It's the Teaching, Stupid! YKos, Ed/Up

Will you help us by answering a question about school?  Okay?

Here it is...

When you were young, did you have a special teacher that made a difference in your life?  Bring them to mind, see their face, hear their voice.  What was it that teacher/coach/mentor had?  

Was it:  
a. their personality itself, bursting with passion, joy, love or connection?  
b.  the way, the actual methods and strategies (i.e. pedagogy) they used to reach out and capture students?  
c.  was it the material, the very content itself that animated what they brought to others?

That's it, skip, and answer the poll.  This is your one sacred contribution to the Ykos education group.  When done, return to politics, imagine everything is just fine in American education.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.  

For the rest--the curious, motivated, and especially those seeking to consider education deeply--jump the fold.  Ed/Up's on stage, and about to tackle a monster roaming the vast plains of education:  How does one go about the task of teaching?

Many mountains to the sky; on those mountains, many paths

This is an awesome topic:  How do you lead people to things strong and beautiful? Posit a challenge to the core of their identity?  Get them to do real work--in fact, help each other?  Ask the public to witness all this?  And insist that, in the end, they must prove they can survive on their own, using what they learned?

Luckily, there is not a single route, but many paths.  Here's my amateur map, scrawled on the back of a table napkin, used as much to salute the work of true warriors for education as to wipe the sweat off my forehead.

Where have we been?

Last week, we looked at "who", ideally, should become a teacher.  It's relevant because before we embark on "how", we damn well better be clear on "who", otherwise we get stuck by things like this:

Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.
                                           ----- Parker Palmer

Amen to that.  

So, we established that service, integrity and the heart of a learner pretty much make up a person's personal sense of mission and are paramount assets for a teacher.  Again, in an ideal world. (Yeah, and increased pay, responsibility and respect in our culture.)

So, let's put it this way:  a teacher who does not bother themselves with "how to teach" is pretty much devoid of all the qualities listed above.  True, such things can be learned over time, but the clock must be seen as ticking, particularly if one is already licensed or occupies a senior position at school.

The Reflective Teacher

Let's return to Parker Palmer.  I like Palmer because he is honest enough to look deeply at his own humanity and confront truth, integrity, wholeness--as well as doubts in himself. He talks about how much of life's, and teaching's, richness and profundity, comes in confronting "paradox".  We can think our way into certainty, but often times, we can't find our way back out.

In Courage to Teach, Palmer lays out six ways an individual teacher can structure classrooms to confront the fundamental paradoxes around teaching, and use these to enhance learning, make it whole, rather than rendering it hollow.

1.  The (classroom) space should be bounded and open.

2.  The space should be hospitable and "charged."

3.  The space should invite the voice of the individual and the voice of the group.

4.  The space should honor the "little" stories of the students and the "big" stories of the disciplines and tradition.

5.  The space should support solitude and surround it with the resources of community.

6.  The space should welcome both silence and speech.

What Palmer is doing is allowing for variety and diversity, what our own Marion Brady might call "human variability", not only in students, but in a teacher's awareness.  In so doing, as many students as possible will be stimulated, challenged, acknowledged, valued and respected. And, as well, truth and intelligence, in their unique varieties and manifestations, will be promoted and encouraged.

This is not about harboring some spineless relativism.  He asks the teacher to put the content material--the subject itself--at the center for all to gaze upon, wonder over and examine. He favors hard truth, but one divined and winnowed as part of a process which emerges, initially, from a learning community, and which, at some point, must return.  

Palmer's ultimate goal for educators is not an abstract objectivity, impartiality or expertise;  the goal is connection, passion, excellence, all directed back to its provenance and fundamental purpose.  He articulates both principals and practices for each item described above, a solid overall approach.

But, while he lists "principles" for achieving these pedagogical goals, he avoids the trap of "prescriptions"--and for the very same reason that I will:  "how" one teaches is directly connected to "who" one is.  What works for one "who" will not necessarily work for another "who."  You need make your own way up the mountain.

What about the brain?

Eric Jensen affords a different perspective.  Palmer is a professor; Jensen a brain researcher, and more-oriented to development in young people.  The short of it:  while Palmer scales intimate internal mountains, Jensen charts specific strategies to grow brains and maximize potential.

The book in question, Enriching the Brain, is a devastating account that shows how and why rats in cramped, joyless, sterile cages end up with shriveled brains in comparison with their counterparts in roomy, compelling and life-enhancing environments.  

If it sounds like Jensen just exposed the bitter truth behind America's "achievement gap", you must read this book.  It is truly enlightening, and like Palmer, gives the lie to proponents of standardized testing.

Just one gem:

If (young students) can't develop and show their intelligence in a certain environment, they get labeled as slow or unmotivated.  If someone is waiting for them to have intelligence instead of fostering it, it may never surface.

Can we acknowledge that our educational system gets it completely wrong?  Rather than assisting students to build skills and understanding, promoting and supporting their efforts, we are asking them to solve narrow, shallow and frequently meaningless questions, then judging them and the entire school on their answers.  

At some point, a majority of Americans will come to, slap the side of their heads and say:  "How dumb could we be?"  Learning happens best when the educative environment provides crucial inputs, scaffolding and support that stimulate a learner with rich and meaningful material.

Anyway, Jensen's thesis, and most of neural brain development theory goes like this:  enrich the learning environment, provide students with stimulating contrast from normal routine, allow them to work with personally relevant and therefore "meaningful" material, and you will get an "enrichment response" that measureably enhances both learning and brain development.  And stunningly, that "intelligence", once thought a fixed entity, can grow or retreat based on the inputs from a child's life environment.

While the fungible nature of "intelligence" is a surprise, what stimulates growth is not:  travel, music, museums, adult relationships, reading, art, physical activity, mental challenge--all these maximize positive outcomes for kid's brains.  Poor schooling, prejudice, domestic violence, disorder, drug abuse, poor nutrition, trauma--all these result in diminished capacity in kids' brains.  (Yes, they actually measure such things with brain scans.)  

Question for standardized testing zealots:  

How many tests will it take to see that affluent kids have multiple and overwhelming advantages compared with the poor and unfortunates' continuous struggle just to survive? And that the so-called "achievement gap" reflects the most basic truth about American society: that in terms of health care, nutrition, housing and income levels, we are hugely unequal, and, in fact, are "surging" toward greater levels of inequality with every passing year?

Pardon my incredulity.

