Where I am, as of now......

                                                Philosophy of English Education

                                                            By Alex Kameen

Language is perhaps the most powerful tool at a human being’s disposal. Beyond helping us negotiate the constant social interactions we face in the world, language allows every person the power to mediate his or her own consciousness in a uniquely individualized manner. We use the processes of language, in this sense, to speak to and with ourselves. Language empowers and enables us to interact with our own emotions and reason, as well to engage with the larger communities outside of our selves with true meaning. In an exclusively human way, language is the ultimate technology for discovery; it allows us to discover the self, the world, and everything in between in a manner far superior to any other animal on earth. It is our avenue between the soul and the mind, the supreme signifier of human intelligence, and the fingerprint of our very existence–as no two people use it in exactly the same way. 

            Before I explain why I want to teach language and literacy, I need to establish my vision for the role of a professional English teacher. First and foremost, I agree with the popular notion that English teachers must have a passion and understanding of their content area, but I disagree rather strongly with the limited lens through which we tend to view the content area of an English teacher. A teacher of English is not a teacher of books, nor a teacher of form, rather a teacher of process. In that light, I do not believe it is my duty nor my right to “teach” my students literary texts, nor do I think there is a specific set of canonical texts that must be read in order to improve one’s literacy abilities. Shakespeare­–in my opinion–does not magically promote literacy development more so than Gary Soto, or Walter Dean Myers, for example. It is the genuine interactions between a student and the processes of reading, writing, and thinking that truly promote the empowering development of language and literacy. In the modern era, negotiating the daily world requires a higher level and broader range of literacy abilities than any date in human history, so the purpose of an English teacher should be to facilitate the growth of language and literacy skills for every single student that walks into the classroom–regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, religion, socio-economic status, disability, or attitude. Yet still, English classrooms in America actively avoid the practice of literacy within the school walls, and many students leave their experience with little activated knowledge to tangibly impact their literate lives. I do not intend to nurture these failures within my own classroom walls.

            With all of these concepts on the front of my mind, my goal as an English teacher is to provide my students the appropriate time, space, and access necessary to engage powerfully with the reading and writing processes, and to give them explicit and strategic instruction when proper in order for them to reap the countless benefits of their daily literacy experiences. I hope to advance the counter movement against the static pedagogies of the “traditional” English classroom, focusing instead on the development of true critical literacy skills through the consistent practice of the craft in a workshop setting. My students will choose what they want to read, they will write about relevant issues that have an immediate impact on their lives, they will perform these acts of literacy inside of the classroom community on a consistent basis, and by doing so their out-of-school literate lives will be genuinely affected.

hooks 'em horns (get it?)

            Reading bell hooks’ book this past few weeks has been a challenging but enjoyable experience, and it is a book that I definitely recommend to anyone who is interested in issues of race, identity, and the politics of education (especially higher education). The book in a lot of ways has been a roller coaster ride of emotions, and it was not really what I expected when I chose to read it. There were many conversations in this book that challenged my preexisting beliefs about race and education, there were also some ideas that I directly disagreed with, and to be perfectly honest there were a few chapters that felt entirely out of place and unnecessary. It is also important to note that this book did not focus on secondary education at all, serving instead as a rather strong critique of higher education and what I would call “liberal escapism.” Regardless, I think this book has changed my perception on racism and how the forces of domination are held in place within our national structure.

            Throughout our program, we have spent a lot of time discussing racism as a “structure of oppression,” but I think this book has moved me beyond this idea of racism as a structure and has broadened my perspective to view racism instead as a pervasive culture. I appreciate this idea of a culture of racism because racism as a system can be problematic, as it implies that the oppression that comes with racism was actively and consciously established by a small select group of people, and that it is held in place by a small group of conscious decision makers. Not only does this idea let a lot of people off the hook, but also I think it does a great disservice to the magnitude of issues surrounding American racism. White people in general–as hooks would likely agree–tend to oversimplify the issues of racism in order to wash their hands of its harsh consequences, but to approach racism within the context of its vast complications is to give it the respect it deserves. With that in mind, the idea of racism as a system tends to pawn the problem off onto a mysterious group of conscious racists, as opposed to acknowledging that the dominant majority culture within this country is itself a function and facilitator for our mainstream oppressive values.
              Acknowledging that racism is not simply a concocted system but a historical culture allows us to view the idea of "national racial consciousness" (meaning the awareness of racism and appreciation of its complexity within our country) not as something to be conquered but rather as something to be sought out. This can be a rather confrontational idea, however, as it asks members of the dominant society to view their own complicitness (whether active or passive, conscious or unconscious) as problematic. Again, this is often controversial, as bell hooks cites Coco Fusco, saying, “to raise the specter of racism in the here and now, to suggest that despite their political beliefs and sexual preferences, white people operate within, and benefit from, white supremacist social structures is still tantamount to a declaration of war” (35). The provocation that comes from promoting this idea of racism as a culture, in my opinion, is that it forces us to acknowledge that racism is present here, now, and everywhere. Beyond that, it is to acknowledge that by focusing our selective blame on small group of old-white-tea-party pioneers is to deny the pervasive reality of racism within our country. White people can not simply point to other white people as the problem, in hopes of disassociating themselves with the consequences (and benefits) of our racialized culture. 

