Spring Chapters 3 and 10, Kozol Chapters 9 and 10

Spring page 62

“Plessy vs. Ferguson highlights the principle that race is a social and legal construction.”

We can see that the meaning of the term “race” has changed many times throughout our American history:  In the case stated above, in the Takao Ozawa vs. United States case (1922) and in the United States vs. Bhagat Singh Thind case (1923).   We have been talking in class about how race is what it is defined as today only because of what our society has deemed it to be.  Race does not have to do with the color of one’s skin, which is proven by the court’s inability to decide on what they should classify as different races between the different cases listed above.  If the courts can’t make a clear and final decision on how to classify races, then can there really be one at all?  Stereotyping is what the meaning of the word “race” comes down to.  Race has nothing to do with one’s cultures or background, but is many times a label for the color of one’s skin.  Spring talks about how the courts even realized that skin color won’t work to classify different races because everyone has a different skin tone.  So why is it that the courts were able to make the decisions they did even though “race” cannot be clarified based on the color of one’s skin? How should we teach about the concept of race in our classrooms in relation to how the government defines it (or doesn’t define it).

Spring page 69

“… second-generation forms of segregation can occur in schools with balanced racial populations; for instance, all white students may be placed in one academic track and all African American or Hispanic students in another track.”

I ahave never heard of second-generation segregation before, well the term of it I mean.  Unfortunately, even though segregation was supposed to be ended eyars ago, we still see many schools segregatedtoday.  I have never really thought about the way that segregation can happen within one particular school that is segregated demographically as a whole.  Seeing all these forms of segregation and how it has truly never ended in our school systems, I wonder if it ever will end.  When the Court decided to end segregation, many schools were forced to have close to an equal amount of each “race” attending each school.  The ones that were successful in doing tat, turned to the second –generation segregation that moved segregation to within the walls of the school.  Not only is this segregation between races, but it can be found happening to chidren who have special needs also.  The terms segregation and social prejusdice seem to go hand-in-hand when talked about this way.  Can our schools ever change from being this way?  If our society never changes the prejudices they have towards people, how will our schools ever be able to?

Spring page 255

“In contrast, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996 let stand the decision by the U.S> Court of Appeals for the Fifth District that school systems were not liable for sexual harassment of students by other students.”

I think I am a little confused by this statement.  There are laws stating that harassment is not allowed to happen in schools, even though it is evident that these laws are not followed through with because there are still cases of student suicide caused by bullying.  If there are laws against harassment, or bullying, then would sexual harassment be different that regular harassment, causing children not to be protected in those specific cases?  If that is true, then I don’t agree with that at all.  To me, any form of harassment can be dangerous for a child to experience.  Too many children become depressed or end their lives because of what they have to deal with from peers at school.  If I am wrong in the way I perceive this information, can anyone please correct me?

Kozol page 217

“In school, you would not sense his feelings of political impatience; he does his best to make his fifth grade class a happy and protective place for children. His wrath emerges when he’s leaving school, or walking in the neighborhood, or when the weekend comes.”

This quote is talking about a teacher named Louis Bedrock who has been working at P.S. 30 (a school in the Bronx) for sixteen years.  This quote shows the importance of leaving feelings that should not be brought into the classroom, out of the classroom.  It is important for the children to be made aware of what is happening in the community in which they are living in, but for Mr. Broderick to be angry at something that is not happening within his classroom while he is teaching all day would hinder the children’s ability to learn.  Children need a compassionate community in order for them to learn and grow to their fullest potential.  They need to feel important within the walls of the room despite the segregation that may have put them there.  As long as the child is being nurtured in the best way for them within their learning community, then it will help to maximize their learning. Mr. Bedrock is a good example for all teachers to follow in this aspect of teaching and dealing with the struggles of the reality that society is not what it should be.  The feelings behind the struggles should be left outside of the classroom so that the main focus can be on the students.  What would be a good way to help more teachers remember to do this all of the time for their students?

Kozol page 221

“At every opportunity I have to talk with advocates and educators who share any part of my beliefs about these matters nowadays, I ask the same repeated questions: Where should teachers, superintendents, principals and others who are troubled by the silence of our nation’s leaders on this issue look for recourse and for reinforcement of their discontent?”

