Great conversation between Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Touré (who just wrote a book Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now) about black identity. Are you listening Prudence Carter?
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Torn Between the Revolution and the Machine
I'm torn, Alfie Kohn. I'm torn. I see where you're coming from. I want to pick up what you're laying down. But I just can't swallow your argument whole.
As I read "The Case Against 'Tougher Standards'," I found myself shaking my head in agreement several times:
"People from parents to Presidents have begun to sond like a cranky, ill-informed a 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" (1).
I'm definitely in Kohn's camp here. I think that school reform has been hijacked by politicians and businessmen who know almost nothing about what goes on in a classroom. Currently there is no dialogue between policy makers and educators on how to best achieve authentic, sustainable reform in schools. There is in fact no real conversation happening at all--just a repackaging of the same argument by people who seem to ignore research and expert analysis on how children learn best in favor of the easiest, most economical solution to a misconceived problem. The hubris of these so-called reformers convinces them that because they are powerful, successful people in other regards that they must intrinsically know how to fix public education. Yet as anyone who has ever stepped foot in a classroom knows--what looks easy from the outside is one of the most complicated and difficult jobs that can be had. Simplifying the problem into digestible sound bites may "[play] well with the public, but . . . frequently ends up doing more harm than good" (1).
In this regard, I'm right there with Kohn when he asserts that "Rather than scrambling to comply with [NCLB's] provisions, our obligation is to figure out how best to resist" (4). Yah! Let's fight the powers that be! I'm all for getting a bit radical (and for anyone who's ever sat in on an AHS English Department meeting so are most of my colleagues). At some point, we've got to get more political as educators, not just as union members, but as living, breathing educators who know what we're talking about because we're in the mix everyday. We've got to wrest the bullhorn away from those who have riled the masses into frenzy. I'm there. Let's get our berets out of the closet and thwart the system.
But while we're getting all political and whatnot, we have an obligation not to forget who we are fighting for--our students. And this is where Kohn and I begin to disagree.
Kohn makes the claim that "NCLB is not a step in the right direction. It is a deeply damaging, mostly ill-intentioned law, and no one genuinely committed to improving public schools (or to advancing the interests of those who have suffered from decades of neglect and oppression) would want to have anything to do with it" (4).
Excuse me?
Did he just insinuate that I, who do in fact see the good that NCLB has had on our traditionally under-served populations, am not in fact committed to those same children? Jerk.
In my time at AHS, I have witnessed the transformation of our school's collective mentality. When I started special education students were held to almost no standard, pulled out of classes not to help them better understand the material but rather to "keep the distractions down " in the classroom. There was also a general feeling that some students were cut out for learning and others were not. If a student regularly slept in your class, it wasn't your job to figure out how to get them to engage in class. It was perfectly acceptable to write them off in favor of those who showed more commitment to their education.
Nowadays, while certainly no educational utopia, those attitudes are no longer the norm. We've integrated our special education students into our classrooms and watched them succeed in ways that were previously thought impossible. We've created a culture that believes in the ability of all children to learn and grow and teachers have taken on the responsibility of actualizing that belief. There have been growing pains, our jobs have become a lot harder that's for damn sure, but I cannot in good conscience just dismiss this progress, for all its flaws, in some blanket dismissal of the catalyst that sparked these changes.
Kohn is right. We have sacrificed more authentic learning in favor of testing. He is right that this emphasis on grades and performance has done damage to students. But I think he is wrong in saying that NCLB has done nothing right for education. I do not believe AHS would have started really focusing on our "at risk" kids without the pressure of AYP. And so, if for no other reason then the attention that it has brought to students who were not being served by our education system, I will stick to my belief that NCLB is not the weapon of mass destruction that Kohn claims it be.
As I read "The Case Against 'Tougher Standards'," I found myself shaking my head in agreement several times:
"People from parents to Presidents have begun to sond like a cranky, ill-informed a 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" (1).
I'm definitely in Kohn's camp here. I think that school reform has been hijacked by politicians and businessmen who know almost nothing about what goes on in a classroom. Currently there is no dialogue between policy makers and educators on how to best achieve authentic, sustainable reform in schools. There is in fact no real conversation happening at all--just a repackaging of the same argument by people who seem to ignore research and expert analysis on how children learn best in favor of the easiest, most economical solution to a misconceived problem. The hubris of these so-called reformers convinces them that because they are powerful, successful people in other regards that they must intrinsically know how to fix public education. Yet as anyone who has ever stepped foot in a classroom knows--what looks easy from the outside is one of the most complicated and difficult jobs that can be had. Simplifying the problem into digestible sound bites may "[play] well with the public, but . . . frequently ends up doing more harm than good" (1).
