Michael Wesch "Anti Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance"

“The only answer to the best questions is another good question. And so the best questions send students on rich and meaningful lifelong quests, question after question after question.” 

Michael Wesch

In his article “Anti-teaching: Confronting The Crisis of Significance” Michael Wesch starts off by stating “Students – are struggling to find meaning and significance in their education.” I totally agree with this statement. This past week I discussed the significance of education to one of my students who did not think what she was learning had any significance to her future. Although she made a good argument (for a 17 yr. old) she was met with a counter argument that was better. This word ”significance” however is very vital to what we teach, how we teach, and how kids learn.  According to Wesch, students want to know that what they are learning has meaning.  Fortunately Wesch does give his reader the answer to this “significance “problem. “If our students are not “cut out for school,” perhaps we have made the mold too narrow or inflexible, or more likely, just not meaningful enough to inspire a student to fit in. That’s the significance problem”(5).

So we, as educators need to try and inspire these students to enjoy and feel more connected to their education. He states, “waiting for anybody interested in creating a meaningful learning environment to harness and bring significance back into the classroom”(6). Most educators try very hard. The new Common Core Standards of Rhode Island are educating teachers on how to do this; Informational Text. The fictional novels and short stories are out, and current events and world news are in. I do think that students will make good connections to current events. These types of readings can open up a connection to a student’s future and help  them connect to the world they live in. These connections would lead to critical thinking, and critical thinking would lead to questions, and questions would lead to a classroom of dialogicality, which Gerri August would fully agree with.  Wesch would also agree, as he says in his article. “Good questions are the driving force of critical and creative thinking and therefore one of the best indicators of significant learning.” Well, this would be wonderful if educators would just take out fiction and replace it with non fiction. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that easily. But I do agree that informational text is crucial in teaching critical thinking skills.

As far as I am concerned, and I think Michael Wesch would agree, a vital tool that is lacking in American schools, both colleges and high schools, is the implementation of technology. In this article he discusses technology as a tool in the classroom. His video “A Vision of Students Today” is clearly a message of students who are craving that educators understand the vital importance of intergrading technology as a tool to teach. What is most unfortunate is that the only schools that have this opportunity are those that are “privileged” enough to afford the technology. Although, college classrooms need to be aware of the fact that many college students come equipped with their own digital tools. 

Michael Wesch below in this clip discusses the importance of the web Media in education.

“The principle goal of education is to create men and woman who are capable of new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done” Jean Piaget

 Technology

I read a quote by someone, I cannot remember where, but is stated something like this. Students do not need to know the capital of Florida anymore, their phones can tell them that, rather the students of tomorrow need to think critically. I think this is what Wesch is saying when he discusses the questions kids need to answer and the critical thinking that comes with the questions. Questions need to be different, teaching needs to be different. We educators may be afraid of this shift because we were not rasied as “digital natives” as Gary Small, a UCLA neuroscientist, has named the technology generation of today. We are comfortable in the ways we teach but seriously, kids learn differently today.

According to many different studies, kid’s brains are wired differently as a result of technology. They have become masters of multi-tasking, which has its benefits and  its disadvantages. However, the one thing most scientists agree with is that technology has had an impact on the way kids learn and focus. This  following  two video clips explore “Teens Brains on Technology.” It is extremely interesting, especially for those of us who are opposed to the fact that kids can thrive in the same lecture driven classrooms that we did as kids.

 

“Do not confine learning 
to your own learning, 
for they were born in another time” 
                         Chinese Proverb.








                                                                       According to Educause, an online E-book titled Educating the Net Generation, “The Net Generation has grown up with information technology. The aptitudes, attitudes, expectations, and learning styles of Net Gen students reflect the environment in which they were raised—one that is decidedly different from that which existed when faculty and administrators were growing up.”
Another important quote that I took form this online article “Growing up with Technology” As a member of the Net Generation, I have been surrounded by advances in digital technology, almost to the point where I cannot do my work as a journalist without it. In university, I have used assessment tools such as WebAssign and WebCT in classes as supplements to lecture and textbook. But now technology is advancing at such a rate that traditional ways of teaching and learning are not pushing students and teachers to their full potential. By using IT properly in the classroom, teaching and learning are enhanced and given a new dimension. Before curricula can be created to challenge the Net Generation, though, faculty must know how Net Geners learn and interact with each other, with technology, and with life in general. Remember that word—interact.”

http://www.educause.edu/Resources/EducatingtheNetGeneration/UsingTechnologyasaLearningTool/6060

Interaction is significant. If we want our students to think critically, connect the world they live in and think about their future, and be able to get a job when they graduate, then we need to make some advances in the classroom, well in the educational system overall.

