"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." - Thoreau
This quote was on the cover a journal I just received to write all my thoughts, ideas, hopes, worries, and dreams in. I thought it was a fitting way to start my last post. Writing this blog has been a fun and creative outlet. But this isn't really the outlet that I chose to do my writing in. I have found this to be an easy way to share my thoughts and ideas on particular topics such as literacy issues for diverse learners. It has been an effective way to see other ideas or issues that my classmates have been having with the class. However, when it comes to writing I'm usually more personal and don't like to share with just anyone on the internet. I can see the purpose of a blog and how it can be a useful tool to expand on information and share with a real audience. If I have students that will benefit from blogging I'll be sure to do it. And if I'm ever a college professor it seems to be a very effective way of sharing your own ideas with your students.
I will never get in the way of my students success. This means I will not limit their creativity. I will never give up on my students. Even if my student doesn't want to try I have to help them find ways to succeed. Every person is unique and therefore is entitled to a learning environment which promotes that individualism while promoting community. (Which I'm sure is easier said then done.) But it is my goal to be the best teacher I can be which means striving to think outside the box while providing students with real, meaningful learning experiences. It is important to find the spark in every child.
I've mean mentioning spark for the past few weeks. I thought this would be a good time to share my spark with you. I love music. I love to sing. This youtube video is of me singing Sara Bareilles, Love Song. This was part of a video I had sent to one of my friends while she was completing her internship in Georgia.
Remember to follow your dreams and go live the life you've always imagined.
Critical literacy is a response to injustice and the production of illiteracy in which students and teachers work together tolearn from each other as equal members of the classroom community, produce meaningful learning experiences, to encourage students to question what they are learning, to explore concepts to their fullest potential, and to give every child opportunities to succeed.
"Over the past few years, I have seen teachers tell students how much they love them to find out that some of the teachers didn't know all of the students names," (Kohl, 2007, p.151). This was a really important quote. I think that it demonstrates something that happens in classrooms. Teachers don't take time to get to know all of their students. Throughout all of my education classes I have been taught how important this is to our students success. Students need to be appreciated. Students need to have a voice in the classroom. The classroom environment needs to be one that promotes students individuality, creativity, and strengths. Without getting to know your students we can not make this happen. In one of my graduate classes we watched a video about finding our students spark. Everyone has that one thing that they love. To make teaching more successful it is to our benefit to find the spark in each of our students.
"Most schooling is organized, we found, for the plodding transmission of information through classroom recitation. Teachers talk and students listen. And the lower the track, we found, the more likely this to be true. In other words recitation, rather than authentic discussion, is the common mode of discourse in most classrooms," (Probst, 2007, p.46). I thought that this was a great insight to the talking that is done in classrooms. Mostly, I have found that teachers try to keep students from talking during the school day. We don't want them chatting with their classmates while they are supposed to be learning, but we do want them to share their questions, ideas, thoughts, connections, and anything else that makes the experience more real for them. As an educator I hope to include as much authentic discussion into my teaching as I can.
"Literacy Coach: One who trains intensively by instruction, demonstration, and practice. A Literacy Coach is: a learner, a facilitator, and a supporter of classroom instruction," (Egawa, 2007, p.297). This chapter was very informative. I had no idea what a literacy coach was before reading the chapter. I haven't encountered a literacy coach since I started teaching. I now know that a literacy coach is not a substitute teacher, is not there to evaluate the performance of a teacher, doesn't write curriculum maps, or acts as a small group tutor.
"So you'd like me to go from being an outstanding teacher to a mediocre one?" (Gatto, 2007, p.73).
This was Lynn Gatto's response to standardized reading and writing programs being enforced in her school district. After reading Gatto's chapter titled, Success Guaranteed Literacy Programs: I don't buy it!, I have a new appreciation for many of the learning experiences that I had growing up.
Conventional literacy programs being used in today's classrooms are full of meaningless activities. Students read about topics that are not interesting to them. They complete worksheets that are intended to enrich their learning. In classrooms, students are being prepared to take standardized tests. We are creating a society of auto-matrons. Students don't feel connected to the work that they are doing, and therefore we aren't reaching all of our students.
Lynn Gatto has fought against such literacy programs. Of course it doesn't mean that she hasn't been challenged along the way or that she doesn't believe that there is some good that can come from the work being done with those programs. She has been given grief by some of the other educators that she works with, but the administrative staff has been mostly supportive to her decisions. She has more than 30 years of success with her students. So why should she change what she's doing now?