"The Tougher Standards movement . . . gets motivation wrong" (2).
Again, I'm with Kohn here. Kids aren't motivated by grades, at least not in the way we want them to be. Kohn argues that "a preoccupation with performance often undermines interest in learning, quality of learning, and a desire to be challenged" (2). I combat the apathy of my students everyday. Part of this disinterest in learning certainly rests in the culture of "non-learning" that they have grown up in but a great part of the blame rests with us, with school, with ed policy. Our narrow focus on tests, grades, performance, etc. has essentially killed off the joy of discovery that should be inherent in good teaching and learning.
Wesch discussed this in his article "Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance,"when he laments that "great questions are rarely asked by students in an education system facing a crisis of significance. Much more common are administrative questions: 'How long does this paper need to be?' 'Is attendance mandatory?' Or the worse (and the most common) of all: 'What do we need to know for this test?' Such questions reflect the fact that, for many (student and teachers alike), education has become a relatively meaningless game of grades rather than an important and meaningful exploration of the world in which we live and co-create" (5).
In this regard, I'm right there with Kohn when he asserts that "Rather than scrambling to comply with [NCLB's] provisions, our obligation is to figure out how best to resist" (4). Yah! Let's fight the powers that be! I'm all for getting a bit radical (and for anyone who's ever sat in on an AHS English Department meeting so are most of my colleagues). At some point, we've got to get more political as educators, not just as union members, but as living, breathing educators who know what we're talking about because we're in the mix everyday. We've got to wrest the bullhorn away from those who have riled the masses into frenzy. I'm there. Let's get our berets out of the closet and thwart the system.
But while we're getting all political and whatnot, we have an obligation not to forget who we are fighting for--our students. And this is where Kohn and I begin to disagree.
Kohn makes the claim that "NCLB is not a step in the right direction. It is a deeply damaging, mostly ill-intentioned law, and no one genuinely committed to improving public schools (or to advancing the interests of those who have suffered from decades of neglect and oppression) would want to have anything to do with it" (4).
Excuse me?
Did he just insinuate that I, who do in fact see the good that NCLB has had on our traditionally under-served populations, am not in fact committed to those same children? Jerk.
In my time at AHS, I have witnessed the transformation of our school's collective mentality. When I started special education students were held to almost no standard, pulled out of classes not to help them better understand the material but rather to "keep the distractions down " in the classroom. There was also a general feeling that some students were cut out for learning and others were not. If a student regularly slept in your class, it wasn't your job to figure out how to get them to engage in class. It was perfectly acceptable to write them off in favor of those who showed more commitment to their education.
Nowadays, while certainly no educational utopia, those attitudes are no longer the norm. We've integrated our special education students into our classrooms and watched them succeed in ways that were previously thought impossible. We've created a culture that believes in the ability of all children to learn and grow and teachers have taken on the responsibility of actualizing that belief. There have been growing pains, our jobs have become a lot harder that's for damn sure, but I cannot in good conscience just dismiss this progress, for all its flaws, in some blanket dismissal of the catalyst that sparked these changes.
Kohn is right. We have sacrificed more authentic learning in favor of testing. He is right that this emphasis on grades and performance has done damage to students. But I think he is wrong in saying that NCLB has done nothing right for education. I do not believe AHS would have started really focusing on our "at risk" kids without the pressure of AYP. And so, if for no other reason then the attention that it has brought to students who were not being served by our education system, I will stick to my belief that NCLB is not the weapon of mass destruction that Kohn claims it be.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Marching to the Beat of Our Own Drummers
Excuses, Excuses
Sorry for my tardiness. The Reed household was hit by a nasty stomach flu this weekend. And while I am happy to report that I can once again stand the sight of food (how I missed it), I am still a bit under the weather.
Quotes and Reaction
"How can I dialogue if I always project ignorance onto others and never percieve my own? How can I dialogue if I regard myself as a case apart from others--mere 'its' in whom I cannot recognize other 'I's?" ~Paulo Freire
I thought Freire's quote addressed the heart of Kliewer's work--the importance of dialogue. We must consciously make an effort to see people for who they are, not for who they are not. So many of the men, women, and children profiled in this piece, were silenced because of their disability. They were not seen as equals worthy of entering into a real conversation about their lives, their dreams, their frustrations.
The very idea that Anne was not invited to sit in on her high school transition planning meeting speaks to the level in which we've institutionalized our bias against people with disabilities. How arrogant to assume you have the right to dictate someone's future without their consent? Anne's planning committee viewed her as an "it" not and "I," an issue to be resolved rather than a person with whom they could and should have dialogued with.
