Wesch and Delpit Sittin' in a Tree. . .

Michael Wesch's "Anti Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance" focuses on how to inspire curiosity in our students. I think every teacher has struggled with how to get students to become life long learners. The idea of getting students to ask better questions by creating real learning opportunities for them was intriguing if somewhat intimidating given the current state of test-driven curriculum and performance targets.

Yet as I was shaking my head in agreement with Wesch, a little voice from the far reaches of my brain, keep asking how does Wesch knows that his students are really learning anything? He is vague on how he assesses his students' knowledge. Now I realize that Wesch's goal is to inspire students to ask questions but I'm not sure that making a documentary or creating a simulation of world history really proves that all of his students are learning. He seems to be implying that if we hand the reigns over to students that learning will just happen. Still he admits in this TED talk (13:39 min) that the world simulation game he has his students create "almost always fails" but that it "fails in the best possible way" because students leave his class asking the questions that will help them pass the test of life. While that sound amazing, I'm left a bit uneasy. Wesch either downplays his role as "manager" while discussing his innovative anti-teaching or he puts way more trust in his students ability to find, analyze, and present real information than I am comfortable with.

For while I agree with Wesch's point that we should see our students as resources, that collectively we have more "knowledge and life experience" (6) than any one person, teacher included, could hope to exude, I still firmly believe that the teacher should be the resident "expert" in the room. In my experience students tend to believe they know everything. Pushing them to step outside of their comfort zone, exposing them to new ideas and perspectives, challenging their assumptions is the role of every good educator. To hand over too much of that control to the students invites the possibility that their beliefs are never challenged. That doesn't mean that we need to pretend to know about things we don't but it also doesn't mean we let 17 year olds tell us how the world works without making sure we've prepared them appropriately to answer this question. I'd be interested in hearing more about how Wesch manages his students efforts. What does he do when his students cite weak sources or fail to ask deep questions?

As I was preparing for our presentation, I believe I read a quote from Wesch saying that good learning comes from a combination of teaching and anti-teaching (but since I can't seem to find the quote again, it may just be my subconscious getting feisty). Regardless of whether or not Wesch said it, I believe it. If Wesch and Delpit had a baby, it would be my version of good teaching--a little bit of explicit instruction combined with a bit of open ended creative problem solving.

Afro Denial and the Dance of Acceptance

What really interested me about Carter's piece "'Black' Cultural Capital and the Conflicts of Schooling" is the emphasis she places on "acting." She argues that the "whiteness" or "blackness" each of the students in her study exhibits is really part of an elaborate performance--a dance of cultures. As white culture represents the dominant culture of power, many of the students interviewed felt that they needed to learn the steps to successfully mimic this dance of power if ever they should be called up on stage. Yet they never really forgot that this was just a recital, that they were not in fact the "white swan." Loretta Lincoln addresses this awareness in her interview saying "But there is, it is going to be times in your life where you are going to have to put on a little act, or a little show to get the extra budge of whatever, you know"(60).

For the cultural straddlers like Loretta, this performance was far from one sided. Like the backup dancer/understudy trying break into the spotlight, these straddlers must prefect more than one role at a time. Both Loretta and Moesha discuss how they felt more comfortable, more themselves, when using black vernacular. While they "accepted the idea that to be socioeconomically mobile, [they] needed to speak Standard English. At the same time, [they] valued the speech codes that [they] shared with Black friends and family, which for [them] fostered community and group cohesion" (60).

Yet that "cohesion" can be threatened when one decides to stay in "character" too long. Bettina eludes to this when she admits that her friends teased her and "said that she 'talked white'" because "she seldom used her 'black' speech codes" (61). Bettina's friends assumed that she was confusing her "real" self with the role that she was required to play outside of their community. Carter argues that for Bettina "the benefits of dominate cultural capital outweighed the rewards of her peers' full acceptance as an authentic Black person" (61).

After reading about Bettina, I couldn't help but think of a former student named Kevin. Kevin was a white kid who really loved hip-hop culture and embraced everything from its music to its clothes to its slang. Like Jamie, the Puerto Rican boy, Carter discusses early on in his work, Kevin "used his taste for music as a means to fit in" (55). But unlike in Jamie's case, it wasn't Kevin's Black or Latino friends who called attention to his "acting" but rather his white peers who gave him the nickname "Casper" and teased him for trying to "act black." These students had already defined who Kevin was suppose to be based on his race (how he was suppose to speak, what he was suppose to listen to, who he was suppose to associate with, etc.) and because he failed to meet their criteria, he was seen as "inauthentic." As a freshman this scrutiny from his white peers was something Kevin struggled with immensely. It caused him to get into several fights, most of them verbal, but a few of them physical, as he tried to defend himself as an authentic person--not white or black--just a person (this is who I am; this is what I like).

