I heart Maxine Greene

First, I appreciate reading The Artistic-Aesthetic Curriculum by Maxine Greene since it was originally a speech. It flowed so well, making it easy (and of course it was interesting) to read.

"Always, there is the linking of imagination to the opening of possibility."
By using imagination to enter into literary worlds, the individual finds "new connections." In other words, when I read To Kill A Mockingbird and take away a new connection of my white Southern ancestors related to characters in the story, I'm entering that world. I begin to think questions such as: 'Which character do I relate best to in the novel and why?' and 'If I was a character in the novel, how would I change the outcome?'

Literature has universal value
Most people who value an art experience value it because of how it have related to their lives. Reader response is heavily indoctrinated into education today. As Greene says, "according to this view [closely related to reader response], you will not be likely to have a full experience with [a novel] if you take a disinterested, distanced view." I do not find this quote to be incorrect in any way, and I believe that my agreement with this view is heavily reliant upon reader response being a part of my education. Greene's mention of working to make Don Juan an "event in the life [she lives] with others" also relates to constructionist theory in education. Reader response is, after all, taking a piece of literature and integrating it with your own experiences, just like in constructivism the learner integrates new knowledge into her own schema.

"If our students are attentive, if they are authentic..."
This is our challenge. This is where the disconnect is. Each student has individual needs and interests that must be engaged for this kind of learning to occur. If the student is disinterested, like Greene says, then she won't get as much out of it. But how do we make it interesting to someone that doesn't care?

Art As Education.

I enjoyed reading Maxine Greene’s The Artistic-Aesthetic Curriculum. I have always thought that “the arts” play a significant role education. Art in itself is educational. Art can teach us about the universality of emotion or about the likeness of humanity regardless of culture. Through art we may find some common ground. This is important in education because in a way it seems this causes us to be more empathetic or understanding of other people. What we understand, we are less likely to fear. So in a way art can teach us about our likes and our differences. If we can learn that we are alike in certain ways we have a basis for understanding, while if we are able to understand some of our differences, we are more likely to be accepting of them. This may lead us to further understand the intrinsic value of a person.
Art can teach us about ourselves by causing us to consider how we might feel if we were in the shoes of the character we are reading about. Perhaps it may cause us to think about something in a different way or to cause us to think about the things we truly value in life. Just the fact that art causes us to think at whatever level contributes to the betterment of our person.

Reading Reaction - T&C Chapter 5

One recurrent theme I found interesting in chapter 5 of T&C is the blame placed on teachers by reformers when the latest and greatest technology does not revolutionize the classroom. Although valid reasons for not using the technology such as hardware problems, lack of adequate equipment, technology not fitting the curriculum, etc. where given by teachers, reformers still blamed the teachers and labeled them as lazy & incompetent. Objects such as the blackboard (white board), paperback books, maps and globes, and ballpoint pens are technological advances that have been embraced wholeheartedly by teachers. We often do not think of these items as technological innovations since they are not machines. As we learned in Dr. Jones' technology class, the technology that had the greatest impact on Western Civilization was three field crop rotation. Dr. Jones also pointed out that technology should be used to solve a problem. Tyack and Cuban point out the same thing on page 122 - "...used the technology that fit familiar routines and classroom procedures - in other words, that helped them solve their problems of instruction. Technology for the sake of technology is not an advance but rather a burden placed upon classroom teachers.

Eduational reform isn't ALL we need...

Towards the end of the first chapter in Tinkering Toward Utopia, Robert Kuttner is quoted as saying that “improving the schools and reforming job training are…relatively easy. The hard part is improving the kinds of jobs that the economy offers.” While I’m not sure how “easy” educational reform is (especially in light of some of this semester’s readings), I know from first-hand experience (and I’m sure I’m not alone here) that this is at least somewhat accurate. There was a joke heard constantly during my undergrad years: “I have a degree in English. Would you like fries with that?” We all got a big laugh out of it until we actually graduated and discovered that it wasn’t a joke. Ha ha.

While working as the general manager of a movie theater (a job that sounds way more fun than it actually is), I found myself constantly being questioned by my superiors as to why exactly I couldn’t find employees who could do simple mathematics and behave like civilized human beings. My answer was always the same: “Well, we’re only paying them $6 an hour. And you get what you pay for.” Their response was always, “We shouldn’t pay people more than $6 an hour to make popcorn.” And things would continue in the same fashion, week after week.