"Those students who exhibit the canonical mind are credited with understanding, even when real understanding is limited or absent; many people . . . can pass the test but fail other, perhaps more appropriate probing measures of understanding. Less happily, many who are capable of exhibiting significant understanding appear deficient, simply because they cannot readily traffic in the commonly accepted coin of the educational realm." ~Howard Gardner
Gardner's quote reminded me, yet again, how everything we read in class is connected. The last sentence of this quote speaks to pretty much every article we've read this year. There is an accepted currency which can be used to buy entrance into the culture of power. Those who were not born with an abundance of that currency and do not possess the means to access it are ostracised by that culture. In Kliewer's piece, this lack of currency applies to the culture of education that we have developed in the United States, one that values tests score and IQ points over other forms of intelligence.
Using this measure, many students are shut out from mainstream education, labeled "uneducable." But what does it mean to educate? For John, labled as "uneducable" by his school in North Hollywood, his education started with acceptance into a community. It was through his daily interactions with people who saw "past his chromosomal anomaly to his humanity" that John was able to show the world who he really was and what he was capable of. Education for John wasn't about sitting in his seat, learning from a book or lecture, but real interaction with his community.
People learn differently. The problem is that we have created a system that fails to recognize and value these differences in students. Thus we become the "sorting machine" Kliewer discusses valuing certain types of knowledge and intelligence over others.
"World-wide, the vast majority of adolescents and youth with disabilities do not attend school. Many have never attend school or attended only once in a while, a fact reflected in UNESCO's estimate that the literacy rate for those with disabilities world-wide is only 3 per cent; the rate for girls and women with disabilities hovers closer to 1 per cent.11
School buildings are routinely built with stairs, or far from community centres, making them inaccessible to many. In many countries, young people with disabilities are considered to be incapable of learning, no matter what their disability. Often a disabled student is considered a distraction to other students and simply sent home. Lack of access to schooling may reflect the belief that such young people cannot learn, that they should not be put through the stress of learning or that they are an embarrassment (evidence of bad blood, incest or divine disfavour) and should not be seen regularly in public." ~UNICEF, An Overview of Young People Living with Disabilities – Their Needs and Their Rights
While we certainly have a long way to go when it comes to properly integrating and educating our students with special needs, I think it is important to put our situation into perspective. Many countries and cultures around the world do not even attempt to educate children with special needs.
A few years ago, AHS had the privilege of hosting three teachers from Indonesia who were interested in learning more about American education. One of the things that fascinated these teachers the most during their visit was the fact that our special education students were schooled with the mainstream high school population. It was one of those moments that makes you appreciate living in a nation that attempts to live up to its credo that "all men are created equal." However flawed the reality of our educational system is at least we are sitting in this class, having a conversation about how to better education for all students because there are many, many children around the world who do not even have that.
They do not have a Kathy who fights for their right to use the expensive, science equipment, or a Tina who thinks nothing of spending 20 minutes mimicking the sound of a chainsaw because that's how Wendy likes to express herself, or a Sarah who questions how to reconcile her belief that all students have value with the reality of testing mandates and teacher evaluations.
I'm not trying to be overly romantic here but I think it is important to recognize how our own struggles with these topics reflect our commitment to these fundamental ideals. If only so that when we get frustrated or feel overwhelmed by the challenge of being a good educator, we can find some solace in the fact that at least we're trying.
Sorry for my tardiness. The Reed household was hit by a nasty stomach flu this weekend. And while I am happy to report that I can once again stand the sight of food (how I missed it), I am still a bit under the weather.
Quotes and Reaction
"How can I dialogue if I always project ignorance onto others and never percieve my own? How can I dialogue if I regard myself as a case apart from others--mere 'its' in whom I cannot recognize other 'I's?" ~Paulo Freire
I thought Freire's quote addressed the heart of Kliewer's work--the importance of dialogue. We must consciously make an effort to see people for who they are, not for who they are not. So many of the men, women, and children profiled in this piece, were silenced because of their disability. They were not seen as equals worthy of entering into a real conversation about their lives, their dreams, their frustrations.
The very idea that Anne was not invited to sit in on her high school transition planning meeting speaks to the level in which we've institutionalized our bias against people with disabilities. How arrogant to assume you have the right to dictate someone's future without their consent? Anne's planning committee viewed her as an "it" not and "I," an issue to be resolved rather than a person with whom they could and should have dialogued with.
"Those students who exhibit the canonical mind are credited with understanding, even when real understanding is limited or absent; many people . . . can pass the test but fail other, perhaps more appropriate probing measures of understanding. Less happily, many who are capable of exhibiting significant understanding appear deficient, simply because they cannot readily traffic in the commonly accepted coin of the educational realm." ~Howard Gardner
Gardner's quote reminded me, yet again, how everything we read in class is connected. The last sentence of this quote speaks to pretty much every article we've read this year. There is an accepted currency which can be used to buy entrance into the culture of power. Those who were not born with an abundance of that currency and do not possess the means to access it are ostracised by that culture. In Kliewer's piece, this lack of currency applies to the culture of education that we have developed in the United States, one that values tests score and IQ points over other forms of intelligence.
