Session 4: Lenses & Unions

1.       Disciplinary Lenses

·         “Disciplines are not collections of certified facts; rather, they are lenses through which we look at the world and interpret it…they orient our attention to specific questions about the world…and provide us with standards for what counts as viable answers to such questions,” (Boix Mansilla, Gardner, and Miller).

·         One specific way content research thus far has caused you to re-think about an idea, or question, or caused you to challenge assumptions that you had previously not considered – or – even pushed you further in your thinking?

        For my content research, I have been reviewing non-fiction texts, and lots of hands-on and experiential learning – mostly science-related. What has surprised me most is the wealth of resources, materials, and information about non-fiction. I am focusing on how to bring these resources and type of learning into K-2 classrooms, which makes it more difficult, but the amount of teachers and educators that are using hands-on, project-based, or experiential learning in their classrooms today (K-12) is amazing! I am so happy to see this, even though it is hard to do with today’s focus on following strict standards, schedules, and standardized test preparation. I wonder if the increasing focus and push on the testing is almost creating a type of backlash among teachers to revamp and recreate their classrooms into these interactive learning environments. It will be interesting to see what changes occur over the next ten years with the integration, acceptance, and settling into common core.

        On a more content-focused note, the science topics studied, or even available for students to read in their book choice time, seems to be extremely limited to life sciences. While kids grow up learning about animals, I feel it is the school’s job to introduce topics they do not learn at home. Rather than continuing to learn about animals (only), students should begin to learn about other areas of science (astronomy, geology, ecology, genetics, molecular, physical – electricity, light, waves, magnets, thermodynamics, chemistry, earth, matter, etc.) at a young age so when they do reach secondary school they are prepared with a real understanding of the basics. Also, the need for students to start using the science inquiry and processes is usually missing from elementary classrooms. There is a growing amount of books written to encourage student’s inquiry into topics and ones that ask questions of the reader to get them thinking rather than just listing facts. I have found these books especially interesting and exciting for the development of young, curious minds!

2.       Ravitch Response

·         How do you think the Common Core standards might fit in this narrative of school reform?

·         In Chapter 9, Ravitch says critics argue that schools would improve if unions ceased to exist. What do you think?

I think the most interesting thing about Common Core will be how they will test these standards in the new STAR tests being created and released soon. For a couple of years students will be taking STAR tests still designed off the old standards and not Common Core (– right?). This doesn’t make sense and shows the inaccuracies that arise when education is treated like a business and with so much ineffective school reform. Hopefully, the move to common core will turn a positive focus back on teachers and give teacher’s more credit now that more is expected from us in implementing teaching strategies and having more freedom with the curriculum.

               

First of all, the bureaucracy and delay that occurs in firing bad teachers, or at least the ones who have actually broke the law, is extremely frustrating and this process is much longer because of the unions. Also, with all of this anti-business talk, unions themselves are businesses, which is an important point often looked over. They are basically hired by teachers to protect our interests but work on a financial incentive - different than teachers (I mean really, who becomes a teacher for the pay?!).

However, teachers unions serve many purposes that are still very important. In addition, the union does protect teachers in ways that teachers need that most other professions do not require. For example, unions protect teachers from getting dismissed based simply on performance. The problem with this blanket type of merit pay is that a teacher’s performance is not directly related to student performance. How things move between human beings is unpredictable and teachers can only do their best, but this does not mean every child will improve to the amount expected every year. Psychiatrists do not get paid based on their patient’s improvement or getting cured. In some way’s psychiatrists have a stronger incentive to keep their patients from improving so they continue to receive their business. This is not the model we want for schools – teachers not teaching kids so they have to be held back, or receive more services – NO! By having school public (and not in a business model) and unions, teachers’ salaries will be kept up across the board. I can see how merit incentives (instead of the base pay) would work well as this would give teachers an extra incentive to work hard and do everything they can to help their students improve. However, this raises the biggest issue in education. How do you assess if students are improving. Right now? With standardized testing. However, as Ravitch points out, the best education is not designed to help students pass these tests. So the question remains as to how to quantify education?

Dangers of Privatization

Didn't think about this aspect of a merit pay system! Ahhh!

The negative side - all of this bureaucracy hurts our kids!

·         I was doing more research on this subject and came across this:

“I feel like an anachronism as I try to uphold standards of excellence in a world of mediocrity.

I know why I have continued to teach for these many years—it’s all about my students. I get positive feedback from former students who have gone on to success in higher education and in careers. “Thank you, Mrs. Hart, for teaching me how to write” is an oft-heard comment.” – Beverly Hart from her letter posted on Diane Ravitch’s blog, June 2013.

This reminds me of my K-12 and college education and how day-to-day I would have to work hard in classes like Mrs. Hart’s but would appreciate what I had learned later that year and years into the future. What is difficult about this concept in elementary school is that we are teaching students to think critically and learn the basics so they are ready to take in and use the things they will learn (and remember learning) later in their educational careers. Sometimes it is hard to see the progress with youngsters versus secondary students. But I will always stay committed to expecting excellence from my students, rather than teaching to a test so they can scrape by, no matter the population I am serving. By teaching to the test I may look good to the outside world, but to myself I will look horrible. My job and passion is to teach my students valuable skills and knowledge and I will do this: test or no test.

·         In my research I also found this article about Chicago schools interesting: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/27_02/27_02_sokolower.shtml

“Once he was elected, Emanuel was so enamored of a longer school day that last year—in the middle of our contract—he went directly to schools to ask them to take a waiver and do the longer school day with no additional compensation, trying to bribe principals with $150,000 per school and teachers with free iPads…That’s what happens when you have people running the school system who come from the business world…

While parents liked the longer day, they also thought we should be compensated for it. They didn’t like the idea of forcing people to work longer without being paid for it. Parents are very clear about if you work, you get paid. And the entire time, we were having conversations with our parents about what would make school better; we always had a different vision of what school should look like. We said, “You have the right to a longer day, but let’s make it a better day, because if you’re only elongating the day we have, everyone’s just going to get tired. There’s no evidence that a longer day in itself is better.” Parents wanted art, music, PE, world languages. They wanted classes that were not just reading and math all day long.”

I loved this quote because it shows some of the thinking behind the business view of education and why it doesn’t work well and the polling of parents’ views of teacher union battles. I think these parents had a great view of education. The longer is not what is important – it’s making it BETTER! And if having school run longer to have time to involve these subjects, then great! Often, I think the teacher profession is viewed so differently from other jobs. Being a teacher is equivalent with other jobs that require talented, creative, cooperative, and responsible people. These are usually the highest paid professions as they rely more on the individual’s characteristics than their simple ability to conduct and complete a list of things to do or a variety of step-by-step like processes throughout the day. And yet, we are not treated as valuable, with competitive salaries commensurate with our education, experience, or work load. Parents do understand what we do. When polls of the general public are taken, a minority percentage of these people are parents – something to keep in mind.

·         Lastly:

A bill addressing the firing and discipline of teachers passed in April.  Unions, teachers, government, and politicians all agreed (how unusual!): http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/03/5314678/california-teacher-discipline.html

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Meghan Overby
Kusy Espinoza