This is a brilliant way to make connections between students previous experiences with the world around them and the material that they are learning. It also promotes development self directed learning.
via mscottnine Scott Nine
(Source: storify.com)
0097: The Futility of Standardized #Testing. Teachers, Rebel and Teach
#education #SOS #revolution
I spent yesterday afternoon consulting with academic coaches at my school about how to implement content area literacy strategies. The meeting, of course, was intended to develop strategies for covering masses of material to meet curriculum standards. Our school needs to survive this next round of testing. I’ve been summoned to help, but it’s so late in the year. We discussed strategies for increasing reading fluency and comprehension. With discussed vocabulary instruction. We discussed strengthening basic skills. One of the coaches held up her pacing guide pitifully and asked, “How can we do all that and still cover the pacing guide.” “You can’t,” I said, “we can implement a few strategies to hopefully get a few skills in, but quality teaching, questioning, and skill building takes an academic career, not just 2 months.” They all looked defeated. Looking down a coach said, “It’s not intended for us to pass is it?”
The testing crisis has bred futility among our teachers. We show up to work each day swearing there’s hope. We vow to teach, to really teach, but our teaching practice is interrupted. Our concern for the well being, creativity, and critical thinking of our students is brutally stamped out with standardized tests and improvement plans. Good teachers are known as failures. Test drillers are lauded for their efforts. Our schools are in crisis. Further, the next generation is in crisis. The well being of our society is in peril. If we don’t build a critical consciousness among our people—students, teachers, citizens—then we will surely fall prey, if we have not already, to unthinkable tyranny. Teachers do not stop fighting. Teach. Help learners learn to learn. Test be damned.
#democracy
Prescriptive #education (i.e., public education) serves to distance learners and teachers alike from their social reality. The needs of individuals and communities are never given the time of day, as we mindlessly accept curriculum from the State. Rather than educating our students critically, we busy their minds with distractions that will ultimately prevent them from ever completely participating in an open society. Until education seeks to help learners analyze their worlds critically, we will all remain passive victims of a distant ruling class.
0075: Re: The US 3rd World, Its Children, and the Job of Educators
#teaching #poverty #revolution #occupy
Dear Readers,
I teach, like many of you, invisible children in an invisible neighborhood. They are, to many, the nameless, faceless children of the third world within these United States. They will grow up witnessing violence and drug use. They will be victims of violence. They will commit acts of violence. They will be victims of every sort of abuse imaginable. They will be unemployed and incarcerated. Many have been incarcerated many times already, some as young as ten years old. They are told that a good education is the way out of their situation, but they are served a steady, non-critical diet of tests and test preparations. They are passed from grade to grade without every fully becoming literate. They’re born into an unfair playing field that has a glass ceiling. Their schools are often filled with well-meaning, but overwhelmed teachers who fear for their jobs and are thereby tied to the test training program. The students who need critical thinking skills are taught to consume. They are taught to listen and not speak. They are taught that if they do speak no one will hear. They are taught that no one has time to listen because there is a test in the near future that is more important than their needs as human beings. The school system that has taken over the job of Parent neglects them emotionally and spiritually.
These offenses to humanity are evident to teachers and others who struggle within these environments. But to many, they are legends and ghosts. The learners in these schools are without voices to bear witness to the injustices they endure. Their voices are never developed by the people who are in the position to aid in their development. They are too busy following orders to nurture the curious minds at their feet.
The American Third World is silenced by the system that claims to give it a voice. Oppression is allowed by making oppression incomprehensible. Teachers must teach critically. They must turn their attention to helping learners come to an understanding of the systems economic, educational, political that perpetuate their oppression. It is our job as teachers to bear witness to the injustice before us, and give voices to the voiceless. It is not acceptable to simply “teach” according to plan. Teaching must be authentic and problem based. The curriculum provided is sufficient only to keep a segment of society starving and dependent.
Teaching is a revolutionary act. It transcends curriculum, test scores, and systems. Teachers bear witness. Readers do the same. Education is a tool for social mobility, but only when learning occurs— only when learning is critical.
Yours very truly,
ETD
#revolution #education #occupy
…theory or introspection in the absence of collective social action is escapist idealism or wishful thinking.
