Reflection and Response Week 1
Share your reflections on our reading(s) this week.
What you will read below is an example of what NOT to write:)
Launching, building, framing, experiencing, doing, analyzing, passion, planning, purpose, valuing the student's identity, creating partnerships, making learning visible, making learning real, inquiry, supporting student growth, apprentice, expert, too much, so much
So much depends upon a
content area teacher
at the middle or high school level....
Is the teacher the bread?
the butter?
the wine?
the table?
the knife?
What you will read below is an example of what NOT to write:)
Launching, building, framing, experiencing, doing, analyzing, passion, planning, purpose, valuing the student's identity, creating partnerships, making learning visible, making learning real, inquiry, supporting student growth, apprentice, expert, too much, so much
So much depends upon a
content area teacher
at the middle or high school level....
Is the teacher the bread?
the butter?
the wine?
the table?
the knife?
posted by Susan A. Garr at 2:25 PM
20 Comments:
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Top down model
The top down model, on the other hand, views the reader as beginning with meaning and sampling of information sources in the text. The reader then makes connections with his/her own experiences to construct meaning.
I like this particular model because it moves away from rote memorization of words as building blocks for the reading process. The holistic approach to reading takes into account the wide range of experience of the readers as part of the reading process. I was always skeptical about the need for culturally sensitive reading material for minority students. I have always felt a reader’s experience did matter in writing and reading skills. This top down model has given me a chance to pause and reflect on a long held belief. This model thus seems to support the notion culturally biased curriculum would be a handicap to children outside of this culture. Yet it does not explain the success of certain children (Indian and Chinese for example) outside of this cultural sphere.
Shentil Vadivelu
The top down model, on the other hand, views the reader as beginning with meaning and sampling of information sources in the text. The reader then makes connections with
his/her own experiences to construct meaning.
I am a skeptical about claims that minority students do not do well because the curriculum
Is culturally biased. I think reading skills or any other academic skills are culturally neutral.
I accept if a student is not well versed in the English language then such a student will face difficulties. I don’t believe this is an example of cultural bias. If the student were to master the English language, he or she would able to do well in academically. The top down model has caused me to pause and reflect on this long held belief. If the basic skills of reading is tied to
personal experiences then culturally biased reading material or curriculum maybe prove a hindrance to certain minority groups. This model goes against one of my fundamental
beliefs, that is there is no cultural bias in educational curriculum
Shentil
This comment is in reference to Shentil's comment that curriculum in our school system is not biased.
I feel very strongly that education is never nuetral. Nothing can be without bias.
When I taught my 9th grade English curriculum, I chose books based on voices which reflected diverse ethnicities, experiences and values so that my students could explore how humans can be so different, yet so similar. I wanted my students to connect with readers and writers of all ethnicities to show how literacy is valued around the globe.
I designed student centered classroom activities which were hands-on and reflected multiple learning styles. Thus, showing my bias that there are multiple pathways to developing literacy and learning.
Curriculum in the schools often reflects what the dominate culture values and deems necessary for students to be successful. Our institutions of learning often seem to look like factories...is this by accident?
What textbooks we choose, even what activities we have our students do reflects our biases and beliefs about education and the way students learn.
Does the curriculum we teach facilitate students' critical thinking or rote memorization? fill out the bubbles? paper-pusher? no connection to real life, fragmented thinking...?
Why is it that when I was in high school (1982-1985) my history classes never got passed World War II. Why is it that the only activity I can remember doing in history class was when we had a sub and she had us put on a trial for the Boston Tea Party. The People Vs. Britian...
Why is it that history is taught chronologically and not conceptually?
We need to look at who and what is being taught and at the same time who and what is not being taught?/!
What voices shape curriculum in the united states? What voices shape the dominant culture?
If you check out the website fairtest.org you will find some articles that speak to the cultual biases of the SAT and the ACT tests. If you google this topic, I believe you will find something of interest.
If you look at brain-based learning strategies, students need to connect personally with what they are learning. In order for them to remember and comprehend what they are learning they need to be able to visualize and verbalize what they are learning.
They can't visulize what they don't know or have experience with...
I would like to know what others feel/think about this topic. Is curriculum culturally biased? fact/fiction?
Remember we can agree to disagree and engage in dialogue in which we learn and grow from each other.
As a quick response to "is curriculum culturally biased?": YES.
My husband finds it amazing that I had no clue about the Japanese internment camps here in the US during WWII until I was in my late years of college (the first go-round). I could possibly say the same for the treatment of the Native Americans throughout history-- the most exposure I've had to the details of this part of history was this past year at NEIU, mostly in my literature courses. My history education in high school was non-questioning, patriotic, and glossed over. Very bias. And I would venture to guess that I am not one of few in this experience (high school was 1992-1996 for me).
My professor for Classic American Fiction this summer chose literature that embraced authors beyond those famous, white, male authors that I unfortunately expected in a course of this title. This shows his bias in the curriculum and I loved how he defined "classical".
It is impossible to be neutral. Any choices one makes when teaching shows what that teacher holds important, and this cannot always agree with the values of the students, simply on the fact that we are individuals and are shaped by our experiences. The choices that we make inadvertently make a statement about those books, activities, methods that we DO NOT choose.
