Welcome to TED 3380! I hope you enjoy your stay! But of course you will, because Dr. T makes this class so delightful. This course has been very helpful to me in causing me to think critically about the complex issues that face future educators. The six issues we covered were race, class, gender, sexuality, power, and privilege, and while these are common themes in history, literature, and current events, this class and the assigned readings really caused me to think about these controversial issues differently.
The novels we read offered new and distinct perspectives. Jonathan Kozol’s Shame of the Nation was probably my favorite. His account of the disparities of US schools was eye-opening and heart-wrenching. Kozol spoke through this context about the worth of the individual child, and I identified with so much of what he said. Next, we read Race Matters. This book was even more eye-opening. It was absolutely crazy to me that the conflict that inspired the writing of this book, the beating of Rodney King and the race riots that ensued, happened in the 1990’s. I was previously unaware of much of what Dr. West had to say about how race is still an issue in America. The next book, Teaching to Transgress, was definitely interesting. hook’s insights into engaged pedagogy and the importance of open dialogue in the classroom were new to me, but I learned several things about how the identity of individual students should play a role in the classroom. We also took a look at issues of sexuality with The Laramie Project, which led us to discuss the humanity of all of our students. Tim Wise’s book White Like Me was very interesting to me, exposing me to new truths and points of view. He really caused me to think about white privilege and all the things that I take for granted. Wise inspired me to fight for all of my students to have equal access to opportunity. Freire was a little bit harder for me to understand, but I did enjoy Pedagogy of the Oppressed. A lot of what he said reminded me of things I learned in my Educational Psychology courses. The themes Freire discussed were consciousness, humanity, and liberation of the student.
I think that the Baylor School of Education offers a good balance of practical and pragmatic courses, and this class definitely plays a role in maintaining that balance. Social Issues in Education has offered me the opportunity to think about my future in an elementary classroom in the context of the big issues that will affect my students, their situations, and our nation.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
countdown paper: pedagogy of the oppressed
5 Big Picture Sentences
These first two chapters offer a framework for Freire’s thoughts about education. He defines oppression and human’s vocation. Freire also speaks towards the problem of what the oppressed often do with their liberation. In the last chapter, Freire takes a look at the banking model of education, which he says cannot be used in the pursuit of education. He juxtaposes this model with what he calls problem-posing education, which he sees as the best form of pedagogy for the oppressed.
4 Key Passages“A revolutionary leadership must accordingly practice co-intentional education. Teachers and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of recreating that knowledge. As they attain this knowledge of reality through common reflection and action, they discover themselves as its permanent re-creators. In this way, the presence of the oppressed in the struggle for their liberation will be what it should be: not pseudo-participation, but committed involvement.” (pg. 69)
“Education is suffering from narration sickness.” (pg. 71)
“For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” (pg. 72)
“Authentic liberation – the process of humanization – is not another deposit to be made in men. Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.” (pg. 79)
3 Key Terms
praxis – (page 51) “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it”
prescription – (page 46-47) a basic element of the oppressor-oppressed relationship; “represents the imposition of one individual’s choice upon another”
necrophilic behavior – (page 65) – “the destruction of life – their own or that of their oppressed fellows”
2 Connections
On page 59, Freire says, “They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have.” This reminds me of what Tim Wise was saying in the Loss section of White Like Me – we (white people) have lost our own identity in the process of trying to suppress that of others. He was talking about how black and white people in a workshop made lists about what they liked about their race and African Americans were able to say they liked how they valued family, their music, and other very identifiable aspects of their culture, but the Caucasians’ list was simply things that they didn’t have to put up with, like being followed in a store, because of their whiteness.
In the first chapter, when Freire is talking about insincere liberation, he writes that the oppressor is truly empathizing with the oppressed “only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly death with, deprived of their voice, cheated, in the sale of their labor – when he stops making pious, sentimental, and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love.” This makes me think of 1 John 3:18, which was part of the message this morning. John writes, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth;” both men are saying: it’s not enough to say you love or say you “feel for” someone – put it into action.
1 Question
Do you think that there can be a balance between the dialogical model and the banking model? Do you see advantages and disadvantages of both or do you think there is never a use for the banking model?
These first two chapters offer a framework for Freire’s thoughts about education. He defines oppression and human’s vocation. Freire also speaks towards the problem of what the oppressed often do with their liberation. In the last chapter, Freire takes a look at the banking model of education, which he says cannot be used in the pursuit of education. He juxtaposes this model with what he calls problem-posing education, which he sees as the best form of pedagogy for the oppressed.