This chapter was amazing. It makes me want to try all of the things that she did with this 12 week unit on butterflies. It's not your typical learning about butterflies that you see in most classrooms. Students each raised their own butterfly. They acted as scientists to observe and record information about their individual creature from larva to the butterfly stage. The class had to study specific information to create a vivarium. The students took field trips to the zoo to take notes on what a habitat was and how they'd have to go about designing one for their butterflies. All of the literature that students read in the classroom was related to the work that they were doing. Students were investigators looking for the connections between their reading and the butterflies. There were measurements to be made and calculations to be figured out in the building of the vivarium. And when they were all done, they opened a butterfly museum for 2 weeks to teach other students in the school about the butterflies and all of the work that they had done. The students had become the experts and were using their gained knowledge to lead the tours for the other classes. This whole project required students to use all kinds of literacy skills and develop those skills in a way that was meaningful to them. They had a purpose for what they were doing.
I hope to teach in a school that will allow me to create such learning experiences for my students. I think that students learn best from doing. This project taught them math, science, social skills, reading, and writing skills. The students had a real audience and were active voice in the creation of the project and the direction that their learning went. Students thoughts and concerns were listened to and discussed with the whole class.
"But in the current political environment of evidence based education, I continue to be concerned that rich findings such as these will be ignored not only by politicians but also by researchers and practitioners. If so, then America and America's adolescents will be worse for it," (Allington, 2007, p.288).
I chose to start this weeks blog with a quote from chapter 18, Effective Teachers, Effective Instruction. I chose this quote because I think it highlights a major issue educators are facing in today's world. Through many of our assigned readings we are shown examples of wonderful educators. The work that these individuals are able to accomplish with their students is incredible. However, it is not seen as successful because it goes against the predetermined, packaged programs that administrators have chosen for their schools to be using. These programs don't allow much room, if any, for changes or modifications. They don't provide opportunities for critical thinking, or experiential learning. In many ways these programs oppress our learning.
In Robert Moses' work, Algebra and Civil Rights?, he quotes Ella Baker. "In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become a part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed," (p.3). What does this mean? What radical changes need to occur? Moses goes on to talk about the current job market. "Sixty percent of new jobs will require skills possessed by only 22 percent of the young people entering the job market now. These jobs require use of a computer and pay about 15 percent more than jobs that do not. And those jobs that do not are dwindling. Right now, the Department of Labor says, 70 percent of all jobs require technology literacy; by the year 2010 all jobs will require significant technical skills. And if that seems unimaginable, consider this: the Department of Labor says that 80 percent of those future jobs do not yet exist," (Moses, 2001, p.9). Here is a video created in 2008 that presents some of the same issues that Moses addressed in his article about the demands of technology.
How do Moses' discussion of the oppressed and effective teaching go together? It is a teacher's job to provide opportunities for students to learn. Of course this means that we need to create literate individuals. There is a large emphasis on reading and writing. Yet we are currently in a time where math and science literacy is greatly important. Moses has created a program called the Algebra Project. This project allows students to view mathematics and their own lives differently. Through hands-on learning, students are able to explore math in a new way. They are creatively solving problems, experiencing meaningful experiences, while having fun. This program provides all students with access to the math curriculum and students are grasping mathematics in ways they hadn't before.
If we know that learning mathematics and science needs to be done in a way that is meaningful and fun, wouldn't it be logical that learning ELA should also be presented in a way that is meaningful and fun? Chapter 15 in Adolescent Literacy discusses the importance of critical thinking. Students need to be presented with real life experiences that are meaningful to them. We need provide students with opportunities to think for themselves. We can't label students in static ways that limit their learning opportunities or don't present them with appropriate challenges. "School teaches you for how you are dumb, not for how you are smart . . . and schools teaches you how you are dumb, not how you are smart," (Wilhelm & Smith, 2007, p. 238). It is important to remember that our perceptions of our students can often be interpreted by the students. They can tell when we think they can't do something and when we don't challenge them they will stop trying at all.
Lastly, it is important to remember commonsense when it comes to writing. We have to think back on our own writing styles, preferences, practices, and procedures. We can't assume that all children will want to write about the same topics or have the same writing procedures. Some students can sit down and write a paper about any topic with little or no difficulty. Other students will struggle for long periods of time, barely getting anything written down. We need to give our students the tools that they will need for success. This means introducing them to different types of literature, styles of writing, and outlets for literacy. We need to provide our students with appropriate audiences and make their learning come to life. When we do this students will enjoy reading and writing more. "Mark immediately wanted to know how to write that acceptance letter in the correct format. Students are much more willing to revise and edit their work when it is for a real audience for a real reason," (Rief, 2007, p.192).