This makes me realize why my TESL course was more about multiculturalism than actual methods of TESL. (There were some, but multiculturalism seemed to be a bigger focus.) Different cultures reinforce different learning styles, whether it's apparent or not.
If reading material is culturally biased, does this automatically translate into poor performance by cultural minority groups? Harry Porter has become a cultural icon yet I suspect certain minority groups would not have read any of the six books. Is this an example of cultural bias? My thoughts are children irrespective of cultural heritage would enjoy these books. Yet on the night of the sixth books sale (my children and I waited till midnight on July 12, to purchase the book), there was a definite under representation of certain minority groups. It is my opinion that far from being culturally biased, such books may be socio-economically biased. I believe class values transcend culture and race. Thus the discrepancy I saw on the night of July 12th was related to socio-economic factors rather than cultural factors. Standardized tests are also accused of the same cultural bias. I suspect if socio-economic factors were equalized than such discrepancies may be much smaller. (I have not gone on to the website suggested by Dr. Garr. I may have a different opinion after that)
I agree that curriculum is biased: it's biased based on the teacher's likes/dislikes, it is biased based on what the school/district/state determines is important, it is biased based on the textbooks chosen. I'm sure many of us have used an anthology for a literature class (e.g. Norton, etc.). How were the texts that are in the anthologies chosen? Who chose them and why?
When I was in high school (almost 20 years ago, yikes!), the Norton anthology that we used looks different from the anthology that I used just last year for a class at NEIU. Why is that? Has the canon of American Literature changed? If so, why? I'm glad to say that the current anthology does include works by Native American, African American, and women writers. Much more so than the one I used 20 years ago. But, it is still heavily weighted to dead white guys.
I also agree with Gretchen and Jenny that, as teachers, our responsibility is to socialize students to the greater community. And that community embraces many cultures. Through our material, we can introduce other cultures.
In response the Shentil's post ("If reading material is culturally biased, does this automatically translate into poor performance by cultural minority groups?"), I don't think it automatically translates into poor performance, but it can be a factor. If our reading comprehension is based, in part, on our experiences, a curriculum based on something that is not our experience can be a detriment. For example, I spent a lot of my life in the South. I can connect with writers like Eudora Welty and Faulkner because my life experience helps me understand the worlds they write about. Their material may be more difficult for someone who's never spent any time there to understand.
-Kathy Martin
On a different topic, I had a few questions on our reading for today:
1. In Chapter 1 (p. 16), the authors discuss literacy multiplicities and varied proficencies in those multiplicities. My question is, are those varied proficiences really a matter of personal taste? For example, if a student really likes sports and reads the newspaper and magazines for sports information, but that same student struggles with a novel, is it because of learning difficulties or a matter of preference?
2. In Chapter 2, the authors strongly suggest finding ways to handle the paperload. That's great, but they never give any concrete answers on how to do that. They give some suggestions like using a container for each class and each student having a folder. That gives ideas for organizing the paperload, but not on how to reduce it. So, any suggestions?
3. Another question I have from chapter 2 is the closure issue. I've seen in many classes where students pack up their books and line up by the door about 2-5 minutes prior to the bell. How can we prevent that and use those valuable minutes?
4. In chapter 4 (p. 54), the authors discuss the KWL reading strategy. I foresee potential problems with that. Asking students what they want to learn could just open the door to, "We don't wanna learn nothin'." The focus questions can help with that, but I still see problems. Susan, have you used this strategy and how did it work?
Thanks!!
Woo hoo, I did it, thank you Susan. The article I read is titled, "How Do You Teach Kids Who Are Old Enough To Shave". The article appeared in the Library School Journal in April of 2005. The author Candy Blessing is a teacher who has been able to motivate her students to read, by reading aloud to them. There are guidelines for the readings such as, the educator has to read the material first, the best time to perform the readings are at the beginning or end of class, and in order to keep the interest level at it's peak, the reading should be left as a cliffhanger. She also suggests only reading aloud twice a week.
I feel that this technique is so simple, that it is perfect and everyone should try it. It would envoke those happy feelings of youth when our parents read aloud to us. Also by reading aloud students would be able to follow along without having to feel embarrased if they could not decipher certain words.
In response to some earlier posts, I agree that there is a bias in education. Educators have control to some degree, over the curriculum that is taught. It is most important that as educators we keep our biases to a minimum, as we set the examples for very impressionable young adults.
I am responding in general to the entire discussion... Does anyone else have a problem with the word "tolerance?" I don't normally nit-pick over terminology, (I had to do this editorial analysis over "refugee" versus "evacuee" labeling... ugh!) but saying that we need to tolerate other cultures and peoples makes me cringe. How about acceptance, normal interaction, and just treating them as worthy individuals? Tolerance sounds so restrictive and full of effort. Being tolerant of other cultures is a step in the right direction, but it's not good enough in the classroom nor in our everyday life. You tolerate an annoying younger brother.
I am assuming that this was not the intended effect of the use of the word, so my apologies for getting in an uproar. On the other hand, however, it is important to understand how certain labels can unknowingly shape our attitudes (and others' responses to us).
