Alex’s Neighborhood

  Sir Ken Robinson defines creativity as “the process of having original ideas that create value”. He reiterates that it is a process and not a random act of inspiration, and that it needs to prove its worth. He points out that creativity is not the opposite to formality – instead a mixture of discipline and space to innovate are required. Robinson contends that “creativity is as important as literacy and should be treated as such.” Our schools are currently designed, like he said, in a hierarchy, in which specific skills, namely math and languages, are valued over others.
 Sir Robinson mentioned a couple reasons why having this hierarchy is ridiculous:

• The purpose of education shouldn't be to get into college.

• Believe in high standards does not mean education has to be standardized.

• We don't need to reform education -- we need to transform it.

• Creativity is a part of not apart from intelligence.

• We don't grow in to creativity, we get educated out of it.                                                                                                                                                                                                         One of the reasons why an academic hierarchy is ultimately futile is because people cannot accurately assign value to skills that may or may not be valuable in 30, 20, or even 10 years. If we cannot accurately assess what skills children will need for the future- how can we place a value or emphasis on any particular skill now?                                         Sir Robinson further ridiculed the stress we place on children to be right and not make mistakes. Children, and people in general, need to be willing to make mistakes in order to create an innovation. In fact, some of the most well-known products (penicillin, coca-cola, etc) are the results of what was initially a 'mistake.' This all-out rejection of mistakes stifles creativity, perhaps, more than any one factor in our schools and in society.                                                                                                                                                                          
  

By finding new ways to praise children’s efforts and ideas, and less ways to assess them on their mistakes, we will embrace the initiative to rethink the fundamental ways we educate children in the context of their endlessly, vast capabilities.

          There are several points in Arne's Duncan's speech of which I dissent, however the overarching purpose: a plead to realize the urgency through which educational reformation must take place, is immediately and timelessly relevant.

“By almost any standard,” Duncan told a Columbia University audience of students, teachers, and faculty, “many if not most of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st century classroom.” While this statement is unequivocally true, Duncan's failure to state what specific component is 'mediocre' renders the potential effectiveness of the statement itself-at best mediocre.  The abstractness of this earlier, 'mediocrity' claim is indicative of the circumlocutory speech that merely calls for, rather than offers a solution. Duncan does, however, reference what he considers 'pristine' models of schools of education. The shared characteristic that contributes to each of these programs' effectiveness is the central emphasis of a practicum or field experience.

To this end, I consider myself blessed to be a part of an equally propitious program- Mississippi Teacher Corps. Being able to immediately introduce the practical components of 'Advanced Methods in English' to my seventh grade class only two days after receiving instruction, both actualizes coursework and prevents instruction from becoming at all theoretical. Taking this course in preparation, rather than in conjunction with teaching would not have rendered the same lucrative advantage.

In especially the 21^st century, teacher roles and responsibilities are ever-more demanding. At a time when teachers are required to not only instruct, but moreover be TST coordinators, committee coordinators, parent-teacher coordinators, behavior incentive activity coordinators, academic and behavior interventionists, as well as psychologists and/or (at times) social workers, not to mention literacy and exceptional education specialists - preparation today needs to require students to teach while receiving training. Preparation should include training in how to differentiate instruction and how to provide advisory services to students. The best training in this type of individualized education is not conceptual, but rather requires the teacher to regularly implement and actualize differentiated instructional practices with each of their students.

Critics of teacher preparation programs say that current teacher-training programs are too heavily steeped in theory and not useful in the classroom. They say that those who teach in schools of education are clueless about how to reach children with dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, Asperger’s syndrome or other learning challenges. To this end, Duncan understands that the only way to evaluate a teacher-training program is to look at how the teachers perform once in the classroom; the only way to do that is to measure how the students are doing.

With so much scrutiny aimed at measuring student performance from kindergarten to high school, many education schools never get around to asking the high-stakes questions about how well teachers are doing in their profession, where they received their training, how much they learned, and what can be improved. Until we start scrutinizing this part of the process, and look at who is teaching the teachers, we’ll never empower students to reach their academic potential and create a workforce that is globally competitive.

though i think arne duncan's speech on "teacher colleges" was pretty well-crafted, i don't know if i truly still understand the concept of a teacher's college.  before i get into explaining why perhaps the most important thing could be to fund these institutions, i think i need to see if i actually believe in what they are aimed at doing.

I have to preface this by saying that I was about 3 feet away from Secretary Arne Duncan this May at a Neko Case concert in DC.  She brought him up on stage to talk to us about how educators are very important and we should all thank them and maybe consider being one.  James was there, too, and we gave ourselves preemptive pats on the back, and it’s so funny and surreal that now I’m reflecting on his speech with a whole heap of understanding that I lacked back in May. I’d say that then I didn’t even know why an educator was important.  I thought I did, but I didn’t.

