Reflection on Obama’s and Biden’s Plan for Education

   I was happy to read that this plan will include the funding necessary to implement the objectives of NCLB. A close second was reading that the president and vice-president understand that we need to make changes to the way that we assess our students’ growth, including new assessments and better ways of assessing atypical populations of children. I feel that they understand how demoralizing NCLB, the way it exists currently, has been for educators.                                                                       

   I agreed with our need to dramatically increase funding for educating pre-school aged children. I have reservations about the increased funding going mainly to Head Start programs because the Head Start programs that I have experienced were poorly managed and the quality of instruction was low.

   I loved the reforms that were proposed for teacher preparation and certification. I also applaud the efforts to raise the professional status of educators by increasing pay, adding incentives, and requiring more strenuous assessment of teacher performance.

   Most of all I am excited about the proposed extra support for disadvantaged students. There are some excellent ideas proposed to support our children. Obama and Biden will help me to respect my government’s priorities if the funding is actually found to pay for all of these proposals!

O & L Chapter 10: The Community

   It seems like the more assignments that I read in this program, the more I wonder how to teach my students according to their individual needs. I also feel growing frustration because it seems like the whole system of education is designed counter to what is best for genuine learning.

   A few weeks back I changed my views regarding the parent’s role in helping teachers and schools in educating their children. Now, after reading this chapter, I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to go about the process of involving parents as equal partners in their children’s education. This chapter made me aware of so many issues that I hadn’t even thought of before. For example, I had an overall positive schooling experience growing up, so of course I see schools in a positive light. For many parents, however, school was a negative place for them so it takes a lot of courage and strength to voluntarily put themselves in their children’s school environment. Language is a difficult barrier to overcome as well. I’ve witnessed firsthand how frustrated the office staff becomes when a parent comes in and speaks a language other than English. Their frustration often leads them to be a little rude and angry. I’m surprised that these parents return after such treatment. I’m very sensitive and if I were treated this way, I probably wouldn’t come back again!

   I have been thinking about several ways that I can increase my students’ parents’ involvement in our classroom next year. First of all, I’ve developed a survey that I plan to send home before the end of the year. I’ll enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope to encourage honest feedback (because otherwise it would come back in their child’s take-home folder). Hopefully, the parents will feel comfortable enough to fill out the surveys honestly. I’m hoping that ways to improve that I hadn’t previously thought about will come up. Next year, I thought that I would have a monthly parent meeting before the PTA meeting or if the parents need a later meeting, we can reserve a room at the public library that is two blocks away. I want to change the way parents feel about the teacher as the authority figure and I want my students to see their parents and me working together. I also plan to create a blog like this one (after I figure out how to make it private:) where parents and I can interact and discuss anything at all.

   I’m planning to use our culture quilt activity as an important part of our getting acquainted process at the beginning of the school year. I think that this is a powerful way to learn about each other. I also want to enlist the parents as volunteers to be mystery guests on Fridays. We have mystery readers now, but I think it would be so powerful to have parents come in to tell us their stories.

Who Are the Bright Children? The Cultural Context of Being and Acting Intelligent

   The following definition of “successful intelligence” really spoke to me as I was reading this article: “what is needed for success in life, according to one’s own definition of success, within one’s sociocultural context”. Each person has a different definition of success depending on what is important to that person. For example, there are people who consider themselves successful if they can buy whatever they want to buy, some people consider themselves successful when they have little negative impact on the environment. Some people feel successful if they’re able to raise happy children or help other people. I’ve really been thinking about what I consider to be my definition of success and I believe that it comes down to a few things; being a good friend and partner, making enough money to satisfy my basic needs plus a few extras, giving my best effort in my job, and taking time to enjoy life rather than racing through it. I’m realizing that my definitions of success are not everyone else’s definitions of success and we all have different opinions that are equaly valuable.