Jensen does not let America's short-term fixation on test results rain on his educational parade.  He is all about naming what works.  And here they are, the soon to be central tenets of effective educational design--what Jensen calls the seven golden maximizers of brain enhancement:

1.  Physical activity (as opposed to passivity)

2.  Novel, challenging, and meaningful learning (versus doing what is already known, repeatedly drilled or routine).

3.  Coherent complexity (versus boredom, chaos or over-simplicity)

4.  Managed stress levels (versus stressful conditions)

5.  Social support (versus isolation)

6.  Good nutrition (versus poor quality food and drink)

7.  Sufficient time (versus quick, one-time experiences)

Yeah, I can hear the screaming through my computer:  What does this have to do with "how" we teach?  In a single word: "everything."  But because contemporary education too often adopts a kind of solitary confinement model of reaching each student, we see these things as being isolated and unrelated to learning tasks.

I am not pretending that a school, or especially government, can satsify the neural demands of every brain or the relationship/security needs of every learner, yet this should not keep us from improving conditions.  In fact, such a goal should be a key take away point for the Ykos Ed/Up team: use the latest brain research to construct a "whole" approach to maximizing the potential of every learner.  Since we know what works for and against learning, can't we set out systematically to build one and do everything in our power to undo the other?

Jensen has other suggestions too, much of it emerging from brain research completed in the last decade, though a lot of it cleaving close to what has been argued for by "cognitive" educational theorists for three decades.  Practical things that work:

1.  Getting kids to pay fixed attention to tasks.

2.  Ensuring there is low to moderate stress levels in the room.

3.  Creating coherent, meaningful tasks for kids to complete.

4.  Massed practice of an activity, 90 minute segments, 3-5 times a week.

5.  Learner controlled feedback which assists the learning process.

6.  Overnight rest between new learning sessions...

What a radical!  What an idealist!  What a no-nonsense, straightforward, pragmatic way to structure learning for kids.  Can't we just do this?

Toward a Repetoire of Possibilities

Before putting the rest of my cards on the table face-up because this is a Dkos diary and not a dissertation or book,  I need cite two figures in the field of pedagogy and use them to stake some ground on the contest between "teacher-centered instruction" and "child-centered instruction."  (If need be, you can helicopter directly to Uncle Henry's skeet-shoot below and skip the intervening material.)   It is an old debate, one that won't go away, and to which I would like to post a small offering.

John Dewey: An American Original

John Dewey was, perhaps, America's greatest philosopher and certainly its most influential educational theorist.  He had a lot to say about how education "works" for kids:  namely, it's the "doing" (sic) of it, the actual application of concepts and ideas to real-life tasks that provide evidence of mastery, motivation to go further and locks in place the content and methods of learning in the mind of a student.

Eventually, with this kind of empirical framework backing up a child's repetoire for learning, they themselves become capable of analyzing, proposing, testing, resolving and creating knowledge.  That's what we say we want kids to be able to do, right?  By practicing, honing and utilizing important skills, create new knowledge for the world.  Everyone on board?  Dewey turns up in the blazing skeet-shoot at the end in multiple ways, so be forewarned.

Paolo Freire, Maestro Internationale

And, second, Paolo Freire, the seminal Brazillian educational philosopher.  (Yeah, I'm that radical.)  His "banking model" of education is still, IMHO, the most powerful explanatory metaphor for how we school children.  In it, Freire posits that education in much of Western society is built around the concept that students be "allowed" to withdraw learning from the system, but only if they stay within the accepted constraints imposed by "lending authorities."  

Of course, students are required to "show" they are making proper progress on their "loan" by periodically regurgitating truths that the authorities demand.  (Sometimes with the sword of Damocles poised over them.) If they can't, or use their education for the wrong kinds of things, like questioning how things are done at the bank, well, it's "foreclosure" time--the note is callestudent/customer downrated if not completely eliminated.

Pedagogy as Ideology

I bring these up because it must be said:  There is a point in education when teaching using "traditional" methods (worksheets anyone?) means espousing belief in truth and its handling as a kind of convention--the accepted way of proceeding.  At a certain point, such dogmatism and unresponsiveness to change crosses over the line and becomes mere ideology.  

Endlessly asking kids the system's questions, using the "approved" text, demanding standard answers, then handing out societal rewards based on their success rate, becomes, in fact, an elaborate rehearsal for maintaining the status quo and a prop for socially engineered inequities.

I understand that math is math, and science science, but failing to discuss larger contexts and status, like "why" math is important and beautiful and essential, or what role science has played in the development of human society in the last 200 years, is part of the problem with education, not part of the solution.  

Knowledge is seemless.  Our problems and challenges cross subject disciplines at every turn and demand well-informed, versatile, creative thinking.  An issue like "global climate change" is not just about burning fossil fuels, but involves a complex array of factors and issues--geo-politics, economics, psychology, cosmology, etc--that need to be broached if we are to ever deliver ourselves from its worst effects.

Perhaps if current civilization hadn't fundamentally altered the earth's climate to the point of threatening survival, or taken warfare to the point of nuclear annihilation, or used religion, history and politics to rationalize mass killings, invasions, ethnic cleansing, or busied itself with altering the genetic code of plants and animals...

Or, maybe if current "civilization" could just acknowledge that all human beings deserve dignity, food, clean water, acceptable health care--you know, something we would call fundamentally humane treatment...  

Perhaps then, it would be less defensible to call the baseline premises and practices of our current educational system an "ideology."  

But facts are stubborn things, and when they all point to a kind of unsustainability in human society, a degree of unfairness between rich and poor that is obscene and untenable, an inability to turn from the path of environmental destruction, then, at some point, we need to look at education and decide if we are simply defending the status quo or producing learners capable, imaginative and smart enough to fundamentally reconsider how we do things.  

Or, at the very least, learners able to cognitively realize the extent to which their learning, beliefs and perspectives might contain an ideological and ethnocentric flavoring.

Children are, after all, to paraphrase Buckminster Fuller, nature's next tentative step along the evolutionary chain--they enter a world slightly more evolved, slightly closer to an unknown destiny that human-kind has been pursuing for thousands of generations.  

At some point, we must equip them with the best of what we know, think and believe, hoist them on our shoulders, support their best efforts, then, let them go.  Let them reach for the stars.  

Uncle Henry's Skeet-Shoot

So, with that as prologue, on to the skeet-shoot.  I'll knock off as many of these pedagogical strategies and approaches as I can in less than ten minutes.  These merit mention because they fit with Palmer, Jensen, Dewey or Freire, or because, in my experience, they work.

But, as mentioned earlier, none of these is guaranteed without the skillful application and delivery of a fully passionate, committed educator.  Sorry people, if we could deliver quality teaching by just reading scripts, we would turn education over to the Edison Schools corporation.  (You mean some cities already have?)

