The timeliness of the ideas of John Dewey started off our class discussion today. In his work, The Child and the Curriculum, originally published in 1902 it was notable that some of the same ideas expressed by Dewey over one hundred years ago still have relevance today. On page 16 of the PDF file of the book located on Blackboard Dewey speaks about a conflict between thsoe people who view children as docile recepticles that need to be filled with the "logical parts and sequences" of knowledge vs. those who view the child as being the starting point of all learning for they "are instruments valued as they serve the needs of growth...subject-matter never can be got into the child from without. Learning is active." Dewey describes this opposition on page 17 as between the child and the curriculum.
This dichotomy struck me as being still in effect today. I think it refers back very much to the discussion we had yesterday about politics and the influence on education. It strikes me that NCLB (No Child Left Behind) legislation cares much less about the child being the starting point of education but rather that education is a series of facts, formulas and stategies that can be memorized and tested to ensure that every student has "learned" what some bureaucrat has decided is important to learn.
The universality of education spans not just time but cultures as well. This was evidenced in the film that we watched that showed the lives of school children in a small village in Africa. There were some similarities to schools in America. The teacher modeled lessons, there were blackboards (ok now we have green boards or white boards), the students wrote their lessons out. But it was so interesting to see the cultural differences of the school. The teacher showed the students how to plant and had the students put on a skit to teach the adults a lesson. The dichotomy in this culture seemed to be between the village culture which had some very positive attributes, especially when juxtaposed against Suleiman's view of the Tubas way of life. But as idyllic as this life was portrayed there was the traditional view of women that was expressed by Soda's father.
This refers back to Chapt. 2 of our book especially the section on Defining Culture. The African way of life was an example of a high context society where group was very important (Cultures and Issues, p. 25). The father who wouldn't allow his daughter to go to school was embracing a view where the daughter's needs were subordinate to the needs of the family. It was interesting to see how the father was turned around. It was the entire village that got the father to open his eyes and see the wisdom of sending his daughter to school. It was interesting to me that as warm and positive as this culture was it did have a tradition of women being under the rule of a man. I am sure that it was a more worldly view (i.e. western) that brought the acceptance of women being educated and ultimately being the equal to men into reality. It pointed out to me that every culture has positive attributes and negative and that maybe as teachers we need to not be judgemental but to rather accept the good from others and look into what could be improved in our own culture before denigrating some one else's way of life.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Reflections on First Day of Class
The first chapter of Current Issues and Trends in Education by Jerry Aldridge and Renitta Goldman (2007) dealt with politics and education. This chapter really hit home for me. My husband is the former mayor of the town where I happen to teach. Politics is viewed as having a very negative influence on education but it can also have a positive effect as well. My husband was and is extremely supportive of public education (ed. note: my husband is a republican so many may find this incongruous) and this support translated into overwhelming support for the school budget each year he was mayor. But, this isn't the typical political influence as there is much interference by politicians who think they know best how our schools should be run. This is very unfortunate because most if not all of these politicians have no teaching experience at all. It was brought up in class that many of these politicians didn't even attend public schools.
Although the No Child Left Behind legislation was sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans, it seems to be most closely identified with the administration of George Bush. There seems to be an overly punitive aspect of the legislation. While the goal of having all students succeed, the promised financial support has not been forthcoming. The ramifications for schools that have large populations of minority, English Language Learner, and special education populations seem to be primed for failure and not success with the provisions of NCLB. The authors of our book, Aldrige and Goldman point out on pg. 10 that educational reforms have failed our inner city youth. And it seems to me that the punitive nature of NCLB coincide with the statement the authors (paraphrasing Giroux, 1998) make on pg. 10 concerning the conservative backlash on education that is an "increasingly growing attempt to decimate the public school system as part of a larger assault on the democratic foundations of political, social, and cultural life."
It seems to me that this assault is directed not so much at the lily-white, wealthier districts, but rather at districts with larger minority populations. In my opinion this assault is a veiled way of introducing school vouchers into our society. If a school can't succeed then who wouldn't want those children to have options? But schools in poorer, multicultural neighborhoods have many more hurdles to jump over than affluent white communities. So, are vouchers just am "easy" solution to a very complex But I am not so sure that vouchers are the answer. What is going to happen when our countries demographics change as indicated in Chapt. 2 of our book? Will every child in the urban core have access to a private school? Would vouchers pay for the full cost of this education? What happens to parents who can't navigate through the application process?
This was an interesting start to a class that promises to become more and more interesting as we look into all of the many issues and controversies that continue to swirl around education. Some of these issues are new such as integrating technology into the curriculum and some issues such as who decides what should be part of the curriculum have probably been around since the very first school was started.
Although the No Child Left Behind legislation was sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans, it seems to be most closely identified with the administration of George Bush. There seems to be an overly punitive aspect of the legislation. While the goal of having all students succeed, the promised financial support has not been forthcoming. The ramifications for schools that have large populations of minority, English Language Learner, and special education populations seem to be primed for failure and not success with the provisions of NCLB. The authors of our book, Aldrige and Goldman point out on pg. 10 that educational reforms have failed our inner city youth. And it seems to me that the punitive nature of NCLB coincide with the statement the authors (paraphrasing Giroux, 1998) make on pg. 10 concerning the conservative backlash on education that is an "increasingly growing attempt to decimate the public school system as part of a larger assault on the democratic foundations of political, social, and cultural life."
It seems to me that this assault is directed not so much at the lily-white, wealthier districts, but rather at districts with larger minority populations. In my opinion this assault is a veiled way of introducing school vouchers into our society. If a school can't succeed then who wouldn't want those children to have options? But schools in poorer, multicultural neighborhoods have many more hurdles to jump over than affluent white communities. So, are vouchers just am "easy" solution to a very complex But I am not so sure that vouchers are the answer. What is going to happen when our countries demographics change as indicated in Chapt. 2 of our book? Will every child in the urban core have access to a private school? Would vouchers pay for the full cost of this education? What happens to parents who can't navigate through the application process?
This was an interesting start to a class that promises to become more and more interesting as we look into all of the many issues and controversies that continue to swirl around education. Some of these issues are new such as integrating technology into the curriculum and some issues such as who decides what should be part of the curriculum have probably been around since the very first school was started.
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