In fifth grade, we learn about the system of checks and balances, and perhaps know what a voting booth looks like. Even before then (especially in this year's election), we can identify political candidates, and perhaps know why there are political cartoons featuring elephants and donkeys. But is that the point? We can't expect kids to hear about politics, government, and freedom in history class when all they're surrounded by are rules, standards, and fill-in-the-bubble tests.
How can we expect the citizens of tomorrow to know what they're up against, and know how to be active, committed, daresay patriotic citizens if they have spent the last eighteen years of their lives being told their opinions don't matter? We can't.
We need a system of education that is based around the way that children naturally learn - through exploration, imitation, and experimentation. We have to stop concentrating on making every student adhere to the same standards, because we risk the danger of breeding a society of clones.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
A Real-Life Example of Democratic Teaching
For a real-life example of how teaching can not only be effective but be essential to the progress and development of a school for today's "information age", please read the following excerpts from an essay written by a student of a so-called "free school" in Framingham, Massachusetts. At the Sudbury Valley School, students are given the same voting rights as the teachers, and build their education "naturally and organically". Surprisingly, they don't use the budget to buy candy.
"There isn't much disagreement that a school is supposed to develop the intellectual potential and moral character of children and, at the same time, to prepare them to perpetuate the culture and to function as citizens in the community. There's really a two- fold function that any educational system undertakes in any culture a personal and a social function. These two have to work in harmony in order to make a viable school.
Usually educators start by saying, "What is it that we want to achieve on the social side?" That's where we start as well, by asking, "What kind of people are needed in this era in history to make this country function?" And in order to answer this, we have to evaluate carefully what is going on in our society.
When we first opened, in the sixties, people had just started waking up to the fact that the United States was entering the post-industrial era. That was a new phrase back then; today it's commonplace. A new social and economic environment was being created in this country, that went beyond the factory, beyond the industrial revolution, and looked toward a different kind of economic system, the key to which was the idea that repetitive routine work would no longer be done by human beings.
Such transformations don't happen overnight. But we have always felt that our society is moving inexorably toward a future in which people will have to be imaginative, to find new ways to lead productive lives. This requires every child to grow to be creative, to be responsible, to have initiative, and to be self-starting. All these phrases are widely used in educational circles today, because by now everybody has realized it. Every school talks about producing people who will have these attributes.
A second, no less important, requirement in this country is that people have to know how to function as free citizens in a democracy. It used to be that when we talked about this, people would say, "What do you mean, you have to learn how to be free? What's the big deal?" Nowadays, it's a lot easier to explain what we mean, because within the last few years half of the world has suddenly rid itself an unspeakable tyranny, and there are literally hundreds of millions of people out there who do not have a clue how to function as free citizens in a democratic society where they all have to share in decisions, where they all have to make compromises, where they all have to make political judgments, day in, day out . Today, all you have to do is look across the ocean and you can see that it is no easy task to learn all this.
So all in all, any school has a very challenging, two-pronged task: to produce creative, self-starting, imaginative, responsible people, and also to produce people who know how to be free and know how to function in a democracy."
[...]
"Where does the social part fit in, that has to do with living in a free society? The only way to accustom children to democracy is to practice it. There's no escaping that conclusion. We certainly aren't going to teach them by telling them the virtues of democracy. To take people you've been pushing around for twelve years in the authoritarian environment of traditional school, and sit them down for fifty minutes of talking about this being a free country, and what freedom is about, and what their rights are, is laughable. The only way to bring up free citizens is to make them free citizens from day one. And there's no reason not to. There's no reason for a school not to be an operating democracy. There's no reason for four-year-olds not to have the same voluntary access to decision-making as fourteen-year-olds or thirty-four-year-olds.