Integrated curriculum -- Subject distinctions are artificial and serve as much to keep thinking apart as to focus it on resolving complex problems.  Integration creates richness of content, encourages creative teaching and thinking, and makes the school day more imaginative and pregnant with possibility.  In fact, it is the lack of connection to larger, real-life issues, that is responsible for draining life and meaning from subjects like math and science.  (Jensen, Dewey and Palmer.)

Integrating the community into actual learning tasks and assessment -- Is there a more untapped resource, local, largely free and completely invested in the outcome of learners?  The possibilities here are endless, from internships to shadowing to guest speakers and field trips, as well as utilizing accomplished professionals who want to "give back" to their communities. (Dewey, Jensen)

Employing cooperative group learning strategies and tasks -- In my personal experience, the most dynamic, effective and profound aspect of classroom design and pedagogy.  Hands down.  Students grow interpersonal skills, combat prejudice, develop meta-cognition, personal confidence and a wider perspective, all while mastering content and multiplying learning in a profound way.  (Jensen, Dewey, Freire, Palmer.)

Favoring projects and hands-on tasks as opposed to pen and pencil assessments --  We need to favor pedagogy that builds upon individual differences rather than stifles it.  Projects allow for a level of achievement and excellence consistent with every student's level of mastery.  Moreover, projects connect up to students' need for meaning and relevance in the learning process.  Excellence cannot be mass-produced, a tough lesson but an important one to understand.  (Jensen, Palmer, Freire, and Dewey.)

Asking students to turn their efforts toward their community and the world beyond school-- We need relevance and connection between learning at school and the needs of the community at large.  Why would any society accept a complete disconnect between the tasks that their youth undertake in learning and the realities facing the larger society?  It is not acceptable and it has multiple negative impacts for kids, our communites and our society.  We can, and in fact, need to do better here. (Freire, Dewey and Palmer.)

Explicitly teaching kids what effective interpersonal skills look, feel and sound like then evaluating them on their use-- Not to enter the realm of Dr. Phil, but it should be explicitly explored and evaluated:  
1.) Do students  make eye contact with others?
2.) Do they use names when they address ohters?
3.) Do they give feedback or other appropriate responses after listening?
4.) Do they adequately summarize other opinions and then construct responses that build, alter or contrast with the original?

In short, we should delineate what constitutes effective interpersonal behaviors and reward students who are capably applying them in classroom situations. (Personal teaching experience.)

Extended learning environments, i.e. longer class periods, and varied schedules --  Can someone explain to me why exactly it is that in the 21st century we are unable to liberate ourselves from a 19th century factory model schedule for schools?  It was always one of the most difficult and demeaning things for me about being in high school, and later, teaching high school, that the schedule was so damn predictable.  On the first day of school in September, you can pick a day in mid-May and know exactly where you will be at every hour--and in many districts--exactly what you will be studying.

I think that is bad for the brain... isn't it?  (Jensen, personal teaching experience.)

Asking kids to learn from setbacks, mistakes and failures rather than internalizing them as part of their identity --There was a time when it was a regular part of education that you learned from mistakes.  Not any more.  We give assessments that never come back to students, which are not accountable in their accountability of others, and which are not even trasnparent!  How exactly are people supposed to grow if not by reflecting on their experiences, their responses, and understanding what they would do differently the next time?  Definition of insanity:  doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  (Personal teaching experience.)

Teaching students to be asset-thinkers, to find and celebrate the positive parts and potential in themselves, their efforts and the world -- Life is about being creative and continuing to live and produce and move forward.  Do you ever wonder why animals don't fall into depression or just give up when bad things happen?    Asset thinking is, in fact, a skill, and amidst America's epidemic of complaints and dissatisfaction with virtually everything, there needs to be a determined effort to  see why, in fact, gratitude is the basis for living a great life.  Students can be taught this skill, and it does make a difference in how they perceive the world.  At some point, we need to decide if human fulfillment is a worthy goal of education, or whether we allow corporations and advocates of crass materialism to decide that for us. (Freire, Jensen, Palmer.)

Regular school-to-school exchanges and symposiums on shared projects,  issues and concerns -- At a time when we are segregating schools very quickly and living in our isolated conclaves away form the hurly-burly of life, what about the possibilities that exist for "re-integrating" Americn society by expanding connections, exchanges, dialogue across racial, class, and ethnic lines?  Oh, I forgot, there's not time.  We have to continue to prepare for the next exam.  Meanwhile, America's social fabric continues to fray and tear in ways that could eventually mean disaster for our democracy.  (Freire, Jensen, personal teaching experience.)

Demand that arts be part of the curriculum -- Why exactly do we have to cut arts out of the curriculum?  Because there are more important things to do--like study for a standardized test that will soon be forgotten and used to further narrow the curriculum.

Eric Jensen:  

Typically, arts-centered schools have fewer drop-outs, higher attendance, better team players, an increased, love of learning, greater student dignity, and enhanced creativity, and they produce citizens better prepared for the workplace of tomorrow and with great cultural awareness as a bonus.

 

(I won't even mention that the arts, music and dance, in poor, urban schools of color, are often the central means of communicating and continuing the culture that is so central to the meaning and drive for students to succeed in the first place.)  Or... maybe I will mention it.

Customization of Learning as Opposed to Standardization -- This one I guarantee will sweep the country after No Child Left Behind dies its terrible death.  As Marion Brady rightly claims "human variability" is the very basis for society.  Do we really want to restrict and retard that in the people we most need to possess "excellence" for our survival and happiness?  More than ever today, we have the technology to make this happen.

Have some fun-- Let's also not underestimate the importance of communicating to kids that study and learning are fun, that, at the end of the day, personal enjoyment comes from being at school, learning, growing, being "in it" with others.  Our job is to create life-long learners, and there is nothing that does that better than having a good time in the pursuit of learning.  (Jensen and personal teaching experience.)

FlocK Uncle Henry -- Sick of all this?  Maybe as a teacher you feel a little threatened or down because out of all the excellent pedagogical approaches mentioned, you, like me,  only do a couple of them?  First, let me remind that the purpose here is to design an "ideal" educational system, not to improve the one we currently have.  Second, relax.  Maybe, I'm overstating things a little.  There is a simpler way, at least according to one author:

It may be that the most important aspect of teaching is to inspire youngsters; to fill them with hope, desire, and curiosity to become someone extraordinary.  ("Life, oh life!" according to Whitman.)  When a child becomes inspired, they will do for themselves much more than anyone can do for them;  once lit, the lamp of scholarship infuses a life-long  burning to learn... The job is to get them immersed in their own process -- thinking, relating, imagining, connecting, creating-- so they beome a well-spring for making their own meaning.