            While reading this speech, I was trying to figure out what Arne Duncan thinks a “good teacher” is.  He uses the words “talent” and “calling,” which makes me think that he feels some people are born with a gift to teach (and I am currently thinking that the gift involves being a very engaging person and a very patient one).  Secretary Duncan wants to attract and retain  “great talent,” and he wants this talent to come from a teaching preparation program that can consistently churn out teachers that have high “student performance.”  I am guessing, though I was not sure from the article, that student performance is based on performance on standardized tests.  Basing it on letter grades would be too subjective, so standardized test scores are the only things that make sense.  Sec. Duncan speaks about “that one teacher” that we’ll never forget.  I’d say that most of us teachers had that one teacher.  I definitely did, but I can tell you for sure that “increased performance” were two words that never crossed her mind.  Mind you, we were NOT in a critical-needs school, so the circumstances were different.. I do firmly believe, though, that the reason why she was so wonderful and effective and engaging was because she was creating that kind of infectious enthusiasm for learning that Sec. Duncan speaks about in his speech.  She had a lot of trouble from the administration and downright refused to write the objective on her board every day.  Maybe some days I could not tell you what, in concrete terms, I was supposed to do in that classroom (ie. Find the direct object of a sentence.)  However, I learned so much from that class- about how to be a discerning, thoughtful, self-sufficient human being who can rely on my own capacity for rational thought- a skill that is priceless and would do every single one of my students a world of good.   I came into this profession with those dreamy visions in my head and I am unwilling to give them up.  I don’t have as much opportunity to influence my students in this way while teaching Pre-Algebra, or at least my fervor and passion don’t exist as much there and my talent feels buried sometimes.  I DO feel, though, that if the “strong anti-intellectual bias, enhanced by a total lack of imagination” were not present in teaching programs (in general, I’m not really talking about most MTC classes here) that would be a great asset to teachers.  My problems in teaching Math, though, lie in a lack of concrete skills provided to me.  I would LOVE for someone to come to me and say, “Here are 4 things you can do to have a more engaging math lesson.” Or “Here is a way to make a test that looks like the MCT2.”  This is what I need to be more effective.  

I have to preface this by saying that I was about 3 feet away from Secretary Arne Duncan this May at a Neko Case concert in DC.  She brought him up on stage to talk to us about how educators are very important and we should all thank them and maybe consider being one.  James was there, too, and we gave ourselves preemptive pats on the back, and it’s so funny and surreal that now I’m reflecting on his speech with a whole heap of understanding that I lacked back in May. I’d say that then I didn’t even know why an educator was important.  I thought I did, but I didn’t.

            While reading this speech, I was trying to figure out what Arne Duncan thinks a “good teacher” is.  He uses the words “talent” and “calling,” which makes me think that he feels some people are born with a gift to teach (and I am currently thinking that the gift involves being a very engaging person and a very patient one).  Secretary Duncan wants to attract and retain  “great talent,” and he wants this talent to come from a teaching preparation program that can consistently churn out teachers that have high “student performance.”  I am guessing, though I was not sure from the article, that student performance is based on performance on standardized tests.  Basing it on letter grades would be too subjective, so standardized test scores are the only things that make sense.  Sec. Duncan speaks about “that one teacher” that we’ll never forget.  I’d say that most of us teachers had that one teacher.  I definitely did, but I can tell you for sure that “increased performance” were two words that never crossed her mind.  Mind you, we were NOT in a critical-needs school, so the circumstances were different.. I do firmly believe, though, that the reason why she was so wonderful and effective and engaging was because she was creating that kind of infectious enthusiasm for learning that Sec. Duncan speaks about in his speech.  She had a lot of trouble from the administration and downright refused to write the objective on her board every day.  Maybe some days I could not tell you what, in concrete terms, I was supposed to do in that classroom (ie. Find the direct object of a sentence.)  However, I learned so much from that class- about how to be a discerning, thoughtful, self-sufficient human being who can rely on my own capacity for rational thought- a skill that is priceless and would do every single one of my students a world of good.   I came into this profession with those dreamy visions in my head and I am unwilling to give them up.  I don’t have as much opportunity to influence my students in this way while teaching Pre-Algebra, or at least my fervor and passion don’t exist as much there and my talent feels buried sometimes.  I DO feel, though, that if the “strong anti-intellectual bias, enhanced by a total lack of imagination” were not present in teaching programs (in general, I’m not really talking about most MTC classes here) that would be a great asset to teachers.  My problems in teaching Math, though, lie in a lack of concrete skills provided to me.  I would LOVE for someone to come to me and say, “Here are 4 things you can do to have a more engaging math lesson.” Or “Here is a way to make a test that looks like the MCT2.”  This is what I need to be more effective.  

