Public School Teachers

There are a number of thoughts running through my head, all related to the fact that, according to Wills in our Making Race Visible text, 92% of our teachers are white, monolingual, affluent females. That's still bothering me to a large degree. For Dr. Wang's Theory to Practice, we're reading Pinar's What is Curriculum Theory? book. He quotes Lather, on p.218, who states "teaching has come to be formulated as an extension of the woman's role in the family: to accept male leadership as natural" and to produce workers for the male, essentially. The other night, I was listening to a mayoral candidate talk in response to the question "What do we need to do about the crumbling of our public school system?" The response was horrible. Basically, the candidate stated that the school has to be fixed so that we can attract business to the area, because they want a workforce guaranteed for at least a decade. Pinar's assessment of the rhetoric "the country needs worker bees... not an educated and politically astute citizenry" certainly seems to be true here.

So while I am angered by that, I also keep thinking about what we can do for schools and students. The race/gender issue in schools... is it another chicken and egg dilemma? Can that 92% make a difference in the lives of non-white students so that they are encouraged to become teachers and create the diversity in our teaching staff that we so desperately need? Or will the change have to come from the members of those groups first - more than 8% who are committed to making a difference and want things to change for the next generation who then will begin renewal?

Stuart Hall and Representation

This was actually the second time I've seen this video... we watched it in Dr. Schwarz' Media Literacy class (which I took two years ago - Spring 2004). I was anxious to go back and look at my notes from that viewing and compare them with tonight's notes (I was one of those who was writing frantically). Anyway, my notes from two years ago were icky - very basic and sketchy. That was pretty much a disappointment. I was really hoping for some insightful mix of thoughts!

On the way home tonight, I was thinking about what Jackie said about the Class Dissmissed video and Hall's thoughts from tonight, and Dana's comments about Communication Theory. I think that obviously media studies will involve basic tenets of communication theory, so the overlap there makes perfect sense to me. What is different though, is the notion of the feedback loop - when media is created, there is sometimes little feedback from viewers to producers (advertising and ratings aside). So, how do we know what message is actually being received? Is it the message that the producer intends? Or is the audience subverting the intended message, and creating meaning contrary to that "pre-determined"? This plays back into Jackie's statement about Class Dissmissed. Were the personalities we received - the characters - the stories - the stereotypes - what the producers intended? Or were these just our creations and interpretations?

As in interesting aside, last week, Nightline aired an interview with the producer/creator and actors on the show Grey's Anatomy about race in Hollywood. I found it really interesting that the producer (Shonda Rhimes) talking about watching the Cosby show, and pleased that there were people "like her" on TV, when we had just watched other African-Americans bashing it on the Class Dissmissed video. It was just a disconnect there. Anyway, it was a good piece, even if it was too short, and could have been really expanded. I would have liked to have heard much more from her and the actors, too.

First thoughts about Apprenticeship in Thinking

I really didn't think this book was as good as the Heath book. As I stated in class, Rogoff isn't quite as diplomatic or emotionally removed from her stance as Heath. It didn't have the same ethonography-feel that Heath was able to maintain througout the book.

Overall, I do think it has some good information. The background on Piaget and Vygotsky, and comparing their work to hers was interesting. However, I do think that this should be a comparison someone else makes - it seems a bit presumptious to say you're next in line behind two world-famous developmental psychologists/theorists.

I don't know as much about Piaget as Vygotsky. I've read more Vygotsky in the time I've been in grad school. He's pretty hot in literacy right now, so I've seen his work more than others.

On 192, Rogoff states that "the metaphor of apprenticeship stresses children's active role in learning the lessons of their culture, through guided participation with more skilled companions." In this statement, there is a lot that I do like about this metaphor. While I don't know if we are curious by nature - pre-programmed to make sense of our world - it does seem that children are meaning makers. What I kept thinking during class is that in many ways this makes sense, but since I am not a geneticist, I don't know about the scientific determinism. It does seem that cultures all have varying ways of making sense of their world and seek to explain how things have come to be.

The other thing I kept thinking in class was that children are curious, and remain so as long as they are encouraged to keep asking why. Maybe so many of us in the class were struggling because we are thinking of public schooling. Endless, mindless standardized tests seem to beat the curiosity and inquisitiveness right out of kids.

I may be the outlier in class when it comes to the book Ways with Words. This book is in the top three that I've read for this program/degree in the last three years. When I finished it, I told my husband that it may have been the best. I promptly called my mom, who is an early childhood literacy specialist, and told her she's got to read it - I am taking it to her this weekend. I think that it is so powerful, that it ought to be required reading for anyone even thinking about teaching in a public school - especially an elementary school. The best thing, I think, is Heath's stance. So much of what we read on literacy and language acquisition is elitist and overly academic, and seems to point fingers and criticize cultures and habits. There was none of this type of attitude in the book, and it was amazingly refreshing.

Speaking of my mom, we were talking the other morning and she was talking about a family of one of her pre-k students. The family is from Iran, and my mom engaged the mother in an insightful conversation about race and religion and childrearing. She commented that at one point, the mother began to cry, and thanked her for the conversation. My mom stated that she was very complimentary to the mother on how she treats her children. It puzzled my mom, and she and I talked about the power of a genuine question - the curiosity that is concerned for others - a way to talk to know and understand, without pointing fingers or acting superior. It reminded me of this class, and the reading we've done here.