Liberal/Progressive Pedagogy Literature Responses
1. “Teaching for joy and justice also begins with the non-negotiable belief that all students are capable of brilliance” (Christensen, “Teaching for Joy and Justice”).
Having worked for ten years with students with special needs, I know from experience that all students are, in fact, capable of brilliance. I worked with one particular student, I will refer to him here as Jim, for about two years. Before I was assigned to work with Jim, he was defiant and frequently behaved inappropriately. A common problem in special education is that staff members do too much for their students, this frequently leads to learned helplessness and behavior problems as students become frustrated in their environment. Being only vaguely aware of this problem at the time, I stepped back and encouraged Jim to try everything independently, and to always give his best effort before I would interfere to provide assistance. Jim made impressive improvements during the time I worked with him, and I attribute that growth to the simple fact that I gave him the opportunity to show his own brilliance instead of constantly getting in the way to do things for him. Jim also had a fascination with words, he had a limited vocabulary and enjoyed repeating simple words. Because he enjoyed it, I made sure that he had plenty of opportunities to say his favorite words. I was reminded of this when reading Susan Ohanian’s account of Jack, a student in an alternative school in New York who became interested in Scrabble and learning vocabulary. Ohanian allowed Jack to spend significant amounts of time playing Scrabble and as a result, Jack obtained valuable skills and knowledge (Ohanian, 16). When teachers allow their students to be themselves and to pursue their own interests, their brilliance will almost certainly be revealed and “bad” students will become “amazing” stories retold decades later by inspirational speakers at conferences for educators.
2. “Humans have a success instinct. This is what makes humans different from all other living things. They want success, and they strive for their success potential. You can accomplish anything with students if you set high expectations for behavior and performance by which you yourself abide” (Wong, 35).
Success is intrinsically motivating. When a person accomplishes a task, they feel good about themselves. However, school often provides students with bountiful opportunities for failure. As Linda Christensen points out, “some students arrive in my classroom trailing years of failure behind them” (“Teaching for Joy and Justice”). The consequence of providing students with assignments that are too challenging for them is that they will experience failure rather than success. While failure is a great opportunity for growth when experienced in balance with success, failure by itself is a great opportunity for stagnation and even regression. Students begin to approach school with the expectation that if they try, they will fail. Students, therefore, need to be given opportunities to succeed and grow as students and as individuals. What are some strategies that teachers can use to create optimism among students regarding school work?
3. “[research] suggest rather strongly that children who are expected by their teachers to gain intellectually in fact do show greater intellectual gains after one year than do children of whom such gains are not expected” (Wong, 40).
Wong cites “classic research on expectations,” revealing that simply telling teachers that they are good teachers and that they have a few gifted students in their class results in significant academic improvement among those students perceived as being gifted. This research is meaningful to me, as I do not always have the highest expectations for some students whom I have observed. I often look at struggling students and expect them to struggle their whole lives. I realize, especially in light of this research, that as a teacher I must always have high expectations for my students, even when they are radiating negativity and pessimism about school. I know that to turn their attitude around, I need to find out more about them as individuals, to humanize them, and to let them reveal their strengths and their brilliance.
4. “An invitation is a message that states that the person being invited is responsible, able, and valuable. Conversely, a disinvitation is intended to tell people that they are irresponsible, incapable, and worthless. The critical ingredient needed for people to realize their fullest potential lies in the kinds of invitations extended to individuals by the significant people in their lives” (Wong, 64).
Wong’s discussion of invitation and disinvitation is interesting, although it seems obvious enough that it does not require explanation. The bottom line here is to treat your students like people whom you actually care about, which should not be a problem if you actually do care about them. The contrast here is with traditional teaching methods, which objectify students and treat students as knowledge “banks.” A liberal/progressive approach treats students as people, explores their inner thoughts and dreams, and allows inner strengths to flourish. None of this can be accomplished without acknowledging that the student is a human being and showing the student that you actually care about them. I do not see disinvitation being an obstacle to my teaching; I cannot foresee myself telling a student things like “I don’t care what you do” (63).
5. “An ineffective assignment results when the teacher tells the class what will be covered […] an effective assignment results when the teacher tells the students, up front, what the students are to have accomplished or mastered at the end of the lesson” (Wong, 210).
This is incredibly useful advice for all teachers, do not simply tell students to read a set of pages from a textbook, tell them what they should be able to do. Wong provides example study guidelines on page 224, which function like a map for students to follow to guide their learning. I believe that students often experience failure in school due to the vagueness of teacher’s assignments, which contrast the specificity of teacher’s assessments. Students simply do not know how to prepare for a test on “chapter 7,” and according to Wong, neither do their parents. I believe establishing this explicit clarity is essential in beginning to develop an academic climate of success. When students know what the teacher expects them to do, they can begin working immediately on developing their ability to actually do it.