4 Key Passages“A revolutionary leadership must accordingly practice co-intentional education. Teachers and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of recreating that knowledge. As they attain this knowledge of reality through common reflection and action, they discover themselves as its permanent re-creators. In this way, the presence of the oppressed in the struggle for their liberation will be what it should be: not pseudo-participation, but committed involvement.” (pg. 69)
“Education is suffering from narration sickness.” (pg. 71)
“For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” (pg. 72)
“Authentic liberation – the process of humanization – is not another deposit to be made in men. Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.” (pg. 79)
3 Key Terms
praxis – (page 51) “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it”
prescription – (page 46-47) a basic element of the oppressor-oppressed relationship; “represents the imposition of one individual’s choice upon another”
necrophilic behavior – (page 65) – “the destruction of life – their own or that of their oppressed fellows”
2 Connections
On page 59, Freire says, “They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have.” This reminds me of what Tim Wise was saying in the Loss section of White Like Me – we (white people) have lost our own identity in the process of trying to suppress that of others. He was talking about how black and white people in a workshop made lists about what they liked about their race and African Americans were able to say they liked how they valued family, their music, and other very identifiable aspects of their culture, but the Caucasians’ list was simply things that they didn’t have to put up with, like being followed in a store, because of their whiteness.
In the first chapter, when Freire is talking about insincere liberation, he writes that the oppressor is truly empathizing with the oppressed “only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly death with, deprived of their voice, cheated, in the sale of their labor – when he stops making pious, sentimental, and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love.” This makes me think of 1 John 3:18, which was part of the message this morning. John writes, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth;” both men are saying: it’s not enough to say you love or say you “feel for” someone – put it into action.
1 Question
Do you think that there can be a balance between the dialogical model and the banking model? Do you see advantages and disadvantages of both or do you think there is never a use for the banking model?
Friday, April 23, 2010
Tim Wise's White Like Me
5 Big Picture Sentences
In his book White Like Me, Wise offers a powerful, in-your-face look about the truth of racism in America. The first chapter, Born to Belonging, tells about how whites are “born into an environment where one’s legitimacy is far less likely to be questioned” (x). The next two chapters are about racial privilege and about resistance towards that privilege. The fourth chapter talks about being weary of who you collaborate with. The last two sections are about the cost that whites pay for their racism and about the hope for redemption.
4 Key Passages“The power of resistance is to set an example; not necessarily to change the person with whom you disagree, but to empower the one who is watching and whose growth is not yet complete, whose path is not at all clear, whose direction is still very much up in the proverbial air.” (pg. 74)
“Although white Americans often think we’ve had few first-hand experiences with race – because most of us are so isolated from people of color in our day-to-day lives – the reality is that this isolation is our experience with race.” (pg. viii)
“Being a member of the majority, of the dominant group, allows one to ignore how race shapes one’s life. For us, whiteness simply is; it becomes the unspoken, uninterrogated norm, taken for granted, the way a fish takes water for granted.” (pg. 2-3)
“Today, in the course of my work I meet white teachers much like the ones I had in school – almost all of them nice, decent, underpaid professionals – who say things like, ‘I treat all my kids the same way and don’t even see color when I look at them. This is neither true nor desirable, as their kids in fact do have a race, and their race matters, because it says a lot about the kinds of challenges they are likely to face.” (pg. 16)
3 Key Terms
perspectivism – (page 59) “the elevating of the majority viewpoint to the status of unquestioned and unquestionable truth”
kudzu – (page 82) “a particularly tenacious vine” that is very common in and exclusive to the South; Wise says this is a perfect metaphor for the way that Southerners cover up their crimes
“white blindness” – (page 136) – “the ability of whites to be utterly blind to the fact that indeed we have more than our fair share of criminals, drug addicts,” and other screw-ups
2 Connections
In the chapter about Resistance, Wise spoke about the time in his adolescence when he began to dress, speak, and behave like his African American friends. He describes his teachers’ reaction to this phenomenon, which was mostly dismissing him and deeming him “hopeless.” Wise’s reaction to his teachers’ treatment was to withdraw from school culture. We talked about this in my Educational Psychology course; there are “resistance cultures” whose beliefs, values, and behaviors don’t match up with those of the mainstream culture. For example, an African American teenage boy has to choose between doing well in school, becoming “white,” or withdrawing just like Tim did from schoolwork in order to maintain his culture.
