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All material is my personal opinion, and not that of any other organization. Copyright 2001. Permission is granted for individual teacher use. All rights reserved. |
Anthony, I'm glad you spoke to Roberta. I'm pretty sure it gives her more confidence in me, knowing that I'm in touch with you. I've read Lisa Delpit's book (as well as bell hooks' book, actually), but I plan on re-reading both. Her proposition, and others which go along with it, is one of the central ones on my mind right now. I also just re-read an artilcle by Martin Haberman, which argues AGAINST doing things the traditional way. His article is entitled, "Good Teaching vs. the Pedagogy of Poverty". I'd summarize one of my main questions right now as being: does the teacher really need to 'be in control'? Or can the teacher be more of a facilitator of a group-supported and developed process? I'm certainly not satisfied with the dynamics of some of my classes this year, but was the problem that I didn't have enough control or that I wasn'table to present options for learning that the class would take on as their own? I'd love to have a class where students could really develop their own plans and programs, in which their own curiosity would lead them through truly educational experiences. The only thing that I feel I want to insist on, ideally, is some kind of problem-solving session whenever there's a problem in a class. But I want the class to develop the responsibility for making our interactions and experiences go smoothly. Is this possible? It's what I feel I've been starting to learn how to do, but I'm nowhere near where I want to be yet. It's a very important question. I have to decide: do I need to be stricter, as almost everybody at school suggests, or do I need to develop my curriculum and my group-process skills to the point where the class can be a vibrant, self-controlled arena? Some say kids have to be forced to experience a controlled classroom and have to be forced to learn before they can see the joys inherent in being self-controlled and in learning. If this is true, then I just need to be stricter and need to apply consequences in a traditional way. The other thing I need to decide now is: Do I want to stay at Chabot and teach three Physical Science classes together with 2 Biology classes, or do I want to switch schools to teach only Biology? Part of my worry is that right now I have no idea how to make Physical Science at all political or important in a day-to-day way, as in "THIS is how understanding these principles will change your life." In Biology, we can speak of health and nutrition and inheritance of disease and other forms of transmission of disease and reproduction, which are all things that are truly important to know. How can one find such practical applications of Physical Science? In two months, I have some confidence that I could prepare for one class adequately, but two...? June 9 Marc, These are very weighty questions we are dealing with; the balance between "traditional," vs "alternative" instructional methods. I think Delpit is very helpful in identifying the power relationships present in our classrooms, particularly for white teachers working with students of color. I think some of her criticism of the Whole Language methods are valid, in that students enter school with different relationships to the power of the teacher. Students of color may not relate to the lack of explicit structure in whole language instruction. She is particularly critical of what she perceives as a sort of disguising of power, which she sees as disempowering for students of color. On the other hand, I think the critique Friere and others have made on the traditional model of instruction is valid and essential. For people to learn, they must actively transform themselves, and transform their world as well. They cannot do this if they are simply following a teachers' instructions. There has to be autonomous action, and the teacher should be more of a facilitator, as you suggest. What I take from Delpit is that we should be explicit in defining, for ourselves and our students, the extent of the control we are exerting at each point along the way. I don't think this limits one to traditional methods. In my experience, students are quite resistant to the facilitation model of instruction. They are quite accustomed to being told what to do. Unless it is especially onerous, many would often prefer a stack of worksheets to an assignment requiring them to respond creatively and originally. Of course, the worksheets teach them little, challenge them little, and transform them little. So our challenge is to inaugurate this form of instruction successfully. We have a number of tasks before us, which I would like to engage in actively this summer. the first is to actually define further the model of instruction we are pursuing. How do we see ourselves "facilitating"? What is the nature of the projects the students will be working on? How will materials be organized and accessed in the classroom? How will classroom time be organized? What will be the relationship between structured, closed-ended activities and more open-ended inquiries? How will we structure inquiries to promote success and accountability? My initial inclination is to begin with some fairly guided inquiries, where the scientific vocabulary; ideas like experimentation and variables, are defined and worked with. Then I would see moving into some inquiries more directed by the class, and conducted with teacher guidance. From there, have students develop their own inquiries, using some of the methods we have used as a class. But this is just a very sketchy beginning; many of the components need more definition. June 9 Anthony, I've re-read an article