This text was dense to read. It was repetitive with a brief sense that some of those repetitions were actually achieving a sense of growth on the point being made. Yet once I finished reading and looked back at the statements being made, I found that I understood social structure a little more than a did before. And the very last paragraph is what I will always remember.
"...Those whose cultural capital most closely resembled my own were the students with whom I initially felt most comfortable, spent the most instructional time, and most often encouraged to work in an independent manner."
As teachers, we are taught that every student has worth and should be driven to succeed. We are taught that we should include the background knowledge of our students as often as possible, because what they bring to the table cannot be duplicated. We are told that we should understand that not every student is capable of giving their best every day - they are hungry, they are homeless, there was a death in the family, English is not their first language. We are taught that diversity will help our classrooms and students to grow and succeed in the global world they now live in.
But this is the first time that someone had broached the subject of unconscious discrimination by a teacher. McLaren is not saying that teachers go out of their way to give extra attention to certain students. Instead, he is saying that teachers unconsciously gravitate towards those whose socioeconomic, cultural, or gender is similar to their own. Those are the students that a teacher can more easily relate to. Those are the students that they expect more out of or trust more with the work. This is not a choice, this is simply what is safe and comfortable. But it is now something that I am thinking about. My mind is racing ... how often do I do this in my life ... do I ever make the conscious decision to avoid what is unknown in people ... How can I make this better ...
My eyes are open. I'm noticing tendencies in myself that I do not approve of. And going into the future, leading diverse classrooms, interacting with individuals who I consciously KNOW had great and unique things to offer, I hope to never forget this. A teacher is always rethinking what they have done and what they will do. They assess themselves as much as their students. And I have now found something new to add to my checklist of self assessments.
Am I seeing the great potential in ALL of my students and giving my best to ALL of my students and expecting the best back?
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Monday, January 26, 2015
PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED
Fundamentally. the point of view of this single chapter offers a strong point. A point that I could support. Unfortunately, the work itself sets my teeth on edge and I cannot swallow it without grimacing. The basic premise of this chapter is that teachers should not simply stand before a class as if they are the all knowing depositor of knowledge in the empty vessels which are called students. That instead of the vast distance between the position of 'teacher' and that of 'student' the roles should be combined. Teachers should admit that they are constantly learning from their students and students should be given the chance to offer their knowledge on whatever subject is being discussed. I agree wholeheartedly with this concept. In my future English classes I hope to lead many discussions among my students. I want to hear what they thought or felt about the subject at hand. I want my students to work together to create the intellectual world they inhabit. I think that in an English class it is highly problematic to teach literature where the only interpretation is the one that the teacher offers. Students are diverse, they have experiences and cultures which no other human has ever had. Students have unique ways of looking at the world and expressing it. I want to give these tendencies as many chances to grow as I can.
Then I read this chapter and was reminded of a sign I recently saw. It spoke of how Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc, were not the enemy ... extremism was. I feel the same applies to this text. The idea of celebrating and using a student's individual knowledge in the classroom is a wonderful one. This text instead makes it sound as though the current system (which the author posits does not incorporate student knowledge) is a threatening dictatorship which is creating mindless automatons through its education system. The text paints education is a great evil within the limits of the current system and that it is destroying fundamental human rights. This view point is extremism at its finest. The system is flawed, I agree. And when the text was written in 1993 there were still miles to go before student voice was regarded as a fundamental part of learning. I would not go so far as to consider it the source of evil that this text paints it to be. Changes had already begun in the education system by the time this was written. Educators were growing to understand that the old ways of teaching were leaving far to many children unprepared by graduation. There is no mention of growth or changes in the text. In fact, the text itself has only small portions of intellectually gratifying inclusions. I admit that there is a great deal of quotes from great books and historical authors. The language used is complex, though at times grammatically incorrect. It is the fact that pages of this chapter are repetitious and unhelpful to anyone who might want to take up the torch lit within these words and move the system forward. My above mentioned agreements with the text contain most of the useful advice that the authors offers on how to best move beyond what he calls "the banking method of teaching." The remainder is an emotional tangle of disquiet about the current system.