            Long story short, this book left me with a lot more questions than answers…but when dealing with issues of race and racism I think this is often the case, as racism is not something to be simply “solved.”

"My Sorrowful Heart"

             I had a pretty incredible experience during the final few days of this past week and have brought in some student work to share. Because we finished up our district testing early and had a few extra days to “kill,” I was able to plan out a two-day poetry workshop (which would lead us into our poetry unit that begins on Tuesday of this week). The overall goal for my mini-unit was to free up enough space in the classroom so students could create their own poetry. Basically, I figured that having students create poetry would be the best way for them to learn poetry. My ultimate goal was to have students write their own poems... but since I knew this would be difficult to jump right into (especially because they have not done much creative writing this year), I decided to scaffold the writing experience towards this final goal. With this in mind, the students worked the first day on creating “Found” poems, where they used words and phrases from other sources to create their poems. I thought this would be a unique and fun experience for the students, while also allowing them to essentially pull their poems from a physical “word bank”–thus removing some of the anxiety that comes with creating a poem from scratch. After students completed their poem, the next step was to choose their favorite line from their Found poem and use it as the first sentence of a “Response” poem, in which they used their “Found” poem as an inspiration for their own written poem.

            The results were wonderful, but as you will see when I show examples of student work, it would be very easy for a teacher (or administrator, or parent...) to simply “miss” the incredible achievements and "write off" many students' work, because activities like this do not always look like traditional learning. And by traditional learning, I mean quantified literacy instruction broken down into skills based writing. In this sense, I hope my class never looks like traditional learning.

            Anyway, I know this post is not very thorough or well developed, but this whole story is just going to be much easier to tell in person as I show you some student work to emphasize my point. The most powerful example comes from one student in particular, who essentially "failed" at creating a successful Found Poem (it made little to no sense and was basically just a collage of random words), but then used one line from his Found Poem to create a masterful Response poem. I was so proud of his work that I walked down and shared it with two other teachers in the hall to show how important this kind of work is. And unfortunately, I am sure that a lot of teachers would have viewed his work as a failure because his Found Poem could be perceived as such. But his final work was amazing, as he took the line "Celebrating Summer" from his Found Poem and wrote a beautiful and reflective piece. His poem reads (note, he used a more unique format structure for the poem that I will show you in person because it is hard to duplicate on the computer...):

"Celebrating Summer
Flashed me back
To a time when mom and dad
were still together
with pretty pink butterflies
on one windowed walls
and a big old bed
worthy of my dreams
offered to rest my weak body
and soothe my
sorrowful heart."

Line in the Sand

            In the first chapter of Ayers’ Book, “To Teach,” one quotation struck me as a painful yet inescapable truth. He writes, “Even as society occasionally posits a romanticized view of the dedicated, caring, inspiring teacher–brilliant, creative, self-sacrificing–we know that the harsh reality in many schools is a structure that disempowers and de-skills, a system that prespecifies each teacher’s thoughts and oversees and constrains our activities” (31). Throughout my intern and student teaching hours in the classroom–spread across 5 separate schools in 3 districts–I feel I have been a first hand witness and active participant in this disempowered school structure. In fact, as I have been studying the art and profession of “teaching” over the last 2 years, I have been unable to avoid the aggressive conclusion that teaching is no longer considered either an “art” or a “profession.” The question then becomes: was it ever? And beyond that, where did our “romanticized” ideas of teaching even begin? And how do we continue to ignore the fact that teachers are among the most manipulated bodies of workers in our nation?