Kozol then goes on to state that we need to find the voices to magnify our cries for help and change in the people who have lived in the very problems we are trying to fix.  Successful Black people who went to segregated schools and never want to return and White people who went to desegregated schools and experienced success are just two examples of people who we should turn to to help change it.  The citizens who are not a part of the government will have the loudest voices against what is happening in today’s school systems, because they have experienced it and continue to experience it every day. A question that I have is how to we get people to use their voices against “the norm” of today’s society?  How do we get rid of the fear that many may have to stand up for something that the government is blind to?  How do we get the government to hear our cries for change and help when they turn a deaf ear and blind eye for the most part today?

Kozol page 238

“Choosing his words deliberately, Wilkins spoke of what he termed “the small-minded triumphalism” of contemporary political leaders who grew up in “isolated worlds of white male privilege” and have, as a result, “inadequate education for the responsibilities they hold.””

Again, this is what we have talked about in class.  So many people are not aware that they are privileged because that is all they grow up knowing.  If no one tells them that they are privileged, they are not made aware to think so.  What people are not faced with, or are not taught, they just don’t know about.  White male privilege is very real and is the truth for almost every white working male.  White males get paid more than any other person, etc.  If this is not pointed out to them, however, they may never realize this reality.  In this unfortunate reality, too many of these “unaware” people are the ones running our government.  They are not educated enough in reality to know how to deal with reality.  They try and solve problems that do not exist in the way that they think they do because they are not livng the problem every day.  NCLB was an example of this.  One white, privileged man decided to grade a child’s and teacher’s success solely on a standardized test, and if they don’t pass then the school is considered failing, etc.  Unfortunately, that man was not an active part of the education system on a daily basis.  He made a law that, although he thought would help, ended up hurting our schools, students and teachers.  To make matters worse, RTTT, which was supposed to “fix” NCLB, has only made things worse.  How can we make these people who are unfit to govern our education system see what it really needs to survive and flourish?

Folder 12

Revitalizing the Commons  Page 3

“This transformation alters the communal practices where work is reciprocated and where much of daily life is based on a barter or mutual exchange system.  The process of enclosure meant that communal access is restricted in ways the benefited, generally on a monetized basis, the owner of the land, water, and so forth.”

It continues to talk about how enclosure also expands to relate to the way that the world is teaching people to care only about themselves and become more independent instead of turning to others to forma relationships and ask for help.  This means that now most transactions between people, looking for help, etc. are based off of money and payment. Many years ago, before our economy became as dominant as it is and money started controlling our lives, people had real relationships with others and could look to each other for help and advice.  Today, everything like that costs money.   People today can’t look to someone else for help or guidance without either having to give something or pay money in return.  This is only making our economy more market based because it makes what used to be friendly transactions between people, now money transactions.  People focus on the money aspect of it instead of on helping someone.  What is this teaching our children?  Is this affecting our school systems?

The False Promises of Constructivist Theories of Learning page 114

“As pointed out earlier, what is made explicit, what is passed on as taken for granted, what is based on cultural assumptions that are never examined, and what is presented in an abstract way that represents it as universally true, will influence the student’s ability to think in ways that take account of the complexity of vital issues and to articulate a point of view that will lead others to reflect more deeply.”

We talked a lot about this topic in class, and in many ways our entire class has been molded around the main idea in this sentence.  Bringing up topics is extremely important in order for people to learn and grow around them.  Thinking critically is one of the most important aspects that are part of making us individuals. If we are never taught to question the “norm” or think critically about topics that should be thought about critically, then how can problems ever be changed or even brought to the surface.  For example, in order for someone to change their racist thoughts, words and actions, they must first be aware of the fact that they are racist by being aware of the social prejudices that have become a normal part of today’s society.  If no one ever tells them about social prejudices, then no one would ever feel that they are racist.  How can a teacher react to a statement like the quote above?  How does that relate to the job of a teacher?

