Class Notes 4/22/09

April 22, 2009
Dr. Pope started class with Housekeeping reminding us of the BBQ dinner on May 2nd. Please Carpool if possible!
He followed this with “Do any of you guys know where I can get a pair of cheap sunglasses? Suggestions were Target, TJ Max, or a department store.

We divided into groups to discuss Tyack and Cuban:
What are some reoccurring themes throughout Tinkering Toward Utopia?
What are some of the “take-away’s”?
What are some of the consequences of the arguments put forward by T&C?

1. Teachers need to be involved in policy talk.
2. Cautious optimism rather than utopianism.
What has driven effort to reform in the 21st Century is the hope of societal reform. We need to manage our expectations of what schools can do.
Optimistic changes of society but it can not be done overnight.
Society has thought for too long that schools are the answer to the problems.
3. Substantive change comes from practitioners in community.
Rally constituencies but neglects systemic issues that can not be changed through tinkering. Practicioners may be on school development committees.
4. Successful changes come via tinkering.
Small changes to existing structure for the better. They accumulate over time.
This may neglect the element that some things are so a part of the grammar of
schooling that they won’t change through tinkering. It must change through
radical reform.
T&C seem to ignore Brown and integration. This was an externally driven radical reform. If left to tinkering, integration may have not occurred or would have been less successfully implemented. Brown was the gateway for other civil rights movements such as IDEA.
5. Beware the commodification of education.
Rid of public education to internal good due to market language and forces runs the risk of becoming an individual commodity.
Education benefits society as a whole.
Cause and effect of marketing terms: seeing in marketing terms contributes to dissatisfaction with the educational system.
Obstacles:
Teaching takes time and energy. After a full day of teaching many teachers do not want to become involved in policy talk.
A different type of personality may be needed to desire to enter into policy talk.
The system is hierarchical and bureaucratic. Going outside the chain of command can be dangerous. Individuals that question policy may be penalized. Teachers may be afraid to join discussion in case their opinion differs from the status quo.
The grammar of schooling is such that it is hard to alter some elements such as:
The role of the principal. Market ideology has placed the principal as more of a manager of the school. Many principals are no longer in touch with the “going on’s” of the classroom. Changing this would alter the structure of grammar of schooling. Given the responsibilities the principals now have, it would be nearly impossible to impose more classroom duties.
Some avenues can be explored by teachers but they don’t come with direct compensation.

Every good teacher is motivated by helping students. Manifestation of helping people may come through direct classroom contact or more indirectly by helping create policy.

Maxine Greene’s The Artistic-Aesthetic Curriculum
Background:
This was given as a lecture. Greene has been involved in a teacher’s residence program. She was the philosopher behind how to integrate art into the classroom.

What is the “reader response theory”?
The old ways of teaching literature involved relaying the basic tenants of literature. Reader response is a more holistic viewpoint. Reader response assumes the reader comes in with their own experiences. Reader response acknowledges that themes are important but what a person brings in alters the meaning of the work. What the work means to one person may be different than what it means to another.
Reader response takes the constructivist viewpoint. A person takes parts of a novel and makes it his own.
Issues:
Does “reader response” open us up to all interpretations? Are all interpretations equally valid? What makes a response valid?
Reader response may open us up to a superficial understanding of the work. May be a distance view. Some may take the “cop-out” approach.
Certain qualifications need to be met to establish validity.
Vincent posed: If a response seems superficial, is it not valid because it didn’t relate or because no effort was made?
A teacher may gauge an appropriate reader response if he/she knows his/her students.
A teacher owes it to her students to take them beyond their current understanding. It is very easy to stop at the surface and what the story meant to me. Real reader response involves much transaction between the reader and the work.

Why are the arts valuable for Greene?
It invites participation free from judgment.
She believes art can be a vehicle for getting at any other subject. It may provoke interest in it if enthusiasm may not otherwise be there. Examples are paintings to study geometry or music to study math.
Nothing else can happen if a student can’t relate to the material.
Art can be a transaction between cultures. It helps us understand aspects of the cultures that created the art, provides us with insight into our own art, opens us up to what we take for granted.
Helps us deal with change through release of imagination.
Requires us to use our own imagination to conceive this that aren’t obvious.
Requires and kindles and feeds our individual imagination. Through imagination immerges the new; immergence of new possibilities for ourselves.
Art says things can be different, that a person can transcend their situation.
Art gives any person, despite their circumstances, the ability to hope.
Art reaches into the experience wee have already had and prompts recognition. Art names, frames, and allows us to understand ourselves better.
Arts should be at the center of curriculum but this requires a radical change to the grammar of schooling. Incorporation of arts into all subjects serves the most important goal of education-imagining the world could be different.
Where does high art intersect with popular art? Can we use reflection to determine if popular art is meaningful or valid? Should we use art that appeals to young people as a springboard to high art appreciation?
Education is about growth.