This idea of authenticity was at the root of a fight between Eric Michael Dyson, an author and professor of sociology at Georgetown, and Bill Cosby over what it means to be "black" in today's society. If you are unfamiliar with this controversy, Bill Cosby gave a speech (now referred to as the Pound Cake speech) at an NAACP gala in 2004 commemorating Brown vs. the Board of Education which admonished the black community for essentially not doing more to help black children gain entrance into the culture of power. Dyson took exception to Cosby's characterization of the black community and eventually wrote a book called Is Bill Cosby Right?. Dyson's interview with NPR entitled "Is Bill Cosby Right or Is the Black Middle Class Out of Touch?" discusses his views on Cosby, poverty, and black culture in the 21st century. It is really interesting and speaks to a number of issues that have been brought up in class so far. But more directly, it illustrates the battle over who gets to define "blackness" and the implications of those definitions.

Overall I think the underlying issues presented in Carter's article all speak to the issue of acceptance. And while those of us who belong to the culture of power will probably never have to validate our "whiteness," we have all at some point in our lives had to defend our individual identities from the insidious pressures of conformity. This dance of acceptance goes on all the time. Our students come to us dancers of varying ability and experience levels who have just started to develop their own unique dance style. Still unsure of themselves, they look to their peers for validation. Any move too far removed from the carefully choreographed routine crafted by our various cultural groups brings about criticism. And thus the challenge becomes figuring out how to fit in without giving up too much of ourselves in the process.

I'll wrap this up with a comic strip from Aaron McGruber's Boondocks: Right to Be Hostile. This is excerpt from a longer narrative thread (which can be viewed in its entirety on the blog Nappturology 101) about an upper middle-class, bi-racial, fifth grader named Jazmine who is having difficulty accepting that she has an afro. She longs to fit in with the other girls at her primarily white elementary school and feels that her hair sets her apart. Here, in a community where Jazmine is one of the few students of color, any cultural capital that she may earn by accepting her "blackness" is far outweighed by the cultural capital offered to her by denying her "blackness" in order to better fit in with her white friends. Below her friend Huey is attempting to coax her out of this denial:

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H: Here… Take my pick. Really. Think of it as a gift.

J: I don’t want your stupid pick Huey… I don’t care what you say. I DON’T. I DON’T. I DON’T!!!

H: (Sigh) So sad.

J: What?!

H:You’re suffering from “Afro-Denial.” Textbook case.

J: Afro Denial?

H: This looks serious. I better start planning the intervention.

Lost Moments

I've encountered a number of teachable moments over the ten years that I've been at educator at Attleboro High School. Some of these moments I've capitalized on to varying degrees of success but a vast majority of them were dismissed for various reasons--time constraints, hesitance to engage in a controversial discussion, fear of embarrassing a student, etc. These discarded moments were the ones that I kept thinking about as I read about Zeke in Gerri August's Making Room for One Another. I was impressed by the way Zeke challenged his students' assumptions while at the same time making them feel like valued contributors to the class' shared dialogue.

August argues that "Schooling is a 'power situation' in which teachers can either confirm or contest social constructs" (187). She is specifically discussing a teacher's role in perpetuating or challenging notions of "heteronormativity" but this idea can be applied to almost any social norm established by the culture of power. When an educator chooses to ignore comments that could lead to a more in depth examination of a student's preconceived notions of normality, he is implicitly confirming the status quo. Zeke could have easily ignored or dismissed Shiloh's mockery of Chinese. A simple admonishment would probably have silenced her and allowed Zeke to continue on with the day's lesson. However, this would not have forced Shiloh to actually think about the impact of her actions. She would probably have registered her teacher's disapproval but not fully understood why she was in the wrong. Because Zeke took the time to address the issue, he was able to not only to reinforce the idea that making fun of another's difference is wrong/hurtful but also that laughing at those who make disparaging comments about another is "the same as making fun of it yourself" (151). I can't help but think that this important life lesson would be lost in many other classrooms for as August acknowledges "We teach in real time with real distractions, and real pressures" (174). These distractions and pressures sometimes trump our desire to "stretch" our students worldview.