American Education From a Tribal Perspective page 26

“The orchestrated “bottom-line, real world” chorus sung by many in business and government has become the common refrain of those who announce they lead the world.  Yet, what underlies the crisis of American education is the crisis of modern man’s identity and his cosmological disconnection from the natural world.  Those who identify most with the bottom line often suffer from an image without substance, technique without soul, and knowledge without context.  The cumulative psychological result is usually alienation, loss of community, and a deep sense of incompleteness.”

One of the things that tribal Indians focus on when they teach their children is how to build a community, linking people together so that no one is alone and everyone works together toward a common goal.  They are also more focused on living life in the most natural way possible: off of what the land provides for their survival, etc.  These children grow up learning how to form relationships with people around them, how to love others, how to help and how to count on others.  These children do not grow up wanting to be better than other people, thinking like is a contest to try and be better than anyone else.  However, this is exactly what most of our children are growing up learning.  They are taught to try to climb to the top of the corporate ladder because that is where they will find the most money, or happiness.  Children in our business society don’t know how to rely on family and friends for comfort.  They are not taught to help others unless given money to do so. In today’s world, happiness=money.  How can we change our own society around to get them back to where people, relationships and the world in which we live is more important than being number one and the money that we put into our pockets?  As teachers, how can we teach our children that happiness≠money when everything else in our society is telling them that it does?

A Pedagogy for Ecology page 32

“Rather than contribute to a sense of disconnection from place by writing off the environments around our most urban schools as unsalvageable or not worth knowing, teachers can instill in children an attitude of attention to what exists of the natural world in their neighborhoods.  The sense of care for and connection to place, then, can become the foundation for a critical examination of how that place has been degraded.”

Not only is it important for children to be connected with the people in their community, but it is also important for children to be connected with the environment in which they grow up in.  Children don’t have the same critical eye that people posses as they grow up and go through life.  Children also don’t know the harm in something until someone tells them about it.  So when teaching our children in the classroom, help them to look past the cars, building, concrete and to look at the trees, grass, leaves, sky, etc that surrounds them.  In a busy city filled with honking cars and people yelling, help the children to find the birds, bugs, clouds, etc to help them remain connected with nature.  Helping children to feel this connection helps them to connect to the place that they call home in a positive way.  They can connect with nature and their community in this same way.  In a society where almost everyone looks at the negative of everything, how can we, as teachers, push past our own negativity to help our own students see something that we don’t always see in our lives?

http://www.ecojusticeeducation.org/index.php?option=com_rd_glossary&Itemid=35

Culture

The practices, beliefs, traditions, moral norms that give the people a common sense of identity and way of understanding their relationship to the environment and to each other;

By looking at this definition, how can we teach the children in our classroom without teaching in respect to the cultures in which they live?  Someone’s individual culture defines who they are as a person, how they witness life, how they grow up, how they learn, etc.  What we are being taught is to teach to each individual child’s need.  We are being taught about Multiple Intelligences so that we can recognize each child’s different learning style and teach to that child’s needs.  However, in order for us to learn about what intelligence that each child uses most, or learns the best using, we must know about each child’s background (how they were raised, how they grew up, etc.)  Not only will it help us to teach each child in the way that they need to be taught, but it will help us to connect with each child on a more personal level.  How can we, as teachers, find the time to learn about each child’s individual culture if we have to spend so much time teaching for the test?

http://www.earthcharterinaction.org/content/pages/Read-the-Charter.html

The mission of the Earth Charter Initiative is to promote the transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework that includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace.

This has been the main topic of conversation so far in our EDF class.  In order for everything to be ok in the world of education, there needs to be equality and a bigger focus on the commons.  We recently learned about the pedagogies and philosophies of teaching, and the most important ones, in my point of view, were the ones regarding teaching concepts in a way that teaches about the community, environment, compassion, etc in a hands-on approach.  A successful community needs these things to happen because it would help people to care about each other and care about the natural resources that are provided for us to sustain the lives that we live.  How do we teach children about the more natural aspect of our lives when so much weight is being pushed on the test scores?

Kozol Chapter 8 and Marlowe Chapter 11

Kozol page 189

“The problem, as it soon turned out, was that the program had become too cheap too rapidly.”