When we opened the school, we were told that there's no way to give four-year-olds a vote. People predicted that within a year we'd be closed. "They're kids. They'll buy candy with all the budget. They'll do something crazy. You can't give kids responsibility. They're not capable of thinking about the future." What is there to say, decades later, when a school that has been run by the School Meeting, in which every child regardless of age has the same vote as every adult, a school that started out in 1968 with a per-pupil cost equal to that of the public schools and today is operating at less than half the per pupil cost of the public schools? Never a moment's reliance on government money, grants, or fund raising. So much for kids who spend all the money on candy! There isn't a person who graduates from the school who doesn't understand what it means to be a responsible member of the community. And there isn't an adult in the school who is uncomfortable with the fact that they share their power equally with the children.
All this sounds like a lot of abstraction. Is this really a school? Of course it's a school! It's a school that really makes sense for where we're headed as a society. The only problem is, it doesn't feel like a school. We're back to the culture shock. Sudbury Valley doesn't have all the road signs that people have been used to in schools.
So let me end with the following observation to help bridge this culture gap. People come to SVS and see it as being in "perpetual recess," and it gives them a little twinge and perhaps they start worrying. But just remember this: these schools that we all grew up in, with their classes, their curricula, their SAT's and Achievement Tests and Placement Tests, their grade levels and exams, these schools are relative newcomers to the scene! They're only about one-hundred-fifty years old. They were started by people who sat down and thought about education and said, "This is the kind of school we need to create a great industrial society." And do you know what happened? People in the 19th century used to walk into those "newfangled schools" and experience culture shock! They'd say, "This is a school? My kids could be spending their time productively out in the fields on the farm. They could be apprenticing as tradesmen, or as craftsmen, or doing all sorts of useful things. You mean to tell us that taking kids and sitting them at desks and having them write on chalkboards, that's a school? You're calling that education?" They had just as weird a feeling then as people have today looking at Sudbury Valley! It took many, many years for people to get used to the industrial-age schools which are so accepted now!" [...]
My boyfriend's younger brother attends this school, and whenever he mentions his education, it is always in a positive light. Students can meet with any teacher they like, about whatever subjects they like, in order to pursue subjects that interest them. It does shock me, however, when Erik leaves for school at 11:45am and returns after 5pm - students are required to spend five hours per day at school, but it can be any time during the school's hours of operation. It also amazes me that students frequently get the opportunity to travel to other schools like SVS in Oregon, North Carolina, and Belgium.
In reading the many articles featured on the SVS website, I really began to embrace the concept of what they call "post-industrial teaching". It's true! Our present educational system, although it has experienced a bit of evolution in terms of curriculum and technology, is designed to teach students to be part of the "system". I may sound like a hippie, but with these concepts in mind, I can't deny that perhaps traditional schooling no longer prepares kids for the "real world" the way we think it does.
"There isn't much disagreement that a school is supposed to develop the intellectual potential and moral character of children and, at the same time, to prepare them to perpetuate the culture and to function as citizens in the community. There's really a two- fold function that any educational system undertakes in any culture a personal and a social function. These two have to work in harmony in order to make a viable school.
Usually educators start by saying, "What is it that we want to achieve on the social side?" That's where we start as well, by asking, "What kind of people are needed in this era in history to make this country function?" And in order to answer this, we have to evaluate carefully what is going on in our society.
When we first opened, in the sixties, people had just started waking up to the fact that the United States was entering the post-industrial era. That was a new phrase back then; today it's commonplace. A new social and economic environment was being created in this country, that went beyond the factory, beyond the industrial revolution, and looked toward a different kind of economic system, the key to which was the idea that repetitive routine work would no longer be done by human beings.
Such transformations don't happen overnight. But we have always felt that our society is moving inexorably toward a future in which people will have to be imaginative, to find new ways to lead productive lives. This requires every child to grow to be creative, to be responsible, to have initiative, and to be self-starting. All these phrases are widely used in educational circles today, because by now everybody has realized it. Every school talks about producing people who will have these attributes.
