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nts limited by administrators and are they a violation of the first amendment what recourse do students have when they feel that their rights have been violated why does the supreme court tell us that students shed their constitutional rights when they enter the classroom door who benefits from the supreme court s notion how can we as high school teachers encourage civic participation by making it meaningful to our students when it has been shown that senators and representatives do not acknowledge the needs of anyone other than the extremely wealthy how can we as high school teachers encourage students to take on an active role if our standards discourage this by obscuring the protest movements from the people that have forced the hand of those in power to bring about change our standards need to go beyond explaining and discussing for it is not enough to present a factual based curriculum for our students it only serves to turn them off and to encourage passivity and complacency people died and suffered for their freedoms whether they were women suffrage activists who threw themselves under the king of england s horse or they were brave african americans who paid the ultimate price in defending their right to cast a vote without infringement or harassment we focus so much on dr king gandhi cesar chavez dolores huerta and so on but without the unnamed masses behind them to bolster their movements with a show of numbers they may not have won the successes that they have been credited with yet if we are only asked to identify leaders and discuss their importance how are students supposed to learn that they too are agents of change that can strike at the heart of the structure that limits their ability to function as agents posted by kitty at 11 31 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels civics critical pedagogy friday may 6 2011 charts and figures are great but what s missing are the voices of the people brought to you by teacher certification map and mat usc masters of education the chart says but half the story but kudos to the mat usc for soliciting personal stories they will make the difference i was in the classroom today and noticed that my music teacher who is still teaching by the way received a care package with a lannard a black whiteboard marker a bag of cheetos and a tiny bottled water and i was thinking to myself it must be teacher appreciation week yet much like these days of remembrance or whatever appreciation week it seems to me that this is just a way to show that even though we crap on teachers blaming them for society s ills call them freeloaders when they rise up to protect their benefits we actually really do care it s still shit even if it s sugarcoated with chocolate what are we actually doing to show that we appreciate teachers and what are we doing to show that we appreciate the students who are also maligned in the media and by those who desperately want to cut public education when we talk about cuts i know it s state funding in the chart above we never hear about the bloated pentagon budget we never hear about oil subsidies or corporate welfare we never hear about states subsidizing highly profitable industries such as the oil industry when we talk about taxes we do not hear about raising the tax rate on the highest income brackets we hear about how hard it would be for those making 250 000 to pay an extra 3 6 on the income that is over 250 000 as if they would become destitute and penniless we never hear about how the failure to extend the making work pay credit will affect taxpayers who received that credit 400 is a lot of money these days we never hear when it comes to sob stories about the richest americans teachers paying out of pocket to ensure that their students have the best school supplies available for their classrooms we never hear about the turnover rate in this job which is the favored scapegoat of those who engage in class warfare how do we frame funding education the santa clara unified school district relies on property taxes but the majority of it comes from the commercial properties in our city such as intel could we not frame this as a way to fund the future employees at intel or the other high tech companies we have in this area could we not frame this as fighting for our country s future so we remain competitive with elementary school education on the chopping block with the district proposing that it be cut completely how do we frame the benefits of music education the district had proposed turning it into an after school activity but that carries the stigma of it being voluntary and students may see that as something that they can come whenever they feel like it music gives children the chance to express themselves emotionally and artistically some students may not shine in the standardized tests that we force down their throats but when it comes to music their genius may finally be revealed which brings me to my point that standardized tests are not enough to measure what our children gain through school unfortunately our focus on the number games the standardized tests make available to us has ensured a mentality that since we don t test on music music programs become expendible this is a tragic mistake as it denies students what brings them joy in actually going to school along with drama programs and art programs these are a vital part of the schooling experience not extras i see students every day at the high school i work at and their faces light up whenever they re in drama or even choir i see students who want to take this choir program and build upon it i hear things about show choirs choir and drama students working together to produce musicals just like we did in the old days when i was going to high school i see students who bemoan the fact that cantanova at wilcox had been cut these are the voices that need to be heard instead of those emotionless soulless voices talking about budgetary figures and statistics unfortunately these voices full of passion and anger are drowned out by news of budgetary shortfalls cuts increased class sizes the voices that those who promote a culture of austerity except when it comes to perks that benefit themselves and their system this has to end update i just remembered that the survey that i saw at the middle school was based on a scale from 1 do not want as in cuts to 10 want cuts to use lolcat i do not remember if there was a space provided for comments but i realize that i made a huge mistake in not writing personal comments in this budget battle the voices of the people are the ones that need to be heard not the numbers that the system wants to reduce this debate down to i shall return and fix this oversight posted by kitty at 11 47 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels austerity bullshit budget cuts protest resistance students thursday april 14 2011 mock slave auctions gone wild the story of a teacher this time in virginia who placed african american students in the role of slaves in a slave auction lesson is just another chapter in the tome of latest mock slave auction lessons gone wrong but this in my mind shows more keenly that teachers are not infallable like the popes used to claim haha and they screw up in this case royally now in the interest of viewing this with a critical lens as teachers we aren t immune to errors in judgment