This program, Higher Horizons, that Abraham Ribicoff is talking about is one that made a tremendous difference in the schools that took part in it.  Although this program spent fifty dollars more per child, it quickly dwindled down to only twenty seven dollars.  Where some may still complain that the program was still costing extra money to be spent per child, it made many beneficial improvements happen within the schools that used it.  It raised students’ reading comprehension and reading levels, it lowered the number of suspensions in a year (from 30 to 11), there was better student attendance, better work habits and more self-discipline seen from the students.  This program allowed for extra instruction in reading, writing and math for each student and allowed for field trips to educational places.  This new hands-on and students-driven way of teaching was proven to help so many students to learn better and want to participate in school.  However, despite proof of improvement (academically, behaviorally, etc.) in the students, the program was done away with because they stopped putting as much money into it.  “It became too cheap too quickly.”  So here is a program that started out doing well, but the idea of it being inexpensive took over and it soon became too cheap to run functionally.  At that point, it did not help the students who it promised to help, and proved, to help at first.  Why is it that programs like this who are showing improvements in students, do things to make it so that they stop being beneficial?  Is it the money aspect of it? This makes me wonder if a price limit is put on a child’s education.  Because of these changes the program dwindled away to nothing.

Kozol Page 190

“”Despite these changes, the extent of segregation in the city’s schools was greater in 1963” than it had been in 1958.”

In cities where the ethnic demographics were very diverse and the towns segregated, some programs and attempts were made to try and desegregate the people.  These attempts were not big and they failed.  In fact, the segregation rates were even higher in schools after these programs were attempted.  In places where these programs and the compensatory education programs were put into effect, the education programs had more of an effect on the students, helping to positively affect their performances in school.  Why is it that when programs are implemented to help children learn better in their schools, they are followed through and actually show improvements but when a program to help end segregation gets put into effect, the opposite ends up happening?  Is there more involved to trying to help end segregation in areas than just trying to implement a program in a school system?  If the school’s program did not work, why wasn’t anything else tried?  Is segregation too big of a problem for an education system to solve?  Does the government and communities need to be involved in the process as well?

Kozol page 195

“An entirely different kind of practice, one that seems much easier to understand in human terms, in the high set of expectations that attach themselves to changes in the topmost personnel- superintendent, CEO, or chancellor, as they are often known- who come and go so frequently in many of our urban systems, although personnel and program oftentimes are intertwined.”

Kozol then goes on to give examples of people who come and go in the education system very quickly, usually due to stress.  A position like those stated above needs a constant person to work in it because so many decisions need to be made for the schools and problems, etc. need to be dealt with in a way that best fits the schools.  If different people are always stepping into those higher-up positions, then no one way of running everything will stay in effect.  The students and teachers need something constant in their lives for their education.  If things are constantly changing, where will the stability come in for the learners?  A child will have a more difficult time learning in an environment or system that is not constant.  Programs that are implemented with one person may be changed with the next, despite the possibility of them working.  If the stress is too high for one person to keep these jobs, how can we change things to make it so that one person stays for an extended period of time?  Is there anything that can be done to make this happen?  One possibility may be to put more than one person in that area of work to help share the workload.  Any other thoughts on this? Doesn’t an education system need stability in something good to help it succeed?

Marlowe page 11

“First, teachers today have been swamped by tasks- often, trivial and unconnected to students- that demand compliance, to the point where it is difficult for teachers to balance or to discern what is really important.”

Teachers today have so many things on their plates, not only when they walk into the school building but when they walk out of it also.  Many times, because there is so much work to be done, they bring their work home with them.  Whether this work is meaningful or trivial is a big question.  Now, because of NCLB and RTTT there are so many laws and regulations that force teachers to do extra things as part of their day.  When teachers have to focus on their students getting passing scores on the standardized tests, little room is left to do anything else.  These practices that are given to prepare must be graded and assessed by the teacher, with all of the students scores logged and assessed.  All of this extra stuff that needs to get done takes time out of the teachers day to either plan for the next day’s lessons or it takes the time right out of the learning day away from the students.  Unfortunately, these tests do not improve or prove the learning ability of the students, which means that all of the teacher preparations that are involved are a waste of time.  There are other things too that teachers are asked to do to keep up with the mandates that are given by the state and national government that have nothing to do with teaching their students.  How can a teacher teach what’s important and do all of these other “useless” things at the same time? Is there a way for teachers too not do what is useless so that their students will be given the best opportunities to learn?