To their credit, my superiors’ hearts were in the right place. They weren’t trying to attract college grads. But they did want smarter employees (except in my case, where I’m pretty sure they wanted someone dumber than I was doing the job); they were just unwilling to pay for qualified people. And, again, this was a movie theater. The primary qualifications for working at a movie theater are the ability to tear a sheet of paper in two and toast a piece of bread without burning it. It’s not like they were asking a lot. But who in their right mind is going to work for $6 an hour? That’s right, no one. Which is why all of our employees were out of their minds. And also why we were always trying to hire new people.

Then there was me, overqualified and constantly finding (and pointing out) flaws in the company’s overall business strategy while wanting to drive pencils into my eyeballs out of abject frustration. So, on one hand, we had popcorn jockeys who acted like the Abominable Snowman from the Bugs Bunny cartoons, and, on the other, we had management members who were overqualified for their work and only took the job because they couldn’t get an actual job in their degree field, quickly leaving once they realized that this could never be an actual career. If this isn’t indicative of a gross imbalance, I don’t know what is.

I don’t know that every degree program is like this, but it seems that there are far more qualified people these days than there are jobs from the when they finish college (and I’m speaking in pre-economic meltdown terms. I’m sure the situation has gotten far worse since then). Just as Kuttner implies, grads are overlooking the number of dead-end (in this case, $6 per hour) jobs available and dwelling instead on the difficulty of finding a job they went to school to learn how to do. And why shouldn’t they? While educational reform is essential in improving our society, it is only one component and should not be, as Tyack and Cuban point out, a “scapegoat” or “panacea” for the ills of the world. The job market needs some serious reform, too.

Progress or Regress?

I found many aspects of chapter 1, Progress or Regress, to be very interesting and thought provoking. On page 14, there is the statement, “since the expectations and experiences of people differ, so do their appraisals of whether things are getting better or worse.” I think this is very true. For certain groups, things have definitely improved. Brown v Board of Education, PL94-142, IDEA, Title I, etc., have all improved the educational opportunities for groups of people that had been denied a fair and equal education or any at all. I also found it interesting that views that are now deemed unfavorably started out as progressive. Labeling students had initially been viewed as a progressive idea. If a student did not fit the mold, they were labeled and tracked accordingly. We now know that labeling a student can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Funding has always been an issue. It is difficult to provide a fair and equal education when funding is not fair and equal. In the 1930’s 25% of the nation’s students were educated with one-tenth of the income (p.23.) Because this segment of the population was poor, fewer funds were sent their way. This is similar to the situation today in our own state. The children of Dillon County receive fair less funding than the children of York County. Another enlightening and positive finding is that parents with children in the public schools education have a better impression of schools and education than the general public. This leads me to believe that many people are forming uneducated (how ironic) opinions based on media or other general perception. I was happy to read this, because I have always felt that my daughters were receiving very good educations, and lots of times I have felt out of stop with popular convention.

Education and the Advancement of Understanding

According to page 419, Elgin writes: “If teaching is imparting knowledge, we cannot teach magnetism to students who lack the resources to understand what that alignment is and why it matters”. Drawing upon the example of teaching science, this single statement gets to the heart of the entire article about Education and the Advancement of Understanding. However, my only concern is for students who wish to learn more than what is basically necessary in order to squeak by. Too many times, in my experiences in the high school classroom as a substitute teacher, the one thing that I have noticed is how a lot of times teachers simply teach only what they know and not encourage those who thirst for more knowledge to research it on their own which leads to a failure in not fully understanding a subject like American history.

Understanding, like knowledge, does not require truth. Sure, there are some things that not everyone is going to understand. This is why we have a variety of professionals in the world like teachers, doctors, and auto mechanics to name a few. Why not learn something about what you do not already know if understanding does not require truth? This is what baffles me the most. Understanding is not restricted to facts. “We’ve got to grasp a lot more than the established facts to understand a subject. And we’ve got to convey a lot more than established facts to teach a subject” (420). If we spend four years in college earning a degree in a field like History or English, and later earn a master’s in those areas (to name a few), why not impart knowledge on our students so that they can fully understand the subject we teach. I know that with teaching adolescents that is easier said than done.

What Makes A "Good Parent"

I was glad when I read that Christopher Jencks would be using Ms. Higgins in an elementary classroom as his model on philosophies of equal educational opportunity. Finally, an example that I can completely relate to as an early childhood education student.