            In our current system–as we have discussed thoroughly–the unique abilities of each individual teacher is diminished into the same type of “learning list” that Ayers speaks about in chapter 2. Unfortunately for teachers though, administrations too often enact scripted curriculums with the aim of safe guarding their classrooms against the typically perceived “deficiencies” of their teaching force (i.e. deficiencies in classroom management, test scores, and student control…). Instead of creating an open environment geared towards promoting authentic teacher creativity and innovation, we bully our teaching force towards passive conformity. In doing so, the teacher is then put in a position to enact that same kind of “deficiency control” over his or her students, where they do not create open situations for creative learning on the students’ part, instead positioning students in a manner which controls their deficits. As we now exist within the constraints of this current educational environment, what is our most productive form of rebellion? How do we regain some control over the educational outcomes of our students, without positioning our classrooms so strongly against the outside constraints that we lose our jobs or attract isolation? Is there a balance to be struck or must we simply “go for it” in the sense that we ignore the limitations of outside forces and build our classroom curriculums with little concern for what we do not value?

            Throughout the last few semesters, we (myself included) have discussed the idea of “carving out space” within the limitations of the mandated curriculum. In our discussions, we have focused on identifying key areas where we can “work with” the curriculum, and ultimately build space within these confines for “authentic teaching.”  Ayers, I believe, brings up a nice counter argument to this idea in his book. As he deconstructs the countless “myths of teaching,” he includes the myth that “good teachers begin with the curriculum they are given and find clever ways to enhance it” (25). This, in a general sense, is exactly the attitude I have been adopting over the past few semesters. Reading it as a teaching “myth” however, forced me to challenge this perspective, accept that it may be flawed, and in doing so search for some new approaches.  Although I agree that carving our space within a curriculum is not a negative pursuit, positioning the “authentic learning” as something that needs to be “squeezed into” the curriculum can have damaging effects. I believe, as Ayers would likely agree, that we need to flip the script on this perspective and begin to question/challenge every element of ANY curriculum (whether it is "given" to us or "created" by us). As Ayers admits in chapter 5, "When I realized that no curriculum unit was ever good enough (even though many materials and resources are terrific and worth drawing upon)and that I needed to focus on curriculum as a living challenge rather than as a better package, I began to evolve a framework for deliberating about curriculum in my own classrooms. I wanted to be proactive in thinking about curriculum, not always reacting to guidelines or requirements or units coming at me from the outside" (103-104). This new framework, of course, comes with extreme challenges and risks, but we must refuse to accept the idea that the areas of teaching that we truly value should somehow be limited by curriculum constraints, OR the limitation of our own curriculum ideas/goals. With this attitude we can begin to view the outside curriculum constraints themselves as the areas of the curriculum that must be “squeezed in,” while retaining the reflective perspective that our own ideas must be constantly evolving and must face relentless personal scrutiny. It is through this shift that our curriculum can take on a living form–always changing shape.

            Ultimately, each teacher has to figure out what works best in his or her own classroom. This is an extremely heavy task. I have been struggling this entire semester with many of these questions, as I have had to face the realistic fear that when I enter a difficult educational environment as a teacher my idealistic and theoretical philosophies may stand firmly in opposition with many outside forces. How then can I succeed? William Ayers poses the important question, “when we teachers look out over our classrooms, what do we see? [sic] We see students in our classrooms, of course, but who are they? What hopes do they bring? What is the language of their dreams” (41). I fully agree that these are important questions for teachers to ask themselves about their students, but I think we need to ask these same questions about ourselves as teachers. When we look at ourselves operating within the classroom, what do we see?  Who do we see? What are our hopes? What are our dreams? Where do we draw that figurative line-in-the sand? And more importantly–on which side of it do we stand?

Vygotsky

            Wow–I have a Vygotsky headache. I have determined over the past few days that I simply do not have the mind for higher-level psychology, as I struggle to synthesize the discussion of psychological theories with my physical interaction amongst students and learning.  I agree and understand with Vygotsky’s idea that the development (or convergence) of language in a direct relationship with human activity is arguably the most significant developmental step in a human beings life. It is through this convergence that human beings begin to attribute meaning and context to all of their interactions, and where they begin to operate in ways that are “purely human.” In this sense, the language and literacy teacher’s job is to create a social space where growing human learners can practice and evolve their language and speech patterns in a meaningful way. Through this practice–we hope–our students can develop into more thorough and thoughtful communicators. I also very much enjoyed his discussion of the ways human beings adapt to their own environments. I think this is directly relevant to the teaching profession, as facilitating a productive classroom environment is one of our most essential duties.