I have to preface this by saying that I was about 3 feet away from Secretary Arne Duncan this May at a Neko Case concert in DC.  She brought him up on stage to talk to us about how educators are very important and we should all thank them and maybe consider being one.  James was there, too, and we gave ourselves preemptive pats on the back, and it’s so funny and surreal that now I’m reflecting on his speech with a whole heap of understanding that I lacked back in May. I’d say that then I didn’t even know why an educator was important.  I thought I did, but I didn’t.

            While reading this speech, I was trying to figure out what Arne Duncan thinks a “good teacher” is.  He uses the words “talent” and “calling,” which makes me think that he feels some people are born with a gift to teach (and I am currently thinking that the gift involves being a very engaging person and a very patient one).  Secretary Duncan wants to attract and retain  “great talent,” and he wants this talent to come from a teaching preparation program that can consistently churn out teachers that have high “student performance.”  I am guessing, though I was not sure from the article, that student performance is based on performance on standardized tests.  Basing it on letter grades would be too subjective, so standardized test scores are the only things that make sense.  Sec. Duncan speaks about “that one teacher” that we’ll never forget.  I’d say that most of us teachers had that one teacher.  I definitely did, but I can tell you for sure that “increased performance” were two words that never crossed her mind.  Mind you, we were NOT in a critical-needs school, so the circumstances were different.. I do firmly believe, though, that the reason why she was so wonderful and effective and engaging was because she was creating that kind of infectious enthusiasm for learning that Sec. Duncan speaks about in his speech.  She had a lot of trouble from the administration and downright refused to write the objective on her board every day.  Maybe some days I could not tell you what, in concrete terms, I was supposed to do in that classroom (ie. Find the direct object of a sentence.)  However, I learned so much from that class- about how to be a discerning, thoughtful, self-sufficient human being who can rely on my own capacity for rational thought- a skill that is priceless and would do every single one of my students a world of good.   I came into this profession with those dreamy visions in my head and I am unwilling to give them up.  I don’t have as much opportunity to influence my students in this way while teaching Pre-Algebra, or at least my fervor and passion don’t exist as much there and my talent feels buried sometimes.  I DO feel, though, that if the “strong anti-intellectual bias, enhanced by a total lack of imagination” were not present in teaching programs (in general, I’m not really talking about most MTC classes here) that would be a great asset to teachers.  My problems in teaching Math, though, lie in a lack of concrete skills provided to me.  I would LOVE for someone to come to me and say, “Here are 4 things you can do to have a more engaging math lesson.” Or “Here is a way to make a test that looks like the MCT2.”  This is what I need to be more effective.  

Ok so. This would be one of the last articles that I would choose to write about had I the choice. I don't really know what teaching for me entails yet, so I certainly wont be able to say anything intelligent about how we should teach teachers to teach. I do have that snaking suspicion that something else could be done to prepare us for teaching short of actually just throwing us into the thick of things. But, I’ve already been indoctrinated by my cult-like alma mater to think that all other colleges are a waste of time and money and really just give out degrees for showing up. But I get the feeling this might only be true for some or half or most degrees at some or half or most colleges, in which case, there isn’t anything all that startling about it. However, it does seem like education classes get bad reviews across the board, and it’s not just our strange pseudo master’s classes.

To give some defense for the sad plight that education courses are apparently experiencing, I really don’t feel like teaching can be made into a science. This sentiment is rampant throughout this article.  The one thing I learned from my summer school crash course, and these few months actually teaching, is that teaching is not a science. I like the idea of tracking student performance to help filter out bad education programs that spit out ineffective teachers. But that’s about as far as I’ll go. And I get the feeling that even if people tried to jump behind the completely “systematizing” and pigeonholing teachers and students approach it would at best serve as the new facade for each school district. The wheels would keep turning as they always do underneath. As far as I can tell, you should go into teaching knowing and expecting to get your hands dirty, like hard labor dirty, moving obstinate rocks across what once looked like short distances. Although I suppose the reality is you still move the rocks, but depending on your school district, you might be asked to wear a lab coat at all times which you are expected to keep spotless and sweat-stainless at all times.

Once again, this is all conjecture... and I was hoping not to have much of it after leaving St. John’s. Thanks Ben.