Using this measure, many students are shut out from mainstream education, labeled "uneducable." But what does it mean to educate? For John, labled as "uneducable" by his school in North Hollywood, his education started with acceptance into a community. It was through his daily interactions with people who saw "past his chromosomal anomaly to his humanity" that John was able to show the world who he really was and what he was capable of. Education for John wasn't about sitting in his seat, learning from a book or lecture, but real interaction with his community.
People learn differently. The problem is that we have created a system that fails to recognize and value these differences in students. Thus we become the "sorting machine" Kliewer discusses valuing certain types of knowledge and intelligence over others.
"World-wide, the vast majority of adolescents and youth with disabilities do not attend school. Many have never attend school or attended only once in a while, a fact reflected in UNESCO's estimate that the literacy rate for those with disabilities world-wide is only 3 per cent; the rate for girls and women with disabilities hovers closer to 1 per cent.11
School buildings are routinely built with stairs, or far from community centres, making them inaccessible to many. In many countries, young people with disabilities are considered to be incapable of learning, no matter what their disability. Often a disabled student is considered a distraction to other students and simply sent home. Lack of access to schooling may reflect the belief that such young people cannot learn, that they should not be put through the stress of learning or that they are an embarrassment (evidence of bad blood, incest or divine disfavour) and should not be seen regularly in public." ~UNICEF, An Overview of Young People Living with Disabilities – Their Needs and Their Rights
While we certainly have a long way to go when it comes to properly integrating and educating our students with special needs, I think it is important to put our situation into perspective. Many countries and cultures around the world do not even attempt to educate children with special needs.
A few years ago, AHS had the privilege of hosting three teachers from Indonesia who were interested in learning more about American education. One of the things that fascinated these teachers the most during their visit was the fact that our special education students were schooled with the mainstream high school population. It was one of those moments that makes you appreciate living in a nation that attempts to live up to its credo that "all men are created equal." However flawed the reality of our educational system is at least we are sitting in this class, having a conversation about how to better education for all students because there are many, many children around the world who do not even have that.
They do not have a Kathy who fights for their right to use the expensive, science equipment, or a Tina who thinks nothing of spending 20 minutes mimicking the sound of a chainsaw because that's how Wendy likes to express herself, or a Sarah who questions how to reconcile her belief that all students have value with the reality of testing mandates and teacher evaluations.
I'm not trying to be overly romantic here but I think it is important to recognize how our own struggles with these topics reflect our commitment to these fundamental ideals. If only so that when we get frustrated or feel overwhelmed by the challenge of being a good educator, we can find some solace in the fact that at least we're trying.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Language and Identity
The words "culture of power" are never far from the tip of my tongue these days. So it didn't surprise me to see shades of Prudence Carter in both Richard Rodriquez' "Aria" and Virginia Collier's "Teaching Multilingual Children." Both Rodriquez and Collier allude to the dominate culture--this time the linguistic dominance of English--and the importance of helping ESL students gain access to the cultural capital English provides.
Yet as we saw in Carter's work , access to the dominant culture can come at a price. Rodriguez discusses this in his piece. For while he asserts that "what [he] needed to learn in school was that [he] had the right--and the obligation--to speak the public language of los gringos," (34) Rodriguez admits that his linguistic transformation cost him "the special feeling of closeness" (36) he shared with his family. Spanish was something special, something different that Rodriquez and his family shared. It gave them a feeling of closeness and security that they did not experience in the outside world. That's why the scene where Rodriguez walks in on his parents speaking to one another in Spanish only to have them switch to English when addressing him is so devastating. Rodriguez explains how "Those gringo sounds they uttered startled me. Pushed me away. . . I felt my throat twisted by unsounded grief" (35). Now Rodriguez' parents were just doing what they thought best for their children by supporting their efforts to learn the language of the culture of power. But to Rodriguez their acknowledgement of him in English rather than Spanish felt like a rejection, an expulsion from the safety and closeness he had associated with home, with his parents, with Spanish.
The feeling of closeness associated with one's culture is something Carter discusses. I kept thinking of the cultural straddlers in Carter's piece who while able to successfully navigate the codes and norms of the dominant culture discussed feeling more comfortable, more themselves when they were home in their own communities. The black cultural capital, including black linguistic capital, valued in these communities was like the Spanish spoken in Rodriguez' home, a way to define oneself using different standards then those outlined by the culture of power. So like most cultural assimilators when Rodriguez becomes more and more "Americanized", when he publicly becomes Richard instead of Ricardo, he no longer can define himself using these alternative standards and thus loses the safety and familiarity of his "private" identity.
