Alan Watts once said, "Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, openness-an act of trust in the unknown." As noted in the chapter "Crap Detecting" of Teaching As a Subversive Activity, the application of this quote in relevance to knowledge leads a very profound conclusion. Neil Postman indicates this by suggesting the swap of the word "religion" in the quote for the phrase "set of facts" (6). Analyzing this quote from an education mindset reveals a lot about the nature of teaching. It points out the need for reform by stating how an inability to have an open-mind can detract one from his or her true intention.
Friday in class, I witnessed one of the most engaged debates I have ever experienced in a classroom. The group of students, who are constantly referred to as the "troublesome" class, strolled into the class and immediately began chatting. Ms. Howell quickly took on the role of classroom manager. She stopped all the conversation before it even began between students. Using phrases like "take a seat" or directing specific students to be quiet, she quickly took control of her classroom. Eye rolls and pouting faces were visible on almost all faces of the student. Ms. Howell already had her EdModo presentation on the board, and she explained the activity to the kids. The activity was a debate on two of the videos on fracking the children had watched in a previous class. Prior to class Ms. Howell and I divided the seating of the classroom into two different large groups. The students in each group were set up face to face in long rows. The groups were assigned a video and given 5 minutes to prepare an opening argument using their knowledge gained on fracking from the video. Each team was then directed to choose one person to present their argument in a 3 minute time frame. While a person was presenting, the students were instructed to remain quiet and take notes on the claims made. Following the opening arguments, the groups were given 2 minutes to ask clarifying questions to the representative of each team. Examples of clarifying questions were given on the board, and the students were told to model their questions after them. The students were then directed to appoint a new presenter and to tackle in their groups the problems they saw in the opposing team's argument for 3 minutes. The new presenters then made their case to the class. Due to time constraint, the students were not given a change to rebuttal. Instead, they were given 2 minutes to create a closing argument and 1 minute to present it. Similarly to the other two presentations, the groups had to elect a new leader to conclude their arguments. By the end of the debate, students were laughing and wildly gesturing with their hands. The girl who made the closing statement for the Gasland team was pointing intently at her prepared sheet in front of her. Her voice increased rapidly as she rushed to finish all her points in the set time frame.
Passion, guys; it's beautiful.
Why is subversive teaching important?
It evokes emotions that students would not normally portray in a traditional classroom setting. I believe in the genuine nature of all people, but I acknowledge that not everyone's is easily tapped into. At its heart subversive teaching is an understanding of human nature. When one can discover how to draw emotions and to make connections to real life, the students are more prone to open up, to let loose, and to give in. Give in to their "resistance" for knowledge because it's finally tangible. They're given an opportunity to distrust what they're learning and to challenge what they know; the creation of the never ending search and thirst for more.
Origin: Self
Understanding of one's self + acknowledgment of the need to evaluate = subversiveness
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
On Being a Subversive Teacher (in Lancaster County)
During my field placement my cooperating teacher said something that made sense but left me with arched eye brows and a face of puzzlement.
In discussing her unit for Harper Lee's masterpiece To Kill A Mockingbird, my co-op casually said, "I try not to get too involved in discussions of racial tensions--after all," she smiled, "we are in Lancaster County." While I understand her concerns, I wonder if this is, in fact, the best practice. Should the book just be read to discuss plot and characters or should it open the floodgates to a much larger and more meaningful conversation? To me, the answer is quite clear. We cannot allow our students to live sheltered Lancaster-County-lives. The world is much bigger than this county and discussing diversity and racial tensions, while potentially controversial, is a necessity. The world abroad is not homogenous. It is not one color. It is many shades of gray. We cannot allow our students to live in a black and white world. We most show them the polychromatic scheme of our world.
More importantly, we must open these floodgates and allow our students to question their preconceived notions. To paraphrase the reading we read by Postman and Weingartner, a subversive man is a dangerous one, because he is not easily enlisted into an ideology. I WANT MY STUDENTS TO BE DANGEROUS. I want them to question. I want them to be curious. I want them to ask WHY.
We must ask our students to confront and challenge their status quo. This is particularly important if we want to challenge the status quo of the current school system. We must open our classrooms to these potentially controversial conversations. There will be bumps in the road, of course, but at the very least we must consider having the conversation. We cannot shy our students away from reality.