Now let's see about that poll...?

•  Whew, bad morning

  After countless hours, there was one piece of bad code somewhere and it would not let me publish.

  I had to pull a lot of Bold material out en masse before she went.

  Oh well...

  Humbly asking for recommendations.  Wouldn't it be nice to rack up some comments on this?

  by Mi Corazon on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 05:39:19 AM PDT

  •  that happens to me

    this is how i get around it:

    i copy and paste the entire thing to a new diary entry, and it will publish immediately, bad code or not

    it's a very odd glitch.

    by cookiebear on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:04:11 AM PDT

    •  Thanks for the tip

      I'll sure remember to try that next time.

      As it is, I'm just starting to relax.  It is Saturday morning after all.

      by Mi Corazon on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:09:40 AM PDT

•  the author is both a teacher and an author

  who is really thoughtful about the context of teaching - one reason I asked him to participate in our discussions as part of Education Uprising.

  I do hope that people here will choose to participate in the discussion.   As we draft and present the diaries that are part of our thinking process, it is the comments of those not part of our working group that challenge us to go further, think more deeply.

  If we are going to be successful in offering something that can truly help improve American education, we need your help.

  Thanks.

  by teacherken on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 05:51:24 AM PDT

  •  Oh, oh.

    We just got kicked upstairs.  This could be a long morning in educator heaven...

    by Mi Corazon on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:11:31 AM PDT

    •  ah, but we WANT to be recommended

      because the mere fact that we are recommended causes a few more people to read, and perhaps comment, and then perhaps recommend, which keeps us visible a bit longer, and the cycle goes on.

      Enjoy it.  It may not last that long  :-)   although one can never predicted these things.

      by teacherken on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:22:28 AM PDT

      •  tardy

        apologies...

        by DeweyCounts on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:03:16 AM PDT

•  i didn't have a special teacher

  in fact, teachers hated me when i was a kid

  why, i don't know and i don't want to know

  but i was picked on, reviled, publicly humiliated by them and generally disliked

  as for pedagogy, i learned what it is in grad school, designed some curricula and immediately tossed it out the window. iow, i have my own peculiar pedagogical approach, but it does seem to work (hint: in involves a bit of comedy and some old school approaches and a lot of learn by doing and pick 'em up by the scruff of the nexk and toss 'em in)

  btw, if you give me a few, i can give you the code for centering --- brb

  by cookiebear on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 05:53:00 AM PDT

  •  ew

    excuse typos --- i haven't yet finished my second cup

    okay, here it is! the secret code for centering!!:

    < p class='pollControls'> put whatever here

    note there are spaces in front of the p's. if i remove the spaces, though:

    put whatever here

    by cookiebear on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 05:58:29 AM PDT

    •  wait!

      the second half of the "how to do it" example appears to have disappeared.

      in essence, just put a back --- or is that forward? --- slash in front of the same thing that's in front of it.

      by cookiebear on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:00:34 AM PDT

      •  < /p > after the text.

        by rserven on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:01:52 AM PDT

        •  almost!

          /p class='pollControls' (except with the thingies) after the text

          ::flings self into large pot of coffee::

          by cookiebear on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:05:36 AM PDT

          •  You can do just a < /p >

            don't have to close the class when you close the paragraph.

            by kate petersen on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:07:28 AM PDT

          •  Well, the wierd thing is

            That the Preview function checks out just fine, so you have no idea that there is a glitch.

            To think that I was so enjoying that wine from Portugal last night, while some little piece of malicious code was having its way with my diary...

            by Mi Corazon on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:13:11 AM PDT

            •  Don't trust Preview.

              Preview would sooner stab a knife in your back as look at you.

              ;-}

              by rserven on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:19:37 AM PDT

              •  ain't that the truth!

                by cookiebear on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:31:18 AM PDT

•  I suppose Mrs. Miller was my favorite...

  ...if only because I had her in both 2^nd and 4^th.  The truth is that I loved all my teachers.

  I don't know how they felt about me.

  by rserven on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:00:37 AM PDT

•  I had a lot of good teachers

  In thinking about your question I guess the teachers that seemed "good" to me were letting me do what I wanted to do. Opening up something new. The teachers I did NOT like were those that had us sit in rows and answer questions from the book one after another. "Judy" Your turn--question #15..." So I think I'm arguing for answer b), pedagogy. However all of the teachers I can think of that I liked also had some combination of a) and c). Those I didn't like (basketball coach teaching math, ugh) not only were rigid pedagogically but uninterested and uninspired in the topic. So they were negative on a, b and c.

  Yes, I agree that "technique" isn't the question. I do some teacher training via an educational publication that I write. I often tell people, when you want to evaluate a classroom teacher, don't watch what the teacher is doing, watch what the students are doing. That will tell you everything.

  by sillia on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:15:01 AM PDT

•  I'm slowly awakening here.

  Unless something comes up between now and noon, I'll be talking a bit about the teaching/learning transaction in Teacher's Lounge.  I hope it will be coherent.  It's Spring Break and all.

  I wish I could be detached enough to tell you why I liked my teachers.  But the truth is that I liked my teachers mostly because they were not my parents...and school was not home.  

  by rserven on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:16:20 AM PDT

  •  I liked my teachers because they weren't

    my classmates.

    Oh, and a few of them were fantastic teachers.

    I also drove a few of them nuts.  One teacher told me she quit teaching because of me (she said "if students are going to be like you, I don't want to teach").

    I was an obnoxious brat - but I had reasons for being so

    by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:37:38 AM PDT

•  I followed directions

  and skipped to find a poll...So,

  YES I had special teachers.  And it was a combination of a and b, with a side of c  :-).

  Let me describe two of my favorite teachers:

  Mrs. Elizabeth Freidus was the co-founder (with my mom) of the Gateway school of NY, which is a school for learning disabled children (my mom started it for me!).  Elizabeth handled everything related to education, my mom handled everything else.  Mrs. Freidus (pronounced Freed Us) was a stunningly good teacher, who continuously took in everything about a child, and adopted her teaching on the fly to each child. She took no nonsense, but she defined sense broadly.  She knew each kid was trying to make sense of the world in his or her own way, and had a gift for divining that way from what others would regard as incomprehensible behavior.  So a) and b).