of Lisa Delpit's: "Skills and Other Dilemmas of a Progressive Black Educator". She and others have made me ask myself: what do I do if I present the most relevant, interesting curriculum I can - or even a curriculum which is designed by the students themselves, but find that some students are STILL not interested in working or learning? Do I then try to "make" them work, "for their own good"? This is an important question for me, because I'm still quite serious about the idea of NOT using points or other types of rewards in my classroom next year. Today I had a thought which eased some of my worries. Towards the end of the year, I'd felt more and more certain that I really need to be able to assert my authority, that it's ok for a teacher to demand students to do things they don't want to do. However, I've felt frustrated, recently (as I've begun thinking about a whole new year), seeing my firm resolve disappear. I've been starting to doubt, again, asking, "Shouldn't learning be so inspiring and meaningful and clearly important that kids will want to pursue it even on their own, without being pushed?" But now, I'm feeling some relief, as I have a somewhat "compromise" vision in which I'm a teacher that directs what's going on, but yet allows for a pretty democratic process. Such a democratic process might work through multiple structures that would be built in to seek students' feedback on what the teacher's doing, how I'm doing it, how kids are feeling, and on what should be studied and how it should be studied, for example. Regards, Marc Marc, Perhaps you should send me a copy of the article. What does *she* suggest be done? Does she feel a traditional, teacher-directed curriculum is effective at getting these students to learn? In some ways, I think a combination of instructional styles can be useful. By using different methods, we may be able to connect to different students with particular needs. Regards, Anthony June 15 Marc, I had a very productive meeting with my teachers' collaborative group all day yesterday. I have a lot of ideas that are beginning to take shape. My goal is to create a classroom environment where students take control, as much as possible, of their own learning. I want them to focus on a natural phenomena or topic, generate questions of interest, define which of these questions can be investigated, and then conduct investigations of their own design. I think this will give them ownership of the question, and responsibility for answering it. Thus they will build their ability to answer questions for themselves in the future. However, experience has taught me that this is a real struggle. Students are not accustomed to directing their own learning, and many really do not want to. In other cases they may misinterpret the flexibility or lack of teacher-centeredness as a form of low expectations. So I want to carefully build students up to greater and greater levels of autonomy, on a foundation that is more traditional and familiar to them. We are operating within a school culture, and the students have certain expectations because of that. It is possible to challenge those expectations, but I think it is difficult to completely defy them, without resulting in the students deciding you are out to lunch. Three Ways to Learn Directed Instruction I will be using a combination of three basic approaches to learning. The first approach is directed. This represents more traditional instruction. It may be hands-on activities in which the questions and procedure have basically been determined for the students. The activities might be cooperative, they might be a lecture, they might look student-centered, but the direction will be coming from me. I will expect to use this approach quite a bit at first, as I want to establish control in the class, and I also want students to go through a number of scientific investigations so they learn the vocabulary of an experiment. Guided Inquiry Overlapping a directed approach is guided inquiry. If the students can come up with the questions for our investigation, with some guidance from me, we are on the road to inquiry. To initiate this, I will do a demonstration of some sort, or give students some exploratory time with a set of new materials. Then, ask students to generate and record their questions. We will go through these to see which can be answered through our own actions, using the materials and equipment available. Then we will conduct the investigations. In some cases each group will get the materials to conduct the experiment. In other cases, I will ask one group of students to do the experiment at the front of the class. The goals of guided inquiry are:
Open-ended Inquiry This could also be called "Discovery Time." I will have thirty-five separate boxes of materials for students to choose from, for their investigations. Each box will have a theme. Some will contain electricity kits, others capsela materials, lego kits, seashells, fossils, optics, and anything else I can put together. Each box will have a number, an inventory sheet, and a signout, like a library book. Each student who uses the kit is responsible for checking the materials every time, and telling me if anything is missing. We will work with these kits for an hour each week. Students will be asked to investigate the materials in the kit as they choose. If there are instructions, they can follow them or not, as they like. I will ask them to pose questions for themselves along the way, and keep a record of these, along with the answers. I will collect these each month. The third marking period they will be asked to do an actual independent investigation. They can use their experiences with the kit as the basis for this investigation. They will need to define a question, conduct an investigation, and