Virginia Collier seems to recognize the risk of forcing ESL students to totally assimilate into mainstream linguistic culture and advocates for an approach to the teaching and learning of English that both respects a student's native language and ensures their proficiency in English. She discusses how the traditional approach to language teaching has been "eradication." This approach "looks upon dialects other than standard as deficient" (226) and that teachers of eradication "see themselves as the tools by which a particular student can rid himself of stigmatized dialect features and become a speak of the 'right' type of standard language--the passport to achievement, success, and acceptance" (227). Unfortunately instead of empowering students by giving them the tools they need to accumulate dominate cultural capital, this approach often disenfranchises students by devaluing their own culture and thus calling into question their worth as individuals.
Both Rodriguez and Collier address the difficulties in effectively teaching ESL students without devaluing their own unique identities. To further illustrate this dilemma, The Huffington Post ran an article a few weeks ago entitled "English Learning Students Far Behind Under English Only Methods" which detailed the struggle that California schools are having closing the achievement gap between their ESL students (who are overwhelming Spanish speaking) and their native English speaking peers. While the headline leads one to believe that the English only education Collier disapprovingly refers to in her work is failing and needs to be revised, the article itself is much more ambiguous. The problem isn't as easily defined as monolingual education versus bilingual education: "Instead, researchers say what matters more is whether schools use data and track student performance on an ongoing basis, whether the curriculum is rigorous and whether teachers are trained to help English learners connect their learning with what they already know in their own language."
Reading these articles convinced me even more that everything we discuss in class is connected. Power, culture, identity, ed reform, it all influences the way that we teach and the way that our students learn.
Yet as we saw in Carter's work , access to the dominant culture can come at a price. Rodriguez discusses this in his piece. For while he asserts that "what [he] needed to learn in school was that [he] had the right--and the obligation--to speak the public language of los gringos," (34) Rodriguez admits that his linguistic transformation cost him "the special feeling of closeness" (36) he shared with his family. Spanish was something special, something different that Rodriquez and his family shared. It gave them a feeling of closeness and security that they did not experience in the outside world. That's why the scene where Rodriguez walks in on his parents speaking to one another in Spanish only to have them switch to English when addressing him is so devastating. Rodriguez explains how "Those gringo sounds they uttered startled me. Pushed me away. . . I felt my throat twisted by unsounded grief" (35). Now Rodriguez' parents were just doing what they thought best for their children by supporting their efforts to learn the language of the culture of power. But to Rodriguez their acknowledgement of him in English rather than Spanish felt like a rejection, an expulsion from the safety and closeness he had associated with home, with his parents, with Spanish.
The feeling of closeness associated with one's culture is something Carter discusses. I kept thinking of the cultural straddlers in Carter's piece who while able to successfully navigate the codes and norms of the dominant culture discussed feeling more comfortable, more themselves when they were home in their own communities. The black cultural capital, including black linguistic capital, valued in these communities was like the Spanish spoken in Rodriguez' home, a way to define oneself using different standards then those outlined by the culture of power. So like most cultural assimilators when Rodriguez becomes more and more "Americanized", when he publicly becomes Richard instead of Ricardo, he no longer can define himself using these alternative standards and thus loses the safety and familiarity of his "private" identity.
Virginia Collier seems to recognize the risk of forcing ESL students to totally assimilate into mainstream linguistic culture and advocates for an approach to the teaching and learning of English that both respects a student's native language and ensures their proficiency in English. She discusses how the traditional approach to language teaching has been "eradication." This approach "looks upon dialects other than standard as deficient" (226) and that teachers of eradication "see themselves as the tools by which a particular student can rid himself of stigmatized dialect features and become a speak of the 'right' type of standard language--the passport to achievement, success, and acceptance" (227). Unfortunately instead of empowering students by giving them the tools they need to accumulate dominate cultural capital, this approach often disenfranchises students by devaluing their own culture and thus calling into question their worth as individuals.
Both Rodriguez and Collier address the difficulties in effectively teaching ESL students without devaluing their own unique identities. To further illustrate this dilemma, The Huffington Post ran an article a few weeks ago entitled "English Learning Students Far Behind Under English Only Methods" which detailed the struggle that California schools are having closing the achievement gap between their ESL students (who are overwhelming Spanish speaking) and their native English speaking peers. While the headline leads one to believe that the English only education Collier disapprovingly refers to in her work is failing and needs to be revised, the article itself is much more ambiguous. The problem isn't as easily defined as monolingual education versus bilingual education: "Instead, researchers say what matters more is whether schools use data and track student performance on an ongoing basis, whether the curriculum is rigorous and whether teachers are trained to help English learners connect their learning with what they already know in their own language."
