"Good citizens in a democracy need to have patience, tolerance for ambiguity, and an aversion to either/or 'solutions.' They must understand the tension between individual and group and how to satisfy individual needs while helping meet the needs of the larger community." (Roger Soder, "The Good Citizen and the Common School" from: Kahne and Westheimer, "Teaching Democracy: What Schools Need to Do" 37--one of the readings you can choose from).
"There is no misery index for the children of apartheid education. There ought to be; we measure almost everything else that happens to them in their schools" (Kozol, 157-158 [in City Kids, City Schools]).
(Is all the measurement and standardization of learning described by Kozol the result of an "either/or solution"? Do you think that measurement and teaching by formula impacts MCCS, do you think these students may be "victims of apartheid education"? An example of how you might draw a connection and then go on from there and use both texts and our MCCS experience to illustrate. Now do it yourself!)
While you may all read different articles from the selection at the Democratic Dialogues website there will be a number of connections that you can draw with Kozol's Shame of Nation. What are the issues that he outlines? What do the various articles say about educating for citizenship? Where are the gaps? How might people who are engaged in actively seeking to manifest democratic ideals respond to the issues that Kozol outlines and illustrates? Are we part of these issues? How does our colloquium seek to respond? What are you Speaking Up about? Please use at least 3 quotes from Kozol and 1 or 2 from whatever other article you choose. Make sure you cite which article you are referring to.
Brittany Philpot
ReplyDeleteBecoming an active participant in our democratic society is hard to do because I feel as if we do not know enough about the issues to really have an interest in making a difference or voting. Some programs realize this issue in education because many schools are not focusing on teaching civics. The real focus is on math, science, and writing which are important as well, but knowing about the community is also important to learn about. Ways in which education can incorporate civics in schools have been tested in a number of schools of different grade levels, “In all these projects, the students took on responsibilities that required interpersonal, work-related, and analytical skills. These experiences also provided an up-close look at the ways in which government organizations interact with the public and with private businesses in formulating policies that affect the community.” (Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer, “teaching Democracy: What schools need to do, 40) By working on these projects in their community they gained hands-on knowledge and began to understand the importance of a democracy and how they could be a part of it and not just a bystander.
When deciding to incorporate democracy into a school there is many issues when looking at a more low-income school compared to a private school. Many low-income schools do not have the resources for improvements when they really should have the same opportunities compared to a wealthier school, “Physical appearances apart, how in any case do you begin to measure something so diffuse and vast and seemingly abstract as having more, or having less, or not having at all(150, CKCS)?” It is hard to make sure every program is available to a student when the resources are not there to be able to provide it. Cuts do need to be made when there are money issues but there should be some kind of struggle to try and keep these programs or get them back somehow. They are vital to an education and every child should have an opportunity to learn from extra activities.
When discussing a school system that only focuses on an either/or system to solve problems, that takes away from discussion and trying to determine the solution to a problem instead only giving a quick fix. Kozol describes a teacher he had that enforced the rules to an extreme and had students on a rubric for everything, “Within the terms of what he had been asked to do, he had, indeed, become a master of control. It is one of the few classrooms I had visited up to that time in which almost nothing even hinting at spontaneous emotion in the children or the teacher surfaced while I was there”(CKCS 156). This type of education is almost like the education the MCCS students have. There is a right and wrong attitude and not a place for them to discuss how things could be fixed. I do not believe they express their emotions as easily because that’s how they’ve been taught in society. Everything is an either/or solution and there is no in between.
“Perhaps most damaging to any serious effort to address segregation openly is the refusal of most of the major arbiters of culture in our northern cities to confront or even clearly name an obvious reality they would have castigated with a passionate determination in another section of the nation fifty years before-and which, moreover, they still castigate today in retrospective writings that assign it to a comfortably distant and allegedly concluded era of the past.”(Kozol, 219)
ReplyDeleteKozol brings up an issue that most people hate to admit to. Clearly there is a problem and segregation still exists. Growing up in San Francisco I noticed that most of the schools that were considered to be the “bad schools” were located around the Bayview Hunter’s Point areas which were predominantly African American. The “good schools” and the more nicer schools were located in the Sunset area which were predominantly Asian.It was sickening to know that no one was doing anything about it. Till this day, we are simply in denial.
I think this truly affects students’ self-confidence and the way they view life.
“Even these statistics, as stark as they are, cannot begin to convey how deeply isolated children in the poorest and most segregated sections of these cities have become.”(218)
I think as kids growing up, especially in low income environments a lot of what people think of you and how you are perceived in the outside world affects your actions and your outlook on life in general.