I spent most of my reading grimacing or groaning or rubbing my forehead in frustration at the overworked tirade that the vast majority of this chapter contains. I agree that simple memorization of facts is not the only way, and often not the best way, to teach a student. Yet the fact remains that the human brain works in such a multitude of ways that there are learners who need to memorize facts to comprehend the material. Teachers cannot ignore those learners simply because discussion is better at facilitating critical thinking in most cases.
Then I read this chapter and was reminded of a sign I recently saw. It spoke of how Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc, were not the enemy ... extremism was. I feel the same applies to this text. The idea of celebrating and using a student's individual knowledge in the classroom is a wonderful one. This text instead makes it sound as though the current system (which the author posits does not incorporate student knowledge) is a threatening dictatorship which is creating mindless automatons through its education system. The text paints education is a great evil within the limits of the current system and that it is destroying fundamental human rights. This view point is extremism at its finest. The system is flawed, I agree. And when the text was written in 1993 there were still miles to go before student voice was regarded as a fundamental part of learning. I would not go so far as to consider it the source of evil that this text paints it to be. Changes had already begun in the education system by the time this was written. Educators were growing to understand that the old ways of teaching were leaving far to many children unprepared by graduation. There is no mention of growth or changes in the text. In fact, the text itself has only small portions of intellectually gratifying inclusions. I admit that there is a great deal of quotes from great books and historical authors. The language used is complex, though at times grammatically incorrect. It is the fact that pages of this chapter are repetitious and unhelpful to anyone who might want to take up the torch lit within these words and move the system forward. My above mentioned agreements with the text contain most of the useful advice that the authors offers on how to best move beyond what he calls "the banking method of teaching." The remainder is an emotional tangle of disquiet about the current system.
I spent most of my reading grimacing or groaning or rubbing my forehead in frustration at the overworked tirade that the vast majority of this chapter contains. I agree that simple memorization of facts is not the only way, and often not the best way, to teach a student. Yet the fact remains that the human brain works in such a multitude of ways that there are learners who need to memorize facts to comprehend the material. Teachers cannot ignore those learners simply because discussion is better at facilitating critical thinking in most cases.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
A Response-Based Approach to Reading Literature
As I read this article, I was constantly reminded of just how far the art of teaching has come in only the last few years. Yes, this article is talking about a change in teaching styles and that is a great example. But I am speaking more about the education that new teachers are receiving. The article states that all of the teachers who participated had at least 10 years of teaching experience and that these new ideas were difficult for them to use at first. Being a future teacher myself, I have come across these teaching styles in multiple ways. I have been in classes which used the idea of a response-based approach. Two of them notably come to mind.
The first was a Shakespeare class which I absolutely adored. This class was conducted some days with the desks in a large circle. The entire class would engage in discussion of the work we were currently reading. The teacher only rarely chimed in and those comments were little more than a nudge for the class to keep speaking, encouragement for voicing an interesting idea, or a heartfelt question on whether two ideas presented might connect in some way. It was true that there were more vocal students and quieter ones, but as a whole the class had a great deal to say on the subject. I found that these conversations often lead to the catalyst for what I would write my next essay on.
The second class that stands out to me did not in fact begin as a classroom run on the response-based approach. It was a literature class. Yet the teacher was convinced that there was a very specific way to interpret each piece that we read. It was painfully obvious that this classroom was not talkative in any way when called upon. Speaking from my own perspective, I was afraid to speak. Not because I dislike speaking in public, but I was certain that whatever I said would not be the correct answer. This entire class was disheartening and I hated going. The last week of class, however, a different teacher stepped in to fill our regular teacher's missing shoes. She placed us, as with the Shakespeare class, into a communication circle. She would encourage us with comments on the intelligence and/or ingenuity of our answers. Our previously stifled and awkward class discussions melted away under this new class structure. Every class member had something to say about the topic. We had insights and comments on our fellow classmates points of view. There was hardly a quiet moment. And I learned more in that one week than I felt that I had for the entire preceding quarter.