"If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow"

John Dewey

Prudence Carter: Keepin’ It Real

 

“Schools are more than institutions where teachers impart skills and lessons;

they are places where teachers transmit cultural knowledge. As a

child growing up in Mississippi and attending de facto segregated schools,

I did not realize that education is as much about being inculcated with

the ways of the "culture of power" as much as it is about learning to

read, count, and think critically. This culture of power, as scholar and

educator Lisa Delpit (1997) calls it, encompasses a body of rules, tastes,

appreciations and styles for success that are fashioned by the dominant

social classes whose members are mainly White, middle- and upper-class” (47).

This quote connects to many of the other texts we have read in class. The idea of race and culture as a factor in education; how one is educated, how one is perceived, and how one may be valued, is very powerful.  In this quote Carter suggests that the “culture of power” is integrated into the curriculum in our schools, as is learning our ABC’s. This “hidden curriculum” was not apparent to her growing up in Mississippi as it is to her now as an adult.  She did learn at a very early age, in sixth-grade when her teacher needed to instruct her on a specific cultural awareness when she stated “Always remember to look someone in the eye, especially Whites, when you are speaking to them’ (48). Why was this so important for a sixth-grader? Why is “Whites” capitalized in this sentence? Why are things still “Separate but equal?” I can’ t help but think about how far we have come as a nation of freedom and equality but also it is apparent how much we are not a nation of freedom and equality. Kozol really dives into this in his text when he discusses the segregated schools which are quite simply, de facto segregated schools today in America.  When Carter was in school in Mississippi I wonder if she realized at the time about the segregation. After all, segregation was illegal. To think about education as a privilege for those who grow up in the right neighborhood is absurd in itself.  But to think about creating schools in neighborhoods for the sole purpose of integrating different cultures only to have those schools become segregated, proves that the country has not come very far in its fight against racial equality. 

This is the trailer for the film Freedom Writers. In this clip we can see the racial divides that many schools have and the privileged education or in this case, the unprivileged education.

Identity: This word is very important to Carter’s “Keepin’ it Real.” In her text she discusses the point of “acting white and “acting black” as staying, or not staying true to ones cultural identity. Since most everything revolves around the dominant culture, it is important to understand what influences this. What or whom influences our identity? Carter discusses the use of cultural markers to help with ones identity. It is important to understand that “Keepin’” not “keeping” it real is vital to ones identity. Since the black race is not the dominant culture there needs to be a dominant culture within the race.  Carter refers to this as the “black cultural capital.” Although “keepin it real” is important for the culture of the race, we do live in a world where the dominant culture may be seen as a threat to those who are not in that culture, therefore, for one’s own race to “act white” is going against the core of keeping a “black cultural l capital.” 

NY Time article.
"For Children of Same-Sex Couples, a Student Aid Maze" Ny York times article. Will applications and other sort of documents be same sex marriage friendly?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/your-money/for-children-of-same-sex-couples-a-student-aid-maze.html?_r=1&ref=education

Gerri August

“We teach in real time with real distractions, and real pressures”

Gerri August

How is it that a 5 year old accentuates “different” behavior to a point where he/ or she thinks it’s funny?  I have always believed in the innocence of children; what they say and how that act are unscripted and “could not have been engineered” (166). How is it that when Zeke does ballet moves around the room, it makes the kids laugh? August analyzes this laughter as “the disaffiliative laughter as accentuating a difference in gender identification” (149). With this specific example I think we can make an argument that Zeke may have looked very silly dancing around the room, whether it was ballet, hip-hop- or the waltz, young kids think it is funny to see their teacher dance in class; innocence. In regards to the situation in” Do you speak Chinese?” when Shiloh mocks the Chinese language when she says “Chum, chum, chum, chum chung” and then laughs. This is not an innocent statement made by a curious little girl. Where do they learn this? August quotes Johnson “such expressions of dominant ideology, regardless of whether offense is taken, widen the paths of least resistance.” Obviously the innocence involved in this particular incident was that the offense wasn’t made intentionally to hurt someone’s feelings, however, like Johnson says, it doesn’t matter, “This is the stuff of which privilege is made. It is also the stuff of which oppression, privilege’s necessary counterpart, is made” (152). The privileged kids in this case study are the normal kids. The “otherness” is the different kids, according to the dominant ideology