A second, no less important, requirement in this country is that people have to know how to function as free citizens in a democracy. It used to be that when we talked about this, people would say, "What do you mean, you have to learn how to be free? What's the big deal?" Nowadays, it's a lot easier to explain what we mean, because within the last few years half of the world has suddenly rid itself an unspeakable tyranny, and there are literally hundreds of millions of people out there who do not have a clue how to function as free citizens in a democratic society where they all have to share in decisions, where they all have to make compromises, where they all have to make political judgments, day in, day out . Today, all you have to do is look across the ocean and you can see that it is no easy task to learn all this.
So all in all, any school has a very challenging, two-pronged task: to produce creative, self-starting, imaginative, responsible people, and also to produce people who know how to be free and know how to function in a democracy."
[...]
"Where does the social part fit in, that has to do with living in a free society? The only way to accustom children to democracy is to practice it. There's no escaping that conclusion. We certainly aren't going to teach them by telling them the virtues of democracy. To take people you've been pushing around for twelve years in the authoritarian environment of traditional school, and sit them down for fifty minutes of talking about this being a free country, and what freedom is about, and what their rights are, is laughable. The only way to bring up free citizens is to make them free citizens from day one. And there's no reason not to. There's no reason for a school not to be an operating democracy. There's no reason for four-year-olds not to have the same voluntary access to decision-making as fourteen-year-olds or thirty-four-year-olds.
When we opened the school, we were told that there's no way to give four-year-olds a vote. People predicted that within a year we'd be closed. "They're kids. They'll buy candy with all the budget. They'll do something crazy. You can't give kids responsibility. They're not capable of thinking about the future." What is there to say, decades later, when a school that has been run by the School Meeting, in which every child regardless of age has the same vote as every adult, a school that started out in 1968 with a per-pupil cost equal to that of the public schools and today is operating at less than half the per pupil cost of the public schools? Never a moment's reliance on government money, grants, or fund raising. So much for kids who spend all the money on candy! There isn't a person who graduates from the school who doesn't understand what it means to be a responsible member of the community. And there isn't an adult in the school who is uncomfortable with the fact that they share their power equally with the children.
All this sounds like a lot of abstraction. Is this really a school? Of course it's a school! It's a school that really makes sense for where we're headed as a society. The only problem is, it doesn't feel like a school. We're back to the culture shock. Sudbury Valley doesn't have all the road signs that people have been used to in schools.
So let me end with the following observation to help bridge this culture gap. People come to SVS and see it as being in "perpetual recess," and it gives them a little twinge and perhaps they start worrying. But just remember this: these schools that we all grew up in, with their classes, their curricula, their SAT's and Achievement Tests and Placement Tests, their grade levels and exams, these schools are relative newcomers to the scene! They're only about one-hundred-fifty years old. They were started by people who sat down and thought about education and said, "This is the kind of school we need to create a great industrial society." And do you know what happened? People in the 19th century used to walk into those "newfangled schools" and experience culture shock! They'd say, "This is a school? My kids could be spending their time productively out in the fields on the farm. They could be apprenticing as tradesmen, or as craftsmen, or doing all sorts of useful things. You mean to tell us that taking kids and sitting them at desks and having them write on chalkboards, that's a school? You're calling that education?" They had just as weird a feeling then as people have today looking at Sudbury Valley! It took many, many years for people to get used to the industrial-age schools which are so accepted now!" [...]
My boyfriend's younger brother attends this school, and whenever he mentions his education, it is always in a positive light. Students can meet with any teacher they like, about whatever subjects they like, in order to pursue subjects that interest them. It does shock me, however, when Erik leaves for school at 11:45am and returns after 5pm - students are required to spend five hours per day at school, but it can be any time during the school's hours of operation. It also amazes me that students frequently get the opportunity to travel to other schools like SVS in Oregon, North Carolina, and Belgium.
In reading the many articles featured on the SVS website, I really began to embrace the concept of what they call "post-industrial teaching". It's true! Our present educational system, although it has experienced a bit of evolution in terms of curriculum and technology, is designed to teach students to be part of the "system". I may sound like a hippie, but with these concepts in mind, I can't deny that perhaps traditional schooling no longer prepares kids for the "real world" the way we think it does.