I’ll go for the main points first. I liked the speech because it was both joyful and heartfelt. If I can get through two years and still know how to be joyful, to joke without it being completely bitter or sarcastic, than I’d consider myself blessed. And I wouldn’t even mind still being conflicted in the end about whether or not what I’m doing in Mississippi is worth the effort, theirs and mine. I’d choose living, breathing, feeling conflict over stale  and hardened acceptance any day. I also enjoyed the shout-out to Karl Nastrom. At least I assume it was Nastrom. I liked how his quote filled out in my head. You work hard at teaching and... well Pete said it blows up your face. But I figure that was for lack of a better understanding of the result. Thus a sort of half-joke was engendered. Of course, I don’t believe myself to have a better understanding. I feel like the foundation of my teaching experience, my job, the students learning experience, academically and non-academically, is confusion. You put more work into teaching, you get more confused. Pete at the very least seems to know as little about his effect as I do, a few months in. And somehow I’m not at all surprised. I really can’t stress enough though how much I enjoyed the jokes in the beginning. And they really seemed substantial. In the way puns can’t even pretend to be. Or most one liners from comics you don’t actually know, or haven’t shared a common experience with. Unfortunately for my teaching persona, I’m not able to attempt those sorts of laughs with my students. It’s nice to know that there’s potential for MTC people, even though we are as varied as we seem. Side note: I’m wondering about Madison now... I definitely didn’t get the jokes and am not clever enough to deduce the truth from them. I’d love to know more... any takers.

Its crazy to me that a family asked Pete to speak at their daughter’s funeral. It’s crazy on so many levels. That sounds like a movie to me. And the very last thing I expected when coming to Mississippi was to find myself in the middle of the Freedom Writers script or something. Once again, I am sufficiently befuddled. All I can think of to do is congratulate Pete. It must have been worth your effort.

Terrance Buckner is a teenager from Brooklyn and a graduate of the mothshop which seems to be some sort of creativity workshop where people get together and tell stories and read poems and the like. Anyway Terrance decided to share with an audience at the moth shop his experience of persecution when he first admitted he was gay to his family and classmates. Terrance tells a story where he admits to his mother that he is gay(because he feels she needs to know) and his brother finds out. His brother pronounces this the next day at school and people start questioning Terrance on his sexuality, to which Terrance admits he is homosexual. He then faces ridicule from friends and classmates and gets jumped after school. The next day Terrance decides to stand up to the bullies symbolically by wearing his "skinny" pants, sending the message that the bullying was not going to defeat him. In the end, Terrance feels he has won because he didn't let the bullying change who he was.
The story as a whole was a pretty stereotypical gay bullying story and its too bad that it happened. Unfortunately apart of being homosexual is being different(in terms of sexuality) from most of the population and kids pick on other kids who they deem as "different" or "wierd". Even though homosexuality is far more accepted now than it was in the past, the very nature that homosexuals make up a relatively small percentage of the population means that gay kids will always receive some ridicule or persecution from the peers, although this decreases with age.
As far as the story's relationship to teaching and education I suppose the moral of the story is to know who to trust, don't gossip, don't ruffle feathers, and always be yourself. Don't ever let others' negativity prevent you from being who you are and becoming the best person you can be.

The Rita Bender discussion was very interesting. First of all, I am absolubtely fascinated with American history. My grandfather was a civil war buff and collected old civil war antiques and would show me them from time to time. He also kept extensive historical data on my ancestors. He actually wrote a book documenting family trees and biographies on every ancestor of mine dating back seven generations. So needless to say, I was immediately hooked when given the opportunity to view actual excerpts from historically used textbooks. Its' so much better to recieve information from a primary source, and you really got to learn a lot about Mississippi culture at the time by viewing those documents. It's one thing to hear about past racial attitudes, but its quite another to actually be able to hold and view original documents of the time. Its' easy to see how so many people of the time grew up with racial bias as it was being blatanly taught in schools and without black and white school integration it was easy for the ideas expressed in the book to be accepted without question. Also the damage that the text may have had to the psyche of black schoolchildren is forseeable.
The questions in the essay contest also highlight significant racial bias and it was eye opening that that was being ingrained in Mississippi youth in the 1950's. Overall, the documents taught me more about Mississippi's racial history than anything I have heard since arriving. Again this goes back to being given actual education documents that were ditributed in the past to Mississippians.
The discussion itself was less educational than the historical documents and turned into more of a heated regional battle among MTC'ers with native northerners making broad unfair generalizations about the south and native southerners making unfair broad generalizations about New England.
The day concluded with an argument about whether a teacher who was teaching in a predominantly black school who had a stuffed monkey in her room was an ignorant racist(or something to that extent). Honestly I think we should be past the point where anyone associates black people with monkeys and I think the idea that someone would make that association was completely lost on the teacher. I don't think it was a big deal either way, but if it bothered one of the parents then it should be removed so the class can move on.