These experiences have driven me to believe that in my future classrooms I will create circular communication days. I've had classes where this structure fell flat, but the majority have more than risen to the occasion. This is the education that I am currently receiving. As a student, we are informed on the strict nature that some assessments and certain schools insist upon. I have been walked through state mandated testing in both general education classrooms and English Language Learner classrooms. But I have also been taught, and more importantly experienced, the expanded growth possibilities that allowing a response-based approach to literature can provide. I'm proud that the new batch of teachers in schools right now are learning these new techniques. I am proud to be one of them.
The first was a Shakespeare class which I absolutely adored. This class was conducted some days with the desks in a large circle. The entire class would engage in discussion of the work we were currently reading. The teacher only rarely chimed in and those comments were little more than a nudge for the class to keep speaking, encouragement for voicing an interesting idea, or a heartfelt question on whether two ideas presented might connect in some way. It was true that there were more vocal students and quieter ones, but as a whole the class had a great deal to say on the subject. I found that these conversations often lead to the catalyst for what I would write my next essay on.
The second class that stands out to me did not in fact begin as a classroom run on the response-based approach. It was a literature class. Yet the teacher was convinced that there was a very specific way to interpret each piece that we read. It was painfully obvious that this classroom was not talkative in any way when called upon. Speaking from my own perspective, I was afraid to speak. Not because I dislike speaking in public, but I was certain that whatever I said would not be the correct answer. This entire class was disheartening and I hated going. The last week of class, however, a different teacher stepped in to fill our regular teacher's missing shoes. She placed us, as with the Shakespeare class, into a communication circle. She would encourage us with comments on the intelligence and/or ingenuity of our answers. Our previously stifled and awkward class discussions melted away under this new class structure. Every class member had something to say about the topic. We had insights and comments on our fellow classmates points of view. There was hardly a quiet moment. And I learned more in that one week than I felt that I had for the entire preceding quarter.
These experiences have driven me to believe that in my future classrooms I will create circular communication days. I've had classes where this structure fell flat, but the majority have more than risen to the occasion. This is the education that I am currently receiving. As a student, we are informed on the strict nature that some assessments and certain schools insist upon. I have been walked through state mandated testing in both general education classrooms and English Language Learner classrooms. But I have also been taught, and more importantly experienced, the expanded growth possibilities that allowing a response-based approach to literature can provide. I'm proud that the new batch of teachers in schools right now are learning these new techniques. I am proud to be one of them.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
The SIOP Model
Having taken an entire school year to study teaching English Language Learners, the SIOP Method became my bread and butter in some respects. I have already mentioned this fact, and that I now tend to look at all teaching with ELL colored glasses. In fact, I spoke with my previous professor about this new view and he smiled and told me that it wasn't just an ELL centered view. Instead he pointed out that I was actually opening myself up to a culturally inclusive view for my teaching and my classroom. I like this idea even better than my colored glasses. So culturally inclusive it is.
No matter what I call this point of view, a great deal of it has to do with the SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) Model. SIOP is a way to teach ELL students either within purely ELL classrooms or in general education classrooms. In fact, statistics show that all students, not just ELLs, benefit for this type of instruction. Ultimately, it would behoove all teachers to look into SIOP at least once in their careers. The article read for today was a very brief overview of the main points that make up SIOP. Instead of going further down that road, I would rather pick out the pieces that I felt I could add something to.
The first little nugget I am choosing to focus on is the idea of Language Objectives. Every student in the teaching program, or those currently teaching, have heard of Lesson Objectives. These are the goals of the day for the students within the classroom. The students will be able to identify the rising action, climax, and denouement within the text. The students will be able to count by multiples of three from zero to ninety nine. Etc.... Lesson Objectives are specific and attainable and fit with what is actually being taught in the classroom. Language Objectives need to be just as specific and attainable. It is the part where they fit with what is being taught that is the most important. For a teacher to figure out the Language Objectives, they must know exactly what they are going to teach that day and then ask themselves what language their students will need to know to accomplish those tasks. This seemed simple the first time that I heard about it; I was wrong. For the previous Lesson Objective stated where the students will be able to label the points of the plot of a given text, there are multiple language obstacles to overcome. A few might be the vocabulary used (plot, rising action, climax, denouement), the structure of a plot line and how to properly label it, summarizing the action within the text to fit in the plot line, understanding the key terms or phrases within the text that will point to the plot points, and being able to explain what they have discovered to others. There are of course more issues that language learners face, this is merely a short list on one Lesson Objective.