   Our “willing to disturb” class stirred up a ton of emotions over the last couple of weeks. Kim and Colette’s book discussion really helped me to see why this has been the case. When Janet Helms’ Process of Racial Identity Development for Whites came up, I was shocked. I realized that I thought that I was further along in the continuum than I really am and that is the reason for my tumultuous emotions recently. A couple of experiences just over the past few days have started to help me to go a little further in my development. The first happened when, during my Wednesday GSU Math class, I really had to think long and hard to come up with times when I’ve felt mistreated because of my race or gender. My friend Sherri is Black and she told me once that there’s not a day that goes by that she isn’t aware of her skin color and she couldn’t even count how many times she’s been mistreated because of her race. My other experience happened tonight when, during a dinner party, I was in a heated discussion with a woman who sounded a whole lot like me except she was blind to White privilege and institutional racism rather than social class restrictions. She kept coming back to the fact that she doesn’t think of people’s skin color, how long is it going to be before Black people get rid of the chips on their shoulders about the race issue and if she had been born Black she would have been just as successful because “she didn’t come from money and worked extremely hard to get to where she is today and she would have worked just as hard and been just as successful as a Black woman…”. It was very frustrating because I couldn’t get through to her and I just couldn’t get her to see my point of view. I understand now how frustrated some of my classmates’ felt when I was talking about how no matter how poor you are you can still teach your children the ABCs and read to them every night, etc. I’m starting to realize that there are issues that keep people in poverty and keep them from succeeding, according to my version of success, that are out of their control.

Savage Unrealities

   This article really made me think about my students’ socio-economic class,  my expectations of parent involvement, and students’ home environment. The first thing that struck me after having read the article and discussed it in class was the fact that I had been thinking about socio-economic class in a naive way. I believed that everyone had the chance to succeed no matter from which class they originated. I’m beginning to see that this is an idealized way to think and that in reality most of my students will remain at the same socio-economic class in adulthood.

   Second, I’ve always thought of myself as a partner with parents in their child’s education. This has caused disappointment and frustration when my expectations have not been met. I believe that in the future I will have different expectations of what happens outside of my classroom. I will try to be more understanding of the responsibilities and demands that my parents face. I will continue to work my hardest inside the classroom and try not to allow myself to feel too upset when my students are not making the progress that I would like.

   I’m realizing more and more that home environment is most likely the major factor in the way that a child develops and which path a child follows in life. I had always felt that I could make a great difference in a child’s future, but I now think that I’ve overestimated the impact that my relationship with my students and posiitive classroom environment have on them.

Willing to disturb and be disturbed

   I’ve often struggled with balancing my personal life with my teaching life. I think about different ways that I can go “above and beyond” in helping my students outside of the classroom, before or after school and on weekends. Up to this point, my extra work has led to more engaging lessons or more efficient use of instructional time. I also spend quite a bit of time on relationship and community-building extras like baking cookies, acquiring student interest-specific libraries and resources, etc. Throughout this year, due to the excitement and invigoration sparked in me through this program, I’ve been thinking that I could do more. I’ve been feeling that I should give up part of my Saturdays for an informal Saturday school for my students or arrange regular tutoring in my free time, among other ideas.   

   However, something has changed. Maybe it has something to do with the movie about teaching that I saw last night, “The Class”, and the pessimistic theme that I took away from it. It could be the fact that I spent most of the day today unpacking things that had never been unpacked after moving in almost two years ago. Witnessing the high level of discontent and low morale of my fellow teachers caused by some of our administrators/administrative staff probably plays a role in my change in attitude. Whatever it may be, I’ve decided that I’m doing as much as I am able to do to help my students and I have to distance myself from teaching when I’m away from school. I spend so much of my free time on teaching-related activities that I sacrifice time I could spend nurturing myself mentally, physically, and spiritually. I think that this qualifies as a “willing to disturb and be disturbed” revelation because I feel guilty even typing these words, not even saying them out loud. The fact is, though, I know that I’m making a difference in some of my students’ lives and I want to continue doing so well into the future. This pace that I’ve been accustomed to realistically can’t be maintained.  

