Dialogue, Respect, Love for Humanity, and Praxis (Blog #7)

Every time I understand a new concept in teaching it's like lifting up a mysterious drain cover to find a large dark abyss underneath. This time the idea revolved around history and it's connection to culture, identity and engagement of students in the classroom.

There is a typical way of teaching that I grew up experiencing for the most part, and that I think people automatically recognize or conjure up when they think of teaching. It's become almost stereotypical at this point. Expected.
As described by Paulo Friere:
"[This way of teaching]... turns them into "containers," into "receptacles" to be "filled" by the teachers. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teachers she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are."

Hearing this articulated so well strikes a deep chord in me, and really sets up what I hope I am able to accomplish as an educator. I know that as a kid I was never very engaged by the memorize, repeat and forget technique of learning facts. Dates, locations, names, all with very little meaning. I know a lot of people can relate to this and it's a growing topic in progressive education reform.

My question comes when I start to think about the fact that these students really truly are individuals, and there will be no one way or one subject matter that will speak to all of them. I start to wonder if it's important for students to know when the civil war started and began, and the names of the generals who were involved. I don't think storytelling like this does anything beyond filling their heads with useless facts and imparting them with a possibly unjust positive view of militaristic actions.

Taking the example of the civil war, which is the epitome to me of "Facts I know I amassed in school but have all but forgotten" I wonder if there is a better way to broach that subject. It scares me to think about, but I believe a better thing to try would be letting the students learn about wars in their own historical timeline. Let them discuss what it meant for their ancestors and really try to humanize each side.

As mentioned in the texts below, one of the big issues is the dehumanization of cultures. I know when the Native American Indians were introduced to me in elementary school they were a funny character that I had a hard time even imagining as real.  Marginalizing actual people for the sake of making facts easier to memorize is dangerous.

When we start looking to war as adults, in our current world, we still see that attitude. The muslims. The Middle East. Terrorists. Jihad. ISIS. All things that are used to scare and justify military actions that may not be the best course of action.  There are whole groups of people that get characterized and stigmatized. Of course some specific political organizations and terrorist groups might require some action of force, but when we can justify entire wars and strikes to our country simply by putting a specific type of face or skin color on it, it means we aren't looking at the bigger picture. When we are at war with a country they are at war with us. Just like we seem to believe of them, they view us as not being human enough to understand their point of view without the use of deadly force. If we can begin to demystify people who are different and introduce the idea that it is not required to hate your enemy or opponent, then maybe we can feel more confident in our ability to resolve our differences without bullets and drone strikes.

Maybe it's really bold or naive to believe that changing the way we teach our kids about the civil war could have a great impact on our country, but I know it can have a great impact on the way they relate and interact with each other. I'd be willing to bet it's at least a great place to start.

In reference to:
http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/philosophy/education/freire/freire-2.html

http://www.practicingfreedom.org/pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-what-is-it-and-why-its-still-relevant/

Mastering the beginning stages of the Ukulele (Final update on the Radical Learner Project)

Mastering is a strong word for where I feel I'm at now, but there is definite progress. I can play several chords and parts of songs, as well as strum a few tunes that just sound pretty good. I really feel like I've conquered the feel of the Ukulele, and it took mostly a lot of dedication and focus.

One of the hardest parts was using online resources to gather my information. Parts of it were great, such as being able to reference videos of people performing the task and searching for different instruction sets that gave me different techniques to try. One of the techniques that was the most difficult for me to learn was 'chucking' or 'muted strumming'. This is when you get a sort of harder scraping of the chords, and it acts as more of an accent than a specific note. There are a couple ways to do it including hitting the strings with your palm as you strum and lightening your grip on the strings with the other hand.

This technique was difficult because it dealt specifically with the physics of the ukulele and how the sound travels. It was one of the moments where I really could have used an instructor to explain it to me because it was simply baffling at first. I could hear it, and I could see it, but it was so hard to understand exactly what was happening. Eventually it just clicked.

One thing that this highlighted for me in particular was the relationship between practice (homework) and learning (class time). When I would practice without any resources it would have to be things that I understood fully how to do and were fairly easy. I might not have been great at it, but I fully understood what it was I was trying to do.

I've uploaded an audio file of me playing, and it's still not perfect but you can at least get a feel for the progress. From here the next thing to do would be to continue learning chords and to start putting them together to learn to play full songs. There are a couple of these that came from pieces of song tutorials, but I haven't fully been able to put the chords into practice because learning chords and learning a song are two very very different things. 

Lobby Day for Racial Equality for Educators and then some (bonus blog)

Advocating for change! I can’t seem to think about it enough simply because there’s so many injustices that need attention and how else is anything going to get accomplished if we don’t make our voices heard. It’s so simple to me-and I see it pretty clearly despite not being a fan of the messy side of politics. Even if you can’t articulate the substance of the issues at hand in our political system, you can show up. You can make your face seen. Actions often speak louder than words.

However this is something that I struggle with communicating to fellow individuals my age. SO often do I hear people say they’re opting out of politics. Of course they have their reasons, and no matter the logistics of them, I can’t help but think they’re nothing more than excuses built on what though? Fear? Discomfort? Lack of desire to put in the extra work? Lack of passion for the things that need attention?

The importance of making your face seen and your voice heard is becoming so much more relevant to me with each step closer that I take to my desired profession. As a future educator not only am I going to be affected by social justice, but so are my students! And I can’t live comfortably knowing I’m not doing some small part to fight for the things that need attention.