My next little nugget is the idea of Building Background. This section of the article seems to be missing something very important in my opinion: the transfer of L1 knowledge to L2 usage. Let me be more specific. First, I use the term L1 to mean a student's first language. I use this term broadly because their knowledge base may in fact include multiple other languages. I am using the term L2 to mean their conversion to the American English language. A previously stated, this may in fact be their fourth or fifth or sixth learned language. So L1 and L2 are a simplification that encompasses the idea of one or more languages being converted to American English. Now that this little bit of explaining is done, let me make my point about transfer. The article says that it is important for teachers to connect learning as much as possible to what the student has already learned. The connection is much deeper than this statement suggests. In a students first language they may have created helpful learning strategies which they can then apply to what it being taught in the classroom. Students come to the class with a certain number of schema, some more than others. They might be highly aware of the natural world with very little academic study. Knowing this, the teacher can make inferences to the natural world so that the student can connect their current schema with the new academic one being taught. A student may also come from a highly academic culture and be well versed in school culture within their country. This can be a blessing and a curse. Take for example writing an essay in the L1 culture may include a structure that does not seem logical to a Western teacher. The student may be writing in a much more free flowing manner without a concrete beginning, end, or thesis statement. It would help for the teacher to understand that this student is not writing poorly, but following a different schema than is taught in America. The teacher might applaud their work and tell them that they are doing well in that form of writing, then suggest they build on that knowledge to learn a new form of writing an essay. This is more useful in my opinion that the simple overview given on using a students background that was given in this article.
My last little nugget has to do with the Lesson Instruction. Author Stephen Cary in English Language Learners, Answers to Teachers' Top Ten Questions, gives the best example I have come across for what a SIOP lesson should look like while instructions or lectures are being given. He calls his model the Show-and-Tell model and counter is with the Tell-Only model. And he would express his point during presentations to other teachers.
"In order to give teachers a feel for the drawbacks of tell-only modeling, I sometimes abruptly switch to Spanish in the middle of a workshop and describe what somebody in the group is wearing. I describe without showing what I'm describing, then ask question about the description. The second time around, the person stands next to me while I point to and describe each item of clothing - blue sweater, gold necklace, beige slacks, and short-heeled shoes, for example. Folks with little or no Spanish find the exercise slightly jarring, but tolerable and even amusing if I quickly follow the tell-only description with the show-and-tell model. When I save the show-and-tell model for later, however, and run through several back-to-back tell-only descriptions, things turn ugly. Participants squirm, stop listening, and send mild curses my direction. Twice I've had people leave the room ... many also say how frustrated and angry they felt during the tell-only descriptions. Teacher talk quickly shifts to describing how much frustration and anger English beginners must feel when the 'show' component is missing - not for four or five minutes as it was during the workshop, but for hours at a stretch in school" (104).
English Language Learners need instruction that includes visuals, miming, hands on activities ... ultimately show AND tell. And this type of instruction won't just help language learners, studies have proven that this type of instruction is helpful for native speakers as well. It is also helpful for every grade level and every academic ability level.
Don't sell your students short on their learning experience. SIOP is worth the time to investigate!
No matter what I call this point of view, a great deal of it has to do with the SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) Model. SIOP is a way to teach ELL students either within purely ELL classrooms or in general education classrooms. In fact, statistics show that all students, not just ELLs, benefit for this type of instruction. Ultimately, it would behoove all teachers to look into SIOP at least once in their careers. The article read for today was a very brief overview of the main points that make up SIOP. Instead of going further down that road, I would rather pick out the pieces that I felt I could add something to.