   Another, and probably the most disturbing, factor responsible for my change in attitude regarding extra effort is the fact that I’m sick and tired of parents who have children and don’t seem to put the effort into raising them that I would put into raising my own children. Yes, I said it. I know how elitist and negative it sounds but that’s how I’m feeling right now. I’ve had enough of parents who send their children to kindergarten without knowing something as basic as alphabet and number recognition. I’ve had enough of these same parents who don’t teach their children how to tie their shoes, allow their 6-year olds to watch horror movies so violent that I can’t watch them as a 35-year old, and send their children to school with a negative attitude toward teachers. I have a responsibility to do my best for my students, but that’s going to have to come with limits in the future. Hopefully, this will allow me simultaneously to have a positive impact on some of my students’ lives and my own!  

Culturally Authentic Bias

   It’s important to realize that even literature needs to be examined for gender and other biases, even if it is “multicultural”. There are books that I have used to expose my children to other cultures thinking that I was doing a good thing. However, I didn’t examine these sources for biases. I will have to pay closer attention and ask myself more questions about which literary resources I expose to my children.

Beyond Pink and Blue

   I had to examine my own fears in reading this article. When I read about Robin Cooley using some of these books in her class, my first thoughts were, “How would my parents react? and How would my administrators react?”. Then , I realized that I might feel uncomfortable discussing themes in this literature at first, but I shouldn’t exclude literature from my classroom just because it “might” make a select few “uncomfortable”.

   I really liked the way the author designed culminating activities that were of practical and comprehensible use to her students. Collaborating with first graders in writing a big book and writing letters to Pottery Barn were authentic ways to allow her students to express their understanding of the concepts that they had internalized.

Examples of Good Multicultural and Anti-Bias Literature

   Wow, ask and ye shall find! I was just commenting on the need for examples of good multicultural children’s literature and voila, this article addresses my need! The only drawback is that it is such a short list. Better than nothing, I guess!

Evaluating Children’s Books for Bias

   In reading this article, I learned that in evaluating my library of children’s literature, I should be looking critically at the following areas: omission, illustrations, story lines, authenticity, relationships between people, heroines and heroes, the effects on a child’s self-image, the author’s or illustrator’s background, the author’s or illustrator’s perspective, the language, and copyright date.

   In reading a more detailed explanation of the above categories I found myself wondering how we are to answer the questions relating to the less-obvious aspects of the literature. There are some very obvious biases and stereotypes that most of us would have little trouble recognizing. I think that there needs to be a database where educators can turn to locate “pre-approved” multicultural children’s literature. Otherwise, frankly, I know that I don’t have the time to spend evaluating my literature to the extend described in this article and it just won’t happen! There was a resource listed in the reference section that I’ll check out. It was written ten years ago though and I’d rather have access to a more current listing of available good multicultural children’s literature.

Fiction Posing As Truth

   I claim ignorance on the subject of Native American children’s literature and knowledge of historically-accurate Native American authors. This having been said, I know enough to have been shocked when reading an excerpt from the foreword of Ann Rinaldi’s book My Heart is on the Ground: The Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl. The first thought that came to my mind was “What the heck was she thinking?”. To me, this is a prime example of an author who knows nothing about a subject but is trying to capitalize on the increasing movement toward incorporating multicultural literature into lessons. This book should have been written by someone who knew the historical facts and understood the importance of portraying the events that took place in the book from the perspective of the culture represented. My above comments all assume a passive ignorance on the part of this author. What angers me is that, without my basic background knowledge on this subject coming from a language major, I could easily have read this or read it to my children without knowing that it was riddled with inaccuracies and downright lies.

   My next reaction came after reading the sections on lack of historical accuracy, cultural authenticity, and stereotypes. My initial questions were, “Well, what’s our alternative?, Who do we turn to?”, quickly answered in the final comments section. I was glad to have been provided with a couple of references to authentic Native American literature. My next question, which I believe/hope will be answered in one of the next articles on our list is “How do we evaluate children’s literature for historical accuracy, cultural authenticity, and lack of stereotypes and biases?”. I’m hoping that I can find additional information on the NAME (National Association for Multicultural Education) website!