6. “If we could go into our classrooms everyday with the thought that these kids are tomorrow’s traffic cops, the world would be a better place” (Ohanian, 23).
This is a valuable, though somewhat intimidating, thought to keep in mind when working with students. With this perspective, a teacher is almost forced to treat her students with dignity and respect based on the possibility that one day, their own dignity will be in the hands of their former students. As with Wong’s advice to be invitational rather than disinvitational, this advice seems superfluous as I fully intend to treat my students with dignity and respect. Nevertheless, there are a great number of teachers who could benefit their students tremendously by following this advice. But these teachers are probably the types of people who do not take advice from other people because they do not respect other people. Solutions?
7. “[after speaking with a student about missing homework], the teacher discovered that one student’s family was in hiding to escape an abusive parent. The student was living in the back of a pickup truck outfitted with a camper canopy. When the sun went down, the lights went out. The teacher remarked that if he had never asked her, he would never have known how to help her” (Landau, 160).
This last quote simply puts the concept of treating students with dignity in a new light. In countless elementary school classrooms I have seen “Excuse Limit 0” posters displayed for all students to see each day.
The posters represent a trend in elementary education, that seems distinctly dehumanizing. Students are marched down hallways in straight lines, forced to stand each day and recite the “Pledge of Allegiance,” told exactly what to do and exactly how to do it. I can only speak from my personal experience in my school district, what have you observed? Landau, with this quote, insists that teachers should never treat their students as if they have no lives outside of the classroom. The teacher can never truly understand why a student is struggling academically if he does not talk to the student on a personal level, treat the student with dignity, and genuinely have compassion for the student.
Having worked for ten years with students with special needs, I know from experience that all students are, in fact, capable of brilliance. I worked with one particular student, I will refer to him here as Jim, for about two years. Before I was assigned to work with Jim, he was defiant and frequently behaved inappropriately. A common problem in special education is that staff members do too much for their students, this frequently leads to learned helplessness and behavior problems as students become frustrated in their environment. Being only vaguely aware of this problem at the time, I stepped back and encouraged Jim to try everything independently, and to always give his best effort before I would interfere to provide assistance. Jim made impressive improvements during the time I worked with him, and I attribute that growth to the simple fact that I gave him the opportunity to show his own brilliance instead of constantly getting in the way to do things for him. Jim also had a fascination with words, he had a limited vocabulary and enjoyed repeating simple words. Because he enjoyed it, I made sure that he had plenty of opportunities to say his favorite words. I was reminded of this when reading Susan Ohanian’s account of Jack, a student in an alternative school in New York who became interested in Scrabble and learning vocabulary. Ohanian allowed Jack to spend significant amounts of time playing Scrabble and as a result, Jack obtained valuable skills and knowledge (Ohanian, 16). When teachers allow their students to be themselves and to pursue their own interests, their brilliance will almost certainly be revealed and “bad” students will become “amazing” stories retold decades later by inspirational speakers at conferences for educators.
2. “Humans have a success instinct. This is what makes humans different from all other living things. They want success, and they strive for their success potential. You can accomplish anything with students if you set high expectations for behavior and performance by which you yourself abide” (Wong, 35).
Success is intrinsically motivating. When a person accomplishes a task, they feel good about themselves. However, school often provides students with bountiful opportunities for failure. As Linda Christensen points out, “some students arrive in my classroom trailing years of failure behind them” (“Teaching for Joy and Justice”). The consequence of providing students with assignments that are too challenging for them is that they will experience failure rather than success. While failure is a great opportunity for growth when experienced in balance with success, failure by itself is a great opportunity for stagnation and even regression. Students begin to approach school with the expectation that if they try, they will fail. Students, therefore, need to be given opportunities to succeed and grow as students and as individuals. What are some strategies that teachers can use to create optimism among students regarding school work?
3. “[research] suggest rather strongly that children who are expected by their teachers to gain intellectually in fact do show greater intellectual gains after one year than do children of whom such gains are not expected” (Wong, 40).
Wong cites “classic research on expectations,” revealing that simply telling teachers that they are good teachers and that they have a few gifted students in their class results in significant academic improvement among those students perceived as being gifted. This research is meaningful to me, as I do not always have the highest expectations for some students whom I have observed. I often look at struggling students and expect them to struggle their whole lives. I realize, especially in light of this research, that as a teacher I must always have high expectations for my students, even when they are radiating negativity and pessimism about school. I know that to turn their attitude around, I need to find out more about them as individuals, to humanize them, and to let them reveal their strengths and their brilliance.