In discussing her unit for Harper Lee's masterpiece To Kill A Mockingbird, my co-op casually said, "I try not to get too involved in discussions of racial tensions--after all," she smiled, "we are in Lancaster County." While I understand her concerns, I wonder if this is, in fact, the best practice. Should the book just be read to discuss plot and characters or should it open the floodgates to a much larger and more meaningful conversation? To me, the answer is quite clear. We cannot allow our students to live sheltered Lancaster-County-lives. The world is much bigger than this county and discussing diversity and racial tensions, while potentially controversial, is a necessity. The world abroad is not homogenous. It is not one color. It is many shades of gray. We cannot allow our students to live in a black and white world. We most show them the polychromatic scheme of our world.
More importantly, we must open these floodgates and allow our students to question their preconceived notions. To paraphrase the reading we read by Postman and Weingartner, a subversive man is a dangerous one, because he is not easily enlisted into an ideology. I WANT MY STUDENTS TO BE DANGEROUS. I want them to question. I want them to be curious. I want them to ask WHY.
We must ask our students to confront and challenge their status quo. This is particularly important if we want to challenge the status quo of the current school system. We must open our classrooms to these potentially controversial conversations. There will be bumps in the road, of course, but at the very least we must consider having the conversation. We cannot shy our students away from reality.
Some Thoughts on Subversive Teaching
On Friday Mrs. H (my cooperating
teacher) and I had an interesting talk about what she likes to call “teachable
moments”: moments when a lesson twists away from the plan, but towards some
bigger understanding. For instance, on Friday Mrs. H led a discussion on what
it means to be happy and the students didn’t really involve themselves or ask many
questions. A few offered up anecdotes like “happiness is being happy with what
you have,” but the discussion didn’t go any deeper than that. To get them to
think more deeply about it, my coop spontaneously drew a line across the white
board and told everyone to come up and make a “happiness scale” from -2 to 2.
Once everyone had put a few things on the board, the discussion took off
because the students wanted to know why everyone else had written what they did.
The discussion never came to a conclusion, but ended when the bell rang. Mrs. H
told me that the scale was not on her lesson plan at all, but had just come to
her on the spot as a way to involve her students in the lesson and make it more
relevant to their lives. To me, that was subversive teaching at its finest.
Mrs. H saw a way to use student-student interaction to help students ask
questions and dig deeper and was willing to deviate from her original plan in
order to make it all work. She never told students her thoughts on the subject,
but pushed the class to express their questions and opinions without ever
coming to a conclusion.
When I ask myself how I can be subversive
in this school, I keep thinking back to Mrs. H’s “teachable moments”. I want to
be able to adapt lessons on the spot in a way that get students thinking, interacting
and asking questions. If I can teach like that, it will be easier for students
to make the connection between the material that they are learning and their
lives outside of school. These elements are at the heart of subversive
teaching.
Diversity at LCHS
Sarah and I came up with a few Essential Questions concerning diversity. Here they are:
1. How do you make sure all diverse groups are represented and respected in your classroom?
2. How can you embrace and learn about another culture without disrespecting or misrepresenting it?
3. Can we expect our students of differing cultures to want to talk about their lives?
4. Is it okay to criticize/be critical of other cultures? Or does that inherently disrespect them?
5. What is disrespect in regards to diversity?
I feel like as we formed these questions, we continued to narrow our focus with each one. Question one cannot be answered without first answering question two. Questions two is dependent on question five.
I believe I must first start here: What IS disrespect?
Disrespect is sometimes easy to point out. Segregation, blatant racism, harmful remarks, or stereotypical epithets are all obvious forms of disrespect. These are all clearly unfair, uncool, and just wrong. However, it is the more subtle disrespect that we must draw our attention to. Maybe disrespect comes from what a teacher is NOT doing more often in the schoolroom than it does from what the teacher or students are doing.
I observed neglectful disrespect this week (what may also be considered a missed opportunity) when my co-op was explaining to a student that she should look up the Spanish translation of a sentence on her device. Anna, a struggling, disconnected student three rows over is from Spain and has spoken Spanish for her entire life. Anna is often neglected and under-represented. My co-op doesn't look for opportunities to use the skills that Anna does have; she frequently makes assignments easier for her and places her in groups with more than one other student when the class is asked to pair up. Anna's learning of ESL is seen as a handicap, while her special skills of her first language are ignored. Anna is consistently reminded that my Co-op's class is an English Only zone. This is disrespect.