The first little nugget I am choosing to focus on is the idea of Language Objectives. Every student in the teaching program, or those currently teaching, have heard of Lesson Objectives. These are the goals of the day for the students within the classroom. The students will be able to identify the rising action, climax, and denouement within the text. The students will be able to count by multiples of three from zero to ninety nine. Etc.... Lesson Objectives are specific and attainable and fit with what is actually being taught in the classroom. Language Objectives need to be just as specific and attainable. It is the part where they fit with what is being taught that is the most important. For a teacher to figure out the Language Objectives, they must know exactly what they are going to teach that day and then ask themselves what language their students will need to know to accomplish those tasks. This seemed simple the first time that I heard about it; I was wrong. For the previous Lesson Objective stated where the students will be able to label the points of the plot of a given text, there are multiple language obstacles to overcome. A few might be the vocabulary used (plot, rising action, climax, denouement), the structure of a plot line and how to properly label it, summarizing the action within the text to fit in the plot line, understanding the key terms or phrases within the text that will point to the plot points, and being able to explain what they have discovered to others. There are of course more issues that language learners face, this is merely a short list on one Lesson Objective.
My next little nugget is the idea of Building Background. This section of the article seems to be missing something very important in my opinion: the transfer of L1 knowledge to L2 usage. Let me be more specific. First, I use the term L1 to mean a student's first language. I use this term broadly because their knowledge base may in fact include multiple other languages. I am using the term L2 to mean their conversion to the American English language. A previously stated, this may in fact be their fourth or fifth or sixth learned language. So L1 and L2 are a simplification that encompasses the idea of one or more languages being converted to American English. Now that this little bit of explaining is done, let me make my point about transfer. The article says that it is important for teachers to connect learning as much as possible to what the student has already learned. The connection is much deeper than this statement suggests. In a students first language they may have created helpful learning strategies which they can then apply to what it being taught in the classroom. Students come to the class with a certain number of schema, some more than others. They might be highly aware of the natural world with very little academic study. Knowing this, the teacher can make inferences to the natural world so that the student can connect their current schema with the new academic one being taught. A student may also come from a highly academic culture and be well versed in school culture within their country. This can be a blessing and a curse. Take for example writing an essay in the L1 culture may include a structure that does not seem logical to a Western teacher. The student may be writing in a much more free flowing manner without a concrete beginning, end, or thesis statement. It would help for the teacher to understand that this student is not writing poorly, but following a different schema than is taught in America. The teacher might applaud their work and tell them that they are doing well in that form of writing, then suggest they build on that knowledge to learn a new form of writing an essay. This is more useful in my opinion that the simple overview given on using a students background that was given in this article.
My last little nugget has to do with the Lesson Instruction. Author Stephen Cary in English Language Learners, Answers to Teachers' Top Ten Questions, gives the best example I have come across for what a SIOP lesson should look like while instructions or lectures are being given. He calls his model the Show-and-Tell model and counter is with the Tell-Only model. And he would express his point during presentations to other teachers.
"In order to give teachers a feel for the drawbacks of tell-only modeling, I sometimes abruptly switch to Spanish in the middle of a workshop and describe what somebody in the group is wearing. I describe without showing what I'm describing, then ask question about the description. The second time around, the person stands next to me while I point to and describe each item of clothing - blue sweater, gold necklace, beige slacks, and short-heeled shoes, for example. Folks with little or no Spanish find the exercise slightly jarring, but tolerable and even amusing if I quickly follow the tell-only description with the show-and-tell model. When I save the show-and-tell model for later, however, and run through several back-to-back tell-only descriptions, things turn ugly. Participants squirm, stop listening, and send mild curses my direction. Twice I've had people leave the room ... many also say how frustrated and angry they felt during the tell-only descriptions. Teacher talk quickly shifts to describing how much frustration and anger English beginners must feel when the 'show' component is missing - not for four or five minutes as it was during the workshop, but for hours at a stretch in school" (104).
English Language Learners need instruction that includes visuals, miming, hands on activities ... ultimately show AND tell. And this type of instruction won't just help language learners, studies have proven that this type of instruction is helpful for native speakers as well. It is also helpful for every grade level and every academic ability level.
Don't sell your students short on their learning experience. SIOP is worth the time to investigate!
