumscribe what is appropriate for success and achievement, the choices made by low-income African American and Latino youths can have negative consequences.  It should be a matter of personal choice whether individuals listen to hip-hop music or soft rock, dress in FUBU or LL Bean, or maintain mixed or same-group peer associations.  Certain ethno-specific cultural resources can function as nondominant capital and serve a social and cultural function.  These sorts of cultural codes do not intrinsically determine achievement and mobility.  Yet many of these students, especially the noncompliant believers, need help in negotiating and expanding their ideas and presentations of self, and ultimately in balancing different social ‘acts.’  Both students and schools could benefit from an opening up of society’s understanding of culture and capital.  

After the break, we watched a short clip from Dave Chappelle that encapsulated many of the ideas we discussed in class that day, as well as other ideas from other parts of the course.

Next, we watched the powerful "A More Perfect Union" speech President Obama delivered in 2008 about race in America.  I thought the points he made about our difficult history were fascinating:

  

I ended class with the Dave Chappelle sketch "White People Can't Dance."  He makes funny points about the different music that gets people moving, depending on their cultural background, or cultural capital.  

If we had more time, I would've included this article about the history of affirmative action.  I honestly have mixed feelings about affirmative action - it can be frustrating - but I thought the article was more focused on the discourse surrounding the issue.  Initially, affirmative action was brought in to make things more fair to the underprivileged.  The current discourse is arguing for affirmative action for the benefit of diversity in colleges, which is a harder argument to make than the fairness argument.  I thought it was interesting!  

I Care: Let's Do Whatever It Takes, By Whatever Means Necessary

In Michael Wesch's article, "Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance," Wesch tries to describe a way of approaching teaching that he calls 'anti-teaching' because he has come to the conclusion that 'teaching can actually be a hindrance to learning."  He points out how he had found out his students at Kansas State University were disconnected to learning and he has been trying to find a way to connect them to both education and the world at large.

In his article, Wesch writes "if our students are 'not cut out for school', perhaps we have made the mold too narrow or inflexible, or more likely, just not meaningful enough to inspire a student to fit in.  That's the significant problems" (5).  This idea was interesting to me in a couple ways.  The first, "we have made the mold too narrow or inflexible," reminds me of teachers who refuse to try and look at students' points of view, and think their way of teaching is the only right way.  Any students who don't fit into their ideal are left behind.

At first, when I started teaching, I was relatively disturbed by teachers who thought like this.  Now that I have a few years under my belt, I can relate a little more to that attitude.  It seems like there are individualized plans or modifications for every other student.  It can become frustrating, and tiresome, when it seems like we're constantly trying to catch up on students who aren't exactly matching our effort.  Yet, as I continue learning more about teaching, these particular challenges can be the most rewarding, especially when the students start to come around, so I've been more patient with them as much as I've been irritated.  It's a weird dynamic, to say the least.

Which brings me back to the quote: the learning the students haven't been "meaningful enough to inspire a student."  This speaks to a more overall attitude and can seem like a somewhat easy answer - inspire the students and they'll follow - and it seems like a bigger challenge than a buzzword.  Wesch certainly takes us to examples where we can do this, although the challenge seems slightly overwhelming.  I tried imagining doing some of his classroom activities and thought about how difficult  it would be to get there, especially with MCAS/overall standardized testing looming over everything.

But, I'm sure it's not an overnight process.  Trying to understand the idea that "the medium is the message" helped clue me into some of the first steps I could take (6).  Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are becoming such a part of our society, yet aren't used much in the classroom.  Wesch points out that "at a deeper level these are little more than simple parlour tricks.  They make up a rather creative and interesting means of learning but not a reason for learning.  They do not address that most significant problem, the problem of significant" (6).

This is a common problem for teachers - the questions from students about what's the point of doing an assignment, how the lesson won't effect their lives, how they will never use this or that skill in the real world.  It's increasingly difficult, as Wesch points out, as we've become a fractured society and it's been more difficult to find a common narrative ground to lay education's significance on.  Wesch points out that we need to recognize that there needs to be a shift "from the national to the global" and "our grand narratives must also shift" (6).  

I watched a couple of Wesch's videos to further understand how to shift the narrative.  The first video was one discussed in the paper - "A Vision of Students Today."  

I wish I could say I was surprised by some of the statistics and anecdotes offered in the video.  I was an undergraduate only a few years ago and I could feel in my classmates a similar unease depicted in the video.  Many friends would voice these concerns.  I felt the frustrations as well, yet I think I had many professors who looked outside the box and were able to connect with me.  Some students don't have this occur and they don't look too fondly on their educational experiences.