especially one as serious and traumatizing as this one while she may have tried to elicit empathy for the experience of the slaves the fact that she did not randomize the slaves but chose to ironically otherize in a lesson that probably sought to teach students about marginalizing the other and the fact that she reduced a slave auction to a experiential exercise shows that we still have a long way to go in dealing with and teaching about the experience of african americans while i commend her for trying to connect the civil war to slavery a cause that those who believe in the lost cause seek to obscure a more effective way would have been to randomize the sample instead of making the black students the slaves she did not take into account how they might have felt about the experience and should have received consent from the students first if she was to pull something like this off slave auctions cannot be reduced down to a simulation because it trivializes the experience in the minds of students who do not identify with the slaves as nothing more than a game while it brings out the notion in those who can relate better that they are different they are not of the dominant group and that they are the other a more highly effective way to elicit empathy would have been to read primary sources if available or even to view images of slave auctions asking students what they saw or how they felt but ironically in seeking to educate students about how a marginalized group was otherized and oppressed she made that more painfully clear to the students who identified with that group the danger of liberal multiculturalism is that we reduce the experiences of those who have not been a part of the dominant group into something trivial either to be celebrated or to be treated as something exotic liberal multiculturalism speaks volumes about respecting differences and others but what else is it doing anyone a service if we just agree to respect everyone without challenging those power based relationships that mask oppression and inequality critical multiculturalism which challenges the status quo and the established power base in this country whether it s institutionalized or not is the way to go now to take into account this teacher s lesson did the teacher not create an instance of oppression in making the forced otherness of black students more clear and blatant i believe that there is room for experiential exercises in the classroom but not when it comes to experiences of oppression and such however if you were to undertake one you would have to be very clear when to stop for example one of my lesson plans at san jose state was a card game where students drew random classes in ancient athens with the number of citizens based percentage wise so for example in a class of 30 only four students would draw a citizen card then after students took a look at their cards the simulation would end and we would discuss the role of these classes and whether they got the right to vote or not then we would tie it into the present day with brainstorming questions such as what if you were not able to vote in the student council elections because you belonged to a certain classroom my professor warned me not to take this exercise too far and i agreed wholeheartedly that is why i would not have had the citizens vote on something that affected the whole class but would have only limited it to discussion the fact is those who seek to institute critical pedagogy run into much resistance from the institutionalized forces in education seeking to preserve the status quo and seeking to teach a history that does not rock the boat yes we learn about slavery we learn about segregation but do we actually teach those topics to relate to the present day do we teach about racism as a relic of the past or do we teach it as something that can be and needs to be identified do we teach oppression as conquered or still alive breathing underneath the depths of our consciousness do we allow for the use of diverse voices in what carrie shiverly leverenz calls dissensus pedagogy where students challenge each other s and the teacher s ideas what if those students in that classroom had a chance to voice their objections before the simulation went through what if the teacher allowed the students to persuade her that this might not be a great idea as it might have seemed in the whole planning stage posted by kitty at 11 54 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels critical multiculturalism dissensus pedagogy liberal multiculturalism wednesday april 6 2011 from a good friend of mine top down trickle down no good man equal inclusive interactive critical etc is the way to go amen the teacher should not be the one who has all the answers which cannot be challenged as if what she or he says is sacrosanct sometimes we have answers sometimes we don t i told my therapist that sometimes i am anxious when i see my master teachers seemingly knowing everything but i comfort myself in seeing others and myself potentially admitting that yes we do not have all the answers sometimes humility goes a long way in establishing rapport with students especially avoiding the whole top down mentality when it comes to content knowledge students may bring what we as teachers feel are misconceptions that may be true but could we not allow them to examine evidence that might contradict what they bring instead of just correcting them and leaving it as that i wonder if we correct students without giving them a say in defending or challenging their own ideas do we turn them off when it seems that we are not giving their ideas the respect that an inclusive and critical classroom might i guess this is where i feel a bit uncomfortable in presenting ideas as if they are set in stone as i moved farther along in educ 542 i found myself moving away from presenting big ideas in the form of statements even when i had big ideas guide the students research the lesson plans i write tend to focus on open ended questions where there might not be a correct answer one of the last lesson plans i was working on was a war crimes tribunal that the students would hold trying the truman administration on their decision to drop the atomic bomb it might seem astonishing to hold an american president accountable in this manner but could this not be an opportunity to model holding the most powerful among us accountable showing them that they are not above the law what i m noticing in my scripts that i should do a better job in framing what i say in the form of questions such as does american exceptionalism mean that what we do is justified and excused simply because we are the good guys i realize that yes that question may itself be biased but i do not claim to be impartial if i cannot however what i can do is to present dilemmas such as the decision to drop the atomic bomb in a form that might allow students to choose sides and then present their arguments in the interest of contributing to the classroom s funds of knowledge where everyone teacher students and everyone else deposits knowledge into a common account posted by kitty at 11 31 pm 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels critical pedagogy empowerment monday april 4 2011 dr king s forgotten legacy economic justice for all and peace 43 years ago dr king was assassinated at the lorraine motel in memphis what he was doing in memphis is probabl...