Low Standards Start Here

What really is accountability, or the point of it, when it’s being imposed upon an outsider group looking within? When businesses and state bureaucracies get involved in a child’s education there are too many things that are compromised as standardization becomes the leading reform and curriculum gets diluted. In this study, conducted in Texas, concerns were brought to the damage that standardization is imposing on children, especially African Americans and Latinos.
According to McNeil, “standardization reduces the quality and quantity of what is taught and learned in schools…diminished the role of teachers, and distanced students from active learning” (505). Research was conducted on magnet schools and their positive impact on student learning. Magnet schools have a structure that is designed to not monitor the credentialing process and procedural and behavioral management and instead focus on a positive, multiracial environment. Unfortunately, the state imposed various reforms on the entire district, not excluding magnet schools, which resulted in the reduction of the quality of teaching. Classes no longer functioned as safe and creative spaces where the students and teachers could interact with one another on a more personal level because the business of testing had to take place. I can recall taking the WKCE or the Terra Nova when I was in MPS and thinking “what is this all about” while teachers scramble to cram in as much information into their daily lessons to “prepare” for these standardized tests. I don’t remember any of it and definitely feel like it was a waste of my time and the teacher’s time.
I think there are other ways to measure teacher and administrator performance without making students pay for it. I’d like to do a PBL unit on this and ask students how they would respond to this dilemma and what they would use to rate their professors. Shouldn’t rating be done by students and parents…isn’t that a better way of measuring employee performance and school quality. Isn’t that what universities do and they seem to function pretty effectively??!! McNeil really points to the seriousness of this issue and how we must further investigate “from the inside out the ways increasingly differentiated power relations are changing systems of schooling and the ways those systems are shaping what is taught and learned.” There is such a disconnect from what the child is learning to the decisions that are being made by policymakers that if we don’t close this divide this problem will only perpetuate and whatever we do as teachers will only lead us to the same conclusions. McNeil says that the consequences of standardization and accountability are twofold: shifting of curriculum decisions into the power of technical experts who have a political agenda to “reduce democratic governance of schooling,” and second, which is caused by the first, is the rearranging by class and race which is further maintaining the social classes as they are and maintaining differing curriculums for each class.

Problem Based Learning Rocks my Socks

Kids Take On “The Test”

PBL is a great way to motivate students on improving their standardized test scores, which is something that is so boring and weighing down for the classroom and the administration. Although I don’t agree with standardized tests sometimes you have to work within the system to make it work for you and these students definitely took that initiative and used it to their learning advancement. Students are placed as the educators through PBL because it gives them control over their learning and allows them to break it down in a way most relevant to them. It also brought the class together not only for the benefit of individual test performance but on school spirit. If these students can make standardized testing fun then there is hope for us teachers who will have to face the WKCE, local, state and national standards, all the while trying to prepare students for the “real world.”
I like the use of outside resources-from the librarian to an educational consultant-it makes it so much more real to the students and they feel like they are critical co-investigators (as Freire talks about in Pedagogy of the Oppressed) along with the teacher.

Public schooling needs a Revolution

From Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Male Masculinity

Sometimes I really hate going into work because of the jail-like feeling I get when I walk in there. No windows, security guards everywhere, metal detectors, surveillance cameras at every corner and authority figures demeaning students every chance they get. I’m not even a teacher yet and I’m so sick of this system that Ferguson describes. It’s not individual; it’s institutional oppression that allows for all these school laws to be maintained. Like Freire stated, “it is men themselves who are filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation, and knowledge in this (at best) misguided system.” (p. 312) How can we expect men and women to develop if no one from the top is there to challenge this flawed system. Radical schooling doesn’t work with all its rules that seek only to maintain the dominant group’s view in society. There is this constant struggle for power in schools amongst teachers, parents, and administrators. Why does this have to be so? I see constant power trips by administrators who seek to control their immediate surroundings, including the students and teachers; so that they can run the school the way they see will provide a better learning environment. “Conformity to rules is treated by school adults as the essential condition for any classroom learning to take place. Furthermore, rules bear the weight of moral authority.” So, students should assimilate into the dominate culture, even though their culture, language, SES, and history is completely distinct from this dominant white culture that they should follow. I know that it’s important to have structure in a classroom and rules laid out so that student understand what it takes to make the most productive learning environment but there is something wrong when teachers label students as “good,” “bad,” or “troubled” and treat them accordingly to these labels, which are bases on whether or not they follow the rules. This leads me to ask: how can teachers be more objective towards their students? Is this even possible? We can at least try.
I really like that Ferguson documents what is going on in the classroom in regards to management. It makes me check in my own words and actions because I want to make sure that I don’t single any kid out or that I don’t demean them in any way, even the most slightly. How can teachers be more understanding of these “cultural modes of expression?” Students are fully aware of our intentions and know when they are being disrespected no matter what tone or type of language we use. What can we do to minimize our own personal feelings that could get in the way of how we treat students?
I think MPS needs to be dissolved and revitalized...the system is so flawed it is doing more harm than good to the development of students of color. Instead of instilling a positive self-identity, it perpetuates this savage cycle of oppression and poverty.