Reading these articles convinced me even more that everything we discuss in class is connected. Power, culture, identity, ed reform, it all influences the way that we teach and the way that our students learn.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
To Test or Not to Test. . .
i-Pad Madness
I attended the Assessment Technology and Questions of Equity workshops at the Promising Practices conference. The first workshop was "The Demystification of Touch Technology" given by Shawn Rubin and Stephanie Castilla. Their presentation focused on how i-Pads can be used to help teachers more effectively track their student progress through formative assessment (daily/frequent checks-ins of student).
For those of us in need of a brief refresher, below is a simple chart that defines both formative and summative assessment.
Rubin and Castilla, who are employed by the Highlander Dunn Institute, have created a formative assessment i-Pad app that helps track student growth or lack thereof on any skill the teacher wants to focus on. Ideally this technology will allow teachers to better differentiate their instruction to meet the needs of each individual student in their classrooms.
In an article from The New England Post entitled "Providence Charter School Builds and Launches Its Very Own Formative Assessment App for i-Pad," Rubin discusses how before creating and implementing this new technology he was essentially winging his differentiation, "using his gut" to determine if a student had mastered a particular skill or was ready to move on.
This was something I could definitely identify with. I believe in the importance of formative assessment yet too often I find myself making from the gut decisions about my students' readiness. I am also guilty of sometimes forcing kids who have mastered a particular skill to keep working on it so that their peers can catch up. Rubin and Castilla's presentation got me thinking about all the ways that technology can allow me to better differentiate for my students.
Still the issue of resources remains ever a problem. Rubin teaches at a well funded charter school in Providence where his students have ample access to this kind of technology so his incorporation of this app makes perfect sense. I can't see Attleboro High spending the big bucks to get every student an i-Pad. However, Rubin and Castilla did a good job of showing us how just one teacher armed with an i-Pad can begin to use formative assessment to better inform her practice. I am seriously considering whether or not it is something that I should purchase to help me make more informed decisions about my students.
If this kind of technology is something that you are interested in, Highlander Dunn is hosting three workshops on how to use technology (i-Pads, Smartboards, laptops, etc.) to better track student growth and differentiate instruction.
Stop the Madness
The second workshop entitled "How Do You Measure the Work of Schools?" was presented by Christine Kunkel, a RIC faculty member, who was the principal of the KEY Learning Community in Indianapolis. KEY was the first multiple-intelligences school in the United States:
Kunkel's presentation centered around the struggles progressive schools like KEY are facing trying to remain relevant in spite of high stakes testing mandates. Although Kunkel's research is still in the beginning stages, she raised some interesting questions about the purpose of schooling and how schools can prove their effectiveness in ways other than test scores.
It's a complex issue without a simple answer which is why society is having such a hard time devising a method to accurately hold schools and teachers "accountable." Is a school's worth measured by its students' ability to attain high marks on their NECAP or MCAS tests or by its ability to inspire students to learn and grow, to become those "life long learners" we hear so much about? Diane Ravitch and Geoffrey Canada went head to head on this very issue during a debate sponsored by NBC's Education Nation:
I find myself siding with both Ravitch and Canada. I am so conflicted when it comes to high stakes testing. On one hand, I have seen how testing mandates have forced AHS to focus on the neediest of our students. I can say with some certainty that NCLB has been the impetus for real reform in my high school. No longer can a teacher say that a student "isn't cut out for school." It just isn't tolerated. You either believe that all students can learn and that it is your job to figure out how to reach each of your kids or you quickly discover that AHS is not the place for you. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule--veteran teachers who have had a difficult time adjusting to this idea, bad teachers who have gone under the administration's radar--but I can honestly say that I am proud to be a part of such a progressive, dedicated staff.
Still, I have also seen the damage that test centered curriculum can do to students' intrinsic motivation and creativity. Reading Wesch really made me question my ability to remain relevant to my students. They may leave my class knowing how to write an effective thesis statement but will they leave inspired? Will I have lit that fire within them? I'm starting to doubt it more and more. So what do we do?
In her presentation, Kunkel referenced the work of Sir Ken Robinson, who argues that the answer to America's education problem is that we are attempting to deal with the problems of tomorrow with the strategies of yesterday. His TED talk "Changing Paradigms" was both inspiring and depressing. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you take a look:
I attended the Assessment Technology and Questions of Equity workshops at the Promising Practices conference. The first workshop was "The Demystification of Touch Technology" given by Shawn Rubin and Stephanie Castilla. Their presentation focused on how i-Pads can be used to help teachers more effectively track their student progress through formative assessment (daily/frequent checks-ins of student).