Marlowe page 113

“Simply stated, when one acknowledges someone as being good (or great), there is a corresponding expectation to pay those people well. So while I have heard a lot over thirty years about teacher competency and merit pay, I have yet to hear a sincere effort to acknowledge what is the essence of great teaching.”

When most people are hired for a job, they expect to get recognition for a great job that they are doing, if they are doing it.  Also, many times, a pay raise is included in with that recognition.  However, for teachers, there is no recognition for doing a good job and there is no pay raise either.  Now, the teachers that get recognized for the good grades on the standardized tests are getting recognized as being good teachers.  When in reality so many of those teachers have conformed to the testing that they would no longer be considered “good” in terms of helping the students to learn and comprehend in their best capacity.  Now, because of NCLB, a good teacher is qualified as one that has their students pass the high stakes tests.  No longer are good teachers recognized as the ones who form a compassionate learning environment, who teach to and for the children (not the test), who help all of their students to learn in the best way possible for each of their students, etc.  Unfortunately, the definition of “good” is changing.  Those teachers, who are doing what I would consider to be a good job at teaching, are not getting recognized at all for their hard work.  So now, many of those teachers are losing their jobs or being thrown in the background because their students may or may not have passed the tests.  This definition of good is changing the way our education system is working.  The teachers who are teaching to the test will get merit pay, because their students passed the test.  But will those students have learned everything they needed to in order to survive in the real world after school?  Will those teachers have succeeded in creating a healthy environment for the students to learn in and in teaching to each child’s needs?  I doubt it.  So where have the good teachers gone?  Why is it that the teachers who are truly teaching each student in the ways that are best for them, are not getting recognized for their work?  What will happen to those good teachers if they are never shown recognition, will we lose them forever?

Marlowe page 116                                 

“Student success is also fostered by empowering students (and students are automatically empowered when they are producing!). Empowering means actively teaching students how to help themselves, how to take responsibility for their work; how to get help: How to ask for help, whom to ask for help, and when to seek help. This is a real world skill that starts and grows in class an in school.”

Unfortunately, when teachers are forced to teach students according to the test they have to take and pass, these real world skills are not being taught to the students because none of them are forced to critically think and produce outcomes that are original to their own points of view and styles of learning.  Because of NCLB, the students are not expected to think in creative ways, or independently.  They do not have to ask for help because everything is given to them in a self-explanatory way.  The students do not need to think about how to answer the questions asked, they need to read the question, come up with an answer and bubble it in.  So many times, when a student is wrong with an answer that has been bubbled in, they are not corrected because there is not enough time to go over why something was wrong.  This way of schooling is not helping our students become better and enriched people, instead, it is forcing them to become one type of person who knows how to read a paper and fill in bubble sheets.  So if this is what is happening, there is no student success in our school systems, according to this generation.  If so many people know this, then why do our laws keep changing to continue to make this a part of our education system?  Will someone listen and refuse to let this continue to go on?

Marlowe Chapters 21, 22, 23

Marlowe page 198

“But it does offer them the challenge to join in a public debate with their critics as well as the opportunity to engage in a much needed self critique regarding the nature and purpose of teacher preparation, in-service teacher programs, and the dominant forms of classroom teaching. “

In this chapter, Marlowe talks about an educational reform that is taking place unlike one our country’s history has ever seen.  This reform is demoralizing teachers by providing laws and mandates that show little confidence in their ability to provide intellectual and moral leadership for our children. Even though these reforms are demeaning to the role of educators in today’s school systems, Marlowe brings up a good point:  although, as teachers, we are talked about as puppets who cannot perform tasks in a correct manner, we are given an opportunity to stand up against it in public debates.  Only we can make other people see what we are really doing as a teacher every day in our classrooms because we are the only ones who really know.  Now is a time to use our voices and stand up not only for ourselves but for what we know is truly the best for our children, and not what the government thinks is best.  This makes me wonder, why is it that the government is making it look like our teachers are not capable of being good role models or teachers for our children?  Why is it they don’t give teachers the credit that they deserve for working as hard as they do?  Why are they portraying a teacher, in the public eye, as someone who is incompetent and unfit for the job they have?