Racial Identity Formation

Racial Identity Formation and Transformation
Ward
I enjoyed reading this article but I want to know about identity formation of girls of color who are in inner-city high schools since that is the population I will be teaching. I wonder if African American women in these settings still see themselves as a member of a devalued group as the girls in this study felt. Generally do they have a positive sense of self? I think its important to prepare these young men and women of the inner-city in dealing with demographics that are unlike their own. This means they have to have a strong self-identity so that they don’t lose who they are wherever they go. I understand that people change and transform over time with different experiences but it’s important for a woman of color to understand that they will be dealing in settings that are highly competitive. The reason I say this is because I went through the same thing in high school and I didn’t have a support group of teachers or friends who could provide the necessary skills and resources for me to cope with these issues. Also, I don’t think I had a clear grasp on who I was myself and therefore I began to question who I was and measured myself according to the white standard.
I felt that I could relate to the experiences these girls went through but my high school context was different. Although I went to a diverse high school I was constantly dealing with trying to stay true to myself and my culture all the while being successful in school and sometimes being looked at as “white washed.” It was hard trying to fit into both domains especially when I as involved in DECA, an association of marketing students, and was a State Officer. The position put me in a role where I had to travel all over Wisconsin and facilitate workshops and get to know other marketing students. It was tough because I dealt with groups of people whom I wasn’t familiar with, especially because I lived in the inner-city all my life and I wanted to fit into both worlds. I had to learn the hard way and I hope that when I become a teacher I can instill a global perspective on my students so that they know how they can contribute to their own community and how they fit into society. I'm not exactly sure how that will look like or how I can implement something into my curriculum

Emergent Middle School

From the Emergent Middle School
William M Alexander

At first this article started off a little dry and a bit outdated but as I got through the article I realized he was making a lot of valid points that still play out in our educational system today. Alexander was calling for a reform in the transitional period for youth who are “standing at the threshold of puberty.” (160) He advocates that middle school should serve students between childhood and adolescence which is what an emergent middle school will provide. Specifically it is a “school planned for a range of older children, preadolescents, and early adolescents that builds upon the elementary school program for earlier children and in turn is built upon by the high school’s program for adolescence.” (160) Isn’t this what the middle school of today is? It sounds good on paper but what we have now I don’t think reflects Alexander’s basic ideas. I also think his aims were too vague but I did like the point he made about personal development and appropriate attention to the development of values. (161) Since this is a critical time for youth I think its important that they start looking into themselves to see where they fit into society. I think it’s also important for teachers to start looking a middle school not as some short transition period but fully dedicate themselves to them. I just think, for myself, that I cannot teach middle school because it’s not an environment that I can easily handle but that’s only because I’m not educated on matters of puberty and what they really have to go through. Yeah I’ve been through this myself but don’t feel like I am equipped for dealing with it now partially because I’m afraid and also because I hated that environment myself and don’t really want to deal with that again. I should seriously start looking into why I feel this way instead of giving middle schoolers the shaft.
My favorite point in this article was the tremendous lag between research results and teacher implementation of these recommendations. Alexander states that “there is a twenty-five year lag between what is available of valid scientific knowledge and its functional application in the educative process.” (162) Why does this have to be true? Why are we still facing transforming the middle school and we can’t decide what works best. Well not one thing can work for all but there is plenty of emerging research about the transition between childhood and adolescence and what needs to be implemented isn’t something complicated; its just some individualized attention to the needs of the student, especially with issues of puberty and self-identity.