present their answer. Classroom Management/Student Support The single most powerful tool I have found in classroom management is an active partnership with parents. Particularly as a white teacher, if an African American student feels I am picking on him or her, I have a real problem. If he or she has this perception reinforced at home, then we are going to have a very hard time indeed. On the other hand, if I have a parent's active support, then it is much harder for the student to view me as an enemy. Following up a friendly letter home the first week, explaining the basic course outline and expectations, I try to reach every parent by phone during the second week. I try to make this call mainly or entirely positive. The purpose is threefold. First, it establishes a positive line of communication with the parent. If the first call home is a complaint, the parent may well believe the child when he or she says "Oh, that teacher just hates me." But if I have already established that I have high expectations for the child, and am happy to work with him, we have a better starting point. Secondly, I can gently tip the parent off, if, for example, the child has failed to bring materials or turn in work. Lastly, I establish with all the students that I intend to be in contact with parents. Some teachers never call home, and thus lose the leverage this partnership provides. By making an early call, you put the students on notice that this will be a regular practice. Rules and Respect I think most of our students come from classrooms where the teacher is expected to be in charge. Alternately, perhaps when a substitute is there, they experience anarchy, because they have not learned slef-control. Our goal is to create students able to monitor and control their own behavior, not requiring a heavy system of coercive consequences. But we do not get there by abandoning rules and consequences from day one. In my experience, students have a very hard time handling this transition, and they really need to learn this self-control. My approach is to establish rules in the context of mutually agreed upon goals. To do this, I ask students to write down all the things they like about a class, all the things they think are cool or fun, the activities they hope to do, field trips they want to take. I also ask how they think a teacher should act. I collect these, and the next day I present students with a list of all the things they suggested. We discuss them, and I put the kibosh on some of the outrageous ones (explosions, pig dissections, etc.) We really get a sense of their high priority things. I agree that we will try to achieve as many of the things on their list as possible, but I suggest some classroom rules will be needed to make sure we can achieve them. I ask for suggestions of rules, and students write them down. Once again, I collect and compile. The list I present is shortened, because I combine similar rules, and edit a bit. I also take the liberty of adding in a rule or two of my own if I feel they have overlooked something critical, like tardiness, or eating in class. When I present this list, I usually suggest we edit the list further, so often I simplify a whole variety of proscriptions like "No profanity, no fighting, no putting on makeup" into a simple "Show respect for your fellow students and teacher." It is better to end up with fewer rules, rather than a long list. In addition addressing respect, tardiness and food, we need a rule requiring everyone to clean up after him or herself, since we hope to do frequent activities. I ask the class to agree to these rules as a condition to our achieving the fun things they want. If they want a teacher who doesn't yell, or doesn't give detentions, or takes field trips, then they need to pitch in and help create a classroom where their desires can be realized. Lastly, I ask them for suggestions for consequences. We do this in a discussion/brainstorming session. I don't limit myself to what they suggest. Rather, I use the discussion to make clear the consequences I intend to use, and the sequence I will follow. My standard sequence for routine violations is to begin with detention after school, then a phone call home, then a referral to the office. The logic is detention allows me to talk with them about the problem, and make sure we have an understanding. If detention does result in compliance with the rule, then a phone call home gets the parents on board to help out. If the student still won't get along, then a referral is my last resort, bringing the school administration into the picture. These are some of the structures I hope to use to generate a positive learning climate, and build the thinking skills of my students. I plan to develop a much more detailed plan for the actual science and math curriculum later in the summer. I would be interested in your feedback. June 16 Anthony, Your "plans for the fall" appeal to me greatly. Your goals are indeed very similar to mine - mine right now are in the somewhat nebulous "vision" stage, but I hope that they become more concrete through my conversations with you. You speak of building towards open-ended inquiry by passing through "directed instruction" and "guided inquiry" phases first. In your last stage, you include "use-me-to-learn" kits and independent investigations. I like these ideas. I think a kit for me might simply include a question like: what tiny things are in your mouth? Suggestions could be included for materials to use, and these materials could be available for general use (toothpicks and microcroscope materials for example.) I would love it if the classroom could function somewhat like a real lab, in which materials and tools are somehow freely available. Having such a lab would only be possible, though, if I felt I could trust