  In 6th grade, I had a math teacher Mr. Spaull, who was not nearly as gifted a teacher as Mrs. Freidus (few are) but who took his skills and applied them the best he could.  I was 'turned on' to math before 6th grade, but he revved up my engine. And, recognizing that he had someone with some ability in his class, he switched me to his 9th grade class (and worked out the details with administration).
  A strong element of c) in that.

  Now I will go back and read this diary in detail and add comments

  by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:17:08 AM PDT

•  Unfortunately,

  Schools (especially city schools) are not set up for any creative work and the students having not been exposed to it in their first 8-11 years of their academic career don't know how to learn this way.

  AND

  Simple things like taking field trips are out of the picture when the hoops to go through are made impossible.  An English teacher in our credit recovery/ Alternative Education program wanted to take the kids who had demonstrated that they could be responsible in the school library to the Public Library to do research for their research papers and discover the features of the library.  The principal wanted the English teacher to write up a detailed proposal for why she wanted to take the kids to the Library.  Excuse me?  You wand to know why we want to take kids to a library?  He also suggested that she could not go on a field trip where only some of the students were eligible to go.  This floored the teacher, demoralized her, and made her less likely to try any other innovative ideas.

  Teachers teach by rote because that is what is expected of them from administration (all the way up the chain of command).  And administration expects it so that students can meet test scores.

  Teachers would love to be creative, but are often reprimanded for not following curriculum.  Expecially if they realize that they need to remediate and are caught teaching the 'wrong thing' to their classes.

  by Mlle L on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:24:52 AM PDT

•  As part of the Ed/Up team

  I've read drafts of this.  It certainly covers a lot of ground very well, much of which I am not qualified to comment on.  A couple points though.

  1.  Standardized testing.  I wouldn't describe myself as a 'zealot' but I am certainly much more of a defender of standardized tests than most other people around here.  Regarding the achievement gap, and the biases against poor kids in favor of rich kids - yes, of course.  But can you show me ANYTHING that is NOT biased against poor kids?  Grades in school? Biased.  Amount learned? Biased. Essays for admission to school? Biased (I mean, my parents, with 3 degrees between them, helped me with MY college essays.....).

  I am not claiming that standardized tests are THE answer. There is no ONE answer.  And NCLB is not even PART of the answer - NCLB is stupid.  But not all standardized tests are stupid, nor are all applications of them

  2.  Method.  The BEST teachers, IMO, adjust the method to the student. KIDS LEARN DIFFERENTLY, and so, great teachers teach them differently.  THIS IS REALLY HARD.  And I think it requires a great deal of subject matter knowledge.  

  by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:28:43 AM PDT

  •  What if ...

    You can't sing?

    great story!

    by Mi Corazon on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:16:01 AM PDT

    •  If you can't sing you could probably still chant

      it or something.

      Mr. Weiss was one of the few good profs in that program.  

      To illustrate some of the problems with education for teachers:

      One prof (at NYU!) told us that when he was a boy in Iowa he thought "all Jews had horns and drank blood" but he didn't believe that anymore (GOOD FOR YOU Professor Clausen!)

      Another got very mad when I suggested that, if no one was learning, no one was teaching.  Huh.  

      by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:30:47 AM PDT

  •  I, for one, am looking forward to your diary

    about the uses of standardized testing.

    Correct me if I am wrong but... aren't there just three principal uses:

    1.  To sort students along the bell curve.

    2.  To pre-test kids in order to place them in a particular program or class sequence.

    3.  To evaluate program effectiveness, as in, are kids learning what we thought we taught them?

    Are there other uses?

    And notice that "high stakes" are not in the mix.  I am on a need to know basis because I am giving a state-wide presentation in April and so,... well, it's time for me to bone up.

    by Mi Corazon on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:19:35 AM PDT

    •  Maybe those are the only uses...

      I would have added three more uses, but there might be some overlap.

      4. To examine cognitive abilities in terms of strengths, weaknesses, and optimal learning style. (which might be like #1)

      5. To establish academic strengths and weaknesses to pinpoint areas in need of remediation. (which might be like #3)

      6. To set cutoff scores for higher education admission. (which might be like #2)

      FWIW

      by Sidof79 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:38:12 AM PDT

      •  Thanks

        and I will include these distinctions in my work.

        We do agree though, don't we, that standardized tests are being used in ways they were never intended, and, that they are being used way too frequently?

        by Mi Corazon on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:43:25 AM PDT

        •  Definitely iin ways that

          are wrong.  Like penalizing school districts for students' performance. Like having the states set their own standards for proficient.  Like using the tests to eliminate whole subject areas.

          Frequency is different.  I would make standardized tests MORE frequent, but MUCH shorter and MUCH MUCH MUCH lower stress.  If a test lasts 30 minutes or an hour, it can be fit into the curriculum frequently.  The idea of testing ONCE a year, and having it be a whole day, and using the results for only two years (that is, a pre-test and a post-test) is STUPID, and the use of only two tests can be shown (PROVEN) to be wrongheaded, in that it conflates error with progress.

          by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:00:46 AM PDT

        •  the use of standardized tests

          Yes, I agree that they are being used in ways they were never intended- test scores should never be a goal of instruction.  They can be used to monitor progress, to indicate who needs what kind of help, but when the assessment is the end point, it is useless.

          Really, I wouldn't object to system-wide standardized tests of achievement at the end of the year, if it was only FYI, to demonstrate growth.  Once you start attaching punishment, retention, removal of teachers, principals, administrative authority...well it would be unfathomable, if it wasn't true.

          by Sidof79 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:05:18 AM PDT

      •  Sidof79,

        Your # 4 and # 5 is not really something that fits into group standardized testing.  It is, however, what we do in special education in our one-on-one diagnostic testing.

        Then again, our statewide computerized standardized NCLB tests just got suspended in Oregon because they are crashing and burning all over the state--and the Oregon Department of Education pulled the plug.

        We might do paper and pencil.  It doesn't look like the vendor for the computerized tests is going to cooperate and make the system work before the Tuesday deadline.

        by joycemocha on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:56:51 AM PDT

        •  Would you mind publishing a diary about this?

          For those of us not in Oregon?

          In particular, because it is NCLB fiasco related, the diary would be very well-received here

          We need to document this kind of crap so the public is disabused of its notion that schools are somehow better when a corporate overlord is testing kids ad nauseum.

          by Mi Corazon on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:00:50 AM PDT

          •  I'll try to do it next week

            or during our spring break at the end of March, because the issues are still unfolding here.  I picked up some interesting info from a computer expert at a science fiction conference I'm attending this week that I think is relevant.