4. “An invitation is a message that states that the person being invited is responsible, able, and valuable. Conversely, a disinvitation is intended to tell people that they are irresponsible, incapable, and worthless. The critical ingredient needed for people to realize their fullest potential lies in the kinds of invitations extended to individuals by the significant people in their lives” (Wong, 64).
Wong’s discussion of invitation and disinvitation is interesting, although it seems obvious enough that it does not require explanation. The bottom line here is to treat your students like people whom you actually care about, which should not be a problem if you actually do care about them. The contrast here is with traditional teaching methods, which objectify students and treat students as knowledge “banks.” A liberal/progressive approach treats students as people, explores their inner thoughts and dreams, and allows inner strengths to flourish. None of this can be accomplished without acknowledging that the student is a human being and showing the student that you actually care about them. I do not see disinvitation being an obstacle to my teaching; I cannot foresee myself telling a student things like “I don’t care what you do” (63).
5. “An ineffective assignment results when the teacher tells the class what will be covered […] an effective assignment results when the teacher tells the students, up front, what the students are to have accomplished or mastered at the end of the lesson” (Wong, 210).
This is incredibly useful advice for all teachers, do not simply tell students to read a set of pages from a textbook, tell them what they should be able to do. Wong provides example study guidelines on page 224, which function like a map for students to follow to guide their learning. I believe that students often experience failure in school due to the vagueness of teacher’s assignments, which contrast the specificity of teacher’s assessments. Students simply do not know how to prepare for a test on “chapter 7,” and according to Wong, neither do their parents. I believe establishing this explicit clarity is essential in beginning to develop an academic climate of success. When students know what the teacher expects them to do, they can begin working immediately on developing their ability to actually do it.
6. “If we could go into our classrooms everyday with the thought that these kids are tomorrow’s traffic cops, the world would be a better place” (Ohanian, 23).
This is a valuable, though somewhat intimidating, thought to keep in mind when working with students. With this perspective, a teacher is almost forced to treat her students with dignity and respect based on the possibility that one day, their own dignity will be in the hands of their former students. As with Wong’s advice to be invitational rather than disinvitational, this advice seems superfluous as I fully intend to treat my students with dignity and respect. Nevertheless, there are a great number of teachers who could benefit their students tremendously by following this advice. But these teachers are probably the types of people who do not take advice from other people because they do not respect other people. Solutions?
7. “[after speaking with a student about missing homework], the teacher discovered that one student’s family was in hiding to escape an abusive parent. The student was living in the back of a pickup truck outfitted with a camper canopy. When the sun went down, the lights went out. The teacher remarked that if he had never asked her, he would never have known how to help her” (Landau, 160).
This last quote simply puts the concept of treating students with dignity in a new light. In countless elementary school classrooms I have seen “Excuse Limit 0” posters displayed for all students to see each day.
The posters represent a trend in elementary education, that seems distinctly dehumanizing. Students are marched down hallways in straight lines, forced to stand each day and recite the “Pledge of Allegiance,” told exactly what to do and exactly how to do it. I can only speak from my personal experience in my school district, what have you observed? Landau, with this quote, insists that teachers should never treat their students as if they have no lives outside of the classroom. The teacher can never truly understand why a student is struggling academically if he does not talk to the student on a personal level, treat the student with dignity, and genuinely have compassion for the student.
posted by Kevin at
2/19/2010 09:27:00 AM
4 Comments:
Hi Kevin!
I really enjoyed your selection of quotes. I intentionally waited to read your blog until after I wrote my own so I thought it was funny that we made similar choices.
I really liked quote #6 about the traffic cops. I think this is a different yet excellent way to look at your students. I think this view compliments Christensen’s reading relating to raising the bar for your students and striving for brilliance. I think it is important to remember that these students are the next generation and our future. We are in some ways putting our future in their hands. I think that if we treat our students with dignity and respect, then they will do the same back to us and hopefully spread this notion toward others. I agree with you that there are not only other teachers that could benefit from this advice but other people in general. I think we can be the solution, or at least part of it. By not being like those other teachers and starting the trend of dignity and respect towards our students or others, we can hopefully make this attitude contagious. I think teachers are role models and this job should not be taken lightly and does not stop even after the bell rings. Which attitude have you experienced most as student and substitute teacher? Do you think implementing this quote is possible?