If we can provide educational experiences that are real for students in reading, writing, mathematics, and science, students will have a better chance of fitting into E.D. Hirsch's mold of a literate American.
"Sexist assumptions and practices, enforced by gender differences and gender expectations, shape the ways we think about our schools, our teachers, and our children in schools, and some of these assumptions need to change," (Maher, 2008, p. 272).
I chose to start my blog this week with the above quotation from Maher's article, Categories of Sex and Gender: Either/Or, Both/And, and Neither/Nor because I think it nicely ties together week 6's discussion of Video Games/Technology readings and this weeks discussion about gender issues in literacy.
For week 6 we were asked to break each article down into six words. I've decided to share my six words.
1. Fair Learning Opportunities Produce Fair Assessments
2. New Capitalism Impacts Equality in Schools
3. Video Games: Not Just Mind Numbing!
4. Digital Literacy: Future Success for Students
5. Technology impacts literacy positively for students.
The readings from last week pointed out video games in today's youth. "This game -- and this turned out to be true of video games more generally -- requires the player to learn and think in ways in which I am not adept. Suddenly all my baby-boomer ways of learning and thinking, for which I had heretofore received ample rewards, did not work," (Gee, 2003, p.1). Video games have more to offer than mindless dribble to children. As an educator, I find myself competing against technology to captivate my students attention. Perhaps it is time to incorporate these new literacies into our teaching.
"In my more cynical moments I have often envisioned culture and its influence on our construction of identities as a giant wave. Try as we might to resist, the wave is going to pick everyone up and carry us all along in the same direction. Swimming against it ends in exhaustion. The only choice is to swim with the wave and try to lang somewhere safe," (Williams, 2007, p.300).
Some of this weeks readings looked at the specific content that our students are interested in. Williams article, Boys may be boys, but do they have to read and write that way? she examined the boys and violence. "The underlying fear is that boys cannot distinguish between the violence in a story and the violence in real life, or that they are unable to process imaginative work but instead absorb it and are molded by it without thinking," (Williams, 2004, p.512). It is important that we allow our students to write about what interests them. By limiting our children's creativity and critiquing their interests we are stifling their desire to write. Along the same line, by not choosing pieces of literature that are intriguing to our students we are losing them in stories that don't connect with their lives. I recall reading many stories throughout my middle school and high school careers that were geared more towards the males. The protagonists of these stories were mostly men. Even though these pieces of work were interesting, I had trouble making connections between my life and the characters in the book. We need to promote reading and writing in our students by letting them channel both their interests and these new literacies in school. "The teachers who encourage writing without regard to subject matter are the ones who are able to see that boys are using literacy practices when they seek out websites about video games or argue over the plot of a movie or television program," (Williams, 2004, p.514).
To wrap up this blog I'm going to share the music video to Lady Gaga's "Born This Way".
I've included this video because of the article Categories of Sex and Gender: Either/Or, Both/And, and Neither/Nor. "To transgress the boundaries, valued so strongly by society, is to begin to undo violence and oppression and the regulation and control of those identities. These transgressions are a "step outside," and therefore an attack on the power held by those who conform and police identity boundaries," (Hill, 2000, p.31). I believe this video makes a great stand for gender identity and being okay in the skin you were born in.
Another video that supports the ideas in Hill's article is Michael Jackson's video, "Black and White." Gender, like many things in this world are not black any white. There are many gray areas that society does not seem to accept.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
"In actuality, the definition of fairness has little to do with treating people in an identical manner. The true definition of fairness is: 'Fairness means that everyone gets what he or she needs.'" This was stated byRichard D. Lavoie in his article, Fairness: To Each According to His Needs.Fairness: To Each According to His Needs
When I think of sameness, I immediately think of the book The Giver by Lois Lowry. The Giver
In this story, people are all the same.
I've done quite a few readings this past week on fairness and sameness in education. Some of the readings were focused on "sameness as fairness". In this article, Gutierrez points out different educational practices that are attempting to produce this sameness as fairness concept. For example, schools in Los Angeles that offer a different curriculum, one that includes different cultures and languages, can be seen as a threat and therefore shut down. Gutierrez also spoke of how there are packaged programs for teaching reading and writing. These programs are one-size-fits-all and dummy-down literacy so that it is obtainable by all.