I plan to look for more forms of what I will currently label "subtle" disrespect as my placement continues. Although this form of disrespect is not blatantly hateful or intentional, I get the feeling that these "disrespectful subtleties" are much more damaging than they may seem.
-Tyler
1. How do you make sure all diverse groups are represented and respected in your classroom?
2. How can you embrace and learn about another culture without disrespecting or misrepresenting it?
3. Can we expect our students of differing cultures to want to talk about their lives?
4. Is it okay to criticize/be critical of other cultures? Or does that inherently disrespect them?
5. What is disrespect in regards to diversity?
I feel like as we formed these questions, we continued to narrow our focus with each one. Question one cannot be answered without first answering question two. Questions two is dependent on question five.
I believe I must first start here: What IS disrespect?
Disrespect is sometimes easy to point out. Segregation, blatant racism, harmful remarks, or stereotypical epithets are all obvious forms of disrespect. These are all clearly unfair, uncool, and just wrong. However, it is the more subtle disrespect that we must draw our attention to. Maybe disrespect comes from what a teacher is NOT doing more often in the schoolroom than it does from what the teacher or students are doing.
I observed neglectful disrespect this week (what may also be considered a missed opportunity) when my co-op was explaining to a student that she should look up the Spanish translation of a sentence on her device. Anna, a struggling, disconnected student three rows over is from Spain and has spoken Spanish for her entire life. Anna is often neglected and under-represented. My co-op doesn't look for opportunities to use the skills that Anna does have; she frequently makes assignments easier for her and places her in groups with more than one other student when the class is asked to pair up. Anna's learning of ESL is seen as a handicap, while her special skills of her first language are ignored. Anna is consistently reminded that my Co-op's class is an English Only zone. This is disrespect.
I plan to look for more forms of what I will currently label "subtle" disrespect as my placement continues. Although this form of disrespect is not blatantly hateful or intentional, I get the feeling that these "disrespectful subtleties" are much more damaging than they may seem.
-Tyler
Subversive Week 4
The one thing my co-op does that is subversive is he does encourage a lot of student-student interaction as opposed to teacher-student interaction. I think to be even more subversive the lessons need to pose more of a problem for students. Right now, there isn’t much inquiry-based learning going on in the classroom. The teacher is still acting as the main source of information and the teacher is still in charge of transferring that information to the students. Another part of being subversive is not always accepting that there is one single answer to a question. One of the team teachers asked my co-op while they were planning the lesson for hyperboles if a hyperbole can be personification. I think it can be. For example a sentence like “the bear’s smiles was as wide as a river” could be both a hyperbole, personification, and there is even a simile in there! However, instead of having to explain to students that there could be two or more answers, they just chose to make sure their worksheet sentences only had one clear answer. I also think more authenticity needs to be brought into the classroom. The poetry unit could have included a lot more examples of how it is found in their everyday lives. For example, they could have done a project where they look for poetic devices in songs like the Katy Perry song we did in class during Teaching Writing.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Let's Pretend
Postman and Weingartner addressed the issue of educational irrelevance, the disliking of youth (which was both funny and sad), "crap detecting", the rapid progression of technology, and - my personal favorite - the "Let's Pretend" model of public schools. Even though this was written almost 50 years ago, it still has startling poignancy to the methods of our society and educational system, which only goes to show that serious reform is not actually taking place. Many of their points about how much control teachers have over what is taught, whether the students have an interest in or use for it or not, are exactly how I have felt many times being on the student side of the classroom. It is something that still bothers me to this day (in fact, probably more so now that I am preparing to enter real classrooms); how am I going to teach what they need and want to learn? How can I give them as much control as possible while still abiding by the standards created by the bureaucrats, even though I personally don't have much interest in pleasing them since they obviously have little interest in doing what is best for me or my students? What I've always hoped for is a classroom that, while teaching the necessary content for standardized success, allows students to expand on big ideas, to inject their own interests and talents, and by giving them some control to engage in learning that feels relevant to their lives.
