Bernice Reagon: People “know that nobody can survive in a minority position with only one point of view -- we have always had to understand the majority view as well. In the effort to understand the story of America, we're still not getting enough help from many people who share the story, because they come from a culture that says that their view is the only one. Well, I say to them: Welcome to prekindergarten! You will not die if you discover that there are more lines out there than just your own. In fact, you'll discover that you will have an advantage if you know more of them!” — Utne Reader (March/April 1996)
Available at http://www.utne.com/issues/1999_74/features/524-1.html and Retrieved August 10, 2007.
Thinking about the nature of this course, I happened upon this conceptual outlook on AERA’s webpage.
Reconceptualists, consider the “cultural-sociological-political implications of the curriculum taught. Reconceptualists are not only, or even primarily interested in the official curriculum, as curriculum developers are, but seek to examine the hidden curriculum, the subtext that comes with teaching a specific curriculum a certain way to specific groups of students. Reconceptualists, in other words, are interested in much more than subject matter. They are interested in the messages or ideologies (hidden knowledge) that underlay not only subject matter, but also pedagogy, social interactions, and classroom settings, and educational practices as well as institutional contexts that have long come to be taken for granted. Many reconceptualists ultimately ask the question, who benefits from these configurations, and who loses…. in the cultural-sociological-political implications of schooling with respect to social justice, citizenship, or the role education is or should play in society at large.” Source: American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division B - Curriculum Instruction. (Retrieved August 7, 2007).Considering your emerging philosophy of education, are you a Reconceptualist? Is there a need for Reconceptual thinking in education? Please weigh in your thoughts below. Add your reflection about this to your individual webpages.
As a critical theorist, I understand that education and language are not neutral landscapes and that they are highly politicized and controlled by the mainstream, dominant society. As an educator, I am an advocate in giving voice to those who may be underrepresented culturally, linguistically, politically, economically. I continue to challenge content in textbooks and in the curriculum and expose students to these incongruencies so they too may recognize, question and begin to think critically on their own. In preparing our students for their future, my philosophy of education has changed to better preparing our children to be productive in flexible and adaptable environments working with diverse others, culturally, linguistically, educationally, economically. Learning within environments that are meaningful, relevant and authentic has become an important focus of my methodology.
Reconceptualism is a synonym for critical theory and in this way, I do believe my teaching foundation resonates with both. Neil Postman said: "The lives of our children are shaped by what they will see and hear in the media" and "Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.''
Source: Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness (2007). Retrieved August 10, 2007.
Reading this account by Seymour Papert reminded me of how important it is for me to be continually learning alongside you, my students! Working with students at Apache Elementary School provide us a rich opportunity to learn alongside the students in an authentic teaching experience.
On the importance of teachers learning alongside students.
"What we need is kinds of activity in the classroom where the teacher is learning at the same time as the kids and with the kids. Unless you do that, you'll never get out of the bind of what the teachers can do is limited by what they were taught to do when they went to school. And I think that's possible, and it's a different concept of what kind of educational kind of materials and activities should go into the school. It's in line with what I was saying before -- that we mustn't think only of, "Is this to be judged by what the kids learn?" We've got to say, "Judge it by what the whole system learns, (and) that includes the teacher." The teacher's got to be learning at the same time. And then with this robotics stuff, it's an example because ... every situation is unique. It's never been there before. And that's very different from the classroom situation where we're teaching math fractions. We've been there before. The teacher is not learning anything because the teacher knows that already. And this is a very bad situation for learning.
Again, one of my favorite little analogies: If I wanted to become a better carpenter, I'd go find a good carpenter, and I'll work with this carpenter on doing carpentry or making things. And that's how I'll get to be a better carpenter. So if I want to be a better learner, I'll go find somebody who's a good learner and with this person do some learning. But this is the opposite of what we do in our schools. We don't allow the teacher to do any learning. We don't allow the kids to have the experience of learning with the teacher because that's incompatible with the concept of the curriculum where what is being taught is what's already known."
Seymour Papert on Project-Based Learning
Enjoy your project-based experience and make it a powerful learning experience for yourself..................................Frances
Please notice a new PROCESS WRITING category has been added to our blog table of contents.
Please check out the following websites in particular:
These will be our writing workshop guidelines in working with our sixth grade writing partners.
BARNGA Simulation Game prompted a discussion about culture:
CULTURE DEFINITIONS
"Culture is a mold in which we are all cast, and it controls our daily lives in many unsuspected ways...that part of human nature which we take for granted-the par we dont't think about, since we assume it is universal or regard it as idiosncratic....Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants" (Hall, 1990, p. 29).
