Theme 5: Final Reflections

It is easy to see black and white here.  Literally—we often see the white paper and the black bubbles of the multiple choice tests.   It is also easy to pick one side, and zealous stay on that side and see nothing but the good, or the bad to this very complex issue of standardized testing and national curriculum—but you can’t. Or rather, you shouldn’t.

These issues will never be as simple as black or white, rather there is a gray area—and I mean a huge gray area—that needs to be considered.

I know I picked one side originally when I first thought about these issues, but we can’t try to classify the issue as entirely good, nor entirely bad.  I need to see the merit of both sides, even though that may be creating a great big hazy gray fog. 

The point is rather to appreciate this gray area as a balance.  I do believe having a national curriculum could create more accountability as well as diversity to our current curriculum. I know Common Core asks ELA teachers to explore several types of writing—like narrative and informative writing, vs. what too many teachers are focusing on—which is ACT inspired persuasive writing.  So in that respects, I see the value in CCSS.  I also believe that standardized tests give us quick and convenient feedback.  But there has to be a balance where these tests and standards don’t go too far one way or another.  We need to embrace the gray area, and find a creative way to mix the black and white together.  

Theme 5: Standards, Measurements, and Testing

Greed and Power.

Those two words seem to be the slogans for education today.   I have always know there is big money in education, and with the constant whisperings of the “school budget” with “staff layoffs” and “school resources,” you can’t help but know that money has been the fuel for our education system for a long, long time.

It’s a constant threat and pressure point; I feel like our schools are in saucepan on stove burner which is set to high, and every school district is waiting for that moment for the water to boil and overflow because there is too much to pay for, and never enough money to support it.

I did not—in my embarrassingly naïve way—realize that the greediness of the education system was also deeply intertwined with the fact that the standardized tests  we use and are so tightly bound to are also part of a “new and lucrative market”( Hoff, 24) for publishers.  I felt myself get slapped across the face when I was reading because I never put 2 and 2 together. I just realized that using tests like the ACT is very profitable for some people.  Sure, it is destroying the ambition, diversity, creativity, and passion of our children in the classroom, but hey…as long as someone is making money, what’s the real harm?

Excuse my sarcasm, but isn’t greed one of the seven deadly sins?  When has greed ever been positive or constructive?

My fear is that this type of greed is a political, social, and economical giant.  It is something that cannot easily be destroyed or changed.  And after doing our first four units, and learning that school is a basically another place for “big business,” I am worried about if this greed will ever change in American education.

It was also eye-opening to read that a “national curriculum is a mechanism for the political control of knowledge” (35) and how you could see that “in the top down curriculum…teachers and students have little recognized power” (Sleeter and Stillman, 43). I have always liked the idea of the Common Core Standards, but then I realized that it really does take the power away from me as the teacher, and worse—the students.

Students seem to have little say or choice in what they want to learn.  We have clearly seen that with what they must read, what they must write, and how they must demonstrate what they learn—which is through these standardized tests.

This idea of students and power has made me think about the attitudes of our students—they know they don’t have power or control over their educational surroundings, so they do one of two things: they resist and rebel; thus becoming those “disrupted, problem children” or they become apathetic and quit trying.

So is this what our educational system has come down to? A power struggle over money? A system where our students and future generations are nothing more than bodies to control and squeeze money out of? It makes me wonder what other deadly sins our schools will be willing to commit next.

Resources:
Here are some comics I thought would help add some humor to this my somewhat dark and tense discussion!

Theme 4: Final Reflections

We need to start thinking about our curriculum creation in relationship to an educational buffet, especially a buffet of the past verses the buffet for the future.

Currently, our students are led to this buffet with so many choices, and no directions. Very few things are labeled, food choices are mixed and matched in stomach-turning ways. The buffet changes every year, and for many of our students it feels like none of the same food appears as they go from freshmen to senior English.  And the worst of it, is the timing…students are rushed into the room, told to grab and eat on the go.  They might enjoy the food at one station, or might want another “taste,” but there is no time.  And thus, the meal ends and they go home with a devastating belly ache.

Things need to change.  This buffet needs continuity; that continuity should start with their freshmen year and builds up unit by unit, and more importantly semester by semester.  Students need to see that the lessons in English are not in a vacuum, and there needs to be more recursion.  There also needs to be more richness to the lessons and to do that we need to slow down.  Students need the chance to browse, sit down, and really digest the curriculum that is served.  We also need to think about choice—and maybe this is more for upperclassmen—and letting the students pick their own  reading so students can see they are also a part of curriculum creation. 

We all know “fast food” is not good—yet why are we still teaching a “fast food” curriculum?

Theme 4: Curriculum Creation

This week’s theme made me think about the curriculum we teach in relationship to eating out at a buffet.  Most of us agree that when you eat at a buffet, you take your time. You explore the choices, pace yourself by perhaps starting with the salad bar, and moving onto the main courses.  I think about curriculum today in the same light, but instead I feel like I have arrived at a buffet counter and I have two minutes to eat and get out. Where is the time to mosey and explore the different food options? Where is the time to browse and explore the different lessons in curriculum as well as decided which “food” choices are going to be the most “tasty” and beneficial, and worth going back up to for more?

Doll’s discussion of “richness…and a curriculum’s depth” (268) as well as his thoughts on “recursion” where “curriculum segments, parts, sequences are arbitrary chunks that, instead of being seen as isolated units, are seen as opportunities for reflection” (269) made me think about this idea of the curriculum buffet in relationship to two classes I am currently teach: creative writing and English IV.

My CW class is much more relaxed and is a curriculum that definitely builds unit on top of unit—it’s the relax buffet eating that we enjoy, where we carefully look at the strategies and options for writing/reading and those lessons are makes up the key curriculum we  go back up to for “more.”  More in the sense that we take the grammar, voice lessons etc. from the poetry unit and apply it the narrative unit, and then onto fiction. Everything has this fluid, easy progression, and the best part is the learning and experimentation I have seen every single student done this semester.  I would argue a huge part of that is because we are not bogged down by a pacing guide or tightly packed calendar, and also kids see the common threads in every unit.

English IV—well—that is a completely different story. We have been rushed. We also tried narrative like my CW students, but the lessons for narrative were in direct competition with the reading of The Great Gatsby, which was completely disconnected, and now we are on 1984 and doing research and…AUGGHHH…it is like we have thrown the salad bar, main courses, and desert all on one plate and are trying to eat it all in a few minutes time before the bill arrives.  

The richness and recursion that I clearly connect to and have seen in my creative writing class has create a room where learning is engaging and important; it has made me realize that I really need to step back and revise all of my classes to incorporate all four of Doll’s “Rs” in every classroom, as well as consider Tyler’s discussion of “educational experiences” and how they are “effectively organized” (1) so kids see that lessons from one unit still bear relevance to another.  

In the end, kids know when they have time to sit down and “digest” the curriculum verses when they have to hover it down—and that really does shape, and break, the learning experience.

Resources:

So this resource moves in a different direction to my response and addresses some new thoughts I have about school boards based on the NY Times article.  Below is a link to a website that discusses who and what type of person should run for the NY State School Board. 

NY State School Board

I know there is merit in having schools boards (like new perspectives, community involvement), but I am now wondering if the people on these school boards have the proper ethos and credibility to decide what a school should or shouldn't do.  No where on this website does it say if these people need to have a background/experience in education...and it somewhat scares me because there is an educational expertise that is needed when creating the curriculum in our schools. Also, I can see how different school board members might push some of these dangerous "hidden curriculum" items that are hurting our schools.