            I suspect that it will not be completely settled, with all the ramifications, until then--and perhaps not even completely then.  The deadline for the vendor is March 13.  ODE has sent out an email saying the vendor is dragging its feet.  I have yet to hear from special ed in my district--or in the state, even--as to how that's going to change our accommodations.

            My suddenly peaceful April and May (due to IEPs being mostly done) may now suddenly be crazy due to state testing.  Dang.  After writing 11 IEPs and holding the associated meetings in March (a month with a grading day, two conference days, and spring break), I was hoping to catch my breath.  At least get my paperwork finished.

            by joycemocha on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:14:36 AM PDT

        •  I didn't think we were talking about groups

          If so, then yes, #4 doesn't apply, but there are group achievement tests that we use at the high school for current levels of performance for IEP's.  So #5 can apply to group standardized testing as well.  I'd argue that it isn't best practices to get individual levels of performance, as a group, but it saves time, which is just as good as money.

          by Sidof79 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:00:57 AM PDT

        •  It's an area of much confusion

          Not all standardized tests are administered in groups.
          Not all standardized tests are multiple choice.
          Not all standardized tests are 'bubble tests'.

          by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:02:43 AM PDT

    •  I've put that one on hold to work on the one

      about Math Circle.

      Some more uses, or elaborations:

      Good programs can use results of good standardized tests to improve teaching.  This is, I suppose, part of your number 3, but what if MOST kids are learning, and some are not?  Well, you can use standardized testing to help figure out why not.  This is better done with the individually administered standardized tests (WISC and similar tests) that give more detailed pictures of skills.

      The bell curve USUALLY shows up, but sometimes not.  Some skills are not normally distributed, and even IQ is not perfectly normally distributed (too many at both the low and high ends).  

      by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:39:31 AM PDT

•  coming next week

  A diary about two amazing teachers, and an amazing method, and an amazing curriculum.

  It will be posted by yours truly, and will be about The Math Circle

  by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:31:29 AM PDT

•  I had a lot, and each for different reasons. 1

  teacher, guide, guru, inpsiration...

  isn't this kind of judeo-christian savior stuff?

  I've got kind of a math problem with your ideas -

  there are ... over 6 million teachers in the u.s.

  http://www.census.gov/...

  and while teaching is art and science,

  why doesn't anyone / someone figure out reasonable time guidelines for various best practices,

  so, teachers might have a clue what kind of time all these great ideas take?

  btw, I ask 'someone' cuz

  I was student teaching in the fall of 2004,

  and this is my 2nd year in the classroom,

  and even though I've now worked with / trained with scores of highly educated gurus who don't provide specifics despite decades of education experience,

  and even though providing specifics runs against the I'm-real-educated-I-do-big-picture ethic prevalent in usa grad schools,

  even though education about education is about thinking, NOT

  figuring out how anything works so the 6 billion of us on the planet can all have health care and food and housing and education and retrianing and transportation and fun vacations and kiddy care and granny care ...

  I do NOT need any more freaking ideas without specifics -

  I know, I know,

  wtf are details good for?

  right? that is for someone else to figure out!

  great ideas -

  what is gonna help ME

  On Monday,

  help a bunch of 14 to 18 year olds,

  On Monday,

  kids who have really crappy to non existent math skills,

  ON MONDAY,

  help me help them to be able to participate in our communities?  AND

  help me help them to be able to compete with the spawn of halliburton ripping us all off blind everyday?

  ON MONDAY.

  I do NOT need any more freaking ideas without specifics -

  rmm.

   

  by seabos84 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:38:55 AM PDT

  •  Math is not my bag

    But, if I were in your city, and I could stop by and observe your classes, I would be able to come up with some more specific suggestions.

    It does not, however, mean that you would adopt them or that you could make them work, necessarily.

    When I started teaching, I felt like I had been thrown off the ship into the ocean and told to swim to shore.

    If I made it, great.  If not, oh well.  

    So, there I was swimming, looking for help, latching onto a piece of driftwood here, maybe noticing the seagull flying there.

    Eventually I cobbled together a kind of raft and was able to stand and do basic things.  Later, I had enough to make room on the raft for more people.

    These things take time.  Pick up a gem here and there.  Keep experimenting.  Notice when things work and when they don't.  Try cooperative groups.  Try a fun opening to start class, like brain-teasers or jokes.  Don't be afraid to really share who you are with the kids.  They will value that most of all.

    by Mi Corazon on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:46:46 AM PDT

    •  My first year high school teaching

      I was having very serious classroom management problems.  By October I was tearing my hair out, completely at a loss for what to do.

      My principal called me into his office, sat me down, talked me through the problem, and then asked me what my objective was for the year.

      I made something up, about them learning history and using higher order thinking processes, all the stuff I thought he was looking for.

      He stopped me and said: "litho, every first year teacher has the same objective.  June."

      The point is we learn this craft by doing.  The more we do it, so long as we care about ourselves, our students, and our work, the better we get at it.

      I'm in my fifth year now, and my objectives are a lot more developed than just "June."  And I reach a lot -- though not all -- of them.

      by litho on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:55:03 AM PDT

      •  1st year teaching story

        My favorite prof while I was getting my MA in ed told this story about himself:

        First year teaching.  He is assigned to class 6-12 in a poor urban school.  There were 12 sections of the sixth grade.  1 was the smart kids.  sec. 12 had gone through 3 teachers in the last year.

        He says
        "Hello, I'm Mr. Weiss, I'll be your teacher"

        and a kid stands on a desk and says

        "YOU are a motherfucking, cocksucking, blue-balled, bitch bastard"

        hmmmmm

        So, he repeats it.  Then, he start singing it.  Then, he starts dancing around the room, singing it.

        They were his from then on.

        by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:11:16 AM PDT

        •  My current job

          I'm the third teacher in my classroom this year.  My first day, a kid turns to me and says "you can't teach me."  Two weeks later he says to me, "Mr. litho, when you leaving?"  Then he started a pool on how long I would last.

          Wednesday, that kid shook my hand.

          by litho on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:36:28 AM PDT

        •  To reach kids, you have to go where they are.