Crap detection is something that has become increasingly relevant to me, as I have begun to realize that so many people will accept whatever they are told by authority figures (especially family members) as absolute fact. Many of Postman and Weingartner's examples of this spoke to me, and I found myself shaking my head in agreement while reading. I have become a firm believer in educating myself (and others becoming educated) in theories, beliefs, and customs and deriving their own opinions based on their own instincts, rather than accepting ones that are passed down from others. I hope to create instances in my classroom where students can look at controversial and/or multi-sided issues, research them, and create their own opinions about it. I hope that history and science teachers can do this too, and that my students can learn to really think for themselves, to form their own ideals, and to not be such flimsy followers of this or that. I hope that when faced with something in which they should choose a side or opinion, that they can say, "I don't know much about that, but I should look into it and see what I think," rather than saying to a friend or family member, "Well, what do you think?" This is the essence of insightful intellectuals, not those who can ramble off a collection of random trivia facts.
Crap detection is something that has become increasingly relevant to me, as I have begun to realize that so many people will accept whatever they are told by authority figures (especially family members) as absolute fact. Many of Postman and Weingartner's examples of this spoke to me, and I found myself shaking my head in agreement while reading. I have become a firm believer in educating myself (and others becoming educated) in theories, beliefs, and customs and deriving their own opinions based on their own instincts, rather than accepting ones that are passed down from others. I hope to create instances in my classroom where students can look at controversial and/or multi-sided issues, research them, and create their own opinions about it. I hope that history and science teachers can do this too, and that my students can learn to really think for themselves, to form their own ideals, and to not be such flimsy followers of this or that. I hope that when faced with something in which they should choose a side or opinion, that they can say, "I don't know much about that, but I should look into it and see what I think," rather than saying to a friend or family member, "Well, what do you think?" This is the essence of insightful intellectuals, not those who can ramble off a collection of random trivia facts.
First Sight and Second Thoughts
Sometimes, I feel like college does a better job of honing the skill of crap detecting than it does imparting other kinds of skills and knowledge. Don't get me wrong, I am and have learned many things here, but at the end of the day when gather with my friends on the 7th floor or head to other friend's apartments, unless we learned something earth shatteringly cool, we're going to be complaining about the things we perceived as crap. That could be something a professor said that we thought or know was incorrect factually, or an attitude that rubbed wrong. One of my best friends still complains about a day last semester when his wellness professor (to his and others' perceptions- I wasn't there, I don't judge) insulted several majors including my friend's own (he was not happy at all...) . Another example comes from my sister, who failed one of her vet tech classes and barely passed some others last semester. When my sister says she studied a lot for all of them I believe her, and I also believe her when she complains about having the class with a brand new professor and a vet who's never taught. I've seen this at Millersville too- good people who know their stuff but haven't the faintest idea of how to teach people. Expecting these techs in training to know what fully qualified ones do is crap, telling them to look it up every time they have a question and then complaining that they are slow is double crap. That sort of thing gets my blood going of late- I may not know all there is about good teaching, but I know when those who are paid to teach aren't actually teaching, are engaging in practices that hamper and discourage learning and it frustrates me. I don't think that the Vet for Alexa's class has to know a great deal about pedagogy, he's a Vet and that's what he's there for, but I don't think it would be too much for him to listen to what his students are saying or recognize that if you send them to the book every time they have a question they are going to be slower. They're college kids and diligent, they can make up for mediocre teaching practice to a point, but they can't be as good as their graduated and experienced counterparts. What I think I'm getting at is that it's not very hard to find crap in various parts of the educational system (and not just higher ed but those examples are pretty close to me just now) what seems harder though is what to do about it.
It's all well and good for me to see the crap, but doing something about it is harder. For the most part it seems like my ability to fight the crap is going to be limited to my own classroom, and the greatest challenge to that is if the school I'm in doesn't recognize crap itself. I'm not unwilling to make some waves, but for the first couple of years that has to be carefully balanced by the sad but inevitable fact that money is necessary to survival. I don't expect that to an issue, mainly cause I'm not sure that an overly conservative school would hire me in the first place- I don't fit in molds well, but then that's not always immediately evident. Sometimes I'm sneakier than I think I am. I'm concerned by the persistence of the same sort of crap at higher levels, (can politics please stay out of deciding what's good for kids? pretty please? I mean come on guys, I bet most of you have children, can't you make it about them and not money and testing companies?) but I'm not sure I can do much about that yet besides being aware and talking. And voting.