For those of us in need of a brief refresher, below is a simple chart that defines both formative and summative assessment.
In an article from The New England Post entitled "Providence Charter School Builds and Launches Its Very Own Formative Assessment App for i-Pad," Rubin discusses how before creating and implementing this new technology he was essentially winging his differentiation, "using his gut" to determine if a student had mastered a particular skill or was ready to move on.
This was something I could definitely identify with. I believe in the importance of formative assessment yet too often I find myself making from the gut decisions about my students' readiness. I am also guilty of sometimes forcing kids who have mastered a particular skill to keep working on it so that their peers can catch up. Rubin and Castilla's presentation got me thinking about all the ways that technology can allow me to better differentiate for my students.
Still the issue of resources remains ever a problem. Rubin teaches at a well funded charter school in Providence where his students have ample access to this kind of technology so his incorporation of this app makes perfect sense. I can't see Attleboro High spending the big bucks to get every student an i-Pad. However, Rubin and Castilla did a good job of showing us how just one teacher armed with an i-Pad can begin to use formative assessment to better inform her practice. I am seriously considering whether or not it is something that I should purchase to help me make more informed decisions about my students.
If this kind of technology is something that you are interested in, Highlander Dunn is hosting three workshops on how to use technology (i-Pads, Smartboards, laptops, etc.) to better track student growth and differentiate instruction.
- Thursday, November 10th from 5pm - 7pm for "Differentiating Instruction Through Technology" Registration- $25 (includes pizza)
- Friday, November 18th from 8:30am - 3pm for "Using Touch Technology to Inspire and Motivate Learners" Registration-$150 or $75 if you tell them you attended Promising Practices (includes coffee, donuts, and lunch)
- Thursday, December 8th from 5pm - 7pm for "Using iPads for Writing" Registration-$25 (includes pizza)
Stop the Madness
The second workshop entitled "How Do You Measure the Work of Schools?" was presented by Christine Kunkel, a RIC faculty member, who was the principal of the KEY Learning Community in Indianapolis. KEY was the first multiple-intelligences school in the United States:
Kunkel's presentation centered around the struggles progressive schools like KEY are facing trying to remain relevant in spite of high stakes testing mandates. Although Kunkel's research is still in the beginning stages, she raised some interesting questions about the purpose of schooling and how schools can prove their effectiveness in ways other than test scores.
It's a complex issue without a simple answer which is why society is having such a hard time devising a method to accurately hold schools and teachers "accountable." Is a school's worth measured by its students' ability to attain high marks on their NECAP or MCAS tests or by its ability to inspire students to learn and grow, to become those "life long learners" we hear so much about? Diane Ravitch and Geoffrey Canada went head to head on this very issue during a debate sponsored by NBC's Education Nation:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
I find myself siding with both Ravitch and Canada. I am so conflicted when it comes to high stakes testing. On one hand, I have seen how testing mandates have forced AHS to focus on the neediest of our students. I can say with some certainty that NCLB has been the impetus for real reform in my high school. No longer can a teacher say that a student "isn't cut out for school." It just isn't tolerated. You either believe that all students can learn and that it is your job to figure out how to reach each of your kids or you quickly discover that AHS is not the place for you. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule--veteran teachers who have had a difficult time adjusting to this idea, bad teachers who have gone under the administration's radar--but I can honestly say that I am proud to be a part of such a progressive, dedicated staff.
Still, I have also seen the damage that test centered curriculum can do to students' intrinsic motivation and creativity. Reading Wesch really made me question my ability to remain relevant to my students. They may leave my class knowing how to write an effective thesis statement but will they leave inspired? Will I have lit that fire within them? I'm starting to doubt it more and more. So what do we do?
In her presentation, Kunkel referenced the work of Sir Ken Robinson, who argues that the answer to America's education problem is that we are attempting to deal with the problems of tomorrow with the strategies of yesterday. His TED talk "Changing Paradigms" was both inspiring and depressing. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you take a look:
Monday, October 31, 2011
Serious Responsibility
Whenever I read anything about LGBT issues, I am always reminded how sheltered we are in the Northeast from the overt bigotry of the rest of the country. I'm not saying bigotry doesn't exist in Massachusetts but when I read statements like "'if you come out to those kids I will not guarantee your safety at this school'" (12) it is almost surreal. I cannot imagine that conversation ever happening at my school. Attleboro is a relatively conservative town but we have a gay mayor, a rather large community of gay faculty members, and a very supportive administration. The idea that someone would threaten, implicitly or explicitly, one of my colleagues over their sexuality is crazy to me but the fact remains it is a reality for many teachers, students, and parents throughout this country.