Marlowe page 200

“Instead of learning to raise questions about the principles underlying different classroom methods, research techniques and theories of education, students are often preoccupied with leaning the “how to,” with “what works,” or with mastering the best way to teach a given body of knowledge.”

In this section, Marlowe talks about the educational programs that pre-service teachers go through in order to get their certification.  In a previous blog of mine, I talked about how I think that it would benefit pre-service teachers more to just be thrown into a classroom with someone else and learn in a hands-on way.  However, in last week’s class, Dr. Love talked about the importance of college classes in order to learn about all of the different philosophies and statistics backing up the philosophies, and come up with our own way of teaching from those. Walking out of college with a bag full of philosophies should help you create your own as you spend your first few years in a classroom as a teacher.  However, Marlowe brings us to the reality that many college programs teach all of the teacher candidates the same thing:  how to teach to a test, the best child is a quiet child, etc.  Basically, we are given philosophies and ways of teaching and are expected to perform those same philosophies and ways of teaching in our own classrooms.  We are being trained like an army of robots to sit, listen and obey and unfortunately, that is how we are being told to teach our students as well.  We are not taught to creatively think of something on our own, never mind teach the children in our classrooms to do that.  How are we supposed to overcome these obstacles as pre-service teachers?  I have been lucky enough in my own college experience to have some amazing transformative professors who have taught me to be the same transformative teacher they have become in their years of teaching.  But I am only one needle in a very large haystack.  I, as one person, can only say so much.  So what can I do, if anything, to change things?

Marlowe page206

“Survival, in other words, depends on making some decisions about what’s important, and living by them-most of the time.”

Here, Deborah Meier gives pre-service teachers some really good advice about how to get through their career as a teacher.  I think many of us worry about what we don’t yet know, which is what it will be like having our own classroom of students and having to live under the mandates of our government.  She talks about some things that my own professors have told us to do (in a safe way of doing so), like learning how to teach the children about what they need to know for the tests while teaching them other things they should be learning (outside of the testing.)  We are hearing this advice a lot, but my biggest question is how exactly do we know where we can and cannot cut corners in teaching our children to pass the test?  How exactly do we learn about “what’s important?” 

Marlowe page 207

“If parents and teachers were truly able to use their strength in a semi-united way, they’d overcome.  But, we’ve allowed a rift to exist between us that serves others, but neither parents nor teacher.”

It is very important for teachers and parents to work together because they both have the same goal in mind: a successful learning environment for their child.  I think here also ends up being where a lot of teachers and parents tend to butt heads the most.  Many parents don’t like the way teachers are teaching their children, and instead of blaming it on the source (the government laws) they blame it on the one person who happens to be implementing the laws, the teacher.  And in response, teachers get mad at the parents for not always understanding what is really happening.  If the two groups of people could learn to come together on the one thing that they both dislike so much, then they would be able to fight against the one thing causing it, the government.  However, until then, the mandates will continue to be put into play because as they stand alone, neither is strong enough to change anything.  Is there a way for us, as future teachers, to learn a way to connect with our parents and worl with them instead of against them?

Marlowe page 211

“It means to look at messages and materials through different lenses and from many perspectives; it means to be able to recognize propaganda regardless of its origin; it means to be able to “detect crap;” it means to pull apart materials, sort them, question them, reorganize them mentally, and then synthesize the pieces into a coherent understanding and whole.”