I continued looking into Wesch and watched his hour-long lecture that further dove into the work done behind the first video:

Wesch was the keynote speaker at a conference in Manchester, UK, and I found this video struck a chord with me, more so than the reading.  He had so many fascinating ideas that I found myself jotting down throughout, things I had thought of but couldn't quite put into words.

He spoke about his studies in New Guinea and how he had discovered that the people there didn't actually have names.  There was a census done and it was reported that around fifty people had the same name.

I was particularly struck by this because here in America, it's almost like we have two personalities now, two names, so to speak.  There's the real us, the physical us, and then there's the Facebook/Internet alternative universe us.  And people in New Guinea don't even have licenses or ID's, never mind Facebook profiles!  Imagine that!  We're trying to find significance through technology, which ends up being a hollow, shallow existence.  Meanwhile, there are people on Earth living without Names!

There were plenty of other awesome ideas in the video, and I'm going to list them here in case people haven't watched it and are hedging on whether to or not.

• Media mediates our relationships.
• We shape our tools.  Our tools shape us - McLuhan
• Half of students don't like school, based on a show of hands in class.
• To be significant, you have to be on TV - or that's how people see the world.
• In the 1950's 12% of people considered themselves "important."  By the 80s, the number had risen to 80%.
• The search for the authentic self is where people are having issues.
• The medium shapes the message.
• Power corrupts.  PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
• "I care.  Let's do whatever it takes.  By whatever means necessary."

The last quote was what Wesch poses to end his presentation.  I thought it was particularly powerful quote and one that will leave an impression on me for a long time.   

The Power of Discourse

The first thought that struck me after reading the three chapters from Gerry August's "Making Room for One Another" was the importance of perception as both a student and teacher and how we must never assume anything, for we can never truly know something until it's explicitly said or done.  We, as teachers, can make observations and read between the lines to clue us into something, but we must be direct in order to find out information.  Only after we uncover the truth can we make the necessary adjustments that will help facilitate learning and/or understanding with our students.

In August's book, she observes a student, Cody, who is an adopted Cambodian boy with two mothers.  August specifically picks Cody's family to research because she would like to know about the behavior of a kindergarten student who has two lesbian mothers when faced with a classroom filled with mostly heterosexual families.  His teacher is using a teaching technique that introduces dialogical practices in the classroom.  When the teacher uses dialogical practices, August argues, the students are receiving education which "resides the foundation of democratic association (8).  August writes that "dialogicality pushes voices out from the normative socio-political center, promoting diversity among utterances.  This struggle is worthy of our attention, for it is the site of socio-political change" (8).

August attempts to prove the importance of dialogicality by watching the teacher, Zeke, using it throughout a school year.  I would argue does that Cody's situation does in fact prove August's hypothesis to be correct, that dialogicality teaching is important.  The interesting part is that the scenario doesn't work out exactly as she had predicted.  When this happens, it teaches us all a lesson, August included.

August predicts Cody has been anxious about discussing his parents because he has two moms.  In the end, Zeke and August discover he was more uncomfortable with his status as an adopted child, revealed after the reading of "Tango Makes Three," a story about an adopted penguin.  Cody had trouble understanding why his birth parents didn't want him, had abandoned him, and the story helped him understand that there may have been more to the story than them simply not wanting him.

As August showed in this discussion about Cody's interaction with the book "Tango Makes Three," the book had more meaning to him than the book "What's in a Family," a book about different ways families can be set up:

"Gerri: And um he asked a question during the discussion of it, why couldn't the orig- why couldn't the original parents keep the eggs.  And I that was like a light bulb.  It was a light bulb for me."
"Tamara: That's a big, big, big big thing for Cody.  Right.  Right."

The original perception was that Cody was nervous and shy about talking about his parents because they were both moms.  The story "What's in a Family" was introduced to Cody's class with hopes he would interact with it, which he doesn't do.  "Tango Makes Three" is when he finally speaks up about his questions on his own adoption.  He is able to connect to the text and learn, a major theme we've  had throughout various texts in class (Shapiro, Bartolome, Finn).

Cody wasn't outgoing about his 'moms' yet this shyness was part of a bigger picture - his lack of confidence with his adoptive status.  Although this wasn't the original idea that August had in observing the execution of the dialogical teaching technique, it actually worked out in a more interesting way, and speaks volumes for the importance of this technique.

Cody may have had a stigma growing up as an adopted child if he hadn't make the connection as early as he did in life.  He may have been labelled as a weirdo if he had never dealt with the anxiety he held over the issue and never had the power to express these concerns.  I think it's brilliant that these techniques were being used at such a formative age.  The story allowed Cody to connect his own issues with adoption to himself, something he had to do for himself, something he may have never been able to formulate without this seemingly simple tale.  I thought it important he had the power to do it.