” Denis Goulet’s Introduction to Paulo Freire’s Education for Critical Consciousness#revolution #education #occupy
…action without critical reflection and even without gratuitous contemplation is disastrous activism.
” Denis Goulet’s Introduction to Paulo Freire’s Education for Critical Consciousness0075: Re: The US Third World, Its Children, and the Obligation of Educators
#teaching #poverty #literacy #revolution #occupy
Dear Readers,
I teach, like many of you, invisible children in an invisible neighborhood. They are, to many, the nameless, faceless children of the third world within these United States. They will grow up witnessing violence and drug use. They will be victims of violence. They will commit acts of violence. They will be victims of every sort of abuse imaginable. They will be unemployed and incarcerated. Many have been incarcerated many times already, some as young as ten years old. They are told that a good education is the way out of their situation, but they are served a steady, non-critical diet of tests and test preparations. They are passed from grade to grade without every fully becoming literate. They’re born into an unfair playing field that has a glass ceiling. Their schools are often filled with well-meaning, but overwhelmed teachers who fear for their jobs and are thereby tied to the test training program. The students who need critical thinking skills are taught to consume. They are taught to listen and not speak. They are taught that if they do speak no one will hear. They are taught that no one has time to listen because there is a test in the near future that is more important than their needs as human beings. The school system that has taken over the job of Parent neglects them emotionally and spiritually.
These offenses to humanity are evident to teachers and others who struggle within these environments. But to many, they are legends and ghosts. The learners in these schools are without voices to bear witness to the injustices they endure. Their voices are never developed by the people who are in the position to aid in their development. They are too busy following orders to nurture the curious minds at their feet.
The American Third World is silenced by the system that claims to give it a voice. Oppression is allowed by making oppression incomprehensible. Teachers must teach critically. They must turn their attention to helping learners come to an understanding of the systems economic, educational, political that perpetuate their oppression. It is our job as teachers to bear witness to the injustice before us, and give voices to the voiceless. It is not acceptable to simply “teach” according to plan. Teaching must be authentic and problem based. The curriculum provided is sufficient only to keep a segment of society starving and dependent.
Teaching is a revolutionary act. It transcends curriculum, test scores, and systems. Teachers bear witness. Readers do the same. Education is a tool for social mobility, but only when learning occurs— only when learning is critical.
Yours very truly,
ETD
0073: #Education as Utopia, or Heaven, or Not so boring, or Humanizing
#SOS #revolution #teaching
If I had my way, if schools were to slide from the dystopian clutches of training and ennui, then how would they look? I struggle to produce an image, and I find it hard to recall what I know about how people really learn and function. But, here goes.
We’ll start with the teachers. Teachers would work together, and now just during rare and pointless faculty meetings. Teachers would plan, teach, and reflect together. It would be a team effort. Subjects would not be segmented, they would work in concert to solve problems, some real and some invented for simulation. So, I suppose all curriculum would be problematicized, problem-based learning. Of course, basics would be taught, literacy, math, etc. And, those basics would be mastered. But, while they were being mastered real problem solving would be in progress. Teachers and students would work in collectives to solve problems. I think that would suffice as curriculum. People would all have strengths and weaknesses, different strengths and weaknesses, and strengths would be used, and some weaknesses would be strengthened or forgotten (teachers included). Additionally, something practical and tangible would come from the work done in school, a product, new information, perhaps money, something other than a score. Decisions would be made democratically. That means the role of principal and upper administration might no longer exist. That might mean teacher training would have to be different. It might exclude or include some from the teaching field. Teachers would have to be devoted to the process, and self-disciplined. Education would be participatory. No top-down bullshit.
I would love for the building to look different, less institutional. It’s a problem when schools and prisons use the same aesthetic. What if schools weren’t confined to specific buildings? Perhaps there was a building, but more time was spent elsewhere. What if we did more? What if we performed and produced instead of just sitting and getting? What if? What if? What if, these were realities and not what ifs? I know I’d be more eager. I’d teach forever. Changes must be made, and not just bandaid reforms. It’s not the curriculum. It’s not just the bureaucracy. It’s the whole damn system. The intention is wrong. People need to thrive, not just survive. How can this change? Who will change it?