Hall continues "The ultimate reason for such study [ studying other cultures] is to learn more about how one's own system works. The best reason for exposing oneself to foreign ways is to generate a sense of vitality and awareness-an interst in life which can come only when one lives through the shock of contrast and difference" (Hall, 1990, p. 30).
"Culture is communiction and communication is culture" (Hall, 1990, p. 186).
Hall, E. (1990). The silent language. New York, NY: Doubleday.
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Joseph Abeyta's definition of culture: "A total way of life of a people. The environment in which the people live-their language, their philosophy, their standard of behavior, their beliefs and their aspirations."
Our friends-the Navajos: Papers on Navajo culture and life. (1976). Tsaile, AZ: Navajo Community College.
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"the everchanging values, traditions, social and political relationships, and worldview created, shared, and transformed by a group of people bound together by a combination of factors that can include a common history, geographic location, language, social class, and religion...culture is complex and intricate; it includes content or product (the what of culture), process (how it is created and transformed), and the agents of culture (who is responsible for creating and changing it)....everyone has a culture because all people participate in the wolrld through social and political relationships informed by history as well as by race, ethnicity, language, socila class, gender, sexual orientation, and other circumstances related to identity and experience."
Nieto, S. (1999). The light in their eyes. New York, NY: Teachers College, p. 48.
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Culture is "the dynamic feature of relationships, of how human beings fill the space between themselves and other people. This space can be filled with basic respect, admiration, playfulness, touching; or it can be filled with disregard, suspicion, anxiety, holding back. It virtually is always filled with language and gesture."
Tice, T. (1993). The Education Digest, p. 39.
Please share your reflections about your RED APPLE TRANSIT ride. (How was it viewing from a bus; did you notice things you didn't see before; did you learn anyhting new about Farmington; connections; metaphors; insights?)
WEEKLY SESSION HIGHLIGHTS
Each of us will take turns recording HIGHLIGHTS of weekly class happenings and events. In this way we can remember how we came together, worked together, played together and learned from each other in respectfully diversified ways.
When posting class highlights, please include session date and name of scribe........Thank you, Frances
Please post your reading book list here.
Please post reflections from your PRIME TIME/Library experiences here.
Jan. 30
To exit class today, please share your reflection about an experience which involved your identity, ethnicity, culture, language, discrimination, etc. Please post below.
Thank you............................Frances
My parents immigrated to USA from Ethiopia in Eastern Africa. I'm trying to learn English but it's very confuscating. Bernardo Seraphino Scongeli Cacciatigerbyitstore is my full name. I came from Ethiopia where in my country we speak Italiano. My father is an engineer at the powerful plant. Now that I am in the estados unidos, I have to lern English. No, want to learn prosper English. I am trying to make better English by chatting online. If I say anything to offend you, l'amico, I curse my infernal lack of ability to really expose in Englese what I mean.
Why is this English so difficult fo me? Just like in the commercias, things are said but you can't believe them. It is very confusement to me. For exam:
There's no egg in eggplant. No ham in hamburger. No apple and pine in pineapple which is one of my moste good fruits to eat. English muffins were not invented in England, yes, not even French fries in France.
You know boxing rings are square. Quicksand works slowly. Writers write but fingers don't fing, now do they? Hammers don't ham and grocers don't groce. (Ugh-gross!)
If you have one tooth and two teeth why know one booth and two beeth? One goose = 2 geese. One moose = 2 meese? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarium eat?
I got to get better at speaking English because I'm starting 9th grade and I have to be able to commune so people know what I'm talking about. Do you see what I;m saying? Better yet, so I know what I'm talking about, and I have to be a good student. Maybe I can stay in the states for college if I can get a student visa.
Carino, what is the best way to learn English? I go to movies but they talk with all this slang and f*** this and that.
I am reading a lot of biographies and magazines. I like cars, sports, cooking and training animals. I want to be an animal researcher in my future.
I end with a joke: These two green beans are crossing the road when one is slapped down by a truck. His friend scrapes him up and rushes him to the hospital. After hours of surgery, the doc says that he has some buono notizia and some male news.
The healthy verde bean says "Okay, give me the good news prima." Doctor says, "He's a gonna live."
"So, what's the bad news", the healthy verde bean wanders?
"The bad news is hell be a vegetable for the rest of his life."
L'amica, if you have any ideas to push me, pass them on this way. Outa, you hear? Grazie tante! Bernardo