I’m so early in the process that I often become paralyzed by fear, but leaving by 8 am to attend the lobby day for racial equality in the classroom had a huge impact on me. It reminded me that I’m not alone in this, that when we come together we can get so much more done. Before the lobby day I knew that things weren’t black and white but I still at a different notion of what a good educator is. Now I see that you can be a good educator and not participate in our civic process but you can be a kickbutt Leslie Knope style educator by participating in the civic process. And I truly think there’s so much more fulfillment in not just knowing the process and the issues/conflicts at hand but standing up for change and participating in the process. And I don’t even fully understand it-but I feel so much more a part of the collective of teachers that want racial equality in our schools than I did sitting at home reading about it.

I had a similar experience when caucusing till 10PM. I was glad to be in a room with others that wanted similar changes. My main concern with this experience was that most of the individuals in the room were white. The age range was dynamic but otherwise everyone looked middle class or higher white folks. And all of the things we addressed as notions to get passed in our city affect more than just the white middle and upper class. So why is it that way? Why mostly white people? It’s not that they care more. I think it ultimately comes down to not enough access to the caucusing locations as well as lack of education on what they are and how they affect us.

I think the times for caucusing are ridiculous. 6-8 that’s a very unrealistic time frame for anyone working those hours or at home with kids. I’d like to see it become an all day thing, but I’m also curious if there’s any hope for child care to be made available for families that need a place to safely take their children while they participate in the civic process. Another thought is the city pairing with metro transit to get people to their caucusing locations for free. I know they do these sorta free bus ride days on holidays such as New Year's or St. Patrick's day or even free rides to the Twins game. I don’t really know the process behind implementing this sorta thing but it seems like just one idea to push for diversity in our civic process and perhaps our political system.

A couple quotes from Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed that stood out to me:

“Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in "changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them," (1) for the more the oppressed can be led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be dominated.”

“The truth is, however, that the oppressed are not "marginals," are not living "outside" society. They have always been "inside" the structure which made them "beings for others." The solution is not to 'integrate" them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become "beings for themselves."

In regards to both the lack of racial diversity when caucusing and lobbying for racial equality amongst teachers in our classroom, oppression is a very clear (yet hidden) cause. I think right now with Black Lives Matter having such a huge presence in MN, there’s so much tension to fight for a shift in our society. In a way integrating African Americans and other teachers of color into our education systems as teachers and other even stronger forces is a good first step to addressing the oppression in our society(focusing on the educational system)and it’s not the end solution however I think when Freire talks about needing to transform the structure that this is a huge step that will have a chain effect for so many students. Simply having a good teacher of color in the classroom can greatly benefit students perspective and create conversation to shift the status quo.

Last thought:

Serious shout out to Maria for being a part of the lobby day. I was so glad to see her there. She sparked a lot of my conversation I had with my boyfriend about the lobby day.(just about the importance of participating in these important processes and steps for much needed positive change and the value it adds to an educator) I have no idea what time she must have had to get up to leave to take the bus and light rail from where I live in south Minneapolis to get to the education building, and then she said she spent a while walking to find the right building. My first thought was “you go girl”

In light of A Barrio Pedagogy (Blog #5)

Culture is married to history and there is no getting around that. For a long time I struggled with the idea of creating anti racist curriculum - specifically having difficulty understanding the difference between an “Anti Racist” lesson and just a “not racist” lesson. Culture is similar, in which it’s essential to encompass compassion and understanding in order to achieve relevance. You can’t simply celebrate a culture, you have to encompass it in the learning. I believe a successful teacher needs to understand the culture in order to become empathetic of the students. It’s important to become tied to the culture in some way. Not simply an outsider. As a teacher the connection is going to start with the students. Learning what they know, what their history is, what their daily lives look like in order to connect with them on more than a superficial level.

The one sentence in A Barrio Pedagogy that struck me as so obvious, so important yet so overlooked was when Tina said “ Looking at our own history and culture was really important, it gives you pride and makes you feel like you belong.”

It’s really hard to put yourself in the shoes of a different culture, especially when you don’t know a lot about it. I think my best resource for learning about those other cultures is going to be my future students, but as they did in the reading, it’s going to be so important to establish trust and a safe space. The more I think about it and the more that I recognize the systematic racism that these children go through in their young lives, the more I start to understand just how challenging it will be to provide that.

If a student doesn’t feel like they belong, or have had instances of racism that made them feel unwelcome, it’s going to be uncomfortable for them to present information, history and background on those things one on one, let alone in front of the entire class.

As I read the “I Am” poems I also wonder what it was exactly the teacher wrote and shared with the class. I’m trying to imagine what I might share to put kids on the right path and to open myself up to them as a person.

I would need to write something age appropriate that they could relate to on a basic level. I might include something silly like I like bees, hopscotch, chips and salsa, etc.  but I also need to include deeper things so the students can begin to feel comfortable and interested in sharing things about themselves. For me as a future teacher this already feels like it’s going to be one of the hardest things for me but I also know it’s going to be one of the most important. Opening up and sharing with the students. Connecting with them, so they can feel safe connecting with me and with each other.

"Our praxis helps us to understand that the opportunity to create a picture that is representative of the students' interpretations of the concept, theory or key word is the opportunity to construct new understanding and add meaning."

It took a while to decipher the meaning of this particular quote but my interpretation is that this practice helps you realize that by having the students illustrate their understanding of a concept and discuss it, it opens up the chance to offer them new understandings of those concepts. When the student gives you insight into their understanding of something, that's when the teaching and deeper learning begins.