Camden’s Blog

From the beginning, schools were expected to operate as socializing agents for community and to make children into responsible, productive members of society.  The words may change, the methods may change, but for the most part teachers still often cite this as one of the goals of their teaching.  Lipton and Oakes lay out a historical map of the different methods and purpose of discipline, and management but in truth, much of what is practiced today in school is a conglomeration of many theories, ideas and methods.  In my opinion, just as we teach what we know, we discipline/manage what we know unless we make a conscious effort to really transform our classrooms into socially just communities of inquiry.  If the students are authentically engaged, they learn to “manage” themselves with little thought given to it. They are too busy learning about their lives and each other rather wasting time on “bad choices”.  One has simply got to provide respect and understanding in order to inspire it in their students.                          Now that sounds simple but there is very-difficult-to-manage foundation that must be laid first. Lipton and Oakes discuss briefly effective teaching, “with it” teachers, and teachers who make lessons interesting  – these three qualities go a long way to laying this foundation.  These were qualities of teachers I had in my own childhood and I do try to incorporate in my teaching.  It was no surprise to me that the 1970’s were listed as the time these ideas came into play since I was a child of the 70’s.  Moving on to contemporary theories of classroom management, Lipton and Oakes discuss other qualities that are important to laying this foundation – Caring, Respect and Democracy.  And again, these ideas are not new but in an educational setting that is more diverse and unequal than ever, they are more needed than ever and must be present in classroom management for it to be successful.  Without a teacher’s sponsorship and commitment to these additional three qualities in their teaching, the students will have little of these qualities in their behavior and learning.   The power of relationships is crucial for establishing the key component – that of trust.  So if one’s students do not think their teacher cares about them, respects them, or provides room for their voice, they will never trust their teacher enough to allow them in.  A community cannot form or gel from a group of lone wolves or outsiders.  So I am back to the statement – we manage how we know to manage – and Mauro Bautista in this chapter eloquently asks “How would I want an adult at a school setting to treat my own son?”  Yes, I do care for my students as I would care for my sons.  I respect my students as I respect my sons.  And I listen to my students as I listen to my sons.  I celebrate my students for their authentic self as I celebrate my beautiful sons.  It’s amazing how golden that rule really is isn’t it? 

At first I thought I would comment on these readings separately but on looking more closely I can see their connection to one another.  Briefly, I want to comment on the Pedagogy of the Absurd, specifically with regard to NCLB and it’s now two years post article.  It is so easy to follow the progression of events through NCLB and the public education’s response to it as laid out by this article.  I am pretty much a “conspiracy theorist” at all times – must be that left-wing liberalism in me but I really do not believe that things do not “just happen.”   Whether or not it is conscious or not, forces that enact this type of change require motive.  So we should have asked ourselves at the time: What else could be the motive of companies to involve themselves so deeply into any public policy if it is not profit?  Isn’t it the very definition of special interest group? And why do we allow anyone but educators to make these decision in the first place?  Do we allow morticians to make decisions for surgeons?  Do we allow real estate agents to decide lending practices?  If they stand to gain from the failure of an enterprise, they should have no imput to the outcome.  This is a no-brainer, yet the voices of reason now must wait for this absurdity to self-emplode while the damage is being done to our students and to our many would be fantastic teachers who threw their hands up and crawled up out of the rabbit hole from Wonderland. 

Despite my tendencies toward left-wing tendencies and am not in favor of the Us vs. Them mentality that divides our making true progress in this country.  Perhaps it’s because I have conservative relatives that I know are good people and care about their fellow men and women.  So, I really didn’t like the format of this chapter in TTCTW – Traditionalists vs. Progressives.  If we seek to look at the discord in education, I believe it does little good to make it into a two-party system.  Zeba Palomino writes about mathematics in this chapter in much the same way as I look at education: it’s not a right or wrong answer.  It’s connected to a foundation, and dependent on philosophy, communication, art, science, langauge, and more.  We need to be careful not to quiet the voices of anyone.   In the discussion of reading, there is an attempt to “balance” the two perspectives for the good of instruction and it seems as if the subject lends itself to a conciliatory approach.  In Lipton and Oakes discussion on Social Studies, again they return to the two-party discussion and while I do tend to agree mostly with their bias toward progressive education but they tend to muddle their description of traditionalists with conservative politics, and sometimes overgeneralize to the point of presenting an opinion as fact.  “They suggest that emphasiss on the process of doing social science and constructive teaching methods has altered what history instruction is supposed to accomplish.  Many object to the term “social studies” because it conveys neglect of the traditional disciplines.”  I think the authors could have made statements like this more valid with some sources – they assign a lot of negative views to this group without supporting their arguement.  In the long run, it sets up a divisive atmosphere that interfers with the progess and future of  change in instruction and learning with multi-perspective.  It weakens the argument if you fail to responsibilty present perspective when you discuss the importance of perspective. 