There are many reasons that we avoid engaging our students in discussion of controversial issues--one of which is fear of being seen as political. We are often told that it is our job to remain neutral, to validate the ideas and opinions of all students. Yet there are times when being "neutral" is in fact just another way we silence those not a part of the culture of power. I can't help but think of Johnson (I think) when he made the point that all teaching is political. Whether we choose to challenge the status quo or not, we are making a statement to our students. And while the thought of confronting angry parents and disapproving administrators can certainly be intimidating, in the end our responsibility is first and foremost to our students. And if making a student feel safe and valued in your classroom means you have to put aside your lesson on prepositional phrases for a bit to have a discussion about why the use of "gay" as an insult is unacceptable and hurtful then so be it. Ultimately this is what we are here for--to provide an environment that validates all of our students and their experiences not just those who conform to constructed norms.

I Like Batman Better Anyway

School reform talk gets me all hot and bothered (and not in a good way). I have zero patience for people who have little to no experience in education telling me how to do my job or worse depicting me and my colleagues as lazy, pension worshiping, union lackeys more concerned about our summer vacation than making sure kids learn. This is not to say that I don't think that reform is necessary or possible. In fact, I totally buy into the standards movement and think that while NCLB is fundamentally flawed that it did force us to focus more of our attention on historically underserved populations of students. But the rhetoric that surrounds such reform is so vitriolic and so disconnected from reality that I can't read a quote from Arne Duncan or Michelle Rhee without my blood pressure spiking.

That's why I was so happy while watching Stan Karp's speech "Not Waiting for Superman: Who's Bashing Teachers and Public Schools, and What We Can Do About." I felt like I'd found my educational soulmate (I think my husband is jealous). Here is a guy with thirty years of teaching experience in one of the poorest school districts in New Jersey giving his take on ed reform. Now to be honest, it was kind of thrilling in a You-Get-Um-Stan kind of way, to hear someone validating my own ideas about ed reform but I don't need to see eye to eye with someone to respect what they have to say. I just require that they know what they are talking about. I would never think to tell a doctor how to suture a laceration so why should a billionaire techy or Oprah for that matter tell me how to run my classroom?

If you ask competent educators about how they would improve education, much of the conversation is focused on a few fundamental issues--professional development, child poverty, and parental involvement. I'll spare you my feelings about all of these issues and focus on just one:

Professional Development
In his speech, Karp discusses how NCLB labeled thousands of public schools as "failures" but provided no resources to help those districts deal with the issues at the root of the problems they faced. To illuminate the problem, let's say that the latest AYP report shows that your Massachusetts school is under-serving low-income students. Now what? The state and/or federal government, offers little guidance in how to deal with the problems identified by testing data. If your school fails to figure out ways to best reach the identified under performing populations than the state threatens to intervene by taking over your school, firing your principals, putting your school under the supervision of a consulting firm (at town's expense, of course), and in extreme cases, firing you, the educator. At no point is there an attempt by the state to help your school train teachers to better serve their students. The solution is to punish, not help teachers develop as educators.

Even if a school does try to offer professional development, it has been my experience that school administrators like to spend thousands of dollars hiring outside consulting firms to help show teachers the light. The problem with consulting firms is that they come, without any real understanding of your school or its unique set of strengths and weaknesses, present their information once or twice, and then leave. We, as teachers, give their methods a go for a bit and then a new administration comes in and decides it wants to change directions. So long John Collins Writing System, see you later Links, it was nice working with you.

The best professional development that I've experienced as a teacher has been developed by teachers within our system. Yet, as the pressure mounts to keep those test scores moving up, I find administrators are less and less willing to place their confidence in their own teachers' abilities/ingenuity and more willing to impose intensely structured programs, like Pearson's Reading Street, to ensure child progress. The problem isn't with supplemental software or teaching materials meant to help improve student achievement. The problem is when we attempt to lessen or eliminate altogether a teacher's ability to assess her own students and address their needs accordingly by removing any control she has over her curriculum and instruction and replacing those choices with a scripted program. Such decisions reveal a lack of faith in one's teachers' abilities and experience. Instead of helping make teachers more effective through PD, constructive collaboration and evaluation, the trend seems to be to replace teachers all together.

However you look at it, there is little denying that the educational system in America does need in fact need to be rehauled. But I argue that many of the changes that need to occur can happen internally. With proper leadership, open communication between parents, teachers, and administration, and real professional development based on actual evaluation (rather than some gotcha! charade meant to punish teachers not help them grow as educators), we can make serious changes in our educational system.

Delpit Interrupts Wednesday Night T.V.

