Jon Schoening's Educational Blog » Professional Journal Reading

Savage Unrealities- Paul Gorski

jonschoening — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 23:01:21 +0000

One of the main reasons I wanted to get into this EdS. program was because we would learn how to critically evaluate programs of instruction and curriculum. In addition, I have learned a great deal about constructivist pedagogy, instructional evaluation, multiculturalism, research practices, and reflection. Using my newly polished educator lenses and my experience, I would have to say that Ruby is overgeneralizing a serious issue to quanitify something that can be packaged, easily understood, and sold. Her views on poverty are too simple. I have seen poverty with my own eyes that she describes in her vignettes, but I have seen some wealthy people act in the same manner that she describes as traits linked to poverty. There are deplorable character traits across all classes and all cultures. I have seen children abused by poor as well as wealthy parents. Drug abuse and sexual promiscuousness does not stop at 15K a year. Violence and a lack of respect of life does not start once you are put on welfare. Her views on poverty do not require any deep reflection or change in sociopolitical practice to correct the problem; all that is needed is teaching the poor to act middle-class, right.

Poverty is not a disease that needs a cure or a war that needs to be won; it is a group of people who have needs, not wants, that are not being met. They deserve respect and kindness, not generalizations and empty promises.

The reality is that some people find themselves living in poverty from their poor choices and others just from circumstances that are out of their control. That is the truth. You cannot lump them all together into one corner and fulfill all their needs in the same way. It is complicated and larger than Ruby Payne or Gorski. To make progress and a positive impact, we need serious people making serious policy changes on a national scale before things get better.

Culturally Responsive Teaching- The Knowledge Loom (Brown University)

jonschoening — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:54:28 +0000

On the list of twenty steps to becoming a more equitable educator, I applaud the section on challenging one another as professionals to grow and mature. If we do not keep one another in check, we give away our power. We force ourselves to be regulated by textbook publishers, politicians, and others bent on keeping the status quo. I know educators do not like confrontation and typically want to keep the peace, but it is through conflict and struggle that we grow. All of us who have gone through this EdS program know what it means to grow from struggle. We need to create an atmosphere of professionalism that lends a forum for open discussion and challenge one another in all areas of our craft including multiculturism.

http://knowledgeloom.org/practices3.jsp?location=1&bpinterid=1110&spotlightid=1110

Pedagogy of the Absurd- Ken Goodman

jonschoening — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:30:13 +0000

At first, I thought Ken Goodman might have been one of those conspiracy theorist/ anti-government whack jobs; but upon further reflection, some of those dots he is attempting to connect do fit together. It is clear that publishers have a lot of voice in Washington; they have a larger voice than do teachers. If a genuinely good program of reading instruction is invented, the federal government could create a statistical standardized test that shows the program is not cutting the mustard. They can use their data to show that the reading programs of big publishing companies will fill in the gaps and create standards that are favorable to the publishing companies’ philosophies on reading. Why? The experts, teachers and professors, lack a loud enough voice and/or money to line to pockets of policy makers. It is how the game is played. Publishing companies know how to play the game, and ultimately the students lose, the teachers lose credibility and respect.

Continue to follow the dots and a pattern emerges illustrating a disturbing future in education. It is the policymakers of our country that will tie one arm behind teachers backs and place tape over their mouth to muffle their calls for common sense. And ultimately when their policies fail, we will get all the blame; the buck will stop with us. And the policymaker will be absolved and pass legislation to increase accountability for teachers and lessen the accountability for policymakers because they will control the standards, the purse strings, and have the strongest voice and influence. Oh, wait. That already happened. (Expletive)

To change this course, we as teachers must find our voice and stand together in our pedagogical and philosophical stances firmly and not waver.

Friere’s Second Letter

jonschoening — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:28:49 +0000

“Deep down, group reading brings about emergence of different points of view that, as they become exposed to each other, enrich the production of text comprehension,” Friere pg. 55. I apply this philosophy in my classroom everytime we try to tackle a big chapter book. And the truth must be told, I have to do the same thing. I can read a text and never gain the same perspective as somebody else in the class. The discussion deepens my understanding.

The fear is taken out of reading a “big book” because the students are attempting to do this together (which still applies to me). Even when the students are reading books on their own, the weaker, less confident readers will choose books that are the same as their friends that are better readers. Fear is a very real emotion no matter how unrealistic is might seem from your point of view, but to overcome the fear, as in reading a big book or writing a big lit. review, it is easier to overcome if you are overcoming the fear as a group; forging through a deep dark cave of uncertainty together, and all the while having a teacher or professor holding your hand or waving the flashlight, pointing and guiding you to the mouth of the cave into the light of understanding.

It can be a scary place being stuck in a cave confused, lost, and not knowing what to do or where to turn. I have seen too many students come into my class having been stuck in the cave for too long, and it is a good feeling to see the light bulb go off and the confidence build, and the fears subside.

Freire’s Third Letter

jonschoening — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:52:31 +0000

Freire said it best in his third letter when he said that educators need to walk and teach with a humble heart and to put away the veil of the authoritarian whom bears the burden of having all the answers and knows everything that is important. Not all cultures are the same as my own. I have to come to grips with the fact that not all people like to run their mouth as much I do. I love the idea Tateishi shares about creating lessons where students have a more structured involvement in the discussions. That was a great idea. We, as educators, must make it a priority to learn about other cultures beyond key historical figures, battles, and important dates. We need to learn about the people/ the students in our class; that is what is most important.

You’re Asian, How Could You Fail Math? -Benji Chang and Wayne Au

jonschoening — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:24:23 +0000

The big elephant in the room today is stereotyping in its purist form. Why do we attempt to categorize our world into a handful of columns on a statistical spreadsheet? There are hundreds of cultures and languages each with their own nuisances and ideologies. Yes, there are many people from Asia that are good at math, but the Greeks and the Egyptians were the founders of modern algebra and geometry. Why do the people of Greece and Africa not carry the same stereotype as the Japanese? There is an agenda. Now, I am not one of those alarmist conspiracy theorist, but I can be the devils advocate from time to time. At the time when this article claims the stereotype of Asians being great at math emerges, it is a point in our history, the eighties, when the Japanese/ Asian culture becomes infused without the pop culture. I bet you can remember the clothes, songs, and cars. It wasn’t but two generations before that the federal government and Hollywood were pumping out anti-Japanese propaganda during WWII putting down the culture and putting them in a light of ignorant, buck-toothed robots, and we dropped two nukes on their island country just for good measure. Forty years after all this transgressed, the only thing that changed was that Japan and China became economic superpowers, and we needed to make nice with positive propaganda and pandering to save the bottom line.

Our federal government, through census and convenient statistics, create scenarios of falsehood all the time that are detrimental to populations because they have a self-absorbed agenda. I think it comes down to a blame game. If the Asians as a culture are a successful group of immigrants and have been given the same opportunities as all other immigration groups, then it is not the fault of the federal government for the failure of the minority group; it is the fault of minority groups and their culture in question that is not succeeding. In other words, if your culture is not succeeding in America, it is because you need to be more American or more Asian- more like us, less like you. How confusing is that? But there are all lies with a hidden agenda.

The truth is that it is poverty that is to blame. It is hard for a kid that is economically disadvantaged to get a break in this country. Our educational system claims that you can get by alone on merit, but that is only a myth. I wish census bureaus would spend more time telling us what we have in common with one another than telling us how we are different- tearing down walls, not building new ones.

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/22_02/math222.shtml