Clearly, August was surprised by this turn of events, but it still was a fascinating turn in her research.  The reading taught me that, as teachers, we make mistakes like that, too.  We may only see a piece of a bigger puzzle, not the big picture with our students.  The teacher, Zeke, was able to find out this information because he was successfully able to "stretch" Cody's notions of his life and his power in it.

As teachers, we have to challenge ourselves to stretch our students' perceptions of their own lives.  Zeke and August weren't afraid to go all the way with their dialogical techniques - when the "What's in a Family" text didn't illicit a response they continued with their curriculum and found unlikely results with "Tango Makes Three."  We can't go half-way when trying to teach our students the power rules in our society.  As challenging as it seems, the results could effect a child for his/her entire life.  This is a truly democratic practice, as Shapiro pointed out last week.

Perhaps teachers should learn the discourse, the language, that pushes these ideas, through workshops and personal days.  It seems like it would be well-worth our time.

From the reading, I interpreted that carefully using language when trying to tackle these subjects if of the upmost importance.  August portrays this throughout the chapters by showing the dialogues of different days in the classroom.  I was impressed by how good he was at diffusing difficult situations the children were throwing at him.

The idea of discourse was an idea we touched upon throughout last week with Shapiro and I thought more about how politicians use discourse to try to change the public's mind about issues.  During class discussion last week, there was a vague memory I couldn't place about Newt Gingrich and a list he sent to other Republicans to help get their message out.

I finally figured out what I was trying to think of today while reading the August piece.  In 1996, Gingrich had sent a memo with two lists of words.  The first list he called "optimistic governing words" and the second list was called "contrasting words."  I thought it was particularly fascinating - he was trying to change the discourse of the Republican agenda by using powerful words, like "prosperity, success", and contrasting them with other loaded language, like "radical and bizarre."

I may not agree with many of his views, but Gingrich certainly is an interesting political character, a person who understands the power of discourse in our society.

Long-Term Vs. Short-Term: Systematic Problems and the Difficulties in Solving Them

David Simon (creator of The Wire) was on Real Time with Bill Maher on September 7 and some of his remarks that night coincided with the article we read this week.  The guests on the show were discussing the downfall of certain systems in America, and how they related to the downfall of the economy, and Simon had this to say:

"Deindustrialization's been going on for 50 years, the decline of organized labor's been going on for 40 years, globalization: 20-25 years, and you're gonna sit there and argue over this month's employment report?  The fact that we can't have an adult electoral process is rooted in this kind of frenzy of who can we blame, and how fast."

"That business of four years being the metric for anything?  We have a political culture that everyone plants annuals, they plant pretty flowers that come up the next spring.  What we need is a political culture where somebody plants a f****** olive tree, which doesn't even give you an olive for seven years.  That's how you fix an economy...When the olive tree becomes an orchard."

The Shapiro article, "Clinton and Education: Policies without Meaning," the author explains that the Clinton administration has taken a stance on education that harkens back to the Reagan/Bush administrations, the early 80's, and that the policy argues that American public schools need to become more modernized to compete with Japan. Shapiro finds Clinton's educational philosophy to be "disappointing and dismaying .... your administration is attempting to relegitimate this educational philosophy by framing the public discourse of education in economic terms" (46).

The idea that standardized testing will help reach the sort of economic goals Clinton's educational reforms are hoping to achieve is disgusting to Shapiro's more progressive philosophy.  He is afraid that these trends are "destined to increase the concern with tests and testing among teachers and educational administrations, while further increasing the level of boredom and alienation already so persistent among students" (48).  

He goes on to write that "[v]ast differences in the material and cultural resources available to different groups will examine what succeeds in schools reflects the deep inequalities between races and classes in American society" (48).  He adds "[f]or those of us who argue that schools need to be places that model democratic values and nurture a democratic culture, this trend signals an anthiethical authoritarian and dehumanizing view on students" (49).  Shapiro doesn't seem off-base with this assessment, as far as my experiences go.  

I agreed with much of what Scorpio discussed until he started portraying Clinton's policy as a basis for anti-liberal Republican rhetoric.  It seems like the roots of the problem started in Republican administrations in the 80's.  Yes, Clinton's policies were not helping, exacerbating the problems.  However, I would've taken Scorpio's criticisms a little more seriously if he had acknowledged it less as a political philosophy difference and more as an overall systematic issue.  

