Response to:
Assignment C:
E Wayne Ross - Diverting Democracy: The curriculum standards movement and social studies education. (2000).
Assorted NCLB readings.
I have decided the second reason for my brief bout with depression was not was not because I ran out of kettle corn 1/2 through the NCLB, but rather because, as an aspiring teacher I began to wonder what my role is at all. Where the hell my unique voice fit in. I like to think as a fairly intelligent human and somewhat "trained" educator I might be allowed some free reign over what is happening in "my" classroom. Ross' reading and NCLB took away that blissful optimism and even the idea of "my" classroom. Instead, it was replaced it with a strange bound feeling. (Yes I am about to go all "METAPHOR" on you) The feeling is as though my hands are tied loosely behind my back, in a knot I SHOULD, with all my 4H training be able to get out. But I have no wiggle room. I also have no guts. This could probably be attributed to my innate fear of the 4 administrative watchdogs (with alarmingly deep pockets) that are circling all my creative curricular ideas.
I took a few minutes after the reading to process, reflect and "cycle back up." I re- read the prompt and though... huh... what can I do... even with bound hands? (END OF METAPHOR.. I promise)
I concluded 2 things.
1) That I can report. I and all other teachers are the ones in the trenches... The Ross article and the NCLB report lacked a teacher's voice. Both pieces stated statistics and studies. This got me thinking...... What if teachers began reporting? What if policy makers didn't have to rely on large sweeping cross-sectional studies that are bound to overlook at least one type of educational population? What if teachers did smaller studies on classroom experiences and student reaction to variable content and unique curriculum? What If we as teachers begin to provide "in the field" quantitative data, case studies and theory that then could inform these sweeping notions of "leaving children behind."
2) This increase in national standards might not be such a bad thing. What if... we view it as a challenge to our creativity? As I read these articles I still had a very hard time succumbing to the idea that NCLB and other nationalization efforts were infringing on my CURRICULUM. While I will allow that the revised standards and the testing that accompanies them dictates certain SKILLS and CONTENT, I view curriculum as HOW one presents these skills and content. Therefore, I believe that the second responsibility that teachers have is to teach as Seixas put it, "the common national historical vocabulary." as creatively as possible. Teachers must not allow a student's critical eye to become less sharp.
However, it is most import that teachers do not feel "powerless to stop" this NCLB freight train because NCLB is not what is going to do the most damage. Instead, with their creativity and passion, teachers should fight against vague language and empty statistics that might (as past-experience has told us) rule future education policy decisions.
ADDENDUM:
I chose this one for 3 reasons
1) This reading got me AMPED about teacher action research. I really began to wonder about how working teachers might be able to effectively report their observations. It ends up that there is a whole section of books on that in the library...
2) I think that a lot of my service learning project had to do with this reading. I was sharply attuned to the fact SLP's should really attempt to rock some standards so that they are not deemed "other" and pushed aside.
3)The idea that standards shouldn't inhibit creativity became part of my "pedagogical philosophy" and also made my personal statement.
4 comments:
Meredith--
I really appreciated your post. Very funny and insightful. I agree. This topic is depressing, especially when one considers how little progress has been made in the past one hundred years. I agree that teachers have to be made more a part of the solution. In my own blog post, I give my opinion that we have to avoid making education too corporate. Yet, I can't help but sympathize with some of those that Wayne Ross criticizes. Standards, uniformity, and quality control measures can be tempting when dealing with the many problems that our public education system faces.
i couldn't agree more. it seems like every class that we have been taking has a directive of teaching us to be creative teachers that really get our students involved with interesting projects and a style of education that is not focused on merely distributing basic factual information but more on insprining debate and establshing skills. my methods class, in particular, is all about developing a teaching style where you work backwards, first figuring out what you want your students to gain, establishing goals for everyone then making the lesson plan from that. rather then already having a lesson plan that must be followed precisely. yet with the standards it seems like none of that matters. at the end of the day there are test that must be taken that dictate what can be taught. if the students are not prepared for these test then they fail. therefore a teacher cant decide what to teach because if he or she teaches something not on lets say the regents, whats the point and in addition it takes up from teaching stuff that the regents considers important to learn. overall, it is almost like the traditional fact distributing style that we were raised with. the same that we are being trained to avoid is the same we will be using.
Meredith -
First of all, LOL about Debbie Downer.
Secondly, excellent entry. I'm impressed that you were able to think through the issues and present possible strategies for improving and/or working with standards.
Lastly, great follow up comments by Samir and Jesse.
Ali
Thank you all for such positivity-
I think J-dog's comment about the temptation of falling back onto the standards is very telling.
In response to Samir-
I hope that I expressed well enough that, I believe these undergrad classes teach us creative techniques so that when HIT with the standard... we do not view them as a low ceiling that pushes down on us, but rather a spring board that bounces us outside the box.
Post a Comment