weather check-in

So today I feel that there are many weather systems roiling inside me today.

I am partly sunny because it was a nice day, which always lifts my mood, and I am at SED 561, which always makes me feel sunny.

I am also partly cloudy, because it has been an awfully long day, I was in school to meet with someone early, taught straight through to 245, then had a faculty meeting until 345, then fought mineral spring traffic to get here for class, only to have to fight it again to make a fundraiser meeting at St. Ray's in Pawtucket after class.

There are also storms forecasted for me, because a number of my students are going through difficult life situations, and I want to help, but know that there is only so much I can do.

Finally, when Al Roker predicted snow on Sunday, I thought "Why not?"  So I'll claim snow in my check in, and attribute that to feeling old in yoga today.

Social Media Silence Challenge

This is happening 12-13-14

follow the link:

SMS Challenge

Thanks

Brian

link to the Turkle article

Turkle NY times article

The Discipline Games

Patrick Finn describes a teacher preparation class roll playing exercise, where he has the students (all teachers) play a student, teacher, and jury.  They have dialogue regarding the negotiation of student desires, and teacher responses, and after a pre-set amount of time, the jury rules on the item at hand.  I found this to be an interesting exercise, and I loved the idea of dialogue vs. anti-dialogue, but I opened with this description, because I thought the title "The Discipline Games" would make an apt title for the article selection. 

Finn opens in chapter one, discussing various considered titles for his book, and while we did not have access to the entire book, the selection we read could have been titled "The Discipline Games" because of the in-depth study and description of the set-up and inequality found in schools and how that inequality funnels students into their roles in life following.  The set-up of schools, and the idea that it could be intentional (conspiracy GASP!) by those with privilege, evokes powerful connections to that other title so popular in today's classrooms and society "The Hunger Games."  So in honor, I will be peppering my blog today with movie references for those of you who love the cinema.

In "The Book of Eli" Denzel Washington's character carries a bible through the apocalyptic world, where very few can read, and those who can hold all the power.  The main antagonist, is on a mission to collect and/or destroy all books, especially the bible, because it is the most dangerous of all books.  When he finally gets it from Washington's character, it is useless, because it is in Braille, which renders the villain functionally illiterate.  Eli continues on the a society of pacifists, and proceeds to recite, word for word the entire contents of the King James Bible, which he has memorized.  Finn opens by telling us of the power of literacy, and access to books, and continues throughout his book to describe "literacy with attitude."

We go on to read Finn discuss how students in working and middle class schools are taught to follow directions, get the right answer, and exhibit acceptable levels of resistance, mixed in with some hope for opportunity.  This type of learning is directed toward a future of wage labor, or service labor, such as teaching, law enforcement, nursing, and "accountantry(my word)."  There were two phrases that stuck most with me in this section, the first, concerning working class students and a science experiment was:  "what did we find" of course this came after the teacher performed the experiment in front of the students who were expected to sit quietly at their desks and observe.  The second was "There was more excited patriotism around holidays here than in any other school." when referring to middle class students.  This screams to the "caste system" of our society.  While hourly wage workers and working class people have little reason to look forward to the holidays, and those who are affluent don't need to have their holidays and gift-giving dictated to them, the middle class "managers" grind ploddingly forward, waiting for a chance for a little extra moment of what appears to be joy, in the form of a three day weekend.  What more appropriate image than a Disney classic:

The ants pick the food, the grasshoppers eat the food, and nobody gets squished.  These ants don't even know enough to know that they are oppressed, or to question their lot in life, until one renegade ant screws up and has no choice but to force change.  I think Finn and Friere might have moonlighted on Disney's writing team for this one.

The last idea I wanted to touch on was the idea of students from working class schools being hosted by those in affluent schools, and the differences between the food, and the classes, and the hallway expectations, and the rules, etc.  I have often rebelled against the popular idea that if you took a student from a poor community, and dropped them in an affluent one, they would prosper, or that if you took a teacher from an affluent community and dropped them in a struggling urban school, they would fail.  I'm just not sure the issue is that simple, but I do understand how he felt that he had let the urban students down by reinforcing the image they already have of sub-ordinance. Here's two last hollywood pics that deal with that idea:

Can't wait for class this week!

From the Three R's to the Three C's

First a video from this week's Saturday Night Live, just for fun, but which talks about the rain:

Now on to the discussion of the Ira Shore article.  

It seems as if we are discussion the movement/revolution in education from pedagogical "readin' ritin', rithmatic" and the role of teacher as lecturer, to a newer model of teacher as "problem poser" and the idea of students as creative, critical, and curious.

What teacher would not like to describe their students with these words?  What teacher actually describes all their students with these words, check out the 2nd video, by Sir Ken Robinson, who discusses exactly the model of schools we have been accused of in the Shore article:

The first time I ever saw this, I was ready for the revolution.  It helped that, the same year, I was moved from a middle school reading classroom, to a high school multiple pathways program.  I was in fact asked to energize, motivate, and engage a group of students, for whom the educational process had become "endullment"(my favorite term from this article).  I chose project-based learning as my format for ELA class, and we read Into the Wild by John Krakauer.  My first year in the program was spent in students self-discover, and despite a few hiccups, was quite successful.  To my surprise, many students found that school was engaging, and worthwhile, and that learning at their own pace, and being asked to figure out what topics meant to them, and then being asked to apply this knowledge in a practical way, inspired them to want to pursue new knowledge.  

In many ways, this style brought me back to my 2nd grade classroom, where Sr. Beatrice, rolled out the Scholastic Reading Leveled System.  Which to this day remains my favorite unit in any school experience (except of course for SED 561).  In this unit, there was a box with 50 or so colored levels. Students would all begin at level 1, then proceed through as quickly as they could test out.  Our teacher allowed us to choose our readings, and supported us all individually.  I flourished, as did many other students in class, but it was the expert facilitation of our beloved Sr. Beatrice that allowed this to happen.  