It seems like Scorpio does try to bring this up in his article in some passages, yet he chooses to be partisan at the end.  I prefer David Simon's outlook: the system is broken, we need to fix it, and short-term tricks and finger-pointing aren't going to work to fix a longer-term problem.  

I chose to share and discuss an article on President Obama’s foreign policy record written by George Packer, a veteran of The New Yorker.  His point of view on the Republican National Convention in Tampa was hilarious and worth checking out.  Packer's the closest we have to a modern Hunter S. Thompson, one my writing heroes.  

I chose to analyze and reflect on his June 12 article on the President’s foreign policy.

Packer first gives an overview on the President’s first term, laying out the issues that have plagued him, and noting that he had many problems with his domestic agenda due to difficulties with the Republican Party.  He explains that "the Republicans decided from the start that they would lay all problems at Obama’s door and do as little as possible to help him solve them, a daring as well as immoral strategy that paid off handsomely; the White House seemed completely unprepared for this approach, letting the President’s opponents to define him by August of his first year…"

Packer also notes that many of the problems plaguing the country are not issues that have come out of no where, they’re problems we’ve been facing for a while and, much like the Scorpio article pointed out, we have to start looking long-term if we’re going to start trying to solve them.  Short term patching up hasn’t been working, and is yet another obstacle for the President.  Packer says that "Beyond reasons of politics and personality, there’s the more chronic problem that many American institutions, both public and private, have been decaying for years, losing the trust of the people … to the point of dysfunction—so that historic crises like the September 11th attacks and the financial meltdown no longer seem able to jolt the country into coming together to solve its major problems."

The next part of the article Packer argues the President was able to successfully achieve with foreign policy because he was able to circumvent the Republican Party and the domestic problems.  In Packer’s opinion, he has had a positive impact on the country as foreign policy is concerned: “Obama has talked softly and carried a big stick. The coolness and reasonableness that are sometimes weaknesses at home—and have been exploited as such by his opponents—have served him and the country extremely well abroad.” 

He goes on to conclude “Americans almost never elect Presidents on the basis of foreign policy. It certainly won’t happen in 2012. But on this count alone, Obama deserves the second term that just now seems to be receding from view. It’s easy to overlook these achievements, because many of us expected more out of his first term—I’m sure he did, too.”

         My thoughts concur with Packer’s on the President’s foreign policy achievements.  I find it fascinating that he was able to be most successful where there was the least amount of resistance. 

He DID have a Democratic Senate and House of Representatives for his first two years, which he blew on the controversial health care bill.  I think it was a misstep to blow all his political capital on the health care bill.  He wasn’t able to work on other domestic issues; the health care bill greatly damaged the rest of his agenda.  I don’t question the bill as much as I question the execution of the Obama administration in choosing that as the main policy reform of his first term.  I wish they had done more with the economy instead.

Anyways, Packer’s article was most fascinating to me because he didn’t directly mention the Osama Bin Laden assassination.  He simply says that the top Al Qaeda ranks have been “devastated”.  Most Americans would probably say that the assassination is the number one foreign policy achievement of his presidency.  Packer has many other reasons besides the assassination to support the President’s foreign policy, which makes the article more impressive to me.   

         President Obama has been successful with many of his ventures around the world, especially compared to his predecessor.  If he is re-elected, I wonder if he can do the same at home.

Class Attitudes and Teaching Philosophy

In Literacy with an Attitude’s first chapter, Patrick J. Finn displays the different conclusions reached after extensive research within schools from a variety of economic backgrounds.  Teachers from working class backgrounds within working class communities, he argues, teach differently than teachers with upper class backgrounds who teach in upper class communities.  Finn says that each division of class (working class, middle class, upper-middle class, upper class) has different goals and outcomes in their teaching strategies.  These practices and outcomes directly reflect the class of the students and the suspected job opportunities these children will eventually be given.  For example, lower class children are taught tedious activities in a tedious fashion, the prediction being that these students will have jobs that require these type of skills, like on a factory line, for example.  There is no need for creative thinking involved in these tasks.  “While the same arithmetic book was used in all five schools, the teacher in one working-class school commented that she skipped pages dealing with mathematical reasoning and inference because they were too hard.  The teacher in the second working-class school said, ‘These pages are for creativity – they’re extras.’  She often skipped them as well” (10).  

The upper-middle class, the school of children whose parents were from the upper 10 percent of income earners in the country and the school of children whose parents were from the upper 1 percent of income earners in the country, in the researched mentioned, tended to use these creative assignments almost exclusively.  These assignments better prepared the students for the jobs they were expected to obtain after graduating, jobs that would require critical analyst, ultimately what creative assignments would teach.