Monday, December 1, 2008
I've Got Those Recession Blues...
Well, as stated on CNN, FOX and most local news stations, we, as the U.S.A., are officially in a recession. What was looming and predicted to happen is now a fact of life for the time being, and while it seems scary and uncertain, I believe that we as a country have no choice to come out of this stronger, and perhaps with a better sense of purpose as to what life should be about.
I still find it rather amusing that we need days like today as wake up calls to change our lifestyles. It seems to me that many people are not happy in their day to day lives, but yet they don't quite know how to fix it. More and more we are tied up in our financial struggles because we are an extremely prosperous nation that sometimes tries to overextend our limits of just how much we can really handle, both as a nation and on the personal familial level. We get the best job we can, the biggest house and the best vacation home as well, and then we work like dogs to pay off all the mortgages and loans and cost of heat until we just burn out. Or lose out, depending on how much work and money you can get. Maybe it's just me, but the "next big thing" lifestyle has never appealed to me; I'm not striving to go out and be a big showoff or enjoy the finer things in life, though if that happened I could live with that, but it also is a blessing because I am truly content with having less.
But now that I am an almost graduate, just about two weeks shy of getting my degree, I wonder just how tough it is going to be to get a job. Music education is already at such a disadvantage in our school systems, how will it fare when even more schools get shut down and programs are cut? I am hopeful and afraid for what is around the bend, but it's the good work that we do at school that helps us prepare for the curveballs life throws our way. I just hope someone will pay for me for thinking!
I still find it rather amusing that we need days like today as wake up calls to change our lifestyles. It seems to me that many people are not happy in their day to day lives, but yet they don't quite know how to fix it. More and more we are tied up in our financial struggles because we are an extremely prosperous nation that sometimes tries to overextend our limits of just how much we can really handle, both as a nation and on the personal familial level. We get the best job we can, the biggest house and the best vacation home as well, and then we work like dogs to pay off all the mortgages and loans and cost of heat until we just burn out. Or lose out, depending on how much work and money you can get. Maybe it's just me, but the "next big thing" lifestyle has never appealed to me; I'm not striving to go out and be a big showoff or enjoy the finer things in life, though if that happened I could live with that, but it also is a blessing because I am truly content with having less.
But now that I am an almost graduate, just about two weeks shy of getting my degree, I wonder just how tough it is going to be to get a job. Music education is already at such a disadvantage in our school systems, how will it fare when even more schools get shut down and programs are cut? I am hopeful and afraid for what is around the bend, but it's the good work that we do at school that helps us prepare for the curveballs life throws our way. I just hope someone will pay for me for thinking!
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Liberalism: A Mental Disorder?
Over this passed weekend I have been dealing with a lot of unnecessary stress due to politics. My Uncle in Texas, who is a extremely conservative Republican, continues to send me emails about conservative psychiatrists who have been diagnosing people with liberal beliefs as "mental patients".
I wrote back, asking for him to please stop pressing his beliefs upon me , to only get a reponse back saying that he was trying to teach me how to think like an intellectual. I was told that I had a small frame of reference due to my lack of years of experience. He told me that if I am in my 20's and I don't vote liberal that I don't have a heart, but if I am in my 40's and I don't vote conservative that I don't have a brain.
My Uncle is a college professor, and he also teaches elementary piano, but does that mean that he has the right to "teach" everyone a lesson? There was nothing two-sided to anything that he told me at all, and the fact that he is a teacher bothers me. When is enough, enough? What if I were a student in one of his classes and he said all of this to me? How could a student deal with a radical of high authority who bullies them intellectually?
I wrote back, asking for him to please stop pressing his beliefs upon me , to only get a reponse back saying that he was trying to teach me how to think like an intellectual. I was told that I had a small frame of reference due to my lack of years of experience. He told me that if I am in my 20's and I don't vote liberal that I don't have a heart, but if I am in my 40's and I don't vote conservative that I don't have a brain.