The article that I read for class, "How to Read Shakespeare or Bus Schedules," by Sandra Stotsky,(Education Week, December 8, 2004) discusses mainly the effects that testing reading has on what is taught in the classroom (and what is mandated through the state and federal governments). To zoom my focus in to look at reading the article on "reading as a process within an English class"... the article talks about how the tests reinforce informational and practical reading, versus learning, analyzing, and experiencing "good literature." This brings to light the different types of reading and the difficulties in measuring the process of each. (This also was discussed in our text reading for tonight.)
The author states, "Most state tests at the high school level imply that students should learn how to read a bus schedule, not "Julius Caesar," in their English classes." She continues to place the blame on state high school standards, and how they either lack specific content-rich literature standards, or list standards that are so messy and cumbersome that no teacher could grasp the objective. She goes on to discuss how reading will become absorbed into the English courses out of default.
Basically, it seems that English teachers are taught to teach literature in a much different way than the reading tests test, which sounds funny, but becomes clearer when one notes that reading is becoming a sub-heading of English. This creates confusion and lack of consistency. And the same ol' question: are we testing what we should be testing? or can we with standardized testing through state agencies?
I thought it was really interesting that I had to really hunt out an article on reading within the English content area. Is it just assumed that they go hand-in-hand, that it's not a novel subject to write about? There was so much about elementary and middle school, but not much on reading in the high school English class. Maybe I need to broaden my search as well.
As a post-script, I thought this article brought up an intriguing thought-- what is more practical to the majority of the students in high schools: reading Shakespeare or bus schedules?
If everyone can bear one more comment on our little cultural war, I would like to comment on the forced internment of Japanese Americans. Yes it was wrong and a violation of constitutional rights of American citizens. While the parents were in the internment camps their sons were in the Pacific Theater acting as translates and code breakers in the American army. They were instrumental in winning the Pacific War. This incident and Hiroshima and Nagasaki has resulted in a collective guilty conscious among certain Americans. On the other hand, Japanese atrocities during WW II are little discussed or acknowledged. The Imperial Japanese Army was every bit sadistic and cruel as the Nazis. Human experiments were conducted in China on living patients. Chinese civilians were lured into Japanese hospital with offers of medical treatment and then injected with viruses to see the effect. (The imperial Japanese Army was experimenting on bio-weapons). The Japanese during the war occupied Malaysia. My father lived through four years of Japanese occupation. His story is not pretty one. My maternal grandfather was taken away by the Japanese to built the Siam Death Railway; he never came back. Thus while it is appropriate to discuss the internment of Japanese American and the merits (or the demerits) of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is equally appropriate to discuss the Siamese Death Railway, the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking. Perhaps the lack of discussion on these topics is a form of cultural bias.
very good even handed, objective account of the evils of war committed on both sides of a armed conflict.
in regrard to franks piece, is technolgy the answer to all that troubles the world, or are factors to consider? with out technology were would educaation be, or were would the world be? s
from noah In regards to "questioning the Author" its very well intentioned and has great potential, but i think it is better suited for advanced, motivated readers. I think it is wishful thinking to belive poor unmotivatd readers will follow such guidelines. Poor readers will hardly question the author about his agenda, or have a frame of reference about what the author has written about before. Perhaps a way can be tried with these strategies, to make poor, unmotivated readers into outstanding readers.
from noah, who and what is being taught is very important, and as in nearly every aspect of life, their are bias and prejudice, and other inequalites. Is not education a way to tear down inequalites? Or in a society that often values economic gain over anything else, is inequallities, just a fact of life. As a matter of fact many belive that education is not a way to equalize society, but merely to make good law abiding citizens. After all i spent a good year training my daughter to use the bathroom, by her self. The first day of school she uses the bathroom all by herself, then she recives a detention for not asking permission to use it. So much for independent action.
from noah, who and what is being taught is very important, and as in nearly every aspect of life, their are bias and prejudice, and other inequalites. Is not education a way to tear down inequalites? Or in a society that often values economic gain over anything else, is inequallities, just a fact of life. As a matter of fact many belive that education is not a way to equalize society, but merely to make good law abiding citizens. After all i spent a good year training my daughter to use the bathroom, by her self. The first day of school she uses the bathroom all by herself, then she recives a detention for not asking permission to use it. So much for independent action.
Jacqueline Aessa
Week 1
I am writing in regard of classroom interaction expectations. In my opinion the level of education in a class depend a lot on the teachers expectation from the students. If the teacher expect his student to understand and chalange them with questions, they will respond to his/her challange. On the other hand if the teacher has no expectency from the students and hardly do anything, they in return will not do anything else. This will lead the students to have less expectation from each other.
Jacqueline Aessa
Week 1 - response to Fernando Merel
I definitly agree with Merel that we need to engage student with each other more often. student most of the time would try to group up according to their language first then according to their culture and thier background.
This mixing up would help the student get an early start to get used to other culutres and relate to other people who might be different with their language or their habits. It is our duty as teachers to make a peaceful environment and easy to communicate with each others.
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