Monday, January 12, 2015
The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts Instruction in Grades 6-12
It is my belief that the Common Core State Standards are a balancing act. This article cites some of my reservations, and though it does not adequately resolve any of them it gives a starting place. In the previous blog entry I spoke about how I viewed education with ELL colored glasses. This article managed to feed that view in a few sections. The one in particular that I think of first is Failure to Acknowledge Cultural Diversity. The title says much about the section, but there is a statistic in particular that I have had hanging over my head for years now, "... the majority of students in schools in 2030 will be students from non-dominant cultures ..." One of the specific examples this text gives is about a teacher within a mostly middle class white suburban school. A school which rigidly standardized the curriculum for the entire district. This left the English language arts classes teaching what the article refers to as a "dead white guy" curriculum. The students were not learning about other cultures or cultural points of view. This leaves students unprepared for the globalized world that we currently live in.
Point in fact, one of the Common Core standards for English Literature states that students should be able to "Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature." This standard would be hard to come by in the "dead white guy" curriculum, if not impossible. I fully believe that teachers need to be able to create their own classrooms to suit themselves and their students. Reading the article, this belief is mirrored back to me in multiple places. It is a weight off my chest to have my beliefs reinforced. Yet it is still a practice by many schools to create this "teacher-proof" curriculum. As a future new teacher I am dismayed that there are school districts out there which believe this is better for their students, and I am afraid of finding myself struggling through the trials of my first year in one. I have said it once and I will say it again, I view teaching from an ELL teacher's point of view. The world is vast and complicated and beautiful. Every student I teach should be introduced to as much of it as I can. That will always be my goal. And the above mentioned Common Core standard proves that this goal is a worthy one.
Point in fact, one of the Common Core standards for English Literature states that students should be able to "Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature." This standard would be hard to come by in the "dead white guy" curriculum, if not impossible. I fully believe that teachers need to be able to create their own classrooms to suit themselves and their students. Reading the article, this belief is mirrored back to me in multiple places. It is a weight off my chest to have my beliefs reinforced. Yet it is still a practice by many schools to create this "teacher-proof" curriculum. As a future new teacher I am dismayed that there are school districts out there which believe this is better for their students, and I am afraid of finding myself struggling through the trials of my first year in one. I have said it once and I will say it again, I view teaching from an ELL teacher's point of view. The world is vast and complicated and beautiful. Every student I teach should be introduced to as much of it as I can. That will always be my goal. And the above mentioned Common Core standard proves that this goal is a worthy one.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Discussions in a Democratic Society
I find myself constantly reading material with the bias of an ELL teacher. This particular article was no different. In fact, I believe my ELL background made the information clear and believable in a way it may not have been otherwise. I find myself often wondering how it would be best to integrate ELL students into the classroom. This article focuses on the use of democratic discussion in the classroom. It touts an inclusive atmosphere and one which respects diversity. This is one of the tantamount aspects of ELL integration in a general ed classroom. I will discuss two specific examples of this here, though there are many other important points that have been made within the article.
The first point regards a quote that the authors used in Chapter 1 by Richard Bernstein. "One accepts the fallibility of all inquiry ... One accepts the multiplicity of the perspectives and interpretation. One rejects the quest for certainty, the craving for absolutes, and the idea of the totality in which all differences are finally reconciled. But such pluralism demands an openness to what is different and other, a willingness to risk one's pre-judgments, seeking for common ground without any guarantees that it will be found. It demands - and it is a strenuous demand - that one tries to be responsive to the claims of the other." This quote highlights one of the hopes and one of the greatest threats to the classroom discussion. The hope is that the students will be able to listen attentively to the thoughts and opinions of others. That they will work to understand these other perspectives which may counter their own. The hope is that through discussion students will be able to thread these differences together into some form of common ground and yet still be able to accept that common ground may not be possible. With regards to ELL students this can be intensely more difficult. There can be such vast cultural differences that they use of a single word can mean something completely different between two or more people. There is more hope that the students will work to find understanding and common ground even in the vocabulary that is being used. Often this leads to the possibility of the greatest threat which I mentioned earlier. And that is the inability of students to accept another's background and claims, or at least the inability to try to understand. There is such a history in the world of segregation and injustice that finding the right balance within a classroom, the kind of balance that allows students to feel comfortable sharing and intellectually critiquing each other, can be a very difficult task. It is a threat which has no hint of dissipating within the near future of education. This does not mean that a teacher should give up on discussion, nor does it mean that even if the first few discussions crash down in flames that students cannot rise from those ashes and learn to collaborate in the future.