While my husband and I were waiting for Modern Family to come on, we watched an episode of The Middle. It's a comedy about a working class family trying to hold it together. One of the characters on the show is an eccentric, nine year old, boy named Brick. In this episode, Brick, who would rather be reading than doing anything else, has been allowed by his new teacher to skip gym. This is a decision that Brick's parents, Mike and Frankie, disagree with as they have been struggling to get Brick to socialize more. Thus it is decided that Mike will go and speak with Brick's teacher to resolve the issue.

What follows is straight out of Delpit's 'The Silenced Dialogue"--a progressive, white (of course) teacher who believes he knows better patronizing a parent and belittling his knowledge. There is even some great back and forth between the teacher and Mike about how to get through to Brick--Mike advocating explicit commands ("you could just tell him 'I'm the teacher. You're the kid. Go to gym.") and the teacher preferring a more implicit approach.

It's not math--it's class warfare: Viva la Revolucion!

Coming from a working class family, I really enjoyed Finn's analysis of working class education. Essentially he says that there at two kinds of education. The first is "empowering education, which leads to powerful literacy, the kind of literacy that leads to positions of power and authority" (ix). While the second is "domesticating education, which leads to functional literacy, literacy that makes a person productive and dependable, but not [and this is important] troublesome" (ix-x). Guess which kind of education Finn argues that we are providing working class kids?

Finn cites a study done by Jean Anyon which describes the working class school she observed as restrictive and procedural. Anyon describes how "Work [at this working class school] was following steps in a procedure. There was little decision making or choice" (10). Teachers had low expectations for their students--providing all students with low level readers (regardless of ability), asking them to copy notes about the directions of an experiment but not allowing them to preform it, etc. Teachers were also heard disparaging their students as "lazy," "dumb," and incapable of learning. Not surprisingly, these students developed an antagonistic relationship to school and their teachers.

Now despite this appalling example, I don't think Finn is saying that everyone who teaches working class kids is a horrible shrew who hates children. But he is saying that it is difficult to get working class kids to buy into school as we know it. Thinking of my School Within a School students, many of whom are working class, I'd have to say Finn's assessment is dead on. For whatever reason, my students have developed an antagonistic relationship towards school. Many of them have voiced their opinion that "school is a waste of time." They do not see the value in what we've been trying to teach them and therefore seek ways to escape our influence--defiance, apathy, etc. All of this reminds me of Delpit's ideas of the "culture of power." These kids come from families outside of the middle-class "culture of power." These students don't see the inherent value in learning to think critically because the working class has been trained from the very first days of kindergarten to follow rules and procedure. Now that doesn't mean they are mindless robots. They may follow rules to a point but they've been taught that the system is there to keep them in check. Thus they rebel against the system often in ways that are self-sabotaging--being disruptive/defiant, dropping out, etc. Finn discusses this when he concludes that working class children in Anyon's school "were learning to follow directions and do mechanical, low-paying work, but at the same time they were learning to resist authority in ways sanctioned by their community" (28).

Finn's solution to all of this is, well, revolution. But a empowering revolution, not some bloody coup that is more about punishing the other side than generating change. Referencing the days in which the gentry forbade the lower classes from reading the Bible for fear it would give them"ideas," Finn advocates for "dangerous" literacy. He cites Paulo Freire's work in Brazil as the basis for his own ideas about how to get working class students to buy into education. First Finn claims you have to make them want the knowledge that you, the teacher, has. This is done by connecting whatever you are trying to teach them to their own lives. Finn advocates a discussion based approach to this problem. By dialoging with our students, allowing students to express their thoughts and opinions and giving serious consideration to what they have to say, we send the message that their knowledge is valuable. This is the first step in getting them to buy into their own education--convincing them that they have something to bring to the table. School can be a place where knowledge is shared not just forced feed.

On that note, I'd like to conclude with Herman Blume's "Take dead aim on the rich boys" speech from Rushmore.

"Take dead aim on the rich boys."

"Nigga or Niggah"

I was thinking of the issue that Ray brought up in class in reference to Jenn's Chris Rock video--that there are certain things (words, sentiments, etc.) that are considered acceptable for those outside of the culture of power to say that are certainly not acceptable for those within the culture to repeat.

This clip is from the T.V. show The Boondocks (based on the comic strip by Aaron McGruder). If you haven't ever seen or read any of McGruder's stuff, I'd highly recommend you check it out. He has some interesting things to say about race and power. The following clip entitled "Nigga or Niggah" juxtaposes real life news footage regarding an incidence between a white teacher and his black student involving the "N" word with clips from the show.