I really loved the quote by Tutu. He said, “You do not do the things you do because others will necessarily join you in the doing of them, nor because they will ultimately prove successful. You do the things you do because the things you are doing are right.” This is so encouraging, because sometimes I get bogged down by the problems that International Justice Mission fights; sex trafficking, poverty, and modern-day slavery aren’t just going to end in the next year. But I don’t do it because sex trafficking is a buzz word right now or because I will be able to see the results of my work; I do it because it is right.
1 Question
What are some practical suggestions for me? How do I fight racism as a student at Baylor?
In his book White Like Me, Wise offers a powerful, in-your-face look about the truth of racism in America. The first chapter, Born to Belonging, tells about how whites are “born into an environment where one’s legitimacy is far less likely to be questioned” (x). The next two chapters are about racial privilege and about resistance towards that privilege. The fourth chapter talks about being weary of who you collaborate with. The last two sections are about the cost that whites pay for their racism and about the hope for redemption.
4 Key Passages“The power of resistance is to set an example; not necessarily to change the person with whom you disagree, but to empower the one who is watching and whose growth is not yet complete, whose path is not at all clear, whose direction is still very much up in the proverbial air.” (pg. 74)
“Although white Americans often think we’ve had few first-hand experiences with race – because most of us are so isolated from people of color in our day-to-day lives – the reality is that this isolation is our experience with race.” (pg. viii)
“Being a member of the majority, of the dominant group, allows one to ignore how race shapes one’s life. For us, whiteness simply is; it becomes the unspoken, uninterrogated norm, taken for granted, the way a fish takes water for granted.” (pg. 2-3)
“Today, in the course of my work I meet white teachers much like the ones I had in school – almost all of them nice, decent, underpaid professionals – who say things like, ‘I treat all my kids the same way and don’t even see color when I look at them. This is neither true nor desirable, as their kids in fact do have a race, and their race matters, because it says a lot about the kinds of challenges they are likely to face.” (pg. 16)
3 Key Terms
perspectivism – (page 59) “the elevating of the majority viewpoint to the status of unquestioned and unquestionable truth”
kudzu – (page 82) “a particularly tenacious vine” that is very common in and exclusive to the South; Wise says this is a perfect metaphor for the way that Southerners cover up their crimes
“white blindness” – (page 136) – “the ability of whites to be utterly blind to the fact that indeed we have more than our fair share of criminals, drug addicts,” and other screw-ups
2 Connections
In the chapter about Resistance, Wise spoke about the time in his adolescence when he began to dress, speak, and behave like his African American friends. He describes his teachers’ reaction to this phenomenon, which was mostly dismissing him and deeming him “hopeless.” Wise’s reaction to his teachers’ treatment was to withdraw from school culture. We talked about this in my Educational Psychology course; there are “resistance cultures” whose beliefs, values, and behaviors don’t match up with those of the mainstream culture. For example, an African American teenage boy has to choose between doing well in school, becoming “white,” or withdrawing just like Tim did from schoolwork in order to maintain his culture.
I really loved the quote by Tutu. He said, “You do not do the things you do because others will necessarily join you in the doing of them, nor because they will ultimately prove successful. You do the things you do because the things you are doing are right.” This is so encouraging, because sometimes I get bogged down by the problems that International Justice Mission fights; sex trafficking, poverty, and modern-day slavery aren’t just going to end in the next year. But I don’t do it because sex trafficking is a buzz word right now or because I will be able to see the results of my work; I do it because it is right.
1 Question
What are some practical suggestions for me? How do I fight racism as a student at Baylor?
