I have mixed feelings on Callahan Elementary School. It is a rather small school, located not too far from federal hill and the Rhode Island state house; however, the street on which it is located exhibits crowded, worn down tenant apartments, a small Latin-American general store, and a large swimming pool that has been drained for an unknown reason. It is certainly interesting how your impression of the city of Providence can change from one street to the next.
Upon entering the building there is a large administrative office on the right where the secretaries' and principal's desks are located. I need to proceed upstairs and to get to my 3rd grade classroom. As I walked down the halls I noticed that all of the teachers were using the same type of teaching strategy--I later found out that they each have a language comp. book that tells teachers everything from the vocabulary words to point out to what questions to ask and when. It annoyed me a bit, but I digress. That is a subject for another entry. Plastered all over the hallway walls walls are posters and banners of inspirational sayings from Obama, Martin Luther King, and other esteemed figures. Accompanying them are bulletin boards that showcase student work. Some exhibit multiplication tables, others science experiments, but there is really only one bulletin board that shows anything that I would consider "relevant". One teacher has a bulletin board that pictures and introduces the interests and lifestyles of each student. This provides a means for students to establish differences between students in a school comprised mainly of children classifiable as "minorities". The reason that this bulletin board is the single one that I give much credit to is simple, it is the only one that shows something real.
Let me elaborate. The bulletin board out side of my classroom shows sentence structure and compound words. This would be fine if each student actually knew how to write in sentences adequately--or spell, for that matter. I know now, from being in the classroom with the teacher, that many of the activities placed on said bulletin board are done as a class with the teacher leading them. Of course the students are going to do an activity correctly if they are only copying something off of a chalkboard. In working with the students, I have watched them fall behind in math, simply because they have trouble taking notes or spelling words. By the time they finish writing, the teacher is done explaining the assignment and many students are left lost. Consequently, none of the bulletin boards actually represent any of the successes in the classroom, in fact, I find them misleading.
If anyone has any question about that statement, all he/she would have to do is enter my classroom. The teacher posts all of the student's most recent math tests on the wall inside, and over half have received a C- or worse. Obviously something is wrong here. One could argue that this acts as a motivational tool for the students; however, I would argue that it is merely the beginning of Shor's "cooling out" process. This act is only letting the whole class know that a student doesn't know what he/she is doing, and furthermore, that it is okay because they are in good company. If anything, it should not be a motivational tool for the students, but rather for the teacher.
The teacher is very nice, but she doesn't really seem to enjoy what she is doing. People always say, "People who can't do, teach," but I don't think that is exactly how it works. Teaching too often becomes a profession adopted as a backup, or a safety net to fall into, in case an individual's true passions don't work out. There have been so many instances in my volunteering experience where I have thought, "I would have handled that differently". Teaching, by nature, is a profession that requires passion, and lots of it. Therefore, I would attest that the saying should be revised, evolving from, "those who can't do, teach," to the more relevant, "Those who love teaching, teach."
I would like to respond using Jonathan Kozol's "Still Separate, Still Unequal" article. Education and inequality in our schools is on the rise since urban schools are resegregating. White dominant population bus their children to a white school. Black schools segregate the White in enrollment numbers. Some of these schools became known as where kids go when they can't be granted admission somewhere else. 'Diverse' schools usually are classified as such when they have as little as 3% White, Asian or Middle Eastern students! Economic times have changed but the budgets that were cut were never restored, reinstating the 'separate but equal' rationale of 'Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) by the Supreme Court and perpetuating a 'dual' society. Budget money awarded varies according to neighborhoods and areas, which adds to the inequality in education for students. Teacher salaries are lower in underpriveleged areas so the teachers leave for higher paying jobs. the students need teachers who do not "come and go". Early schooling opportunities differ economically and it reveals itself later when the children who did not receive the educational opportunities do poorly on tests and are not promoted to the next grade. We need to dissolve unequalities in education of children and curriculum. As Jonathan Kozol stated "There is something deeply hypocritical about a society that holds an eight -year -old inner city child 'accountable' for her performance on a high stakes standardized exam but does not hold the high officials of our government accountable for robbing her of what they gave their own kids six or seven years earlier." (Jonathan Kozol. "Still Separate, Still Uneaual: America's Educational Apartheid" Harper's Magazine v.311, n. 1864. 1sep2005.)
ReplyDeleteIt is really unfortunate in the way that schools are run and the lack of actual true learning that happens because. Schools are so focused on making it look like they are motivational, successful and full of learning. However, this is never the case. Because of all of the state mandated rules and regulations that schools must follow, their only task is to make it look as though they are meeting their standards. Things like the NCLB act backfired and now students are not really learning, they are just learning how to pass the tests and make it look as if they are working hard. However, this act has really left children behind.
ReplyDeleteIt is also unfortunate that these children are unable to catch up. It seems as if they they have not had equal opportunities in their schooling. Just as Kozol suggested, all students should receive equal education and opportunities. If you ignore the problem it will not get better. However, I think that is exactly what the teachers are doing. And because of that the students are not succeeding and they will continue to suffer.