As I read chapter six I started to wonder about August and Zeke’s motives about little Cody.  I do applaud the Designed Dialogicality lessons that Zeke engage his students but I got the feeling that he is prompting for a specific answer and August is waiting patiently for a specific mind blowing expression from Cody about his lesbian mothers.  In the section titled “Family” August states, “I argue that the data portray a child who, even in the context of a democratic, emancipator classroom, censored the speech and other expressions so as to downplay his non-dominant family structure’ (177). I am not convinced that is  true. There is only two small examples that I believe supports Augusts’ claim in this section. On page 181 “Having attended a Montessori preschool with other internationally adopted children, several of whom also had lesbian moms, Cody, nevertheless, found himself needing to explain his family constellation and his skin color.. In spite of the preschool teacher’s inclusive language, books, and representations, (she herself indentified as a lesbian), several of Cody’s classmates repeatedly questioned him about his two moms. He complained of this to Tamara and Ellen and repeatedly asked why his Cambodian family had given him up” (181). Cody seems more upset about the adoption and his really family then the fact that he has two moms.

“On at least one occasion, Cody expressed frustration that he couldn’t scrub off his color in the bathtub” (181).” Again, I see Cody being more aware and frustrated that his is different and that it is obvious he has been adopted.

“ I was present for 50 of Cody’s news shares. On five of those occasions, Cody made reference to one of his moms” (182). August then goes on to say that “this omission alone would have been an unremarkable fining. After all, rarely did a ZK student mention both parents in a news share. Dads made only occasional appearances in the students account” (183). I don’t think Cody’s omission is intentional, most kids didn’t mention both parents. Perhaps Cody notices his different color and the fact that he was adopted and this bothers him more than the fact that he has two moms. Since most kids don’t mention fathers, why would Cody be aware of his “different” family? Until it was brought up in the books they read, Who’s in a Family?and And Tango Makes Three.

               And Tango Makes Three The most banned book in America in 2008.

A school district in Charlotte, N.C. has pulled a children’s book off the shelves because some parents have deemed it inappropriate. This same book tops the American Library Association’s most banned books in 2008.http://logicalcomplexinfinitive.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/and-tango-makes-three-the-most banned-book-in-2008/

This book was written based on a true story about homosexual penguins in Germany. Watch the news footage video.

Here is just one review of Who's in a Family?. It reflects on the dominant ideoloy

F. Weinstock (Brooklyn, New York)

 As a white single mother of a bi-racial child, I'm always excited to find books that validate our family's composition. The problem with this one is that the main character whose family begins the book is a white girl who lives with her two white parents and sibling, has a dog and white grandparents. So the set-up is that her family is the "regular" kind and others are variations that aren't quite the same and are kind of exotic. I don't read this to my daughter 

 On page 195 it seems as though Zeke and August feel like they finally got Cody to divulge his true feelings. This evidence is the fact that Cody speaks quietly when he talks about his moms. “He said, I told you about me and my sister and my dog and then he kind of got quiet and he was like my two moms and he said it really quietly.”’ Zeke goes on to say that  “a reasonable interpretation of his hesitation and his lowered voice was that he was reluctant to go on, reluctant to identify his two moms.” However, his two moms were very busy in the school, in the classroom, at meetings, and helping out. It is mentioned that he greets them enthusiastically. I am not convinced that Cody was reluctant to talk because he has two moms.  “None had answered, “my mom and dad,” or “my parents.” Two in fact, had answered, “My mom.” If most kids do not mention their parents , why would Cody be expected to.

However, I can be convinced that the real issue is not his two moms but the adoption. At this point I can’t argue this. Perhaps in another blog post.

August suggest on page 188 that “using the word “different” three times in this short introduction, Zeke might have begun to disturb existential assumptions with family that would prevent students from hearing the meaning of the text.” Perhaps making young kids more aware of the difference makes kids more aware that they are different. Don’t we want kids to understand that different is the same?