Although I understood much of the article, there are some things I found troubling. For instance, at the end of page 245, where Jencks is describing the weak variant of human justice, he says “If a student has incompetent parents… most advocates of humane justice see the home at least in part as an educational environment, most feel that Ms. Higgins owes children extra help if their parents are unable to do as much for them as a good parent should.” I think that students who don’t get the help they need at home should be given extra attention by their teacher. But what bothered me is the definition of “good parent.” Whether Jencks is asserting his own definition of a “good parent” or whether he is asserting humane justice supporters’ definition is unclear. If a parent is “incompetent,” does that mean that they’re not a good parent? According to this definition, a good parent is one who aids their child in her educational pursuits, or academics. So does that mean that an incompetent parent does not help their child academically, or that a parent who doesn’t help their child is incompetent? Surely this isn’t what Jencks meant. Surely he knows that there are some parents who work two or three jobs to put food on the table and never see their children for more than minutes at a time. Are those parents incompetent because they do not help their children with their homework? If so, the only “good parents” are the ones who have time to spend helping their children.

The section on Humane Justice and Socioeconomic Inequality was another section that I found troubling. Jencks says that although “most liberals seem to assume that children from different socioeconomic backgrounds are genetically indistinguishable…logic suggests that a child’s genes must have some influence on his or her adult socioeconomic position,” and “adults in different socioeconomic positions must differ genetically. It follows that their children must differ genetically.” So Jencks is saying that genes affect academic achievement, which affects socioeconomic position, so genes must affect socioeconomic position. Jencks’ logic here seems faulty to me. If genes to indeed affect socioeconomic position, then it sounds like Jencks predestines some students for failure as adults.

Jencks was directly involved with the research that he uses to support this idea and gives only one other article that supports this thought. And the research is all from the late 1970s. We’ve come a long way, baby, in genetic research since the late 1970s. Perhaps Jencks, who is currently a professor of social policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, knew what he was talking about. But he didn’t explain it convincingly enough for me to buy it.

Whom Must We Treat Equally?

I found the reasons put forth in Whom Must We Treat Equally interesting. This reading made me think of something my sister would tell her children. When one child would be upset that a sibling received something they did not receive, my sister’s response was “not everyone gets the same thing, but everyone gets what they need.” In retrospect, I can see where this comes in to play in the educational setting. Treating children equally does not mean giving them the same exact things such as the teachers’ time and attention. Treating children equally is more of giving every child what they need when they need it. How to give every child what they need is more of the dilemma. Each child has to be treated as an individual, what works for one child may not work for another child.

None of the theories offered by Jencks would work for someone all the time. It would be hard for me to state that I believe in democratic equality or utilitarianism. It all depends on the situation or circumstances. Most children do not have a lot of control over what causes their lot in life be it nature or nurture. Why would a child who was born with a genetic defect be any more or less deserving of special help or extra assistance than a child from a neglectful home?

I do believe the moralistic theory of justice would not work for young children. Since this is the age group I will be teaching, I would not feel that it would be morally acceptable for me to deem that a child was not putting forth the effort, so I would no longer “waste my time” on that child. It will be my obligation to find out why the child was not working and what I could do to rectify the situation. However, I am an adult student in ECED600. If Dr. Pope determines that I am not putting forth effort – it appears that I am not reading the material because I do not participate in class discussions, I do not make blog posts, I miss class regularly, etc. He is not obligated to find out why. It is acceptable for him to wash his hands of me. (Of course, I am not implying that Dr. Pope would ever do this.)

Plato Response

As I read Plato's Turning the Psyche I was overwhelmed by the clarity and relevance of his piece. Written thousands of years ago, Plato's work is incredibly meaningful to our modern society. As I watched President Obama speak today about our Nation's financial crisis, I could not help but reflect on Plato's work. Plato says "This is how it is. If you can find a way of life that's better than ruling for the prospective rulers, your well-governed city will be a possibility, for only in it will the truly rich rule-not those who are rich in gold but those who are rich in the wealth that the happy must have, namely, a good and rational life. But if beggars hungry for private goods go into public life, thinking that the good is there for the seizing, then the well-governed city is impossible, for the ruling is something fought over, and this civil and domestic war destroys these people and the rest of the city as well." How unbelievably poignant given the situation that our Nation faces today. More than 3000 years ago Plato insightfully outlined the danger of rulers and governments who value greed and excess. The true irony here is how many times we have seen this scenario of greed and corruption be the ultimate demise of empires throughout history. If only we had given more credence to Plato's warnings..... But history will continue to repeat itself.
In class last week when we discussed what the meaning of education is, I could not help but recall a Maya Angelou quote that has always meant a lot to me. Angelou says, "Being educated means seeing the world for how it really is." I think this is what Plato meant when he talked about education being the craft of turning the soul to the light and the truth. He believed that educating people meant enlightening them to the truth, pointing them in the "right and good" direction.
Having never read Plato's work before, this piece had great meaning for me and I will continue to reflect on it.