Here Marlowe is talking about what a critical voice is and how as a teacher, we need to have one.  First and foremost, we must figure out what our philosophy is in teaching.  What is it that we truly believe in and why, what is it we believe should happen in our classrooms and why, and what is it we do not believe should happen in our classrooms and why?  New mandates are constantly being made and we must use our critical thinking to analyze these mandates and come up an opinion on them, and then use our critical voices to stand up against them or for them.  It is important for us to be able to think critically during times like these, and knowing how to think critically will help us be able to teach our students to do the same. I still wonder how we will be able to speak out against these mandates if our job “depends” on following them.  Unfortunately, our students must pass these tests, or our job is on the line.  How can someone speak out against it and not worry about losing their job because they spoke up for what they believed in, or acted out what they believed in?

Marlowe page 211

“Every teacher has to have a solid grasp of his assumptions about how people learn and how that translates into the kind of environment the teacher will provide.”

Without a distinct belief on how people should learn, teachers are going to wander through their years of teaching unable to reach their students.  A belief of one’[s own allows one to do something different from the “norm,” which, at the moment, is something that is not working.  At this point, education is focused mainly on a child passing a standardized test to show how well they have comprehended material taught to them.   If a teacher does not believe in a specific method for teaching and learning, they will fall victim to having to obey the politics in our education system.  With a specific belief, teachers are still able to follow the mandates (have children score high on the tests,) but do so in a way that will help them to actually learn the material, not just memorize it.  This is where transformative teaching comes into play.  This style of teaching creates a compassionate community of learners and promotes optimal learning through critical thinking and hands-on activities.  This is my assumption of how people learn best and I plan to create this type of environment for my own classroom.  Did Marlowe mean that any style of teaching would also be good?  What if a person is a very traditional type of teacher and believes in lecturing, note-taking, etc., would he consider that to still be a “thinking teacher?”

Marlowe Chapters 9 and 11

Marlowe page 92

“Worse yet, it turns them into “containers,” into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teachers.”

The “them” Marlowe is referring to is the students in a classroom.  He is referring to the information we are teaching our students and how we are teaching it to them.  Instead of helping the students to learn and understand concepts, we lecture our students so that they can memorize and recite it back whenever we ask them to do so.  He compares teaching to a banking industry, again showing how much our education system is being run by and run like the world of business.  In this banking educational system, the teacher is the actor and the children are the audience, having little to no interaction with the learning process other than to sit in a desk and listen to a teacher all day.  How is it that a student can actually be expected to retain any information in this learning environment?  The classroom, in this case, is not a comfortable environment, it does not allow children to interact with the learning process, and it does not foster any creativity or interest in the students.  Many classrooms today look more and more like this because of NCLB and RTTT, which force our education systems to focus on test scores.  Why are we moving from a society that holds precious the idea of creativity and individuality, toward a society that is producing an army of robot children who are all stopped from thinking this way?

Marlowe page 94

“They may discover through existential experience that their present way of life is irreconcilable with their vocation to become fully human.”

At some point, hopefully, students will come to the realization that they are being raised to act and learn like robots, all the same way.  This learning requires no thinking or personal growth.  Hopefully, if a person realizes how to think on their own (although they are taught to do the opposite), then they should realize what is going on and act against it.  As humans, like Marlowe states, it is natural for us to think and process what is going on in our lives.  The more we are taught to not do this, the less we are acting like humans and the more we are disregarding our natural way of life.  At some point, the more people realize what is going on, the more they are going to rebel against it.  Eventually this will end up happening more and more because our education system is trying to go against the natural way of life, and this can only go on for so long without people catching on and refusing to let it continue to happen.  Is our government making more trouble for themselves in the long run by having our teachers teach this way or will our country continue to allow itself to be run in this controlling way? I wonder if people will ever gain the confidence they need to stand up against it.

Marlowe page 99

“Education as the practice of freedom-as opposed to education as the practice of dominion- denies that man is abstract, isolated, independent and unattached to the world; it also denies that the world exists as a reality apart from people.”