The second point is in Chapter 2 and builds in the quote from Chapter 1. "There is nothing like students' hearing from each other's lips the diversity of interpretations that can be made of the same apparently objective facts or the same apparently obvious meanings. It's much harder for learners to ignore views that are contrary to their own if they're expressed spontaneously by their peers rather than discovered in a text or mediated through a lecturer's words." When students are exposed to new ideas, new cultures, new experiences, they can firmly latch on to their past knowledge and ideals for a safety net. The unknown is a frightening place to venture into. ELL students are treading water in the unknown on a daily basis. They might read their text books or listen to lectures and believe they are understanding the material. All students have a cultural bias that they are applying to material being learned. This can be helpful and also harmful in the educational environment. Democratic discussion allows these perspectives to be shared. The quote used here I chose specifically because of the words 'apparently' and 'spontaneously.' With a bias of any sort, the information a person gathers is fit into existing models in the mind. If the information is read or copied from a lecture, there is no chance for those models to grow. With discussion the apparently obvious ideas for one student may not be the same for other. And when those new ideas are spontaneously presented then the student does not have the time to work it into the pre-existing model. New understandings can grow from new perspectives, if the students are willing to learn. And the hope, at least for me, is that if students are nudged to grow and understand then acceptance of those who are different should not be far behind.
The first point regards a quote that the authors used in Chapter 1 by Richard Bernstein. "One accepts the fallibility of all inquiry ... One accepts the multiplicity of the perspectives and interpretation. One rejects the quest for certainty, the craving for absolutes, and the idea of the totality in which all differences are finally reconciled. But such pluralism demands an openness to what is different and other, a willingness to risk one's pre-judgments, seeking for common ground without any guarantees that it will be found. It demands - and it is a strenuous demand - that one tries to be responsive to the claims of the other." This quote highlights one of the hopes and one of the greatest threats to the classroom discussion. The hope is that the students will be able to listen attentively to the thoughts and opinions of others. That they will work to understand these other perspectives which may counter their own. The hope is that through discussion students will be able to thread these differences together into some form of common ground and yet still be able to accept that common ground may not be possible. With regards to ELL students this can be intensely more difficult. There can be such vast cultural differences that they use of a single word can mean something completely different between two or more people. There is more hope that the students will work to find understanding and common ground even in the vocabulary that is being used. Often this leads to the possibility of the greatest threat which I mentioned earlier. And that is the inability of students to accept another's background and claims, or at least the inability to try to understand. There is such a history in the world of segregation and injustice that finding the right balance within a classroom, the kind of balance that allows students to feel comfortable sharing and intellectually critiquing each other, can be a very difficult task. It is a threat which has no hint of dissipating within the near future of education. This does not mean that a teacher should give up on discussion, nor does it mean that even if the first few discussions crash down in flames that students cannot rise from those ashes and learn to collaborate in the future.
The second point is in Chapter 2 and builds in the quote from Chapter 1. "There is nothing like students' hearing from each other's lips the diversity of interpretations that can be made of the same apparently objective facts or the same apparently obvious meanings. It's much harder for learners to ignore views that are contrary to their own if they're expressed spontaneously by their peers rather than discovered in a text or mediated through a lecturer's words." When students are exposed to new ideas, new cultures, new experiences, they can firmly latch on to their past knowledge and ideals for a safety net. The unknown is a frightening place to venture into. ELL students are treading water in the unknown on a daily basis. They might read their text books or listen to lectures and believe they are understanding the material. All students have a cultural bias that they are applying to material being learned. This can be helpful and also harmful in the educational environment. Democratic discussion allows these perspectives to be shared. The quote used here I chose specifically because of the words 'apparently' and 'spontaneously.' With a bias of any sort, the information a person gathers is fit into existing models in the mind. If the information is read or copied from a lecture, there is no chance for those models to grow. With discussion the apparently obvious ideas for one student may not be the same for other. And when those new ideas are spontaneously presented then the student does not have the time to work it into the pre-existing model. New understandings can grow from new perspectives, if the students are willing to learn. And the hope, at least for me, is that if students are nudged to grow and understand then acceptance of those who are different should not be far behind.
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