CRAZY HORMONAL TEENS ON THE RAMPAGE!!!

“Bashing Youth” and “Wild in Deceit” by Mike Males
This article reminded me of reading the book Culture of Fear in which the author made the same point that the media is constantly trying to put the blame on some powerless group. Every group of people must have their scapegoat to blame the problems of society on when they are the ones who are building it up themselves through the use of scare tactics, a lack of faith and respect towards these groups, and general ignorance.
The inflated rates of youth commiting suicide, having babies, committing crimes, etc is astonishing! Organizations should be penalized for these fraud numbers and it should be made known to the public. But of course because it doesn’t attract media attention and isn’t controversial enough no one really cares. Isn’t that the fault of the purposefully ignorant Americans though? The media is just feeding us with these lies because we have allowed them to all this time and take their information as face value truth without doing our own research. Males states that “in the last five to 10 years, intense media and government attack on various behaviors-chiefly drug abuse, violence, and pregnancy-have been followed by rapidly rising problems among teenagers.” How can teenagers have hope if the majority of society continues to believe that they are a joke and a waste of space? This is what educators have to undue in the classrooms. I remember many of my teachers who would constantly harass students who weren’t “behaving” and would say things like “you don’t belong in school” or “you’re wasting my time here.” I still hear similar phrases being shouted, mostly by administrators, at the MPS school that I’m tutoring at.
The mode at which we strive to “fix” this problem of “youth gone wild” is, as Males states, “more preaching, programming and punishment.” This creates a vicious cycle that will not be broken until we have reforms that aim at looking at why these numbers in pregnancy, suicide, and drug use are much more prevalent among our youth. We cannot deny that much of it has to do with SES and race. Unfortunately, because there are not enough programs aimed at giving minority youth second chances and because family structures have fallen apart in these communities, these disparities between whites and blacks have to exist. For example, our current criminal justice system has limited resources for delinquents when they get out of jail, not equipping them with job skills or an education that could lead them on the road to success. Instead, we throw them out there into a “jungle” and expect them to survive on the little that they have left. No wonder they continue to commit the same crimes-not only is it frustrating but it is sometimes the only way they see out. I like how Males brings up the fact that “during the Great Depression murder spiraled upward-peaking in 1933 with a rate of 9.7 murders per 100,000, higher than 1993’s 9.5 per 100,000 rate” (129). And now that we are going into a recession we have to be supportive of certain welfare programs that will help to bring families together, provide health care, financial literacy, and economic education.

Puberty...a blessing or a curse?

I didn’t find this article interesting because it was a review of my psychology of health class but I think it’s important to know the processes behind puberty and what issues middle school students are facing. It’s also important to educate these individuals to increase their self-esteem and ease the transition into high school. As they are more educated about puberty they begin to realize and understand that their experiences are “normal,” especially when dealing with issues of crisis.
I remember when I was in middle school just feeling like I was going crazy or like there was something psychologically wrong with me and it was really hard to cope when I didn’t know what was happening to me. Not only should students learn of the biological processes of puberty they also need to be informed of its psychological importance. Puberty wasn’t something that was brought up in my house, along with drugs and sex. I really think our society needs to be more open about these issues otherwise we are going to continue to remain awkwardly silent when this comes up.
Puberty is not treated as a rite of passage in this country, instead it’s seen as more of a burden on the adolescent. Because puberty is socially constructed this way we minimize the struggles of youth or blame them for all their troubles. I like reading how differently cultures respond to puberty as a rite of passage. Perhaps our society should have a more positive view of it and consider it a stepping stone to adulthood, maturity, a positive body image, more responsibility in society, formation of identity, etc. Perhaps if we would allow our youth to be more involved politically, socially, academically etc they would confront this part of life with more ease. I think early maturing girls, especially, need to hear this message since they have a harder time with self-image, friends, sex, and identity than late maturers. They can also be more susceptible to early pregnancy and doing drugs than their peers especially when experiencing “depressive and aggressive affects in girls” (p.42).
Also the lack of intimacy in boys is another issue that should be addressed and it often ignored. I didn’t even think about that until after I read this and then I thought how much more beneficial would it be if they had close friendships in which they could disclose their information…then again should we just let boys be boys? These are all issues that I will have to deal with if I become a middle school teacher! Yikes!