Education as the practice of freedom reminds us that as people in this world, we are connected to the world and everything in it.  Nature is a part of us, as we are a part of nature.  Teaching this way also helps to remind us that we are people of different cultures, involved in different ways of life with other people.  It forces us to be conscious of the events and happenings in our lives, and of who we are becoming as we learn and grow.  It is impossible to argue that we are not connected with the world around us, that we exist as individuals. This type of education is called problem-posing education.  It helps us to engage in creative thinking about ourselves being something that is a work in progress, always changing and forming into something new (unfinished.) This way of thinking is healthier for the students because it helps them to fight against the oppression of the current school systems by forcing them to question their existence and the purpose of it.  I wonder if our school systems will ever follow an educational model like this; one that is healthier for everyone involved and one that allows for the most individual growth, or if it will continue to oppress the citizens of this country so that we all end up following the same business-like model that is becoming our way of life. 

Marlowe page 113

 “A common form of data-students’ standardized test scores, now all the rage- provide little guidance for teachers, and are among the most useless (and harmful) pieces of data, in terms of helping teachers and future teachers, to say nothing of useless in helping students actually be successful.”

Teaching is a job that is for hard workers who have the time and will power to dedicate their entire selves to the profession.  Teachers often have their time swamped with trivial things not related to teaching and, based off of today’s trends, are not faced with an easy way to help assess how much and how well their students have learned something.  Today’s government is telling us, as a country, to have our students take standardized tests (that are the same for all of the schools in a state) and use the scores that they receive as the indicator to let us know how well are students are internalizing information and what level they are at.  Research has shown that these tests do not show any of these things, they are not indicators to how much a child knows because of the stress level and un-real situations that the children are placed in while taking them.  If these are not good indicators of how well our children are learning, what else are we supposed to do if this is what our country is telling us we have to do?  Why are these tests controlling what our standards are for teaching, shouldn’t the children who are in our classroom’s do that?  Shouldn’t we be focusing on the individual needs in our classroom and test their learning based on in-class actions?  If that’s what research shows to work (atleast better than testing does), why aren’t our laws being changed to incorporate those practices?

Marlowe page 114

“I am calling for simply naming, noting, identifying what these teachers do, teachers whose students are succeeding-academically and socially- despite unfortunate conditions in their schools and communities.”

Marlowe has several worries that he voices when speaking about great teachers voices not being heard.  First, he talks about the same mistakes being repeated in the school system because the success stories are not being told to set for good examples.  Also, he talks about how often we hear about the bad things that happen in schools, but not enough about the good things.  What kind of mood does something like that set for people involved in the education system?  When not enough good stories are told, it brings down the moral and attitudes of the teachers who enter into that setting every day, along with the students. The success stories set up a positive atmosphere and rays of hope for those who don’t have any in their current conditions.  Without these positive examples, how can the education system ever get better?  If no one says that it can, no one will ever believe that it will.  Marlowe also says that he worries about these great teaching practices becoming dormant if they are never talked about or recognized.  The few great teachers that exist today should be made examples to all of the others, not have their practices die away with time.  We learn from people who are already doing something, and if we wait too long to learn from these teachers, our chances may never come.

Marlowe page 117

“But for this to happen, we must move the definition of “qualified” back from quantity indicators (test scores, teachers’ college degrees,  number of years teaching, and other items easily tallied) and onto quality, by teaching teachers about efficacy and caring, about the ways one can empower and engage students, while allowing teachers to retain their “distinctive character.””

NCLB and RTTT are both creating an education system that has its focus on the wrong things.  Children are not numbers that can be grouped together based off of a score that they receive on a test.  Teachers cannot teach children in the way that they need to be taught if they are forced to teach a curriculum that is centered around a test.  Teachers are also not the best that they can be when faced with the tremendous amount of pressure that is put on them by the government, school boards, etc. for the children to score well. A highly qualified teacher is now seen as one who can teach children to pass a test, not one who helps each individual student learn everything they need to know to help them grow up into people with individual goals and dreams.  Why has our government turned to this form of testing to “prove” the intellectual level of children?  Why has NCLB been allowed to turn our school system into something that no longer fosters a healthy environment for children to learn, grow and feel comfortable in?  Our schools systems need teachers that care about the students and their well-being, and not about a test score that needs to be received in order to hit AYP for that year.  If our students needs are being met first and foremost and they are learning everything they need to in their own way, then they are learning and growing in the healthiest way possible.