Wow, I have to start all over on this one, I don’t even know how I lost it but it is completely wiped clean when I published it   It was good too

In Freire’s discussion of Fear he says there is always a relationship between fear and difficulty.  All truly great activists realize this and examine it in their work.   All the truly evil rely on it to do their work and utilize it to paralyze those that might impede their work.  Our insecurities can rob us of our courage if we are not careful.  So what to do since we all have fears?  Freire insists that we must think about and examine our fear carefully by:  objectively dissecting the reasons/sources, searching the possibilities for overcoming them, plan for overcoming them, plan again, grow our capacity to respond, and most importantly enlarge our ability to evaluate.  He warns that panic will paralyze us and provides us with illustration through our biggest fear – that of being a scholar.  Here Freire actually frees my own spirit and fear.  I relate to the examples he discusses in the fear of not understanding what we read.  It reminds me of the law school professor in Respect who felt as if he was a fraud as a scholar despite the accolades of his peers.  Only through pushing past those fears and writing did he finally feel worthy.  I really related to him and I believe that Freire recognizes this as a common fear of educators and that is why he tackles it head on in this letter.  He tells us that ” fear itself tends to be overcome and one is free to attempt to invent the meaning of the text in addition to just discovering it”  I absolutely agree that it “must be every author’s true dream – to be read, discussed, critiqued, improved and reinvented by his or her readers”.  It certainly isn’t to be feared.  So of course our challenge is to become activist within ourselves to inspire that in our students, who must have the same fears we do as scholars. 

The other aspect of Freire’s 2nd letter is that of difficulty.  He cautions that one’s ability may be less than what it takes to meet the challenge and then one becomes immobilized by their fear.  Which is not what happened to Jaeger in his article Silencing Teachers.  I found this article very interesting because I was part of a pilot program that trained on Open Court.  Now this wasn’t by choice because the school that I interned at was under initial stages of being “taken over” by the state and we were mandated to train in this program.  I spent two weeks in the summer of 2000 with this scripted program and naively embraced as a godsend to a novice teacher.  I spent the first half of the school year though undermining unconsciously by never following the script.  I religiously read every page each week ahead of time, pulled out all of the literature, poems, songs, writing and art projects.  I never went by the phonic script except during dictation for learning to blend.  I could easily see where these teachers had had enough after 3 years!  I would definitely have written this letter and the only difference here in Georgia is that I would have had plenty of company.  In Georgia, my fellow teachers will think it but because of the lack of representation they would face the elimination of their job in a second.  So we have to learn to be activist in a world of silence or we will have not platform from which to at least incorporate sign language.  As Martin Luther King Jr. says “ The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”  I look for ways to face these moments of difficulty through evaluation not fear and struggle not to get too comfortable. 

