Tyson’s Corner

I was intrigued with the title of this letter.  I have experienced anxiety when approaching  a difficult task or situation, but I had never thought of that emotion as fear until reading Freire’s explanation.  His focus, of course, is on the difficulties readers face in understanding text.  I can imagine that all of us in this class  have felt somewhat uneasy when asked to read, analyze, and discuss scholarly research that at first glance appears beyond our ability to understand, yet we have all accepted the responsibility of “intellectual discipline” and have stepped into those murky pages, albeit timidly, until we have come to a measure of understanding.  I am consoled by Freire’s statement that “There is no reason why I should be ashamed of not understanding something that I read.”  He asks that we not just give up, though, because the more we persevere the better we become at studying difficult text.  I’ll have to remember his advice as I complete this semester!

I reacted with strong feelings to this article because Jaeger criticized a reading program that I taught for 8 years with very good results. I have seen firsthand the effectiveness of the Open Court reading program with first graders.  Yes, it is a scripted program, but teachers in my district were never required — or even expected — to read the script word for word.  And yes, there were definite ways to use the sound/spelling cards that accompanied the program, but the repetitive activities and response card drills  worked together to build a sequential teaching/learning pattern that produced very good results for our district.  We only used Open Court in kindergarten and first grade, but our reading scores on the annual TCAP were among the highest in the state.  My students certainly did not remain silent, and there was communication and cooperation among them.  There were decodable texts in the beginning of the program, but students were reading trade books by the middle of the year (as part of the Open Court “bundle,” I might add).

There is a huge sense of bitterness in this article, which makes me wonder how objectively Jaeger saw the situation in her school.  She states that the “struggling readers I saw in my pull-out intervention classes were  . . . weakened by a curriculum that didn’t meet their needs.”  She doesn’t tell us the intervention strategies she was using, only that she was “reluctant to speak freely about these difficulties in order to protect the small acts of resistance that classroom teachers took with my encouragement.”

It sounds like this school had problems above and beyond the Open Court issues.  I sense a tremendous power struggle.  Jaeger’s writing is so different from that of Freire with his humility, lovingness, joy of living, and other qualities.  Even his courage is more palatable to me than Jaeger’s almost militant attitude.  Maybe I’m being too harsh.  Maybe I would not like Open Court if I had to teach it again after experiencing more holistic approaches such as Reader’s Workshop and the Four-Block literacy approaches our county espouses.  I never felt as though I was “teaching scripts instead of children” when I taught Open Court phonics, though.  There is a place for specific phonics instruction, but the teacher’s attitude still matters.

It would seem to me that there is no one source of knowledge.  From the second a newborn baby takes that first gulp of air, she begins to learn. In fact, she was learning about herself even in the womb as she became aware of her surroundings.  She is genetically wired with a personality unlike any other that affects the interactions she has with other people.  Through those interactions she learns how to make her needs known and eventually satisfied.  The culture and class into which she is born influences how she sees herself and how she perceives others to view her.  As she grows, she acquires knowledge through personal experiences, but also through experiences of her friends and acquaintances.  She learns through trial and error.  She learns from the daily bombardment of the media through television, radio, Internet, and print.  Simply living through each day brings new knowledge.

Question #2

Do I recognize my philosophy of schooling in any of the philosophies described?  I lean more toward the progressive philosophies, especially the multiculturalism/socio-culturalism.  I think students need a broad base in traditional subjects while respecting the contributions of people from all races and cultures.

Question #3

Is there a philosophy that you disagree with strongly?  I do not agree with the Essentialism philosophy because I think the teacher should be more than just the authority in the classroom who administers tests.  That’s probably the reason I think we do entirely too much testing in our schools today.

Education has certainly changed since I was in grammar school! Yes, it was called “grammar school” when I was a youngster. I’m a product of an education system that did not attempt to modify instruction to match student learning styles. I was a “receiver of knowledge” and was rarely given opportunities for exploration and discussion.  Life was much simpler then.  Teachers taught, mostly through lectures, and students learned — and behaved!  The adults in my life were strict, but I always felt loved and secure.

I cannot remember how I first learned to read, but I do remember listening to Mama tell stories, read books, and sing songs.  My parents lived through the Great Depression and taught school during that era.   My mother was a “city girl,” having grown up in Decatur, but my father was a “country boy” from an area outside Rome, Georgia, near Berry College.  Those were the only cultures I knew about as a young girl.  Daddy sold World Book encyclopedias to bring in extra money, and he had a special volume that contained a sample of all that World Book had to offer.  I remember looking at that book for hours on end because I was so fascinated with it, especially with the color pictures of animals and clothing from around the world, and the plastic overlays that showed the human skeleton and muscles.  My parents didn’t help me with homework because I was just expected to do it on my own, along with family chores that my six siblings and I were told to do.  Education was important in our family, and we were all expected to eventually go to college.  I was taught responsibility and discipline at home, but those traits were also reinforced at school.