Saturday, March 20, 2010
On collective responsibility for engagement
"There are times when I walk into my classroom and the students seem absolutely bored out of their minds. And I say to them, 'What's up? Everybody seems really bored today. There seems to be a lack of energy. What should we do? What can we do?' I might say, 'Clearly the direction we're moving in doesn't seem to be awakening your senses, your passions right now.' My intent is to engage them more fully. Often students deny that they are collectively bored. They want to please me. Or they don't want to be critical. At such times I must stress that,'I'm not taking this personally. It's not just my job to make this class work. It's everyone's responsibility.'" Teaching to Transgress, page 155
main ideas and theses
Energy level in the classroom comes from both the professor and the students. If the students are for some reason disengaged, it is not necessarily the professor's fault. Every member of the learning community has equal responsibility to be committed to the gaining of knowledge.
consistencies with experiences as student and as teacher
I have definitely been in classrooms with a low energy level, especially in my large required classes at Baylor. Sometimes, such as in poli sci, the lecturer has been entirely aware that most students are asleep but simply continuted with his lecture. In other courses, typically smaller classes in which professors are aware of the needs of their students, my instructors have done nearly exactly what hooks describes here. My educational psychology prof has said several times in class, "We'll move on; y'all are clearly thrilled with this" at rare moments in which my classmates and I aren't fully engaged. (Also, it is true that we usually "come to" at this point and try to make her feel better and say, "oh, no, it's just that...") She would definitely agree that it is not her role to simply provide us with information; she fully intends for us to look at the material together and discuss it, each member of the community bearing equal burden.
However, I also have to admit that I have been on the other end of this situation. As Children's Intern at my church this summer, I had to fill in sometimes for missing teachers. I can think of one lesson in particular for which I didn't prepare nearly enough, when the fifth grade boys I was teaching looked incredibly bored. I wrapped up what I was doing as quickly as I could while still hitting the main points, and then moved on to some active applications of the lesson, which the boys enjoyed much more than listening to me talk. While I was trying to transmit information to them, they were obviously disengaged, but when I gave them an equal role in the learning, they became excited about what we were doing.
consistencies with teaching beliefs and practices
I agree with what hooks has to say here about engagement and responsibility of all members in the classroom. Of course, this looks a little bit different in the elementary class - I can't cancel class for the day when my first graders get a little wiggly. At the elementary level, I think this probably means more along the lines of adjusting teaching to fit the needs of my students. In this way, I can give each learner a part in the learning.
I also agree that it isn't always the teacher's fault if a class is not engaged; some days my students will simply need some time to play in the sun. However, I do think that if a teacher brings excitement to any subject, then the energy of the students should follow. All too often, kids are bored because their teacher has taken the whole of the responsibility for learning upon himself and will not relinquish any of it to the learners.
impact on future professional development
I think that, in the future, what I have read in Teaching to Transgress will be an encouragement and reminder to me to give some responsibility for engagement in the class to my students. This way, not only am I allowing them to construct knowledge for themselves, but I am also freeing myself of just a tiny bit of the burden of being accountable for the learning that happens in my class. If Billy is not engaged, Billy will not learn that day. I can help Billy and try to engage him, but ultimately, it's Billy's choice.
Teaching to Transgress
Teaching to Transgress chapter 8 – chapter 14
5 Big Picture Sentences
In the last half of her book, Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks looks at pedagogy from different perspectives. She also offers more practical and specific ways in which to use engaged pedagogy in the classroom. In these 8 and 9, she looks at how feminist thinking can affect engaged pedagogy. Chapter 10 is set up as an interview between miss hooks and a colleague; they discuss how to build a teaching community and look at how to effectively use dialogue to engage members of the classroom. The last two chapters offer a provocative look at education as hooks explains how ecstasy and passion are a part of effective pedagogy.
4 Key Passages
“To engage in dialogue is one of the simplest ways we can begin as teachers, scholars, and critical thinkers to cross boundaries, the barriers that may or may not be erected by race, gender, class, professional standing, and a host of other differences.” p. 130
“When I enter a classroom at the beginning of the semester the weight is on me to establish that our purpose is to be, for however brief a time, a community of learners together. It positions me as a learner. But I’m also not suggesting that I don’t have more power. And I’m not trying to say we’re all equal here. I’m trying to say that we are all equal to the extent that we are equally committed to creating a learning context.” p. 153
“In contemporary black popular culture, rap music has become one of the spaces where black vernacular speech is used in a manner that invites dominant mainstream culture to listen – to hear – and, to some extent, to be transformed. However, one of the risks of this attempt at cultural translation is that it will trivialize black vernacular speech. When young white kids imitate this speech in ways that suggest it is speech of those who are stupid or who are only interested in entertaining or being funny, then the subversive power of this speech is undermined. In academic circles, both in the sphere of teaching and that of writing, there has been little effort made to utilize black vernacular – or, for that matter, any language other than standard English.” p. 171
“To restore passion to the classroom or to excite it in classrooms where it has never been, professors must find again the place of eros within ourselves and altogether allow the mind and body to feel and know desire.” p. 199
3 Key Terms
marginalized groups – women of all races or ethnicities, and men of color pg. 130-131
tradition - “Tradition should be such a wonderful word… Yet it is often used in a negative sense to repeat the tradition of the power of status quo.” p. 141-142
voice – hooks says voice “is not just the act of telling one’s experience;” it is being able to tell those experiences “strategically,” or “also speak freely about other subjects” p. 148
2 Connections
In the chapter about dialogue, I related to hooks’ and Scapp’s discussion about the issues of respecting and listening to each voice. I definitely appreciated their conversation about not letting “people who just like to hear themselves talk” control the conversation; there have been many times, kindergarten to undergrad, when one person has totally dominated a classroom discussion in which I was supposed to be participating. I think this is inappropriate regardless of whether or not what the student is saying relates to the topic at hand because it causes others to shut down and denies other students “voice,” but hooks specifically states that she calls out students when they are “unable to relate experience to the academic subject matter.” I have been on the other side of this situation, so it’s interesting to gain insight into the other side – the role of making the judgment call to keep the discussion moving.