My Uncle is a college professor, and he also teaches elementary piano, but does that mean that he has the right to "teach" everyone a lesson? There was nothing two-sided to anything that he told me at all, and the fact that he is a teacher bothers me. When is enough, enough? What if I were a student in one of his classes and he said all of this to me? How could a student deal with a radical of high authority who bullies them intellectually?
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Cus We All Could Use A Little Laughter
So with the stress of the semester hitting all of us, below is a link that should certainly get all of you laughing.
Scarlet Takes A Tumble
This video really doesn't connect at all to what we have been talking about in class, but I felt that we could all use something to brighten our day.
Scarlet Takes A Tumble
This video really doesn't connect at all to what we have been talking about in class, but I felt that we could all use something to brighten our day.
Tolerence, Education, and Prop 8
With the results of Proposition 8 in California looming over our country and my conscious, and the Supreme court agreeing today to at least hear the challenges of Prop 8, I could not help but look into what educators thought of all of this, and if education has anything to do with it
Supporters of Prop 8 have said the idea of same-sex marriage could be integrated into all aspects of school lessons, not just sex-ed. One example used is of a math book containing a word problem that tells the story of "Johnny's two mommies" going to the store or celebrating an anniversary. They are concerned this will infiltrate literature, vocabulary, social studies, science, math and all the subjects that kids learn.
I realize I was brought up in a pretty Liberal environment, and that my close connection to gay culture can leave me at time possible biased, but I believe as an educator, and human being these kinds of ideas of limiting groups abilities is wrong and against what educators stand for.
Are we not the ones trying to expand the minds, views and tolerance of our students? I can find understanding in why certain peoples religious beliefs skew the image of the homosexual individual, but isn’t part of religion also love and tolerance for fellow human. By eliminating a whole group of people from school curriculum are we not teaching hate instead of acceptance?
I consider this to be no different than when schools began integration, or text books used “ethnic” names in their text, as well as the California Supreme Court's 1948 decision to overturn a ban on interracial marriages.
I recommend everyone read the comments by pro 8 writers and decide if that is the America you want for the future. Let's stop these kinds of propositions now before it gets out of hand. When future generations look back on us let's be remembered as expanding rights and accepting people. Let's not be the people blocking the schoolhouse door.
I found an commercial for the Prop 8 supporters that depicts a young girl coming home and telling her mother that she learned in school that two prince’s could marry and that she could marry a princess.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SKZgF804O0
This commercial is ridiculous in that there is nothing about Prop 8 that is connected to public education in any way. There is also nothing in California state law that would require the teaching of marriage in any of its forms. Also most State laws (California being one) allows parents to opt students out of lessons they find to be out of keeping with their personal beliefs. The "Yes on 8" advertisements suggesting that students will be taught about same-sex marriage if the proposition fails are untruthful and ridiculous.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SKZgF804O0
Supporters of Prop 8 have said the idea of same-sex marriage could be integrated into all aspects of school lessons, not just sex-ed. One example used is of a math book containing a word problem that tells the story of "Johnny's two mommies" going to the store or celebrating an anniversary. They are concerned this will infiltrate literature, vocabulary, social studies, science, math and all the subjects that kids learn.
I realize I was brought up in a pretty Liberal environment, and that my close connection to gay culture can leave me at time possible biased, but I believe as an educator, and human being these kinds of ideas of limiting groups abilities is wrong and against what educators stand for.
Are we not the ones trying to expand the minds, views and tolerance of our students? I can find understanding in why certain peoples religious beliefs skew the image of the homosexual individual, but isn’t part of religion also love and tolerance for fellow human. By eliminating a whole group of people from school curriculum are we not teaching hate instead of acceptance?
I consider this to be no different than when schools began integration, or text books used “ethnic” names in their text, as well as the California Supreme Court's 1948 decision to overturn a ban on interracial marriages.
