Friday, June 5, 2009
Insights
There were so many ideas and statements from the readings that I found myself reflecting on and thinking about. One statement that caught my attention was "schools serve mainstream American kids best." I begin to think about all of the children, regardless of their ethnic background, that have been born in America, but still seem not be gettting the best service from the schools that they attend. I feel that they only get the best service if they are exposed to the ideas and philosophies that are embedded in mainstream America. Many children are raised in America, and have been exposed to other philosophies and ideas that may not be popular in America's mainstream society. What do you think about this statement? Are our schools set up in a way where everyone benefits regardless of their cultural and ethnic backgrounds? Another statement that I found interesting is that the text book can sometimes be the curriculum for the subject area. I always looked at the text book as a resource or a tool. What do you think is a text book the curriculum, a tool, or both?
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One of the textbooks I'm using for my scope/sequence assignment is an online Prentice Hall text. I cannot even GET to a table of contents. I'm pulling my hair out, because, in order to use their book, they are flat-out assuming that you WILL follow their book AS a curriculum.
ReplyDeleteAnd certainly *I* am not one to argue with the powers that be about the way a curriculum SHOULD be designed, right (not the sarcasm).
I think mainstream is the curse of the classroom. My field experience (early for the summer) was following a teacher who is highly regarded by the students. As the experience went on, however, I learned that this regard did not necessarily carry over to the other English staff. I watched as his class responded to him, however, and part of what they responded to was his ability to make the "dirt bags," "problem students," "popularity queens," "burnouts," and "goths" and "emos" (all terms I've heard staff and students label them as) feel welcome. We don't have a lot of ethnic diversity here, but I've watched how the fringe groups struggle upstream. I guess they are as close to an observable non-mainstream population.
Another observation I'm making is that even the "mainstream" students--the ones who seem bright, talented, driven and who appear to come from stable homes--are coming from very UNmainstream backgrounds. Broken, dysfunction homes--and they have just found a way around it to success.
I don't think I've answered anything here, but these are good questions.
There's no way to be equally fair and effective with all students; we're fallible little humans embedded in our own realities. But I guess our job is to try to be as fair and effective as possible with all students.
ReplyDeleteOne way to equip students for the future is to talk out loud about power structures, dominant cultures and marginalized cultures, about the way reality is constantly being deconstructed and reconstructed, etc. Then there are at least two checks for the system: students can better recognize and articulate their experiences with the world's biases (including those of teachers) just as teachers reflects on her own biases.
(Please forgive the s/v agreement error)
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