The qualities that Freire discusses are true for all teachers, not just the professional ones of which we count ourselves members.  I am referring to parents, mentors, members of communities that seek to socially engage one another with the purpose of educating each other about ourselves for the good of making our lives together better. Taking his discussion of humility first, “No one knows it all; no one is ignorant of everything thing.  We all know something; we are all ignorant of something”.  It is the basic principal of democracy.  If we as teachers take an authoritarian position in our teaching, students will be unable to practice and develop a sense of confidence required to challenge and resolve the problems in their future.  Freire states that authoritarianism can cause students to adopt rebellious positions, defiant of limits or the converse, apathy, excessive obedience and worse yet, a free of freedom. It is incumbent on us as teachers to help our students develop a sense of security by demonstrating humility and acknowledging that every voice has validity, some bearing and worthy of consideration. Freire moves on to lovingness and notes that a teacher without this quality risks the loss of meaning in their work.  He qualifies his description of lovingness and says it must be an “armed love” and insists that our our love of teaching and students must be demonstrated by the willingness to stand up for what is right in our schools.  And further is our “duty to fight” – stand up and be counted, voice our discontent, and work to change what is socially unjust.  Moving on to courageand as it relates to the duty to fight, Freire talks about fear in the face of these fights, it needs to be acknowledged but never allowed to overwhelm and paralyze teachers in to just standing by. This is so often the norm and exists in my school.  But can we expect true change and democracy if we are afraid to fight for what we believe in?  And can we expect that our students will somehow magically feel empowered to act differently from us? “There can never be courage without fear”.  Friere moves on to tolerance and he says that “Tolerance is the virtue that teaches us to live with the different”.  This is so true with our society and if we continue to allow ignorance of this to flourish in our country we will continue to lag behind the rest of the world or at least those countries which embrace it.  Tolerance is the foundation of a civil society, especially one that seeks democracy as its highest attribute. Friere adds a group of virtues: Decisiveness, security, patience and joy of livingwhich he briefly discusses.  Decisiveness is necessary for an education but further it is a responsibility to one’s students.  Without it, we are seen as week by our students and ultimately by their parents and our colleagues.  We fail to set an example with indecision and only inspire the same inability to make decisions in our students.  Teachers run the risk of becoming to permissive if they are unable to make decisions and stand by them, a fate that Friere says more somber than abusing authority.  It is not to say that we should not seek council or allow discussion of choices to be made but it is our duty to make them.  Security is inspired by being able to support one’s actions or decisions.  Confidence arises out of being secure about one’s actions, that they are justifiable.  A teacher can develop a sense of security about their actions only if they understand that they are fair and socially just.  Regarding patience, Friere says there is a tension between patience and impatience that all educators must balance in their work.  Too much patience may leave the educator in a “position of resignation” and too little may lead to “blind activism”.  Either one of these positions leaves the educator ineffectual.  Freire says that virtue does not lie in experiencing one without the other and I believe that this is true of all the qualities that he has discussed.  Authoritarianism breeds insecurity and in order to inspire confidence and democracy we have to embrace, investigate and model its most essential qualities.  Last lets look at the quality, joy of living.  Freire acknowledges that to have an honest joy of living, one cannot hide the sadness-es of life.  Human life does not come without struggle or conflict, it is only our direct engagement of it which allows us to love and know how to love.  Friere suggests that denying or escape conflict, we actually preserve the status quo.  As educators, we must not be afraid to take risk and engage conflict and by taking the risk we demonstrate our joy of life and its worthiness of our attempts. 

Oakes and Lipton provide us with a historical look at educational philosophies and how they have been shaped by social and political forces over the years.  Their definition and summary of basic philosophies in education reminded me of when I obtained my master’s degree and we had to write our own philosophy of education.  I think we even used the same table that they have on pages 78 and 79.  I remember that mine was very ecclectic, using some aspect of several philosophies with a heavy emphasis on the socio-cultural and multicultural philosophy.  There is no doubt that schools are an institutional system that reinforces the culture of the dominant society  but there is also no doubt that as our society grow more diverse and multicultural society, our schools will have to recognize that the historical dominance is deminishing.  The postmodern curriculums in all educational instituitions are starting to reflect the hard work of researchers and theorists who espouse the philosophies and teaching qualities that Freire details in his fourth letter.  Oakes and Lipton highlight teachers that acknowledge their “duty to fight” and take on the difficult issues surrounding the Codes of Power and cultural capital.  I began teaching in Oakland, California around the time of debate over Ebonics.  I knew teachers of color who were split over the issue and I listened to both sides, finding that I could understand both sides.  I came to the same conclusion that Kay Goodloe did (Oakes & Lipton, pg. 98), African American students who spoke a cultural dialect needed to have their voices heard but also needed to be empowered with the cultural captital of the mainstream language in order to compete in the world.  She described herself as bi-dialectical.  I know that when I left Oakland, like my limited Spanish now, that I was an LEP student of Ebonics. I needed to be in order to relate to my students, connect with my students, and show respect for their voices. 

Why are the Asian-American kids silent in class? - asks Carol A. Tateishi

I am very familiar with the high school of which Tateishi writes, I went to high school just down the street in Albany, Ca.  There are some generational variances now of course but I must say that I am very surprised to find that classrooms in the Bay Area, particularly in El Cerrito, still struggle with asian students being silent and reluctant to engage in collaborative learning .  In fact, I would say that in the 70’s my Asian peers were more apt to be involved and outspoken than Jeff and his peers in 2007.  Perhaps because it was the era of the free speech movement and our proximity to Berkeley, coupled with the different asian cultures that were represented in my school that my asian peers were more vocal.  At the time I was in high school, most asian students were Chinese, Japanese, or Philapino - 2nd or 3rd generation.  Immigration of Vietnamese, Laotians, Hmong, Koreans, Indians, and other Pacific Islanders in significant numbers had not yet occured by the time I graduated.   Jeff, being 4th generation Japanese, frankly surprises me a great deal so I would like to discuss some problems that came up for me in this article.