I also wanted to comment on your last quote and the “excuse limit 0” graphic. I think that it is true that a lot of teachers do not look deep enough into the reasoning behind poor behavior, attendance, or grades. My experiences have been the same as your own, there is a sense of military order that is attempted to be established in school with every child learning to stand in a line or forced to ask permission to use the restroom. Do you think this is necessary in school? Is it something that children must learn to function in our society? I think some students rebel because of this order, I think it can feel constricting and that is not how a school should feel. I think this quote and the reading bring up a great point that students have lives outside the classroom and that they may not intentionally be misbehaving. I think, as you pointed out, that compassion is a key element to teaching and understanding our students.
By
Tara, At
Monday, February 22, 2010 at 8:02:00 PM EST
I absolutely agree with your point that teachers are role models and that as teachers we must think of ourselves as role models both inside and outside of the classroom. Already, I notice that I am censoring my words and my actions more than many of my friends. We are expected by society to be role models. In fact, much is expected of teachers. This brings me to something I have heard many people say over the years; "those who can, do; those who can't, teach." In fact, a friend recently said something similar and I am troubled by this popular perception of teachers. Perhaps teachers have a bad reputation based simply on the fact that school tends to be a boring and tedious experience for most people. But, I consider teaching to be a critical component in the development and sustenance of society. Teaching is a profession that places many demands on its practitioners, why then, with all of these demands, are teachers still looked down upon by other professions? Teachers are doers, not only must teachers know how to "do," they must know how to do things well enough to teach the processes to others.
I absolutely think that it is possible for teachers to treat all students with dignity and respect. Working with students in special education has revealed to me that no matter what a student does, I am capable of treating them with the respect they deserve as human beings. Students with special needs have pulled my hair, scratched my arms, slapped my face, thrown various objects at me, and I have been required to physically restrain students. Nevertheless, I never got angry with any of these students. I have always kept the perspective that these are children who need guidance and support. I know that my experience working with these children has prepared me for the challenges of teaching “mainstream” science. I know that my students all come from different backgrounds and have different abilities. I know that I should not be personally insulted when a student does not do their homework. Instead, I must interpret undesirable behaviors as indications that I need to work with a student individually to address his or her specific needs.
Finally, regarding discipline in elementary school. I am actually shocked that elementary schools continue to function as if they are preparing students for work in factories or the military. I think discipline is important for children to master; it is a learned skill to restrain oneself from acting on every passing impulse. I suspect that a certain degree of discipline is necessary and I can understand the practical need to have children stay in straight lines. However, leading up to the readings on critical pedagogy and critical consciousness, I am disturbed by the inculcation of nationalism and the demand for strict conformity to rules and deadlines. Is the ability to question authority a dangerous skill to give an elementary school student? If they are not forced to pledge their allegiance to their country, will they develop a strong enough sense of subordination to become obedient and dependable citizens? Is this indoctrination all that holds our country together amidst the incessant political bickering that obstructs social progress? Without an ingrained sense of admiration for our country's splendor, would we all continue to put up with our "leaders"? What would a country saturated with critical thinkers look like?
By
Kevin, At
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 7:47:00 AM EST
I found it very interesting that you brought up the “those who can’t do, teach” quote as I have never understood it! If you are not good enough to do something, then teach it? It does seem to hold a very negative connotation. It is very disappointing to me how teachers are not held in high regard here like doctors or lawyers. We are also paid much less. This is amazing to me because in many other cultures, teachers are highly respected and regarded. Teachers immensely contribute to the wellbeing of our society and should be appreciated for this!
I think your work with special needs children will be an immense asset to your teaching career. It sounds like your students have definitely tested your dignity and respect for all students attitude. Would you ever consider a career as a special education teacher?
Do you think some type of balance could be achieved in elementary schools regarding discipline? I think you brought up excellent questions regarding this and the overwhelming need for conformity. The absence of encouragement when it comes to critical thinking almost makes me think that our elementary schools are somehow part of a communist country rather than a democratic one.
By
Tara, At
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 9:07:00 PM EST
I really enjoy working in special education, but I also really enjoy science. My interest in science is primarily what led me to decide to become a science teacher.
I honestly do not know what would be the best approach to balancing discipline and creating an environment that encourages free and critical thinking. I think schools are currently embracing what is most practical towards the goal of 'covering' material and preparing students for higher grade levels and standardized testing. This goes back to the question of whether we should be preparing our students for tests, or preparing them for living in a democratic society. I think exploring this balance would be interesting and could revolutionize public education.
By
Kevin, At
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 10:19:00 AM EST
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