On page 154, hooks says, “Sometimes it’s important to remind students that joy can be present along with hard work. Not every moment in the classroom will necessarily be one that brings you immediate pleasure, but that doesn’t preclude the possibility of joy.” I wrote in the margins here that this made me think of working on UIL music in Choir in middle and high school. These songs were really tough; that’s why they were chosen. During the months and months that we sang the same songs over and over again, marking furiously in our sheet music, we certainly gained no immediate pleasure. But as we pushed through, and as we took the product of our labors to UIL competition to be judged, we were really proud of our work. The songs that everyone hated the most at the beginning of UIL season were the same ones the choir nerds sang on the bus ride home.
Question
The last two chapters wax poetic on putting passion back in our classrooms, but realistically, how do I as an elementary school teacher appropriately “allow [my] mind and body to know desire?” This seems very idealistic and out of touch with the reality of the public school system.
5 Big Picture Sentences
In the last half of her book, Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks looks at pedagogy from different perspectives. She also offers more practical and specific ways in which to use engaged pedagogy in the classroom. In these 8 and 9, she looks at how feminist thinking can affect engaged pedagogy. Chapter 10 is set up as an interview between miss hooks and a colleague; they discuss how to build a teaching community and look at how to effectively use dialogue to engage members of the classroom. The last two chapters offer a provocative look at education as hooks explains how ecstasy and passion are a part of effective pedagogy.
4 Key Passages
“To engage in dialogue is one of the simplest ways we can begin as teachers, scholars, and critical thinkers to cross boundaries, the barriers that may or may not be erected by race, gender, class, professional standing, and a host of other differences.” p. 130
“When I enter a classroom at the beginning of the semester the weight is on me to establish that our purpose is to be, for however brief a time, a community of learners together. It positions me as a learner. But I’m also not suggesting that I don’t have more power. And I’m not trying to say we’re all equal here. I’m trying to say that we are all equal to the extent that we are equally committed to creating a learning context.” p. 153
“In contemporary black popular culture, rap music has become one of the spaces where black vernacular speech is used in a manner that invites dominant mainstream culture to listen – to hear – and, to some extent, to be transformed. However, one of the risks of this attempt at cultural translation is that it will trivialize black vernacular speech. When young white kids imitate this speech in ways that suggest it is speech of those who are stupid or who are only interested in entertaining or being funny, then the subversive power of this speech is undermined. In academic circles, both in the sphere of teaching and that of writing, there has been little effort made to utilize black vernacular – or, for that matter, any language other than standard English.” p. 171
“To restore passion to the classroom or to excite it in classrooms where it has never been, professors must find again the place of eros within ourselves and altogether allow the mind and body to feel and know desire.” p. 199
3 Key Terms
marginalized groups – women of all races or ethnicities, and men of color pg. 130-131
tradition - “Tradition should be such a wonderful word… Yet it is often used in a negative sense to repeat the tradition of the power of status quo.” p. 141-142
voice – hooks says voice “is not just the act of telling one’s experience;” it is being able to tell those experiences “strategically,” or “also speak freely about other subjects” p. 148
2 Connections
In the chapter about dialogue, I related to hooks’ and Scapp’s discussion about the issues of respecting and listening to each voice. I definitely appreciated their conversation about not letting “people who just like to hear themselves talk” control the conversation; there have been many times, kindergarten to undergrad, when one person has totally dominated a classroom discussion in which I was supposed to be participating. I think this is inappropriate regardless of whether or not what the student is saying relates to the topic at hand because it causes others to shut down and denies other students “voice,” but hooks specifically states that she calls out students when they are “unable to relate experience to the academic subject matter.” I have been on the other side of this situation, so it’s interesting to gain insight into the other side – the role of making the judgment call to keep the discussion moving.