          They don't know where you are and they don't really care.  Why should they?  Tell and show them why.  Then, you can teach.

          by Friend of the court on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:14:14 AM PDT

    •  I was a cook for 15 years, and

      I really really enjoyed the immediacy of your work

      the omelet / steak / slop was right, or it wasn't.

      and

      I have NEVER had patience with bureaucratic processes ... since I was a teenager in the 70's and bureaucratic jobs = typewriter and carbon paper.

      and

      I don't have patience? ;)

      I AM going to get good at this, AND

      thanks a lot ;)

      rmm.

      by seabos84 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:04:36 AM PDT

    •  what day was the raft built, I am sick of

      waiting ...

      right now

      it all seems like I'm trying to hold onto floating packing popcorn.

      on which day, specifically, will I be competent ;)

      I want to start the countdown.

      rmm.

      by seabos84 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:35:26 AM PDT

  •  quite the poet, aren't you

    what is gonna help ME

    On Monday,

    help a bunch of 14 to 18 year olds,

    On Monday,

    kids who have really crappy to non existent math skills,

    ON MONDAY,

    help me help them to be able to participate in our communities?  AND

    help me help them to be able to compete with the spawn of halliburton ripping us all off blind everyday?

    ON MONDAY.

    I do NOT need any more freaking ideas without specifics

    If you're looking for more specifics, my new favorite is Marcia Tate's Worksheets don't grow dendrites.  It builds a lot on the Jensen stuff, but it has the specifics you're looking for.

    I understand your problem with needing fewer ideas and more specifics.  At my school we have teacher tutors, with each new teacher (less than 3 years teaching) being assigned to a veteran teacher for support.  That it really the best place to look for answers if your problem is I know what I'm supposed to be doing, I just don't know how!  Ask teachers who are doing what you want to do, how they do it.

    Oh, and as far as that Halliburton part goes, best of luck to you.  I wish that could be a responsibility of public schools, but I'm even less convinced of the possibility of that.

    by Sidof79 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:28:21 AM PDT

  •  Books that might help

    Out of the labyrinth: Setting mathematics free; but this only has minor specifics

    then there is Solve this

    and

    Math charmers

    and

    Problem solving strategies

    what successful math teachers do

    Of these, I have only seen two, but the others are highly recommended by people I respect.

    OOTLabyrinth is by the people who started Math Circle (Bob and Ellen Kaplan).  I've read this.  It's great.

    Solve this is by one of the people who work with the Kaplans, and has actual problems to use

    the last three books are by Posamentier.  I've read the first one, which is more general.  The last two are specifically for teachers.  Posamentier is great, IMHO.  He's into teaching the joy of math.

    by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:50:03 AM PDT

    •  thanks ! n/t.

      by seabos84 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:55:45 AM PDT

  •  I wish I could help

    Math is not my subject at all but on ESL for adult students I can give lots of specifics! :-/

    If at all possible, find a way to visit a more experienced teacher's classroom. Maybe even go to some evening classes (adult ed?) if they have a good math teacher you could watch. STEAL some tricks.

    Many of my successful classroom things were swiped from somebody.

    by sillia on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 12:26:03 PM PDT

•  setbacks, mistakes and failures

  The example I use in the classroom for mistakes is one of the construction worker:

  If a person is building a house and they drive a nail in wrong, do the give up and leave behind a partially built house? No, the person just pulls the nail and tries again. What if the builder puts an entire wall in the wrong place? Just tear it down and try again. The end product can have mistakes, but the result is an amazing piece of craftsmanship.

  This week I spent some time in a class with a large percentage of high achievers. The kids who took a little longer to understand the concepts were afraid to give answers and were afraid of looking dumb compared to the other students. I asked the class, "Are we allowed to make mistakes on our classwork?" Some replied "No." I asked, "Why not?! Isn't this just practice? Aren't you allowed to make mistakes in practice?" Some of them started to get it, so I added "Now is the time to make mistakes -- lots of them -- and work though them so when the test comes, everybody is comfortable with the material and ready." Well, most anyway.

  by carneasadaburrito on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:44:35 AM PDT

•  Very nice diary

  and very timely for me.  A lot of it, however, is not new information.

  I've been working in high schools for a little over four years, a job I entered with no formal training and which it has taken me some time to master.  Along the way I've had the good fortune to work with some excellent educators, who have provided me with direction and encouragement in what I honestly believe is the most difficult job in our economy.

  I've also had the good fortune to do professional development workshops with Research for Better Teaching, an educational consulting firm established by and based on the research of Jon Saphier.  Through RBT I learned a basic approach to teaching very similar to the one outlined in the diary.

  Thanks again for the great work.  You've given me some new books to read.

  by litho on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:49:08 AM PDT

  •  Thanks for the link

    Never heard of them but something like this is definitely needed.

    by Mi Corazon on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 06:56:35 AM PDT

•  Check the tags.

  by rserven on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:04:52 AM PDT

  •  I checked the tags at the door

    Is there something more to add?

    by Mi Corazon on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:08:16 AM PDT

    •  Recommended. :-)

      by rserven on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:47:39 AM PDT

•  my best teachers

  got my parents in on things when it was required, not just on PTA nights.

  Though it meant more work for me, I know I appreciated the increased attention, difficult to attract alone in those days of large families.

  by le sequoit on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:12:15 AM PDT

•  Good luck getting kids fixed attention to tasks.

  in light of Continuous Partial Attention which appears to more and more the modus operandi for younger generation with ubiqutous communications of cel phones and SMS and even for business communications e.g. Blackberry (crackberry) addicts.

  by km4 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:12:17 AM PDT

  •  it's actually not that hard

    1. the teacher has to enjoy what s/he is doing

    2. it has to have some relevance / meaning to the kids

    they are quite capable of laser-like focuse when it is of importance to them.  The task is to find out how to make it important to them, and it cannot be merely by compulsion - pay attention or else - because that accomplishes little.

    by teacherken on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:25:04 AM PDT

  •  I've seen it happen

    I will write about it next week

    by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:53:46 AM PDT

    •  i spent 6 hours

      at a private school yesterday...open enrollment; they turn down no-one. The entire curriculum is project based and the grades are mixed.

      Every child was "on task." with many older children helping younger children.

      The task they were working on? Determining how fast the igloo they had made two weeks ago would melt. I watched children "do" math for 2 hours, engrossed with weighing, predicting, and refining their calculations.

      I left that school so angry I could spit. When children are interested, there's no stopping them...

      by DeweyCounts on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:01:01 AM PDT

      •  You are quoting me in advance :-)

        In next week's diary, one line is

        Once you turn a kid on, you had best get out of the way. Because they move fast.

        Also, kids HELPING each other, not because they are assigned to do it by an overwhelmed teacher, but because the GROUP is solving a problem - very much part of the Math Circle approach.

        by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:05:57 AM PDT

        •  yes!

          Dewey argued that the best teachers stay out of the way...

          by DeweyCounts on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:16:06 AM PDT

          •  Montessori too....IIRC

            And Sylvia Ashton Warner, in her marvelous book Teacher shows one way of turning them on and getting out of the way.