I don't see sameness as fairness. No two people are the same. We all come from different backgrounds. We all come to school with slightly different knowledge of literacy. We all have different interests. We all learn different. I fully embrace Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligence. These universal curricula do not incorporate Howard Gardner's Theory.
Instead I see fairness as defined above. Fairness does not necessarily mean equality, but rather providing support to meet individual needs. We don't all have the same needs and therefore a universal curriculum can't possibly meet the needs of all students. As Malcolm Gladwell discovered, we each have our own personal preference when it comes to tomato sauce, coffee, pickles, etc. There are different food items out there to meet our own personal needs and preference. We should learn from Gladwell and not push a universal into education. We each have our own needs and preference of learning style.
"After all these years of common schooling, we still have no real way of knowing if students are learning." Dr. Tuck made this comment in her blog this week and it has really gotten me to think. I know that children go to school, complete a variety of activities or tasks that are hopefully helping them build the skills they will need to succeed (pass the standardized test), and then go home and possibly complete some work outside of school. This all builds up to the standardized state tests the students have to take to measure what they have learned in school. Is this an accurate way to measure what our students are learning? Are our students learning from this method of teaching?
In my opinion this is a terrible way to measure what your children are learning. I don't think that standardized tests accurately measure what they say they are measuring. In my assessment class with Dr. Salend, we had a conversation about standardized tests. In particular we looked at the NYS teacher certification tests. I remember someone commenting on how they felt like most of the answers on the test that they were looking for were common sense and if you were good at taking multiple choice tests you could probably pass the test without ever stepping foot into an education class. I felt similarly about the tests. I also didn't think that they were a fair way of measuring what I had learned in my time at school.
Another class I took at SUNY New Paltz discussed the concept of Multiple Intelligence. Howard Gardner has proposed 8 (recently added a 9th) way that people are intelligent. Standardized tests DO NOT provide a way for students who are not linguistical or logical/mathematical smart to show what they've learned. Also, as Hilliard points out in his article, not all students have access to the same vocabulary. Standardized tests are presented in a format that is "One Style Fits All".
Also, standardized tests give us an idea of what measurable learning is. The curriculum is built around what we can put on the standardized test, what we can measure. It determines what is important to be taught in our classroom and gives children the impression that the immeasurable learning is not important or the concepts that won't be on the standardized test are not important. Carini's reading really focused in on this idea of the immeasurable. "The immeasurable also makes me think of those events that arouse in us awe and wonder, perhaps rendering us speechless." How do we incorporate the immeasurable into what our students are learning? I believe these moments to be the most important ones of all and need to be counted as student learning.
I believe that changes need to happen in the education system, especially in the way that we measure students learning. I think that there is a place and time for tests and we can't rule out the use of them completely. I do think that we need to include some new ways to look at what our students are learning in the classroom. I have learned a bit about portfolios as a means of alternative assessment. This is a lot of work to create, but I find it to be more meaningful than a test. Also, project based learning is an incredible way to measure students learning. Throughout the entire course of the project, students learning is being evaluated. This is done using formative assessments and then looking at the final project that students have created. This project can be evaluated using a rubric. I believe that you will be able to see progress in students from the beginning of the project to the end. I will be watching several different project based lessons happening this summer at Say Yes to Education in Syracuse. I believe the learning the students will be doing this summer will be some of the most meaningful, "immeasurable" learning the children have ever experienced.
Imagine the school you send your child to. Can you picture it? Children seated in neat little rows, learning things that they will need to help them succeed in the real world. Becoming literate individuals, making life long friends, and gaining a first rate education. But what is it that they are really learning and who is determining what it is that our children need to know for the real world?
Most of our schooling is focused on state exams. Schools are pressured to meet particular goals and are required to have each student pass the state exams. In some schools, upwards of 13 weeks of test prep occurs during school hours. That's more than 3 months of school devoted to the state tests. Who determines this? Why are we working towards meeting the demands of state tests?
Though my recent research on the topic, I've come across Neoliberalism. Through the beliefs of Neoliberals, there is a desire to have what is public, privatized. They want to see public education done away with. But what does this mean for our children? Public schools are forced to meet certain standards set by the state exams. These exams determine how much state funding schools receive. We are seeing schools that are not meeting the standards classified as failing schools. These failing schools are often shut down and then reopened as charter schools or other privately operated schools. Many of these schools that are failing are in locations with a high concentration of African Americans and Latinos, or in an impoverished area. Things for these students don't get better when a charter school is opened or a private school. These schools are highly competitive and pricey. These students are put into schools that are failing, with limited resources. These schools are over crowded and they are still being put through strict, direct instruction leading up to taking state exams.
I came across another term in my research this week. This was Neoconservatism. Even though neoconservatists are on the opposite end of the spectrum as neolibertarians, their beliefs are not making matters better for our students. Neoconservatists want to see education return back to what it traditionally was. They want to reduce what students are learning. Many Neoconservatists support Charter schools and Private schools because they can follow a curriculum that does not have to meet the standards of the state. These schools can limit or restrict what information their students learn. One example of such a restrict was teaching students about how the United States was racist. Parts of Martin Luther King's, "I have a dream" speech was cut out to keep all inferences of the United States being racist.
This current shift in the education system in the United States is one that angers me and will be extremely interesting to watch progress through the next few years. There are major changes in need of occurring and I'm not sure where these changes are going to take place.
"The concept of multiple literacies provides an analytic heuristic with which to consider the rande of literacy practices in which ELLs engage across contexts in different languages and various modalities," (p.337, Haneda). As an educator we need to remember that our students whom speak multiple languages have a wide range of literacies which they engage in outside of school. We also need to remember that the literacy practices from range from one culture to another.
I think it is important to provide children the opportunity to use their first language in school as well as the other languages that they are learning. It can be frustrating only be allowed to use English in school when you are not fluent in its uses or are struggling with the different concepts. I believe that for older students, we could give them an opportunity to create a blog in school. This can be done in which ever language they would like to use. By blogging about particular topics or freely, students can practice using their language.
"There are yet other children who fail to become fully literate in either first language or second language," (p337, Haneda). How can we expect children to be literate in English when they have yet to master their native language? For this reason we can not ban use of their native language in school. Their are skills that these children need to learn in their first language before we can expect them to comprehend and be successful using a second language, especially when the rules of a second language can be very different and challenging to master.
Some children receive extra support outside of class from parents, siblings, and extended family. I think that by creating a support system for ELL students they could become more successful. Not all students have the support system outside of school. Perhaps through the use of peer mentoring or after school activities, students would receive extra help that they need.
Learning experiences need to be personally relevant to students. In order to make sure that students are connected with the school work they are doing, we need to provide them with things that are of interest to them. I think that continually taking inventory of your students interests, likes, and dislikes will make this a lot easier to do. This will make selecting works of literature for your students to read a more rewarding process. Students want to read about things that interest them. It is important for them to read many other things as well, but this will help them foster literacy in a way that captivates them and motivates them.
I also want to be able to encourage my students to share their literacy with the class. By this I mean, tell stories or write poems in their native language. Through the use of short presentations students will be able to practice their literacy skills and feel confident do so. They should feel safe in their environment so that they will feel comfortable opening up and expressing themselves. Our students should want to share their lives with us.
In E.D. Hirsch Jr's article Literacy and Cultural Literacy, he states that, "Cultural literacy lies above the everyday levels of knowledge that everyone possesses and below the expert level known only to specialists. It is that middle ground of cultural knowledge possessed by the 'common reader'... " (p. 19). The question lies as to what knowledge is considered cultural literacy?
Hirsch created a list of "What Literate Americans Know". His list includes things geographical items such as The Gulf of Mexico, Harlem NY, and Hollywood CA. It includes such people as Hitler, Alfred Hitchcock, Herbert Hoover, and Mao Tse-tung. Hirsch included many famous works of literature like Mary Had a Little Lamb, Pride and Prejudice, and Hamlet. He has created a list of "scientific" words that a literate person should know. These are items such as hemoglobin, heterogeneity, mass, mammal, and the quadratic equation.
If I were to create my own list of what a literate American knows you would find it would look like this:
To Kill A Mockingbird byHarper Lee
The Harry Potter Seriesby JK Rowling
We Didn't Start The Fire by Billy Joel (and can identify the places, events, and people in this song).
The chromosomal difference between a male and a female human (You'd be surprised how many of my friends can't tell you this!)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Michael Jackson
Osama Bin Ladin
Ground Zero
The Itzy Bitsy Spider
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Shakespeare
Times Square
Japan
Natural Disaster
As I was reading through Hirsch's list of "What Literate Americans Know", I found myself thinking of all the nights my friends and I sit at trivia night. I began to wonder if the questions being asked could be considered what literate Americans know? Some of the questions are things that everyone would know. Most questions are not at the level of an expert. I challenge you to go to a trivia night and see what you know. Are you a literate American?