On page 154, hooks says, “Sometimes it’s important to remind students that joy can be present along with hard work. Not every moment in the classroom will necessarily be one that brings you immediate pleasure, but that doesn’t preclude the possibility of joy.” I wrote in the margins here that this made me think of working on UIL music in Choir in middle and high school. These songs were really tough; that’s why they were chosen. During the months and months that we sang the same songs over and over again, marking furiously in our sheet music, we certainly gained no immediate pleasure. But as we pushed through, and as we took the product of our labors to UIL competition to be judged, we were really proud of our work. The songs that everyone hated the most at the beginning of UIL season were the same ones the choir nerds sang on the bus ride home.
Question
The last two chapters wax poetic on putting passion back in our classrooms, but realistically, how do I as an elementary school teacher appropriately “allow [my] mind and body to know desire?” This seems very idealistic and out of touch with the reality of the public school system.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Countdown Paper:
Teaching to Transgress Intro – chapter 7
5 Big Picture Sentences
In her book Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks seeks to define “education as the practice of freedom.” She begins by telling her own story and educational experiences. Later, hooks moves on to discuss classroom practice. She tells of how Paulo Freire influenced her work, maybe even more so because of the way he failed to address feminist issues; this made her read his work even more critically and thoughtfully. Her last chapter looks at feminist issues through the lens of race issues, giving a unique look at the problems hindering solidarity of all women.
4 Key Passages
“In the apartheid South, black girls has three career choices. We could marry. We could work as maids. We could become school teachers.” (pg. 2)
“Along the way I had not found white folks who understood the depth and complexity of racial justice, and who were as willing to practice the art of living a nonracist life, as folks were then. In my adult life I have seen few white folks who are really willing to take risks, to be courageous, to live against the grain.” (pg. 26)
“Finally, we were all going to break through collective academic denial and acknowledge that the education most of us had received and were giving was not and is never politically neutral.” (pg. 30)
“…Professors must learn to respect the way students feel about their experiences as well as their need to speak about them in classroom settings: ‘You can’t deny that students have experiences and you can’t deny that these experiences are relevant to the learning process even though you might say these experiences are limited, raw, unfruitful, or whatever. Students have memories, families, religions, feelings, languages and cultures that give them a distinctive voice.” (pg. 88)
3 Key Terms
“banking system of education” – “the assumption that memorizing information and regurgitating it represented gaining knowledge that could be deposited, stored and used at a later date” (pg. 5)
“praxis” – “action and reflection upon the world in order to change it” (pg. 14)
“passion of experience” – also called “passion of remembrance,” a modified synonym of the feminist term “authority of experience;” a term “encompass[ing] many feelings but particularly suffering, for there is a particular knowledge that comes from suffering. It is a way of knowing that is often expressed through the body, what it knows, what has been deeply inscribed on it through experience.” (pg. 91)
2 Connections
It has been very useful in this course to have an understanding of the educational philosophies of DuBois and Washington. I learned about them in American Educational Thought. As hooks was talking about her own school experience, she mentioned her school’s name as part of the discussion of her teacher’s pedagogical practice, and I thought it was ironic that her school was called Booker T. Washington even though the teachers were “committed to nurturing intellect so that [their students] could become scholars, thinkers, and cultural workers – black folks who used [their] minds.” hooks goes on to say that their goal was that their students would “fulfill [their] intellectual destiny and by so doing uplift the race.” These are very DuBoisian sounding ideas.
hooks criticizes professors who employ “Tokenism” in their classes. She says, “individuals will often focus on women of color at the very end of the semester or lump everything about race and difference together in one section.” As much as I enjoyed my Christian Heritage course, this passage made me realize that my professor had done exactly this; at the end of the semester we covered feminist theology, black theology, and liberated theology.