my students to take care of equipment properly. One thing I think I would need if I were to incoporate a similar "discovery time" into our schedule (and I would love to) is an answer to the question: what do I do if some kids aren't using the time to investigate anything at all? what do I do if they take the time to socialize? I think you're right that kids have to be prepared well for using such time. I also think that the options available to them for exploration need to be things that students can really become fascinated by - they need to be questions students are truly curious about. I've also thought that some kind of daily record of work or thinking done - observations made or plans laid out, for example - would help provide structure to students' work. You spoke of looking at this monthly; to me this seems too long an interval. I appreciate your thought that starting with direct instruction will allow us to get a class under control and will also provide enough of the expected to students before we shock them with autonomy. I've certainly had my share of "YOU tell us - you're the teacher!" and "we haven't learned a thing in here all year". That last comment usually makes me feel awful. Towards the end of this year, I was able to avoid a lot of it by returning to a more content-centered curriculum in which I demanded that students KNOW things (too often, previously, I think I posed rather isolated puzzles to them, probably promoting mor frustration than learning). I think that many of the goals I have for my students could probably be categorized as either knowledge or skills that I want students to master. I'm planning on making a list of such skills (being able to decipher the science textbook, being able to take notes, being organized, being able to use the microscope well, being able to represent a complex process visually on paper, being able to write effectively, etc) so that students have a concrete sense of what they're working on and what they're learning. One of my own goals for the next few weeks is to determine what my major goal is as a teacher. I'm pretty sure it's not simply to have my students learn Biology (ie the content that's considered the Biology curriculum). My goal is much closer to your goal of teaching kids to "answer questions for themselves in the future." However, I also want to find ways for students to learn how to change their environment. Critical thinking and understanding and asking questions and answering them may be one of the main components of changing society. After all, before we change something, we need to identify it, undestand what makes it happen, and figure out how it might be changed. This means, though, that I want to find questions that are already socially relevant to kids so that the learning isn't an excerice or practice for the real thing which can come later. Some of my most intense and exciting experiences in high school involved organizing people around political issues (divestment from South Africa or nuclear disarmament, for example) and I think I learned a powerful lesson: we have power that can be used. I want my students to learn how to use that power. What I lacked even then was enough understanding - I had questions I didn't realize were valid and therefore never pursued; my analyses and impact on others was therefore not as strong as it could have been. If we could teach kids to ask and answer IMPORTANT (and unanswered) questions effectively.... wow! I don't know how this is connected to what I actually want my students to be doing, but I would also like to understand the scientific establishment better: what difference would it make in the world or in the country if there were more African-American (or more "non-elite") scientists? I'm also getting in touch with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a group which is involved in educating the public about health-aspects of the "American" diet (eg meat and milk). This is an area which could be interesting to study, especially since the interests of money and health may be in conflict. As you see, my thoughts are quite jumbled still. I'm working on slowly pulling them together. Regards, Marc Anthony, Another thought: it seems to me that a hugely important skill required before independent investigations can be undertaken is knowing how to ask "go-deeper" questions. For example, if a student takes on the question "what tiny things are in my mouth?" a perfectly acceptable answer might be "bacteria". But obviously, this answer could be found without much thought or learning. The really interesting stuff comes afterward, but it requires that the student be motivated to keep going, to ask things like "why are they there? what do they do? how many are there? are there different kinds? how did they get there? how do we know they're there? etc." Somehow or other the goal for students has to be articulated not as "find an answer to your question" because the answer could be a single word. How can we teach students to "go deeper" and become real experts? One idea I've had so far is to require student-investigators to periodically (every 2 days?) present some information to a buddy, and take down their buddy's questions. So an investigator might tell the buddy (or a relative, maybe) "there are bacteria in your mouth" and the buddy might ask "what's a bacteria?" providing the investigator with further material to research. But then here's a new problem: much of such an investigation is not amenable to experiment; many of the questions will be best answered by turning to books or experts (ie they won't involve manipulation of any materials); is this bad? would researchable questions eventually present themselves? Happy Belated Fathers Day! Regards, Marc |
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