I believe the art of teaching, is the student focused-student centered support of learning, with citizenship, empowerment, and participation at the core.  This article hits me right where I live, and leaves me with the question: How do we make this the norm rather than the exception?

Civil Disobedience BY CHRISTY STEVENS

The title of this article could just as easily have been "creating community with your students" or "the way teacher's really get compensated ."

Christy Stevens article touches on many of the points we have discussed in class, while at the same time, bridging our discussion towards that of socio-economic inequities, and the challenges of teaching students with emotional, learning, or behavior disorders.

Teaching in an alternative setting, and working with students who remind me of those mentioned in the article, made this article personal for me.  In my practice, I have found students who are working class, and especially those with additional academic challenges, can get overwhelmed with the idea of fairness.  To read this article and see how they responded when faced with a substitute who broke the norms they had created within the group, really hit home.  I empathize with how let down they must have felt, and am inspired by the way they rallied to protect one another.

The most heartening paragraph was when the teacher was so supported by her administrator.  I am sure all the hard work felt justified at that moment, not to mention the feeling of having tangible evidence that some of the lesson you work so hard to advance, have taken hold.  These are the moments we teach for.  Despite the fact that her students had to go through a difficult day, what they were able to accomplish as a team, and how much closer they must have ended up as a result of the eventual outcome seems a pretty fair trade to me.

here's the link:

civil disobedience

Colorblindness, Color Insight, and Oppositional Consciousness. How Trayvon Martin and MIchael Brown play into the short game and the long game.

Ok, so the Ferguson Curriculum is mind blowing, so much information, so many different directions to go with it, and conversations that spiral deeper and deeper into important societal issues, that it becomes easy to lose your way, and get sucked into the vortex and never find which way is up.

I am going to try to make sense of what I read in two ways.   First, by addressing the Armstrong and Wildman article and the idea of colorblindness vs color insight, then by looking at the idea of oppositional consciousness in relation to Michael Brown, and Trayvon Martin.

The Armstrong and Wildman article contests that the idea of colorblindness as political policy came about and grew in popularity only when it helped the cause of those in power already.  In effect white people denying race problems because they chose to look at the world without color as a factor.  In effect pronouncing "racism is not my problem because I am someone without race."  One of the problems with this philosophy is that it ignores the privileges afforded by simply being white, and places the focus only on those who are not white and the lack of privileges afforded them.  The flaw turns a blind eye toward inequality, in favor of lack of segregation.  White people have race.  This fact cannot be disregarded, when we as Armstrong and Wildman suggest, acknowledge this fact, and can discuss what having race means, then we can also discuss what it means to be of a different race, and place the focus on the "me" instead of the box checked on the application.  When we can discuss openly the broad inequalities that come with race privileges, then we can begin to build bridges toward true equality.

I chose the Mansbridge and Morris article "Oppositional Consciousness - The Subjective Roots of Social Protest" because the idea of revolution and change appeal to me on a base level.

In this article, the authors/editors suggest the idea of change is brought about by the feeling of wanting change being coupled with a catalyst that is capable of organizing the masses under a common idea, and forcing society to change.  Like others, this article clearly points out that the ruling norms and ideas of a society are tightly shared with its ruling class. Ascendent classes may have the power to change the predominant power or ideology, but that power is always present.  Whenever it is asserted, there is conflict, and our primal human response is either that of shame or anger.

In the cases of Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown (which I have chosen not because they are the only examples, but because they are recent, well-known, and share common messages) I believe there are clear indications, of examples of the type of thinking that indicate the flaws of colorblindness, and oppositional consciousness.  Check out the video:

Hand's up, don't shoot!

While the speaker Phillip Agnew, from the Dream Defenders, explains to us all that (sic)"from the time you are born, this action speaks to the idea that I give up, I want to live" we are keyed in to a mentality, that I believe exemplifies the type of thinking that we need to discuss.  We have a white network anchor, asking the black man to explain the message of hands up.  Agnew explains, the problem is not in his explanation, but in the underlying message that black children are brought up to know this, and that they are all told explicitly from a young age how to handle interactions with police.  Is this the same conversation happening routinely with white families?  Why, if this "hands up"motion is universal, does Agnew need to explain it?

The idea of the long and short game unfolding here is also interesting to me.  Subordinate groups are often taught intrinsically and explicitly to rebel in small ways toward groups in power/privilege.  This is woven into the fabric of their consciousness, as Mansbridge and Morris point out "in crisscrossing routes with frequent collisions and cross-fertilization."  So individuals grow up learning to be suspicious of those in power, and find small ways to rebel.  This is what I refer to as the "long game" the idea of opposition.  When there are galvanizing incidents, such as the cases of Martin and Brown, leaders use the opportunity and timing to organize groups of like-minded individuals, and push change, banking on the notoriety of riots and outrage to educate, inform, heighten awareness, through slogans, protest, etc.

This is what I refer to as the "short game."  The seeds of unrest have been planted and fertilized all along, and when opportunity presents, you capitalize on it, and drive change.  The civic leaders in the cases of Martin and Brown understand the timing and cultural significance of major events, and rightly use these occurrences to further a movement.  Individuals decide, perhaps based on shock, or just new information, to back a movement, and at a base level, change can happen.  The role of the media in this process cannot be disregarded, nor can the role of popular perception.

I am left with the questions.  If the ruling group in society is replaced with a different group, and the ideas that rule are changed, how do we ensure that the new rules are better?  If the goals of change are to provide a structure of equity, can there ever be a ruling group?  Are we better served with fewer but better laws to address inequity or does everything need to be spelled out?