I recommend everyone read the comments by pro 8 writers and decide if that is the America you want for the future. Let's stop these kinds of propositions now before it gets out of hand. When future generations look back on us let's be remembered as expanding rights and accepting people. Let's not be the people blocking the schoolhouse door.
Post-Modern-ism wtf?
We are drilled in Critical Pedagogy II that Critical Pedagogy is not a method but a Postmodern teaching philosophy. What exactly does that mean? Do we ever discuss what postmodern means? Why would be promote a teaching philosophy when we don't fully understand the vocabulary we absorb and blindly use? How can I understand what postmodernism is when I don't think I know what being Modern is?
The conceptualization of postmodernism is certainly a journey, which I have chosen to embark upon. I can honestly say that I have only began to touch the surface of a complex, fragmented, and multifaceted philosophy. My journey began because I became increasingly frustrated by merely uttering words while explaining a phenomenon that felt organic and natural to myself. I felt that my education was incomplete because I didn't know that I knew what it meant to live, teach, and learn through a postmodern education. Many times this frustration lead to an all out assault on the tenets of Critical Pedagogy. In addition to this frustration was the conflict that arose from my religious and spiritual beliefs. The ideas of universality, absolute truth, and resolution were tightly ingrained in my identity and my reality. Consequently, The concepts, notions, and ideas promoted by postmodernism at times not only challenged by faith and world view but created anxiety, tension, and at times anger and hostility. Such feelings were simply not directed towards postmodernism but also myself, society, and being. The process of learning, relearning, and unlearning continues to be a hard fought and sometimes painful undertaking. For centuries society has relied upon the powerful wisdom of sages, teachers, intellectuals, philosophers, and artists. Through there music, art, and prose people searched for answers to questions unknown. I remember vividly a segment from a popular movie titled "Hitchhikers guide to the universe". The segment highlighted how the human beings are always looking for the the answer to the ultimate question. Eventually human beings develop the largest and smartest computer that answers the ultimate question and tells them the answer is 46. However, the computer never tells them the ultimate question. Instead it directs them to discover the ultimate question. This movie illustrates the notions of postmodernism. A modernist seeks to answer the ultimate question and uses religion, art, and prose, to communicate the answer. In the process the modernist clings to the past to search for clues, and interprets art to seek meaning. The emphasis is placed upon logic and rationality. However, one may also argue that I am over simplifying the nature and origins of modernism. While I may be not giving much credit to the modernist platform I do credit some modernist movements for their liberatory power. Like postmodernism, modernism is hard to define because one can argue that modernism declared war on itself several times during the course of world history. However, modernism continued to seek homogeneity under the disguise of unity, absolutism through truth, and equality through universalism. Modernism provides an end to the means and instills a sense of hope for citizens to aspire too. Such a notion leaves many citizens vulnerable to manipulation, control, and oppression. What was once was the powerful progenitor of democracy, liberation easily became a new, clandestine, and power mode of oppression. Such power can be witnessed in the art and music of stalinism and nazism. One can certainly argue that such perversion can be witnessed in elements of the capitalist American society. For example, the advertising industry, Americana music, political campaigns, military recruitment, and education.
Modernism tried challenging and reinventing itself many times which helped keep society relatively heterogeneous. However, postmodernism goes beyond simple rejection and questioning. Postmodernism is about living through challenge, tension, difference, and diversity. There is a skepticism about accepting hierarchy, establishments, and absoluteness but and acceptance towards challengeing the status quo, intense transformation, and critical reflection. One must be aware however that there is no single definition or conceptualization about postmodernism. Postmodernism is a very open, playful, and radical philosophy that takes contemplation. Another, tenet of postmodernism especially in education is problem posing. Paulo Friere coined that term by stating that students and teachers must redistribute power among teachers and students. In addition the goal of the teacher is to engage students in the process of problem posing. In postmodernism questions are more important than answers. Such a mindset can have intensely powerful results in education. Rather than me tell you exacally what post modernism actually is I suggest reading "Introducing Postmodernism: A graphic guide to cutting edge thinking".
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