My mother was in college while I was in the elementary grades.  I remember seeing her read a book by John Dewey (or maybe I remember it because I’ve seen it somewhere at her house), so she must have been learning about progressivism.  She told me once that I could actually punish my sister for cutting the hair off one of my dolls!  That must have come from a child psychology class she was taking at the time!  I remember when Sputnik was launched, and how Russia and Kruschev were such enemies of America.  In school, we were told we had to start using the “new math” but I never knew what was wrong with the old math.  I remember what I was doing the day Kennedy was shot, and was shocked and even scared that something like that could happen in our country.  I also recall the day we finally put a man on the moon, winning the space race against Russia.  Through all of that, I was never aware of changes in my education.  I never worked in cooperative groups or even with a partner, but I wrote term papers, studied French and Latin, and learned geometry and algebra.

I realize that teaching is political; in fact, our lives are being shaped by political forces, whether we agree with the prevailing ideology or not.  Much has happened in our education system since I was a child that can be applauded, but there is no definitive “right” way to produce an educated citizenry.  As Rhina pointed out in our class summary last week, “There are different and equally effective ways of learning, knowing, and doing.”

“No one knows it all; no one is ignorant of everything. We all know something; we are all ignorant of something” (page 72). This is a reassuring statement by Freire that should be obvious to us, but unfortunately, it is not. We cannot be our best as teachers unless we admit that we have much to learn from our students. Life takes us down many paths, and everyone is a traveler with different stories, different experiences, different attitudes, and different perspectives. If we don’t remain teachable we deprive ourselves of rich opportunities.
Freire writes about tolerance as “the virtue that teaches us to live with the different. It teaches us to learn from and respect the different” (p. 76). Some of my Southern Baptist friends years ago had a disdain for this word because they thought it meant condoning unacceptable behavior. I’ve long tried to explain to them what is meant by true tolerance, but Freire has given me the words. He says that tolerance “does not mean covering up disrespect; it does not mean coddling the aggressor or disguising aggression.” (p. 76). It is recognizing that others in this world are not exactly like me, and that I can accept and celebrate those differences.

I enjoyed reading about Freire’s eight qualities that produce better performing teachers. They all go together, though. I don’t think any one alone would be effective without the others intertwined in that cord that supports and defines successful teaching. Freire challenges us as parents, teachers, and citizens to develop and fight for these qualities.

What interesting things we learn when we delve into family backgrounds!  That’s something I haven’t been doing very often with my students, and I think it’s because I have felt that my intrusion into their private family lives has really been none of my business. Nevertheless, I am becoming more aware of the need to understand cultures and family values in order to connect more fully with my students.

This article could have been written about me, even though I’m not an Asian American. Jeff’s words describing himself as having an internal control that “restrained [his] mouth from talking too loud, forbade [his] mind from questioning established ideas, and encouraged a calm countenance” paints a picture of me growing up in a family of seven children with a father who was a school principal and a mother who was an elementary teacher. We lived in small towns where everyone knew the local school principal, and we were expected to be seen and not heard, and not embarrass our parents. With the exception of my “firebrand sister” who was outspoken and feisty, we were all quiet and obedient. The difference here is that my reluctance to take risks in talking is shaped by my family background and is not a widespread cultural phenomenon.

I can identify with the need to have protocols for speaking in class with designated leaders who ensure that everyone has an equal chance to speak, even if they choose to “pass.” At my school, we have begun having formal class meetings with our students in conjunction with a bullying program our counselors have brought to us. This article emphasizes for me the need to make certain that everyone in my class is given an opportunity to practice these linguistic and social skills.

The Myth of the Model Minority places an unfair burden on Asian-American students no matter how it is viewed.  It is always dangerous to make broad generalizations, but especially when applied to an entire race or culture.  I was not surprised to read in the article that there are over 50 ways to qualify as an Asian American, so it makes no sense at all to assume that the same qualities are relevant to all of them.  Disparities exist in every area addressed by the authors regarding the myth. We educators must be especially aware that diversity exists within the confines of race, culture, and ethnicity and we simply cannot pigeonhole students according to our preconceived notions. The few Asian-American students I have taught have not shared the same characteristics. Just like any other students, they had different personalities,  their families came from different socio-economic levels,  and they  had unique strengths academically.  Perhaps my favorite quote from the article reminds me that even a “positive” stereotype is harmful because “we ultimately give credence to an entire way of thinking about race and culture, one that upholds the stereotypic racial and cultural inferiority of African Americans and Latina/os and maintains white supremacy.”  We are learning too much to allow such thinking to intrude into our classrooms.