Monday, April 27, 2009

The Role of the Teacher




The role of the teacher has always been undervalued. The devalued role of the teacher may have stemmed from the notion that teacher has been traditionally a “women’s job” or because teachers have summers off. People believe that teachers are overpaid and that anybody can walk into a classroom and teach. These beliefs need to change. Teachers play many roles during the day. They are a teacher, friend, mother, discipliner or any other role that may come about during the day.


The current trend that is occurring is trying to teacher-proof the education profession. Pre-made workbooks, tests, and quizzes are marketed to teacher lowering the creativity of teaching. What educators need to do is stop buying these pre-made worksheets. Teachers need to create what they are going to teach. The producers of these pre-made items aren’t in the classrooms and they don’t know the students individually. Only the teacher knows the students individually and they should decide what materials they should use in teaching the class.



Standardized testing has also devalued the role of the teacher. The public tends to believe that teachers only “teach to the test.” While this may be true, most teachers would like to change the way they are teaching. Some teachers have little choice in what is taught in the classroom and how much time is spent on preparing for standardized testing. Many teachers have stated that they would like to do more projects and spend more time on certain units. However, this is not feasible in many classrooms. The move to standardized testing needs to be changed because teachers need their power back.


Teachers need to re-evaluate the way they are teaching. Teaching should go beyond “the test.” Teachers should make learning fun and worthwhile and make students experts in the different subjects. Teachers shouldn’t teach just enough to pass the test. If teachers do these things then the view of teachers would change.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Neoliberalism and the Public Schools

Neoliberalism is a response to dealing with crises in the public sphere such as schools, hospitals, public transportation, prisons, et cetra. The solution to these crises is to increase the role of corporations or private entities. Taking a quick glance at this it may not be such a bad idea for corporations to get involved. Many times these corporations or private entities are donating technology, books, and textbooks. However, by allowing corporations or private entities into our school system is taking the power away from the public. For example, a corporation may support a specific view. The textbooks that this corporation donates will most likely support whatever view they may have. This takes away power from the schools because they are being forced to teach from the textbook and teach the view of that corporation instead of presenting many other views. Another example of this is standardized testing. Corporations are making millions of dollars by supplying study aides to students. While study aides may seems beneficial for our students, our students are studying what these study aides decides is important. These study aides are not being produced by teachers; they are produced by people who have never stepped foot into a classroom.


No Child Left Behind allows for neoliberalism. NCLB mandates that each student passes state mandated tests. This system is set up to fail because those who make the test are not in the classroom. They put questions on a test that they think everyone should know. However, they are not in every classroom, they don’t see the different cultures, and learning techniques. These private businesses want to see the schools fail because they make a profit off of the schools failure. Standardized testing is linked with many review materials. Schools are spending millions of dollars on these materials that are being produced by private companies. Teachers and schools are slowly losing their power because of this. To keep the schools from failing we need to keep the schools private and not allow private organizations into the school system.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Epistemological Diversity



In school, an educator will see that students will be different; they will have different cultures, different languages, different ethnic backgrounds, and different learning and thinking styles. Educators will need to understand these differences and develop a curriculum that will allow all students to learn no matter what their culture, language, ethnic background, or learning and thinking styles.


Epistemological diversity is the study of the different thinking styles. People in general think differently from one another. For example, I like to look at a novel and be able to discover different meanings of that text. I like to know that there may not be a right or wrong answer. Another person on the other hand may only want to know the facts. They want only one answer or idea to be right. Educators will need to develop a differentiated curriculum that will accommodate different thinking styles.


Thinking and learning happens all the time. Our schools system if set up for students to learn different subjects at a certain time of day and then take one test at the end of the year to assess their learning. This style allows many students to fail because they cannot communicate their knowledge in the way that best fits them. Also, this style doesn’t allow for merging the different disciplines. For example, an English language arts (ELA) class and a social studies class would often complement each other. This would also allow for different learning styles to emerge. I always did well in an ELA class when the literature was put into the context of history. Also a person in a math class may benefit from writing out in words the procedure to a problem. Allowing different forms of thinking and assessing students in multiple ways will give more success to the students.



Many different cultures and ethnicities have been either labeled or permitted to fail because of the epistemological differences that they may have. One group in particular is the Native Americans. Native Americans “were assumed to lack verbal, cognitive, even motor skills necessary to succeed in schools” (16). Native Americans were often assumed that they would fail in school; however, schools fail Native Americans because they do not allow diversity in the way which people think.


There are many different characteristics for indigenous education. According to Lomawaima and McCarty, to understand Native peoples, we have to “understand their theories of the origins of life, their ethics to maintain life, and their methods of constructing the past and envisioning the future” (23). Indigenous education will incorporate observation (of the surroundings), organization (of the knowledge of the past), explanation (of what we see and who we are), coping (with circumstances) and planning (for the future). (23). Indigenous education would also include multiple levels of understanding. For example, Native oral traditions at one level are “simple fairy tale [that] enthrall children” but at other levels these oral traditions “direct behavior and stories encode the past as well as the present” (24). Indigenous education often educates for strength. This is to meet the “basic needs of society and the individual, which included leadership, protections, sustenance, learning, and physical well-being” (28). There are many other characteristics of indigenous education such as “education according to gender” and “education according to age.”


There are many differences between indigenous education and US schooling. US schooling most often takes form of “formal” education. Formal education usually occurs in a building with students grouped together according to age during certain hours of the day, Indigenous education if often considered informal because it occurs “out of school” (not in a building). However, indigenous education now occurs “in” and “out” of school.


Mainstream schooling should incorporate many of the characteristics of indigenous education. By doing this, mainstream schools will allow epistemological diversity. Incorporating learning that happens outside of school will merge home life with school life and will also incorporate many different thinking abilities.