Finn argues that each school was preparing the students to stay in the same economic class and job level as their parents, based on the learning they were receiving at their schools. 

This part of the article resonated for me because my best friend in elementary school transferred from our predominantly middle class/working class public school to an upper-middle class private school (Moses Brown) after second grade.  The move was curious among our elementary school, since the Moses Brown was only down the street in Providence.  What made his school better?

As the article pointed out, the teaching techniques were much more driven towards careers in the upper-middle class (10 percent earners) compared to the middle class/working class public school.  I recall asking him about the differences, when we were in 5^th grade, and he said he did many more projects at his new school.  There seemed to be less boring busy work and more hands-on activities being promoted.

At the time, I remember being intimidated by the idea of doing projects all the time.  I always thought projects were way more difficult than the typical assignments I was given.  I was used t working with definite expectations and grades. 

After reading the article, I asked myself: could I have survived at Moses Brown?  I think I could’ve, but there would’ve been growing pains.  If I were taught how to learn in that mode early enough, chances are I would’ve figured it out. 

I considered this same process when thinking about my own teaching.  I currently teach at a middle-class high school with less working class students than where I grew up.  The leap in teaching was not difficult – since I was in honors level classes growing up, I was familiar with the techniques expected with middle class groups of kids.  

I had a little more trouble with classes with more working class children and I had to experiment a little in order to figure out how to break through to them.  I had to adapt.

I currently don't use as many teaching techniques mentioned in the article that are geared towards upper-middle class teaching/upper class teaching and that is a major reason why I'm going to graduate school.  I am going to adapt to more teaching techniques that are more geared towards upper-middle class/upper class.  Since I’m not used to them, I will probably have a growing pains period.  However, as I go, I’m sure I’ll be able to find a way to use them in my classroom.  The idea of it, indeed, is intimidating, but teaching is an evolving process.  Nothing is permanent, something satisfying I get out of teaching. 

I’ve wanted to discuss the television show “The Wire” in class for a while and I thought this reading had the strongest link to the show. 

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the show, each season of “The Wire” focuses on a different dying institution in the city of Baltimore.  Season 1 focuses on the failures of the police trying to stop drugs and the drugs lords they chase, Season 2 on the fall of the dockworkers, Season 3 on politics, Season 4 on the school system, and Season 5 on journalism.  What’s cool about the show is that each season layers on the one before and shows how all these institutions are linked together.  “The Wire” taught me more about how the real world worked, for better and for worse, than any piece of art (TV, movies, books, etc) than anything I can think of and I recommend it to everyone.

The fourth season focuses on a group of eighth graders and is by far the most heart-breaking season of television I’ve ever encountered.  The scene that I thought resonated with this reading, and others we’ve had in class, is summarized here:

Summary:  Ex-cop turned public school teacher Howard "Bunny" Colvin has taken it on himself to help reach the badly underprivileged children who have been deemed essentially unteachable by their West Baltimore junior high school. After his students do well on a project, Colvin decides to take them out to dinner at an upscale restaurant. Initially the students are excited and pleased--but over the course of the meal they become increasingly uncomfortable and discouraged. This is a good way to open a discussion of cultural capital in the context of class inequality, especially with an eye toward intersections of race and gender. Useful questions to ask: Why are Bunny's students so uncomfortable? What assumptions do they bring to their situation about what is expected of them? What if the situation were reversed and the people dining at the restaurant were on the streets of West Baltimore? The differences in the characters’ behavior at the beginning and the end of the clip are especially striking—why the change, and what does it say about what has happened in the scene?

The project mentioned in the summary is what links to this week’s reading.  The lower-income students are challenged to build a replica model of the Eiffel tower without directions.  They are able to use their life experiences to figure it out and the winners are then given the prize of going out for a fancy dinner.  They seemed surprised by the assignment and there are a few interesting observations made.  The winning team is then taken out for a fancy dinner, which is one of the more memorable scenes in the show’s history.  It makes you wonder how the students would've turned out if they were given challenging projects like this one, rather than being taught in the more structured way that they constantly railed against.  

The restaurant scene reminds me of the cultural codes that students with little power must be taught in order to gain any power themselves.  Their teacher, Bunny Colvin, tries to teach them how to be more socialized citizens.  The students react with awkwardness and aggressiveness   

Warning, these videos have strong language:

The principal hears about the restaurant field trip and is not too pleased.  Here is her reaction and Colvin's defense of the situation.  He argues that the kids are learning real-world skills in the classroom, just not the ones the teachers and administration would like them to learn: