One year ago today I started All Things Education. Happy Blogiversary to me! Unfortunately, so far I have spent my blogiversary at a dentist's appointment (but no cavities :) and reading depressing tweets from Rupert Murdoch's big speech about education racketeering, I mean, reform. So now it's time for some reflection.
I'd always enjoyed writing, but I started writing more seriously during my last year of college. For my senior project, I translated a series of short stories from French to English and that hooked me. After graduating, I continued writing, but then fell in love with teaching which I did for about ten years before deciding to take a break to spend more time with my children and more time writing. I took several writing workshops and got some of my creative work published. If you're interested, you can find links to them on my other blog, which I initially started to share my writing and get some feedback. I started writing more and more about education and decided to dedicate an entire blog to it. Then, I started tweeting. . .
This time last year, I had maybe 1,000 hits on my (other) blog which was a couple of years old. My education blog has earned close to 32,000 hits in just one year. I now have a couple hundred subscribers when I used to have maybe 5. Last fall and winter I had 60 - 70 followers on twitter. Now I have between 730 - 740. I have gotten a few pieces published in larger publications, which, again, I link to in my other blog.
As a writer, this is all very, very affirming and I want to thank all of my readers, followers, and mentors. To those who support me, you give me confidence and courage. To those who question, critique, and push back, it is from you that I learn and grow. To all of the writers, bloggers, tweeters, and activists who influence me, you inspire me, teach me, and make me think (for a sampling of my influences, see "What I Read" on the right). To the editors and authors of bigger blogs and publications who have featured or linked to my work, thank you for giving my ideas and work a chance. Finally, to my husband, thank you so much for encouraging me to take on all of this and for helping me ( successfully, most of the time :) to keep my pettier instincts in check.
For the coming year,"I will continue to blog and to solicit guest posts, but I also want to return some to my creative writing as I've neglected it in the past year. I also need to, um, GET A JOB. If I have treated the past three as apprenticeship years, now I must find a way to move up to employee status. Besides the reasons stated above, I took a break from teaching because I didn't like the direction the system was going in; the corrosive effects on good practice and rich and meaningful curriculum of high-stakes testing and standardization all ran contrary to what I had been taught and what I knew to be high quality education. The idea of improving our education system using anti-intellectual reforms, under anti-intellectual leadership seems antithetical. That being said, I have felt more and more, although I am involved as a public school parent, that the longer I am out of the classroom, the longer I am not working in schools, the less what I have to say is valid or relevant and also the less useful my work is. So besides pursuing writing gigs, I am also going to pursue teaching ones. I've learned so much as a parent and reading, writing, and blogging about education; at the very least what I've learned will make me a better and more informed teacher (too bad one of it counts towards renewing my license!)
This is not to say that I am feeling certain or confident about any of this. It scares me to the point that I wake up anxiety-striken in the wee hours almost every morning. I worry that I won't be able to find a job. I worry that I'll have to take a job that I don't like, that I'll be forced to be a McTeacher teaching McEducation in a McSchool. I worry that I'll get a job I like but that I'll be overwhelmed with it and my parenting responsibilities and will fail miserably at both. I worry that no one will want to hire me because I'm too old and my skills too rusty.
However this all turns out, I'll certainly let you know. And, hey, thanks for reading. It has meant the world to me, really.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Education Films Series IV: The Class
This post is dedicated to all of my mentors and co-workers. Thank you for all you've taught me (and all you will teach me :)
Another education film I've seen recently (well, in the past year ) is The Class featuring Francois Begaudeau as high school English teacher, Mr. Marin. The film is based on his memoir which chronicles his experience teaching in inner-city Paris. It wasn't a documentary, but it almost could have been; I felt like a fly on the wall in Mr. Marin's classroom. It was so real, in fact, that I had a hard time watching it. It's not that the students were so tough (not at all--as a side thought, I wonder if the experience would have been different in the Paris banlieues or suburbs--some are comparable to U.S. inner city neighborhoods and more recently some inner-loop suburbs). Rather, I had a hard time because although according to the movie he was a three-year veteran, he seemed to be making some rookie mistakes. Some are the same mistakes I made as a rookie, mistakes which were thankfully pointed out to me by veteran mentors.
Back to Ms. Levy. . . during the school year that followed summer school I had another mentor teacher. He observed a few of my classes and then went over his observations with me. (I also didn't have my own classroom that year and so I was fortunate to have the eyes on me of the teachers in whose rooms I taught.) One of the things I most remember being critiqued on was that I told students when they walked in late, "You're late." I'd say. My mentor told me, "Rachel, you know they're late, they know they're late, why stop class to point it out? Why put them on the defensive?" Although this was a small point, it was a key one. I found I could apply it to many other interactions with and generally giving feedback to students. I learned there's a time, a place, and a way to give feedback; publicly, sarcastically and in a way that's likely to humiliate students, as I saw Mr. Marin do some in The Class, is the wrong way. Mark the students late, of course, and hold them accountable for their trespasses like tardiness but do so in a way that's proactive, private, and appropriate.
Of course, while I think my criticisms of Mr. Marin (and I have positive feedback as well) are valid, I don't know that much about his school or what's expected of him or how France educates its teachers. I'd really have to ask and hear him explain why he reacted the way he did. Furthermore, I appreciated how Begaudeau let all of us viewers into his "classroom." As a new teacher, it was hard for me to be vulnerable to my mentors and their criticisms. Not only were many of the students I taught challenging, but I felt like I was doing a horrible job.
Around the time that I watched this film, there was a lot being written about video-taping teachers in order to evaluate them. As I got to watch (and then critique) Mr. Marin's teaching and as I recalled my own experiences, I was reminded of the value of mentoring, coaching, and evaluation.
Luckily, my observation of Mr. Begaudeau is not high stakes, especially given that I've never stepped foot in his school, nor do I know much about the training teachers get in France. This seems to be at least one of the shortcomings of the Gates Foundation initiative to video tape teachers. The teachers don't get the feedback quickly enough for it to be useful and the feedback is given by people far removed from the particular school and classrooms. Furthermore, one of the Gates-funded academics involved in the project seems to be looking at it as an opportunity to develop "cottage industries." Are we trying to improve teaching and learning here or are we trying to create even more unnecessary education-related "cottage industries" to waste precious dollars on? On the contrary, the video-taping experience that California ESOL teacher Larry Ferlazzo describes here is a cost-effective and valuable way to use video-tape evaluations to improve teaching.
As for mentoring, luckily the observations my mentors did of my teaching were not high stakes. They were designed to help me improve my practice, not to see if I should be fired. Observations and evaluations are valuable and necessary. Evaluation and improvement shouldn't be mutually exclusive, but unfortunately, they're largely coming to be. Just like I learned that giving feedback to students is all in the how, so is giving feedback to teachers. The goal should be to make our students better students, and to make us better teachers. When your mentor is your boss, and the feedback can get you fired, people will be much less open to the feedback and to giving an honest presentation of their teaching and philosophy of teaching. It makes an evaluation something to be gamed, rather than a tool to develop, improve, and build.
Another education film I've seen recently (well, in the past year ) is The Class featuring Francois Begaudeau as high school English teacher, Mr. Marin. The film is based on his memoir which chronicles his experience teaching in inner-city Paris. It wasn't a documentary, but it almost could have been; I felt like a fly on the wall in Mr. Marin's classroom. It was so real, in fact, that I had a hard time watching it. It's not that the students were so tough (not at all--as a side thought, I wonder if the experience would have been different in the Paris banlieues or suburbs--some are comparable to U.S. inner city neighborhoods and more recently some inner-loop suburbs). Rather, I had a hard time because although according to the movie he was a three-year veteran, he seemed to be making some rookie mistakes. Some are the same mistakes I made as a rookie, mistakes which were thankfully pointed out to me by veteran mentors.
For one, Mr. Marin seemed to argue excessively with his students. The same summer I completed my master's degree in education, I taught a summer school course at the inner city high school where I would continue to work for the following two years. One student in the class was particularly difficult and I made the rookie mistake of letting him engage me in pointless arguments and of taking his behavior personally. In an attempt to help sort things out, the director of the summer program observed the class and then met with the two of us. After, she told me, among other things, that my and the student's discussions sounded as if they were between peers. "This sounds like a peer interaction. I'm not comfortable with that. You're not his peer," she reminded me pointedly.
It was too late for me to go back and change how I had interacted with him, but given her insights, I changed course. The student was still difficult, but not as much as he had been, and I was able to manage our interactions much more professionally and appropriately. What I learned then has helped me for years to come, and it liberated me. As long as it didn't disrupt the learning of others, I could make sure students felt heard and like their concerns were taken seriously, but in such cases students didn't have to concede I was "right" for me to remain confident in my role. I was their teacher, not their peer; I was the adult in the room.
But in The Class, it seemed like Mr Marin was caught up in the struggle of "I'm the teacher, you're the student" instead of just simply being the teacher. Perhaps this is a cultural difference.When I lived in and studied in France, I noticed that there wasn't as much the tradition of questioning the teacher as we have in the US, and perhaps the film reflected a change in their school culture. Perhaps engaging with his students on this level was his way of being open to that, but his sarcasm, his attempts to out-smart and out-embarrass his students seemed counter-productive, unprofessional, and a waste of time. Instead of trying to embarrass them before they embarrassed him, he should have just gone for setting the standard of no embarrassing of anyone by anyone.
It was too late for me to go back and change how I had interacted with him, but given her insights, I changed course. The student was still difficult, but not as much as he had been, and I was able to manage our interactions much more professionally and appropriately. What I learned then has helped me for years to come, and it liberated me. As long as it didn't disrupt the learning of others, I could make sure students felt heard and like their concerns were taken seriously, but in such cases students didn't have to concede I was "right" for me to remain confident in my role. I was their teacher, not their peer; I was the adult in the room.
But in The Class, it seemed like Mr Marin was caught up in the struggle of "I'm the teacher, you're the student" instead of just simply being the teacher. Perhaps this is a cultural difference.When I lived in and studied in France, I noticed that there wasn't as much the tradition of questioning the teacher as we have in the US, and perhaps the film reflected a change in their school culture. Perhaps engaging with his students on this level was his way of being open to that, but his sarcasm, his attempts to out-smart and out-embarrass his students seemed counter-productive, unprofessional, and a waste of time. Instead of trying to embarrass them before they embarrassed him, he should have just gone for setting the standard of no embarrassing of anyone by anyone.
Back to Ms. Levy. . . during the school year that followed summer school I had another mentor teacher. He observed a few of my classes and then went over his observations with me. (I also didn't have my own classroom that year and so I was fortunate to have the eyes on me of the teachers in whose rooms I taught.) One of the things I most remember being critiqued on was that I told students when they walked in late, "You're late." I'd say. My mentor told me, "Rachel, you know they're late, they know they're late, why stop class to point it out? Why put them on the defensive?" Although this was a small point, it was a key one. I found I could apply it to many other interactions with and generally giving feedback to students. I learned there's a time, a place, and a way to give feedback; publicly, sarcastically and in a way that's likely to humiliate students, as I saw Mr. Marin do some in The Class, is the wrong way. Mark the students late, of course, and hold them accountable for their trespasses like tardiness but do so in a way that's proactive, private, and appropriate.
Of course, while I think my criticisms of Mr. Marin (and I have positive feedback as well) are valid, I don't know that much about his school or what's expected of him or how France educates its teachers. I'd really have to ask and hear him explain why he reacted the way he did. Furthermore, I appreciated how Begaudeau let all of us viewers into his "classroom." As a new teacher, it was hard for me to be vulnerable to my mentors and their criticisms. Not only were many of the students I taught challenging, but I felt like I was doing a horrible job.
Around the time that I watched this film, there was a lot being written about video-taping teachers in order to evaluate them. As I got to watch (and then critique) Mr. Marin's teaching and as I recalled my own experiences, I was reminded of the value of mentoring, coaching, and evaluation.
Luckily, my observation of Mr. Begaudeau is not high stakes, especially given that I've never stepped foot in his school, nor do I know much about the training teachers get in France. This seems to be at least one of the shortcomings of the Gates Foundation initiative to video tape teachers. The teachers don't get the feedback quickly enough for it to be useful and the feedback is given by people far removed from the particular school and classrooms. Furthermore, one of the Gates-funded academics involved in the project seems to be looking at it as an opportunity to develop "cottage industries." Are we trying to improve teaching and learning here or are we trying to create even more unnecessary education-related "cottage industries" to waste precious dollars on? On the contrary, the video-taping experience that California ESOL teacher Larry Ferlazzo describes here is a cost-effective and valuable way to use video-tape evaluations to improve teaching.
As for mentoring, luckily the observations my mentors did of my teaching were not high stakes. They were designed to help me improve my practice, not to see if I should be fired. Observations and evaluations are valuable and necessary. Evaluation and improvement shouldn't be mutually exclusive, but unfortunately, they're largely coming to be. Just like I learned that giving feedback to students is all in the how, so is giving feedback to teachers. The goal should be to make our students better students, and to make us better teachers. When your mentor is your boss, and the feedback can get you fired, people will be much less open to the feedback and to giving an honest presentation of their teaching and philosophy of teaching. It makes an evaluation something to be gamed, rather than a tool to develop, improve, and build.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Education Films Series III, Our Town: The kind of teaching and learning that we all want in our towns
A few weeks before Waiting for Superman came out, I watched a documentary called Our Town. It's about an English teacher in Compton, California, who leads a group of students through putting on the first play, Thorton Wilder's classic Our Town, their high school has produced in years. It is a pure documentary--there's no agenda (or at least not any obvious one to me), moralizing, politics, or what my husband terms, "auto-hommage."
I liked this film on so many levels. It's not flashy, it's not sexy, mountains are not moved, it's not "Glee." Instead, it's real. Putting on a play is painstakingly hard work and the challenges of being a student and teacher in an inner city school are not small. The play was modest, it was not perfect, and some students failed to fulfill their committments to it. Despite the challenges and the lack of miracles, the film shows what a valuable learning experience putting on a play can be and how much such performances can mean to their schools' communities: the house was full every night.
Although I wholeheartedly agree that kids need a base of factual knowledge, I'd like to see a lot more emphasis on this type of learning experience, especially in places like Compton. This type of learning can be both meaningful and academic, academic in that kids studied and learned from a rich literary masterpiece and meaningful in that they saw the fruits of their hard work and commitment and owned their performances. Furthermore, there are elements of learning to being on stage that aren't available in other traditional content classes. Finally, kids in the most underprivileged communities need the same opportunities as kids in privileged communities to study subjects such as art, music, PE, science, social studies, foreign languages, and theater, both in and after class.
One negative: I didn't like the way the basketball program was demonized. On the one hand, I understand how much high school sports, in particular male high school sports, especially football and basketball, can suck up disproportionate resources and attention, while theater groups and the like are left to fend for themselves. This is a valid complaint. But my take is that the theater programs, etc, should be equally well funded and supported. Team sports aren't at all a negative. Just as being part of a performing arts cast can be a meaningful learning experience for kids, so can being part of a sports team.
To me, this documentary serves as a much better alternative to Waiting for Superman than any other recent education documentary out there. The teacher featured isn't superman--no one can be that--but she navigates the nitty-gritty of educating teenagers with humanity and fortitude. These are the kinds of teachers we need to focus on retaining, and we can do so in part by allowing them to move away from test prep and towards rich and meaningful education.
It also struck me, since I wrote about teaching character recently, that this is the way to teach character, not explicitly and not on some chart or report card, but through having kids engage in interesting and meaningful learning and projects, to have them work hard and be part of a team and part of a community.
As for the students, when they look back ten years later, they're not going to remember the teacher that covered two years of content in one year; they're going to remember and value this amazing learning experience they had. In experiences like this, the teacher can end up covering way more material than anyone can imagine or measure. Despite the value of rich content, the most valued content of our memories are experiences, especially experiences like these where we confront a real challenge and come out better, wiser, and prouder. I hope that we aren't so busy with what we can measure that we end up losing what students and their families treasure.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Bridging Philosophical Differences
Yesterday evening I posted on twitter a link to this post in Bridging Differences by Diane Ravitch, saying that I thought she made very compelling arguments against Parent Trigger-like legislation, that it's bad for democracy.
I got some push back on that. One of my favorite push-backers said that a) Teacher Trigger laws existed first and that b) Diane's post was "pure ad hominem."
Normally I don't mix my tweeting and my blogging. I generally think it's silly when people blog about what people say on twitter. Blogs and twitter are two very different mediums--I have different expectations and standards for each of them. That being said, I want to respond to what my critics said and I want to explain what I found so compelling; twitter is a terrible place to try to accomplish this.
First of all, I'd have to learn more about the particular ones being referred to, but I can't imagine that "Teacher Trigger" laws would be a good idea, either.
Second of all, "pure adhominem" (emphasis mine)? I don't see it, not purely. I can see why someone might find that in the piece, but it's certainly not the only thing there. Several months ago (see here and here) I decided that unless they are blatantly stated, divining people's motives is impossible. It's also not productive or often relevant to any given problem. I also, frankly, have a hard time getting through the day if I look at the world through such a dark lens, so though I don't always succeed, I try really hard not to, at least not publicly.
But what I found compelling in Diane's post was not who's doing the Parent Trigger and for what reasons, but rather, the philosophical arguments. Here's what I found compelling (emphasis mine):
So let's protest what we see as ad hominem and address its wrongs specifically, or, even better, let's minimize their distraction by brushing them aside, and instead focus on the philosophical (and yes, factual) heart of our common ground and differences.
I got some push back on that. One of my favorite push-backers said that a) Teacher Trigger laws existed first and that b) Diane's post was "pure ad hominem."
Normally I don't mix my tweeting and my blogging. I generally think it's silly when people blog about what people say on twitter. Blogs and twitter are two very different mediums--I have different expectations and standards for each of them. That being said, I want to respond to what my critics said and I want to explain what I found so compelling; twitter is a terrible place to try to accomplish this.
First of all, I'd have to learn more about the particular ones being referred to, but I can't imagine that "Teacher Trigger" laws would be a good idea, either.
Second of all, "pure adhominem" (emphasis mine)? I don't see it, not purely. I can see why someone might find that in the piece, but it's certainly not the only thing there. Several months ago (see here and here) I decided that unless they are blatantly stated, divining people's motives is impossible. It's also not productive or often relevant to any given problem. I also, frankly, have a hard time getting through the day if I look at the world through such a dark lens, so though I don't always succeed, I try really hard not to, at least not publicly.
But what I found compelling in Diane's post was not who's doing the Parent Trigger and for what reasons, but rather, the philosophical arguments. Here's what I found compelling (emphasis mine):
"To me, a public school is a public trust. It doesn't belong to the students who are currently enrolled in it or their parents or to the teachers who currently teach in it. All of them are part of the school community, and that community needs to collaborate to make the school better for everyone. Together, they should be able to redesign or create or discontinue programs and services. But collaboration is not the same as ownership. The school belongs to the public, to the commonwealth. It belongs to everyone who ever attended it (and their parents) and to future generations. It is part of the public patrimony, not an asset that can be closed or privatized by its current constituents.
If a school is dysfunctional, those who are in charge of the district are obliged to find out why and to do whatever they can to fix the problems. If the principal is incompetent, he or she should be removed. If there are teachers who are incompetent, they should be removed. If the school is doing poorly because it lacks necessary resources, the district is obliged to do whatever it can to improve the school.
I agree philosophically with what Diane is saying here. I value public democratic institutions and I want to see them preserved. I agree that democratic public institutions are in a tenuous state right now and I agree that they belong to the public: to past, present, and future generations. Maybe others don't agree with this. Maybe they think I over-value public democratic institutions or that they've failed. Maybe they think the free market can do better. But I don't think so. I'm certainly not anti-commerce, but I don't think free market mechanisms work in every context, particularly not if the markets have been rigged. That's not an ad hominem attack, that's expressing a philosophically different way of looking at the world; it's expressing a different value system.But giving the current parents the power to close the school or to hand it over to a private management company is akin to saying that whoever uses any public facility should have the same power, the power to transfer control to a private entity. It means if those who use Central Park in Manhattan don't like the way the city of New York takes care of it, they should be able to sign a petition and privatize it. If a majority of those who patronize a national park sign a petition, they should be able to hand control of the park over to private managers. This makes no sense."
So let's protest what we see as ad hominem and address its wrongs specifically, or, even better, let's minimize their distraction by brushing them aside, and instead focus on the philosophical (and yes, factual) heart of our common ground and differences.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Education Films Series: Introduction
I've been meaning to do this for quite a while, but the best laid plans (of which I seem to have five big ones going on at once at any given time). . .
Today I am going to launch a series of blog posts that combine two of my favorite topics: movies and education. The posts will discuss films about education and teaching. How fortunate that I have two such posts already written to get me started!
One is about the documentary Waiting for Superman, "What I Read About Waiting for Superman" which is more of a review of reviews.
The other is a guest post by Cedar Riener entitled, "Why I Didn't Like Race to Nowhere."
Enjoy and the next one should be up soon.
Today I am going to launch a series of blog posts that combine two of my favorite topics: movies and education. The posts will discuss films about education and teaching. How fortunate that I have two such posts already written to get me started!
One is about the documentary Waiting for Superman, "What I Read About Waiting for Superman" which is more of a review of reviews.
The other is a guest post by Cedar Riener entitled, "Why I Didn't Like Race to Nowhere."
Enjoy and the next one should be up soon.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The Context of Character Education
I was up late last night and early this morning reading and thinking about the Troy Davis case, our deeply unjust criminal justice system, and character education. I'm tired and out of blogging practice, so I may have some things to update or clarify later.
I read this New York Times Magazine article by Paul Tough about character education at KIPP middle schools in New York City and at Riverdale Country School, an elite private school also in New York City, expecting to be aggravated by it, but I wasn't at all. It was a solid piece of journalism--nuanced, thought provoking, and objective. That being said, I see some real problems in the approach being described.
I hadn't liked the sound of KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg's recent quote that: "KIPP teachers believe their job is to teach 49 percent academic and 51 percent character," so I was relieved when I read the other KIPP co-founder David Levin's clarification in the NYT article that:
Second, those who implement this character education may not be able to refrain from making assumptions about poverty and financial stability, making value judgments, or expressing those value judgments out loud. In the article I noticed both teachers at Riverdale and at KIPP expressing what I took as assumptions or "judgments."
While going over students' character report cards with parents during parent-teacher conferences, the KIPP teacher said,
As John Thompson so eloquently and thoughtfully states in this post (this is a MUST-read) in response to Tough's article, teachers are not trained to give such advice or conduct such therapy. These are complex psychological phenomena and people who aren't trained to interpret and apply them will probably be sloppy with them, as this teacher has been.
That being said, I think it's good to teach character and values as behaviors and habits that will lead to in-school and academic success (turning in homework on time, for example) or getting along with one's peers (how to respectfully disagree during a class discussion, for example). As Thompson puts it in his first post in response to Tough's piece, it's important "to teach students [how] to be students." And there is a lot of social-emotional learning that happens in school--that can't be denied--and teachers are a part of that. But otherwise, teachers and educators need to be really careful with how they approach these matters and they need to focus mostly on academics or teaching character implicitly via academic lessons. Reducing character to a simplified report card explained by people who lack a sophisticated understanding of psychological studies and behavior is careless at best and harmful at worst.
The initial thoughts from the teacher overseeing the character project at Riverdale resonated with me:
And history is not over. As the case of Troy Davis and the experiences of so many poor blacks and Latinos in Americans show, if the lower-income black or Latino KIPP student's father or even the student herself got caught buying or smoking pot, he'd have a vastly different experience with the criminal justice system than would the middle or upper-income white student at Riverdale. Character matters in this country, but unfortunately so does the color of your skin, the circumstances you were born into, who you know, how much money you have, and the policies and laws that govern all of us.
From where I stand, our nation's students could use a few more lessons in history, economics, government, and sociology, while our nation's powerful and "successful" law and policy makers, especially those behind the criminal justice system that is about to execute Troy Davis, could use a little more character education.
I read this New York Times Magazine article by Paul Tough about character education at KIPP middle schools in New York City and at Riverdale Country School, an elite private school also in New York City, expecting to be aggravated by it, but I wasn't at all. It was a solid piece of journalism--nuanced, thought provoking, and objective. That being said, I see some real problems in the approach being described.
I hadn't liked the sound of KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg's recent quote that: "KIPP teachers believe their job is to teach 49 percent academic and 51 percent character," so I was relieved when I read the other KIPP co-founder David Levin's clarification in the NYT article that:
He [Levin] was wary of the idea that KIPP’s aim was to instill in its students "middle-class values,” as though well-off kids had some depth of character that low-income students lacked. “The thing that I think is great about the character-strength approach,” he told me, “is it is fundamentally devoid of value judgment.”Still, there are some potential complications of this idea. For one, Levin may think it's a "judgement free" approach, but not everyone involved does or will, including some prominent KIPP supporters. As I discussed here, Matt Yglesias refers to schools like KIPP teaching "bourgeois modes of behavior" and "conduct." As Cedar Riener blogged about here, David Brooks talks about schools like KIPP having an "invigorating moral culture." And, as I respond to here, Mike Petrilli talks about, "the best schools for children of poverty . . . spend a lot of time inculturating their kids in middle class mores." Now maybe I've missed something, but I haven't heard Levin issue any clarification in those cases.
Second, those who implement this character education may not be able to refrain from making assumptions about poverty and financial stability, making value judgments, or expressing those value judgments out loud. In the article I noticed both teachers at Riverdale and at KIPP expressing what I took as assumptions or "judgments."
While going over students' character report cards with parents during parent-teacher conferences, the KIPP teacher said,
“For the past few years we’ve been working on a project to create a clearer picture for parents about the character of your child,” Witter explained to Flemister. “The categories that we ended up putting together represent qualities that have been studied and determined to be indicators of success. They mean you’re more likely to go to college. More likely to find a good job. Even surprising things, like they mean you’re more likely to get married, or more likely to have a family. So we think these are really important.”So here he's not only saying improving his character will help this particular student to get to college and get a good job (and hence be successful), it will help them to get married and have children (and hence be more successful). Wait a minute. Now I know there are some studies that show correlation between marriage and happiness and living longer (and FYI: I've only read about this positive correlation for men, not women), but that's a big leap to make: taking a few findings published from a few studies about marriage and happiness and using them to advise a middle school student that he should adjust his character so that he can get married and have kids. Some people choose NOT to get married and NOT to have kids. Is this teacher saying there's something about such people that indicates inferior character? That they're less successful than those who do choose to get married and have kids? Is it really any of this teacher's business whether this student chooses to get married or not? Is that what we're supposed to be teaching kids to do--to get married and have children? No, no, it's really not and he shouldn't be told that it is.
As John Thompson so eloquently and thoughtfully states in this post (this is a MUST-read) in response to Tough's article, teachers are not trained to give such advice or conduct such therapy. These are complex psychological phenomena and people who aren't trained to interpret and apply them will probably be sloppy with them, as this teacher has been.
That being said, I think it's good to teach character and values as behaviors and habits that will lead to in-school and academic success (turning in homework on time, for example) or getting along with one's peers (how to respectfully disagree during a class discussion, for example). As Thompson puts it in his first post in response to Tough's piece, it's important "to teach students [how] to be students." And there is a lot of social-emotional learning that happens in school--that can't be denied--and teachers are a part of that. But otherwise, teachers and educators need to be really careful with how they approach these matters and they need to focus mostly on academics or teaching character implicitly via academic lessons. Reducing character to a simplified report card explained by people who lack a sophisticated understanding of psychological studies and behavior is careless at best and harmful at worst.
The initial thoughts from the teacher overseeing the character project at Riverdale resonated with me:
When I spoke to Karen Fierst, the teacher who was overseeing the character project for the Riverdale lower school, she said she was worried that it would be a challenge to convince the students and their parents that there was anything in the 24 character strengths that might actually benefit them. For KIPP kids, she said, the notion that character could help them get through college was a powerful lure, one that would motivate them to take the strengths seriously. For kids at Riverdale, though, there was little doubt that they would graduate from college. “It will just happen,” Fierst explained. “It happened to every generation in their family before them. And so it’s harder to get them to invest in this idea."Certainly, I can understand that "going to college" wouldn't be as much of a motivator or novelty for Riverdale students as it would be for students at KIPP because those at Riverdale are pretty much born expecting to go to college. That makes a lot of sense. But she loses me here:
"For KIPP students, learning these strengths is partly about trying to demystify what makes other people successful — kind of like, ‘We’re letting you in on the secret of what successful people are like.’ But kids here already live in a successful community. They’re not depending on their teachers to give them the information on how to be successful.”Is she implying that families of Riverdale students have been successful merely due to their character? That the communities that KIPP students come from aren't successful due to a deficit of those values? I would imagine that the reason why the grandparents or parents of a lower-income black student at KIPP didn't go to college and "weren't successful" in the way that the grandparents or parents of a middle or upper income white Riverdale student is not simply because they didn't have the information about or character training in "how to be successful." Certainly, grit, perseverance, and curiosity help a great deal, but so does being born white and well-off. There are historical and sociological reasons for lack of success and poverty in this country.
And history is not over. As the case of Troy Davis and the experiences of so many poor blacks and Latinos in Americans show, if the lower-income black or Latino KIPP student's father or even the student herself got caught buying or smoking pot, he'd have a vastly different experience with the criminal justice system than would the middle or upper-income white student at Riverdale. Character matters in this country, but unfortunately so does the color of your skin, the circumstances you were born into, who you know, how much money you have, and the policies and laws that govern all of us.
From where I stand, our nation's students could use a few more lessons in history, economics, government, and sociology, while our nation's powerful and "successful" law and policy makers, especially those behind the criminal justice system that is about to execute Troy Davis, could use a little more character education.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Time to Teach the Kiddies Some Life Skilz
In case you're wondering where I've been: about a month ago we moved. Now, we only moved about a mile away but given that we moved into an old-buy-as-is house, there has been a fair amount of work to do. Oh, there are no medicine cabinets in the bathrooms. Better get some! Goodness, the floors are crooked. How to stabilize the furniture so we don't roll out of our beds at night? Hey, lookie there, we've got mice behind the stove.
One good thing (besides loving our beautiful new old place and wonderful new old neighborhood) about moving is that it forced me to take an extended break from writing, blogging, and tweeting. This has not been good for my writing practice, but it has been very good for me. I can take breaks from twitter and not miss anything. I should pay more attention to my family. I like interacting in person with real, live people. Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up tweeting and blogging, but as long as I'm just doing it as a volunteer, I am going to stop treating it as a job.
Speaking of one of my current jobs, I almost never write, creatively or otherwise, abut parenting. No offense, but there's little more boring than reading about what someone else's child looks like while they're sleeping. I'm also not so interested in parenting or mommy debates. You wanna be a Tiger Mom? Go for it! As long as you don't abuse your kids, I don't care. I don't really need to read an entire book that is either a justification of someone's approach to parenting or an annihilation of someone else's. Sure, I enjoy talking to other parents about the joys and challenges of parenting and I do read some parenting magazines (Brain, Child is a great one), but just as I don't want to limit my teaching to one pedagogic practice or ideology, I don't want to limit my parenting to one philosophy or approach.
When moving forced me to take a break from my own work and social media, I spent a bit more time with my own kids, especially my eight-year-old boys and I realized all of the things I could do when I was their age and all of the things they can't do. Granted, I was very independent and granted both of my parents worked full-time, but by the time I was seven I was popping over to the nearby supermarket by myself to pick up a gallon of milk. I was walking home from school with my sister and some playmates, and I was making dinner for my family one night a week.
My boys have learned a ton academically, both at home and school, but there are some big gaps in their knowledge of practicals. They can read the Harry Potter books and do advanced math, but they don't know how to cook an egg. They can dribble a soccer ball around me without breaking a sweat, but they can't fold their own laundry. One son has memorized in order all of the past US Presidents (he did this on his own, mind you) and the other knows every single Star Wars character, but neither knows our home or cell phone numbers. They can converse adequately about any number of subjects, but they don't know how to properly use a fork and knife. Finally (and this is more academic, I know) they have almost no knowledge of any foreign language.
So, while I will continue to encourage them academically and facilitate their book reading, lego building, painting, and soccer playing activities. I am going to focus this school year on teaching them more of practicals. How do you pick out an outfit? What do you do in an emergency? How do you find your way around our (albeit small) town? How do you answer a telephone? How do you prepare a simple meal? Finally, I'm going to see to it that they learn some Spanish.
So if I blog or tweet less these days, it's partly because I am still putting things up on my walls and killing mice (sorry, but we tried every other way), but it's also because I'm busy teaching my kids some sel sufficiency. That way I can spend even more time arguing in favor of rich and varied curricula, solid pedagogy, well-educated and respected teachers, and an end to high-stakes testing.
One good thing (besides loving our beautiful new old place and wonderful new old neighborhood) about moving is that it forced me to take an extended break from writing, blogging, and tweeting. This has not been good for my writing practice, but it has been very good for me. I can take breaks from twitter and not miss anything. I should pay more attention to my family. I like interacting in person with real, live people. Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up tweeting and blogging, but as long as I'm just doing it as a volunteer, I am going to stop treating it as a job.
Speaking of one of my current jobs, I almost never write, creatively or otherwise, abut parenting. No offense, but there's little more boring than reading about what someone else's child looks like while they're sleeping. I'm also not so interested in parenting or mommy debates. You wanna be a Tiger Mom? Go for it! As long as you don't abuse your kids, I don't care. I don't really need to read an entire book that is either a justification of someone's approach to parenting or an annihilation of someone else's. Sure, I enjoy talking to other parents about the joys and challenges of parenting and I do read some parenting magazines (Brain, Child is a great one), but just as I don't want to limit my teaching to one pedagogic practice or ideology, I don't want to limit my parenting to one philosophy or approach.
When moving forced me to take a break from my own work and social media, I spent a bit more time with my own kids, especially my eight-year-old boys and I realized all of the things I could do when I was their age and all of the things they can't do. Granted, I was very independent and granted both of my parents worked full-time, but by the time I was seven I was popping over to the nearby supermarket by myself to pick up a gallon of milk. I was walking home from school with my sister and some playmates, and I was making dinner for my family one night a week.
My boys have learned a ton academically, both at home and school, but there are some big gaps in their knowledge of practicals. They can read the Harry Potter books and do advanced math, but they don't know how to cook an egg. They can dribble a soccer ball around me without breaking a sweat, but they can't fold their own laundry. One son has memorized in order all of the past US Presidents (he did this on his own, mind you) and the other knows every single Star Wars character, but neither knows our home or cell phone numbers. They can converse adequately about any number of subjects, but they don't know how to properly use a fork and knife. Finally (and this is more academic, I know) they have almost no knowledge of any foreign language.
So, while I will continue to encourage them academically and facilitate their book reading, lego building, painting, and soccer playing activities. I am going to focus this school year on teaching them more of practicals. How do you pick out an outfit? What do you do in an emergency? How do you find your way around our (albeit small) town? How do you answer a telephone? How do you prepare a simple meal? Finally, I'm going to see to it that they learn some Spanish.
So if I blog or tweet less these days, it's partly because I am still putting things up on my walls and killing mice (sorry, but we tried every other way), but it's also because I'm busy teaching my kids some sel sufficiency. That way I can spend even more time arguing in favor of rich and varied curricula, solid pedagogy, well-educated and respected teachers, and an end to high-stakes testing.
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