            My favorite chapter in Vygotzky, however, was the final one that talked about the development and importance of written language. He writes, “Up to this point, psychology has conceived writing as a complicated motor skill. It has paid remarkably little attention to the question of written language as such, that is, a particular system of symbols and signs whose mastery heralds a critical turning point in the entire cultural development of the child” (106). I loved this quotation for many reasons, but most importantly because Vygotzky acknowledges that writing is not simply “a complicated motor skill” but rather a social and “cultural” experience that heightens a human beings level of active engagement with him-or-herself and others. It is, as he surmises, one of the most important developments in the life of a learner. Acknowledging this connection between writing and culture is critical in building the idea that literacy is an act of social engagement, and to promote the idea that writing should not (and can not) be taught in isolation. One does not learn to write simply by being given the proper “motor skills.” In this way, a child who only knows how to hold a pen and negotiate the alphabet does not know how to write; not in a way that can be empowering and life changing, to say the least. When we acknowledge the importance of thought and emotion within the writing process, we can more properly facilitate literacy growth in the classroom.

Why are we Oppressing the Oppressed?

            Something about reading Freire always fires me up. His use of language seems to speak directly to me, as he eloquently and deliberately addresses many of the issues that are circling around in my mind. Although I could literately pull quotations from almost every page in “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” to talk about, I want to focus on two related quotations that address the issue of student agency and victim status. The first quotation reads:

            Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects which must be saved from a burning building; it is to lead them into the populist pitfall and transform them into masses which can be manipulated.

I strongly agree with this statement and I fear that our public education system is aligned deliberately towards this damaging “savior” mentality that Freire speaks against. We do not actively promote student agency or participation on a wide scale basis and thus position our broader student population as passive victims in need of saving. This becomes even more visible in our interaction with minority and low SES students, as we remove their “reflective participation” on a cyclical basis. In this sense, there is an entire population of students that are labeled “at-risk” essentially from birth, and because of this our public school teachers are urged to “save” these children from the “burning building” that we perceive their lives to be. This begs the question–how can we ever possibly respect or value a student’s home culture if we view his or her inherited environment as the primary predictor for looming failure?

           

            Unfortunately for the equity of our society, there is little room for authentic “liberation” present in our current system, as a student must instead “play the system” to succeed; as opposed to viewing the system itself as the oppressive force. Freire addresses this in the second quotation I hoped to speak on, writing:

            “One does not liberate people by alienating them. Authentic liberation– the process of humanization–is not another deposit to be made in men. Liberation is praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.”

If we adopt Freire’s position that liberation (and humanization in general) is accomplished FOR and BY the individual people being oppressed, then there is no room for a savior mentality within our classrooms. Instead, teachers must use the classroom as a  space–not a mechanism–for social change. The ultimate change, in this sense, comes from the students NOT the teacher.

Damaged Youth.

            We had a strange professional development sequence this past week that left me troubled. The meeting was led by one of the assistant principals and it focused around the brain development (or lack of development) by students in high-stress situations. The teachers were all asked to brainstorm some of the specific challenges that students face, and to discuss the problems that cause stress in students’ lives (i.e. Teen Pregnancy, Low Income, Lack of Food, Abuse, Drugs, Gangs, Missing Parents…). This led to a discussion of particularly tragic situations that some of the students are currently dealing with, and teachers/administrators used this as a way to justify lack of intellectual development.

            The entire conversation struck me the wrong way, obviously, because it just acted to support the deficit perspective that is already pervasive throughout the school. I understand that students in “high risk” areas have to deal with certain stresses and anxieties, and I also recognize the importance of getting to know your student population, but when you connect the stresses of low-income living to fundamental brain development issues (regardless of the research supporting this connection) you run the risk of strengthening stereotypes and growing the deficit model that drives the teacher’s perspective of local school culture. I would argue that this was exactly what happened in this week's meeting and that the entire thing positioned low-income youths as fundamentally damaged when compared to their middle-class peers.