1 Question
Your whole book compels us to change our teaching styles, but other than encouraging us to make our classrooms exciting and creating learning environments in which every voice is accepted and valued, what specific strategies do you suggest?
Teaching to Transgress Intro – chapter 7
5 Big Picture Sentences
In her book Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks seeks to define “education as the practice of freedom.” She begins by telling her own story and educational experiences. Later, hooks moves on to discuss classroom practice. She tells of how Paulo Freire influenced her work, maybe even more so because of the way he failed to address feminist issues; this made her read his work even more critically and thoughtfully. Her last chapter looks at feminist issues through the lens of race issues, giving a unique look at the problems hindering solidarity of all women.
4 Key Passages
“In the apartheid South, black girls has three career choices. We could marry. We could work as maids. We could become school teachers.” (pg. 2)
“Along the way I had not found white folks who understood the depth and complexity of racial justice, and who were as willing to practice the art of living a nonracist life, as folks were then. In my adult life I have seen few white folks who are really willing to take risks, to be courageous, to live against the grain.” (pg. 26)
“Finally, we were all going to break through collective academic denial and acknowledge that the education most of us had received and were giving was not and is never politically neutral.” (pg. 30)
“…Professors must learn to respect the way students feel about their experiences as well as their need to speak about them in classroom settings: ‘You can’t deny that students have experiences and you can’t deny that these experiences are relevant to the learning process even though you might say these experiences are limited, raw, unfruitful, or whatever. Students have memories, families, religions, feelings, languages and cultures that give them a distinctive voice.” (pg. 88)
3 Key Terms
“banking system of education” – “the assumption that memorizing information and regurgitating it represented gaining knowledge that could be deposited, stored and used at a later date” (pg. 5)
“praxis” – “action and reflection upon the world in order to change it” (pg. 14)
“passion of experience” – also called “passion of remembrance,” a modified synonym of the feminist term “authority of experience;” a term “encompass[ing] many feelings but particularly suffering, for there is a particular knowledge that comes from suffering. It is a way of knowing that is often expressed through the body, what it knows, what has been deeply inscribed on it through experience.” (pg. 91)
2 Connections
It has been very useful in this course to have an understanding of the educational philosophies of DuBois and Washington. I learned about them in American Educational Thought. As hooks was talking about her own school experience, she mentioned her school’s name as part of the discussion of her teacher’s pedagogical practice, and I thought it was ironic that her school was called Booker T. Washington even though the teachers were “committed to nurturing intellect so that [their students] could become scholars, thinkers, and cultural workers – black folks who used [their] minds.” hooks goes on to say that their goal was that their students would “fulfill [their] intellectual destiny and by so doing uplift the race.” These are very DuBoisian sounding ideas.
hooks criticizes professors who employ “Tokenism” in their classes. She says, “individuals will often focus on women of color at the very end of the semester or lump everything about race and difference together in one section.” As much as I enjoyed my Christian Heritage course, this passage made me realize that my professor had done exactly this; at the end of the semester we covered feminist theology, black theology, and liberated theology.
1 Question
Your whole book compels us to change our teaching styles, but other than encouraging us to make our classrooms exciting and creating learning environments in which every voice is accepted and valued, what specific strategies do you suggest?
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Exam One: The Shame of the Nation Essay
Jonathan Kozol - The Shame of the Nation: Essay 1
You have been appointed by President Obama to serve as a teacher representative on the “U.S. Commission for Improving the Quality of Education Opportunity for Marginalized Children in the United States.” In particular, President Obama is curious about your opinions on Jonathan Kozol’s book entitled The Shame of the Nation. The President has asked you to summarize Kozol’s primary theses as represented in the book, support or refute Kozol’s claims of “Apartheid Schooling” in the U.S., and provide your own recommendations on improving the quality of education opportunity for marginalized children in the United States. President Obama has asked you to submit to him a letter that is no longer than 3 pages addressing these issues and providing specific citations (i.e., book, notes, documents) to support your answers.
Mr. President:
It is a great honor to serve on the U.S. Commission for Improving the Quality of Education Opportunity for Marginalized Children in the United States. My thoughts concerning the education of marginalized children have been greatly influenced by Jonathan Kozol’s book The Shame of the Nation (2005), and I will be referencing this work in my reply. This text focuses on the inequalities that exist in America today. In fact, Kozol said that his goal in writing this book was to “unlock the chains” that separated children from the American mainstream (p. 6). His research is particularly interesting and poignant because he has visited schools all over the country and formed lasting friendships with many students in order to write this book, and because he himself taught in segregated schools when he was a young man.