“When minority parents ask for something better for their kids, she says, “the assumption is that these are parents who can be discounted. These are kids who just don’t count-children we don’t value.” (225)
This is basically the life we set up for people of colored backgrounds. They are expected to fail even before they are born. I think this only hurts us more as a community in our society. We are constantly held down to drown.
This relates to the apathy Westheimer talks about in The Learning to Lead.
“Apathy and alienation among youth and young adults have contributed to a new cynicism about the potential for change. The sense of powerlessness-that little can be done to address the social and economic problems of their communities-is pervasive. The loss of faith in the political process as a means for change among the entire population has hit youth particularly hard.” (Westheimer,1)
This is what happens after years of suppression. We are so use to being suppressed that we feel powerless and hopeless.
The MCCS students are especially victims of this educational and societal suppression. How is it that MCCS is in Marin, one of the richest counties yet the school itself is hidden behind a church and obviously receiving little to no funds? Are they and we all not entitled to equal opportunities?
I think this is where the “Do Something” curriculum comes in handy. People at a young age should be empowered, to have a voice, and speak up for equality and fairness. This is also the focus of our Speak up project.
“We can see the symptoms of problems, like we see the dandelion flower itself, but we don’t always see the bigger, root causes. What we need to make society better is the ability to work at both the symptom and the root level of the problem. And we need knowledge of the entire issue at hand to be able to tell the difference.” (Westheimer,5)
I think much work is needed to be done. I hate to admit but I think it is a more complex problem than it is. Not only should the parents be responsible for nurturing resilient individuals who can possibly have a positive impact in this world but the government should also advocate for equality and justice for all and not only for people with money.
Westheimer, J., Kahne, J., & Rogers, B. (1999). Learning to Lead: Building on Young People's Desire to 'Do Something. New Designs For Youth Development. Special Issue on Social Justice, 15(3), 41-46.
I cannot sit here and say that I have experienced the public school system and felt the extreme pressure of either/or solutions within them. I attended Catholic schools my whole where there were standardized tests, but it seems like they have more pressure on the results in public schools. Kozol says “for each isolated parcel of instruction, an often time fanatical insistence upon uniformity of teachers in their management of time (can be seen)” (153). I find this very wrong to see in the school system considering that every class of children is different. They have a different pace of learning, different levels of interactions. Children even a different pace of opening up to one another that can make such a big difference in how quickly they are able learn together. So to try and make every teacher and classroom the same is practically impossible. Kozol goes on to say how “This is a popular position among advocates for rigidly sequential systems of instruction” (157). Just the sound of a sequential rigid system to teach does not sound like it would work. The teachers cannot be programmed to be like robots, they are unique human beings with their own teaching style. I understand that by making the system more specific and rigid is trying to make less room for errors, but one of the best ways to learn which teaching style may be best for a class is through trial and error. So teachers should have the option to try different things and see what works best with their class, not simple follow a script. If the school system wants a person to just follow what they say then they should simply hire actors.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the MCCS students I do feel that they are “victims of apartheid education”. Most of the students just from the small group that we get to work with are Hispanic or Black. At the beginning of Kozols’ section is where he mentions all the extreme statistics of segregation. Since I am from southern California it was fascinating to see the separation that goes on in Los Angeles “84 percent” of students enrolled in public school are Black or Hispanic. This is huge and a very sad statistic of proof that segregation still happens across the nation.
I read Joel Westheimer on Schooling for democracy one size does not fit all it had a lot to do with my beliefs that there cannot just be one way to teach. He goes further into saying that all communities are different and would expect different things from the students. In terms of education for citizenship he says, “Democracy means different things to different people, and among educators and school reformers, the aspects of democracy seen as most important and the best methods for furthering these goals both vary a great deal”. This is very important point to make since all people are individuals. He also goes into the importance of educating for citizenship and being personally responsible. He doesn’t want students to grow up and lack the drive to get involved in their community. He wants students to become educated in the school system and then go out and make a change. I believe the biggest gap is not the idea but how we could actually do this with our school systems budget. It would be very hard to financially figure out a way to do all that he wants with all the extreme budget cuts. People who are actively seeking democratic ideal will probably really enjoy and agree with what Kozol has to say. He makes some great points that could possibly create an amazing future for the United States. Colloquium seeks to respond to this by taking a deeper look at education and improving the learning opportunities for students that are traditionally overlooked. I am speaking up for a future where segregation in public school does not exist and hopefully one day where there is not a problem to financially support the education of our future leaders.