I struggle with how to effectively foster a safer, more accepting atmosphere in terms of the school as a whole. If it is a battle to get my own students, who I have built personal relationship with to see how their actions can impact others (both positively and negatively), how can I reach students who I have no real connection to? The task is so daunting, I can understand the impulse to "sometimes. . .ignore it" (8). But when we get to feeling overwhelmed by it all and start lamenting the lack of hours in the day, we need to take a step back and prioritize. Is it really more important to get through the last three linear function examples or to ensure that the students in your class feel safe and supported?
Meyer's teachers are right--most undergrad education programs "don't sufficiently prepare [us] to address incidents of harassment or bullying" (9). But regardless of our preparedness or lack there of, this is our reality and we can either throw our hands up in the air at the expense of our students' well-being or we can fight the good fight as hard and uncertain as it is knowing that we may be the only person defending our students' right to be themselves. The consequences of turning the other way are dire.
Just because something is not overt does not mean it does not exist. And this is what I often have to remind myself of. Just because most of my students do not harass the two openly gay students in my classroom does not mean that these young woman are not harassed or that they do not experience times of unease or fear due to their sexuality. I can control what goes on in my classroom, discipline students who make disparaging comments, educate them about the hurtfulness of their actions/speech, explicitly demonstrate my support of LGBT issues, but what happens when my students leave the confines of my room?
I struggle with how to effectively foster a safer, more accepting atmosphere in terms of the school as a whole. If it is a battle to get my own students, who I have built personal relationship with to see how their actions can impact others (both positively and negatively), how can I reach students who I have no real connection to? The task is so daunting, I can understand the impulse to "sometimes. . .ignore it" (8). But when we get to feeling overwhelmed by it all and start lamenting the lack of hours in the day, we need to take a step back and prioritize. Is it really more important to get through the last three linear function examples or to ensure that the students in your class feel safe and supported?
Meyer's teachers are right--most undergrad education programs "don't sufficiently prepare [us] to address incidents of harassment or bullying" (9). But regardless of our preparedness or lack there of, this is our reality and we can either throw our hands up in the air at the expense of our students' well-being or we can fight the good fight as hard and uncertain as it is knowing that we may be the only person defending our students' right to be themselves. The consequences of turning the other way are dire.
To underscore the 
seriousness of our charge, I want to end tonight's blog with an article about the mistrial of Brandon McInerney, who shot and killed his classmate Lawrence King at their California high school in 2008. The prosecutor in the trial argued that McInerney killed King because McInerney subscribed to a white-supremacist philosophy that taught all gays were an "abomination" while the defense argued that McInerney was driven to murder by King's unwanted sexual advances. In September, the jury in the case deadlocked not over McInerney's guilt but rather the appropriate punishment for the crime given McInerney's age (15) at the time of the shooting. He is set to be retried later this year. Whatever ends up happening to Brandon McInerney, one thing remains very clear in this case, the adults who were suppose to watch out for these children failed them. Eliza Byard, executive director of GLSEN, summed it up best when she argued that "The systems in place to support Oxnard students failed to avert disaster two years ago and resulted in this incredible loss. There is much to be done to fix these broken systems and hold adults accountable for their part in avoiding future tragedy."
seriousness of our charge, I want to end tonight's blog with an article about the mistrial of Brandon McInerney, who shot and killed his classmate Lawrence King at their California high school in 2008. The prosecutor in the trial argued that McInerney killed King because McInerney subscribed to a white-supremacist philosophy that taught all gays were an "abomination" while the defense argued that McInerney was driven to murder by King's unwanted sexual advances. In September, the jury in the case deadlocked not over McInerney's guilt but rather the appropriate punishment for the crime given McInerney's age (15) at the time of the shooting. He is set to be retried later this year. Whatever ends up happening to Brandon McInerney, one thing remains very clear in this case, the adults who were suppose to watch out for these children failed them. Eliza Byard, executive director of GLSEN, summed it up best when she argued that "The systems in place to support Oxnard students failed to avert disaster two years ago and resulted in this incredible loss. There is much to be done to fix these broken systems and hold adults accountable for their part in avoiding future tragedy." Sunday, October 30, 2011
Stupid Power
I'm going to have to put my blog post off until tomorrow. We just got power back after losing it at 11 am this morning which in comparison to the chaos going on in other places makes us pretty lucky. Unfortunately, our sump pump has also been out this whole time and as a result our basement is now covered in about two inches of water. Ugh. . .
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Are you kidding?
The Huffington Post just ran an article about a student group taking on racist Halloween costumes. It was one of those moments where I simultaneously lost and regained my faith in humanity.
STARS: Student Group Takes A Stand Against Racist Costumes
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)