 First, Tateishi poses several questions of her own as they relate to her premise that the use of language is key to classroom learning.  Before I would agree with her premise, I would like a fuller explanation of what she and Joan mean by it. 

Jeff seems very capable of expressing himself with language, at least in writing. I can’t get past the feeling that some of this article sounded as if it comes from a deficit thinking perspective.  If the silence of these five students comes from a place that is culturally imbedded and feels right to them, why isn’t that respected?  Tateishi makes no references to their academic acheivement – are these struggling students? 

 Additionally, out of the 5 students only Japanese, Chinese, and Korean (1 student) were represented.  So the asian cultures respresented in her case study are of asian cultures that traditionally outperform other asian cultures with differing migration patterns such as Vietnamese, Hmong, Laotians, Cambodians, Philapinos etc.

 A factor not mentioned in this article is that El Cerrito High School’s SES is fairly high (the only hint is that Jeff’s father is a dentist).  Students with lower SES’ at El Cerrito High are generally not from Japanese or Chinese households.  I would argue that many households of the upper middle class do not necessarily encourage their children to discuss their feelings, their confusions, and their misunderstandings in school.  And specifically with the three females who are the more recent immigrants, their relunctantance to engage in discourse can be linked to silent periods and language acquisition behaviors common to all second language learners. 

Tateishi recommendations are very good for encouraging classroom discussion but I think that this is true for all students, especially for all students of color and second/third languages.  As education now relys on and encourages the regular use of collaboration to improve learning, it is incumbant on us to find way that encourage all students to engage in conversation.  Her discussion of authorship is very relevant and important to all discussion groups.  The emergence of discussion protocols leads creadence to her assertion that students who are relunctant to speak up due to cultural or family norms may feel more empowered to engage with clear rules of discussion.   Students from many immigrant cultures have codes of silence in their homes and females are expected to hold their tongues and therefore, authorship would benefit all students.

Finally, I disagree strongly with her comments on students in the Bay Area and San Francisco schools in an emerging stage of being “A lot less quiet”.  Historically, asian communities in the Bay Area have been very vocal and visible.  Student groups for all asian cultures are usually active and represented in both high schools and universities in the Bay Area.  This includes asian cultures that have been over-respresented with struggling students and dropouts.  I am not saying that with certain asian student relunctance to engage in discourse in the classroom does not exist, I just know that Tateishi is over generalizing her personal experience and doing a disservice to many years of cultural diversity work done in Bay Area over the past 40 years. 

 I do not completely disagree with Tateishi, I believe that the experiences of these 5 students can be representative of many asian students in many parts of this country, and therefore, her article has relevancy in education across America. 

Unmasking the myth of the model minority – Benji Chang and Wayne Au

 This article could serve as an example to unmasking the myth of all minorities in America.  The racial classifications in our country really underserve all races and perpetuate white priviledge – this has been true since their inception.  What stands out about the Asian classification in this country is the buy-in by those in positions of privilege that some Asian cultures academically shine by following the puritanic doctrines of hard work and quiet assimilation.  Forgotten are the years of discrimination and racial hatred endured by the ancestors of our 4th and now 5th generation Japanese and Chinese.  During their years of early immigration, our society was not lauding them as model citizens. 

So currently, the very large unbrella system of racial classification really performs three functions of masking.  First, it masks  the history and the shame of a nation built on exploiting minority immigrant populations.  Second, it masks continued disparities toward newly immigrant populations by throwing them into the water and making these cultures literally disappear as they disolve into the vast Asian ocean.  And this happens in the Hispanic Ocean and African/Black Ocean, and long ago began in the Native American/Indian Ocean.  Finally, the macro masking of this myth is that it allows a wedge to be forged between and within racial minorities and thus, provides justification for other racial myths that built on inferiority and the perpetuation of white superiority.  I whole- heartedly agree with Chang and Au that engaging in stereotyping of any kind – positive or negative is perilous and has no place in education.

 So what does this all mean in our classrooms?  Teachers must really take the time to understand the culture, and in many cases, cultures from which our students come.  We must not assume that we know by what we see superficially, in most cases we do not.  We should not assume a student is deprived because their cultural norms are different from our own.  In fact, we should consider the possibility that we might actually be the ones deprived.  When teaching about heroes and sheroes, art, social studies we should include many examples from many cultures – not just in the US but globally. This is the beginning of a socially just classrom.   

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