America, the country lauded as the “land of opportunity,” for centuries the destination of countless immigrants searching for freedom, equality, and the chance to make something of themselves, truly has an ugly secret: an apartheid schooling system, segregated by race, socioeconomic level, and class. We are willing to fight wars in order to spread democracy abroad, yet our own school system is anything but democratic. Immediately contradicting the Brown vs. Board ruling and the 14th Amendment, children who live in U.S. ghettoes receive an inherently unequal education from that which schoolchildren in affluent suburban areas receive. In the neighborhoods in which Kozol observed, “residential segregation was a permanent reality” (p. 7), a result of “white flight” – a phenomenon which describes the movement of those who can afford it away from urban areas and ghettoes, creating the dichotomy of well-off suburban areas just miles away from the devastation of the projects. Since public schools are funded by the taxes of their surrounding neighborhoods, of course this economic discrepancy translates into major inequalities in the schools.
In The Shame of the Nation, Kozol discussed the disparities in physical school buildings, quality of teachers, curriculum taught, parent fundraising, availability of quality preschools and other special schools, and programs and courses offered. In looking at each of these inequalities, the real question addressed will be: what is the worth of each child in these situations?
In Kozol’s introduction, he recalls the conditions in which he first taught; two fourth grade classes, a drama group, and a class of girls learning to sew all shared an auditorium (p. 3). His own experience does not differ dramatically from others’. Aside from basic maintenance and cleanliness, many of these schools are actually unsanitary and hazardous. At the 75th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles, a letter had to be sent home because there were rats, exposed asbestos, and chipping lead-based paint on the campus (p. 172). There is also a major difference in available resources. One Sacramento student said that in computer class, “we sit there and talk about what we would be doing if we have computers” (p. 171). Juxtapose this with high schools with multiple computer labs filled with the most recent technology. Are not the children in that Sacramento school worth as much as the children in these schools?
Another key problem is the quality of teachers. One of the hardest obstacles is recruiting good teachers, especially when schools in which it would be easier to teach can offer them so much more money and job security. In troubled schools in need of the best and brightest teachers, teachers are demoted from their role of cultivating learning to merely reading off scripted lessons plans. “So,” Kozol concludes, “a curriculum that was imposed, in part, to compensate for staffing needs of schools that had a hard time in recruiting teachers ends up by driving out precisely those well-educated men and women whom school systems have worked so hard to attract” (p. 85). This curriculum, especially the Skinnerian Approach with its strange, silent signals mentioned in chapter 3, creates zombies rather than individuals who can think deeply for themselves. Kozol makes the interesting point that in these schools, “hope must be constructed therapeutically because so much of it has been destroyed by the conditions… in which we have placed these children” (p. 37), whereas hope exists naturally “in suburban schools where the potential of most children is assumed” (p. 36).
Some of the most alarming consequences of this apartheid schooling system are the dramatically different tracks offered to students: academic tracks for those children deemed to have worth, who will go to college and become successful, and vocational tracks for those children who need to be realistic and learn a trade because they will never amount to anything other than, hopefully, a skilled worker. In one elementary school in which managerial skills were emphasized to a shocking extent, the principal responded to Kozol’s questioning by saying, “Even if you have a felony arrest… we want you to understand that you can be a manager someday” (p. 93). These unbelievably low expectations carry over to the high schools, too. Mireya, a student at Fremont High School, dreams of being a doctor, but she was forced to take sewing, hairdressing, and “Life Skills” classes (p. 179). Mireya confided in Kozol, “I did not need sewing either. I knew how to sew. My mother is a seamstress in a factory. I’m trying to go to college. I don’t need to sew to go to college… I hoped for something else” (p. 180). Surely an honors student in suburban America would not be put into classes like these, and most definitely not against her will.
These major discrepancies are simply the most noticeable of the many perversions of democracy in America’s current school system. While many of us can try to ignore it, those who are living it cannot. In a conversation with Kozol, Noreen Connell said, “When minority parents ask for something better for their kids… ‘the assumption is that these are parents who can be discounted. These are kids that we don’t value’” (p. 43). And when we try to smooth over these issues, we are confirming her sad statement. We must figure out the worth of every child, and act accordingly.
Sincerely,
Amber Hatchett
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