Did anyone else notice that Francesca and Kozol detected some significant crap in our reading with the Meta-Lady and Efficacy Man? (they sound like really really bad superheros) We do run into a great deal of meaning-less jargon. I mean it's one thing to talk about meta-cognition which is readily definable (thinking about one's own thinking) but what is a meta-moment? a moment about a moment? a moment beyond the moment? Neither of those make much sense. And if she's trying to say meta-cognitive moment (a moment in which one is thinking about their thinking) well I guess that might be something you could talk about, but taking the thinking out of the phase is just lazy word-smithing. Meta-concept is the other one, (presumably a concept about a concept) which seems to at least have a meaning, but it's kind of redundant anyway, especially when Francesca's phrase "a shrewd perception" says more (a clever or astute intuitive cognition). Yep, I'm a word nerd and could probably keep going, but considering meta-cognition, I'd like to share how one of my favorite authors portrays meta-cognition and crap detecting neatly, elegantly and humorously in language a third grader could read.
In The Wee Free Men and the other books in the Tiffany Aching series, Sir Terry Pratchett describes the most important abilities of a witch as the first sight and second thoughts. They see what's really there, and there's a part of them that watches the rest, watches how they think. One character describes it in this way(in a scottish accent no less- seriously you should read the book) "Ye've got that little bitty bit inside o' you that holds on, right? The bitty bit that watches the rest o' ye. 'Tis a wee gift an' a big curse to ye. You see and hear what others canna', the world opens up its secrets to ye, but ye're always like the person at the party with the wee drink in the corner who cannae join in. There's a little bitty bit inside ye that willnae melt and flow." There's good stuff to think about there, and throughout the book. The first sight is the crap detecting- see things as they are, not as you want them to be or how people tell you they are, and second thoughts is being mindful of how you think and how you act, because teachers, like Pratchett's witches, are responsible for more than themselves. There's more in those books that I can tie to teaching, but I'll stop here for now.
It's all well and good for me to see the crap, but doing something about it is harder. For the most part it seems like my ability to fight the crap is going to be limited to my own classroom, and the greatest challenge to that is if the school I'm in doesn't recognize crap itself. I'm not unwilling to make some waves, but for the first couple of years that has to be carefully balanced by the sad but inevitable fact that money is necessary to survival. I don't expect that to an issue, mainly cause I'm not sure that an overly conservative school would hire me in the first place- I don't fit in molds well, but then that's not always immediately evident. Sometimes I'm sneakier than I think I am. I'm concerned by the persistence of the same sort of crap at higher levels, (can politics please stay out of deciding what's good for kids? pretty please? I mean come on guys, I bet most of you have children, can't you make it about them and not money and testing companies?) but I'm not sure I can do much about that yet besides being aware and talking. And voting.
Did anyone else notice that Francesca and Kozol detected some significant crap in our reading with the Meta-Lady and Efficacy Man? (they sound like really really bad superheros) We do run into a great deal of meaning-less jargon. I mean it's one thing to talk about meta-cognition which is readily definable (thinking about one's own thinking) but what is a meta-moment? a moment about a moment? a moment beyond the moment? Neither of those make much sense. And if she's trying to say meta-cognitive moment (a moment in which one is thinking about their thinking) well I guess that might be something you could talk about, but taking the thinking out of the phase is just lazy word-smithing. Meta-concept is the other one, (presumably a concept about a concept) which seems to at least have a meaning, but it's kind of redundant anyway, especially when Francesca's phrase "a shrewd perception" says more (a clever or astute intuitive cognition). Yep, I'm a word nerd and could probably keep going, but considering meta-cognition, I'd like to share how one of my favorite authors portrays meta-cognition and crap detecting neatly, elegantly and humorously in language a third grader could read.
In The Wee Free Men and the other books in the Tiffany Aching series, Sir Terry Pratchett describes the most important abilities of a witch as the first sight and second thoughts. They see what's really there, and there's a part of them that watches the rest, watches how they think. One character describes it in this way(in a scottish accent no less- seriously you should read the book) "Ye've got that little bitty bit inside o' you that holds on, right? The bitty bit that watches the rest o' ye. 'Tis a wee gift an' a big curse to ye. You see and hear what others canna', the world opens up its secrets to ye, but ye're always like the person at the party with the wee drink in the corner who cannae join in. There's a little bitty bit inside ye that willnae melt and flow." There's good stuff to think about there, and throughout the book. The first sight is the crap detecting- see things as they are, not as you want them to be or how people tell you they are, and second thoughts is being mindful of how you think and how you act, because teachers, like Pratchett's witches, are responsible for more than themselves. There's more in those books that I can tie to teaching, but I'll stop here for now.
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