            Of course, you can't JUST get out of the way, first you have to make sure there is something to get out of the way of.

            (Yes, I know, I ended that sentence with a preposition.  If you tell me this is bad, I will quote Churchill

            That is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.)

            by plf515 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:51:35 AM PDT

  •  Even in the multitasking mode

    kids pay more attention to what you are saying than you think.

    I spent last trimester reading a particular book to my kids (The Green Glass Sea, which just won the Scott O'Dell award for historical fiction).  I could have sworn that very few of a particular class were paying much attention.

    Surprise.  I finished the book, and had them write a short memo to the author.  I could not believe the number of kids who I thought were spacing out, talking, writing notes and the like who really enjoyed the book and wanted to know when the sequel was coming out.

    The trimester before, I read a selection of science fiction novellas to them.  One young man, who's never picked up many books off my shelf, went to the shelf and grabbed the book when I was done, and started reading the stories I hadn't read to them.

    The attention and engagement can be there.  It's just that if you start scolding them, lecturing them  or otherwise demanding certain behaviors, the bla-bla-bla filter goes on.

    by joycemocha on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:02:46 AM PDT

•  I Had A Few Great Teachers

  They had various styles of teaching but the one thing that they had in common was that they expected their students to do well in their class. Some were very enthusiastic and nurturing, others were more strict disciplinarians but the main theme was that if you were willing to put in the work, you would be able to achieve the objective. They expected you to achieve it.

  by MO Blue on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:23:55 AM PDT

  •  This is the key....

    one thing that they had in common was that they expected their students to do well in their class

    A teacher's expectations set the bar for kids.  I get in kids' faces when they tell me that they are dumb.  Or stupid.  Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and I have high expectations of effort for everyone--and I sure as heck know progress when I see it!

    There is a major, major reason why high expectations are considered to be best practice in special education.  If you have high expectations, then the kids come through to meet them.

    by joycemocha on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:09:06 AM PDT

    •  Yep n/t

      by MO Blue on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:17:08 AM PDT

•  About that pole...

  It seems to vary what makes a good teacher moving from elementary to high school and then to college.

  The only good things I remember about any of my grade school teachers was when we did things that were out of the ordinary- field trips, class plays, interactive stuff.

  In high school, the teachers I liked best were the ones who made learning fun.  Easier said than done, I know, but the ones who had fun themselves, made it more fun for the rest of us.

  In college, the professors I liked best were the most helpful and understanding.  One of my professors I consider one of my favorite people on the planet- she is the type that if you go to her for help, she won't let you leave until you get what you came for.  Some professors seemed like they couldn't be bothered to teach if it wasn't class time.  She seemed like what she wanted most was for us to understand what she was teaching.  I really appriciated that.

  by Sidof79 on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:33:21 AM PDT

•  Pedagogy as ideology

  to a certain extent, pedagogy is ideology.  Students in the current system are for the most part fed a "Great Men" version of history that does little to examine the history of capitalist discipline as it affects the present.  I don't think, though, that Americans are paying much attention at all to the way history (or any other subject) is taught.  My understanding of American pedagogy is at this point largely persuaded by Horse Philosopher's old diary about "expedient purpose."  The point at present is that American education conforms to whatever purpose looks good, with the result that it, and its product students, have little purpose at all outside of the external purposes which are imposed upon it and them.

  In the neoliberal "Era of Finance Capital" (i.e. now), of course, this means the No Child Left Behind Act -- lots of testing to fatten the wallets of the corporate heads who profit most from government purchases of test equipment.  For them, education (in the systemic sense) is about the ascendancy of the ascendant fraction of capital, and they belong to that fraction.  

  Your point about standardized testing as a reinforcement of what we know about inequality buttresses mine, about the emptiness of American educational purposes.  The common notions that American education is about "success" and "the future" are easily demolished by noting that with everyone striving for "success," the economic picture of America barely changes, and that with all our cliches about how "children are our future," well-repeated by politicians of every stripe, we still grope blindly and heedlessly toward a future of environmental devastation, financial dislocation, endless warfare, and abrupt climate change.  So those things aren't what American education is about.

  Is American education about obedience?  After all, the various Federal governments need soldiers to obey orders unquestioningly, and so a system must manufacture them.  Boot camp is not enough; school must be a "pre-boot camp" so that students do not turn out like me, who questions unremittingly the foundations of our so-called civilization.  An economic system which is fundamendally irrational even by its own standards must have unthinking bureaucrats to enforce its standards and uphold its empty norms.  Such a thing is too empty to be ideology.  Ideologies stand for specific things; "sit down, shut up, and do your work" is not a specific thing about which an ideology speaks.

  by Cassiodorus on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:46:20 AM PDT

•  It was when I was 25...

  I had dropped out of high school to get married and have babies but did get my diploma.  Decided to get some kind of education "in case something happened to my husband".... (who later divorced me.).  

  I was afraid that because of my dropping out of school and no work history, NONE, that I could not get into the hospital associated school for medical records (sort of a trade school then).  

  When I interviewed with this lady she looked beyond my dropping out - she saw something in me that I didn't even know was there.  When we had financial problems half way through the year and I was afraid I would have to quit, she arranged for me to have a part time job in the hospital so I could continue.

  She was always interested in her students.  She really cared.  She was excited about the profession and for those of us that seemed to enjoy what it was about, she went the extra mile, encouraged, nudged, praised.  She followed our careers and continued to praise and mentor.

  I started school with the idea of having something to fall back on.  I ended up with a career.  I will never forget that teacher and how she helped change my life.

  by JWC on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 07:49:43 AM PDT

•  Darn! This is an excellent diary...

  and I'm on my way out to the zoo with the smaller, but less contained fury.  Thank you so much for putting this together.  I'm getting my teaching certification at the ripe old age of 40 and I'm fascinated by this.

  I appreciate all the hard work and genorosity of all kossacks, but the teachers, as usual, are stand-outs!  I promise to look back closely at this later.  YKos is becoming more and more of a must-attend for me.

  by barelycontainedfury on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:04:02 AM PDT

•  Glad that you care enough to read through

  Sometimes frustrating that more people than teachers don't care very much about education.

  It is, in my view, one of the few tangible ways we can dependably have an impact on our society.

  by Mi Corazon on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:06:37 AM PDT

•  Maybe I'm just dumb

  But if EVERY school is required to score above 50% in order to avoid punitive feedback, doesn't that mean EVERY school must be above average?  This isn't Lake Wobegone, so I don't know how that's possible.

  by WI Deadhead on Sat Mar 10, 2007 at 08:10:3