social capital, cultural capital, and alternative schools

These days I'm thinking a lot about access equity and alternative schools. There are clear, logistical barriers to getting low income, non-white students into progressive private, and even charter schools. Working class families possess the types of social capital that are not shown to be beneficial in schools (Horvat, et al. 2003). For instance, working class families are less likely to know teachers or professionals who could help them negotiate challenges related to their children's schooling (disabilities, choosing teachers, etc). Moreover, the cultural capital of working class and non-white Americans is not respected or drawn on in traditional schools (Lareau, 1987), making school-centered social capital even more critical for those who do not tend to have it. Both of these capital limitations pose direct barriers to traditional education as well as access to alternative education. For example, students whose parents are not connected with their teachers and with professionals will be less likely to have access to outside resources for buttressing their child's education, and they will also have less access to information about alternative school opportunities. Private schools are expensive, but even for charters and magnets, parents have to know about and apply to them/enter their lotteries.
This is a preamble to addressing the broad category of readings we have done in this class which could be loosely described as case studies of alternative learning environments. These examples have been largely characterized by, 1) luxury of time, 2) luxury of resources (star stickers are not luxurious, but allowing a student to use as many as she wants is), 3) low teacher-student ratio, and 4) teachers and administrators who share and are driven by a common mission. These characteristics are rare. Teacher attitudes and philosophies run the gamut, and disagreement between and among teachers and administrators can sabotage even the best teachers. Material resources and teacher student ratios are pernicious and common problems, but one could see basic solutions for them. Time, however, cannot be invented, and the tension about time and learning has been a frequent topic raised by this class.
Movement through school and from school into society is structured around a development timeline. Most people, including many educators, do not question the imposition of a developmental schedule for the lives of children. Frameworks, curricula, standards, and even the concept of a classroom, are all based on the idea that there is a certain fact that all children should be learning at exactly the same time. Disagreeing with this idea and seeking out opportunities for your child to learn at his or her own pace is a decision of privilege. The American education discourse revolves around discussions of the achievement gap, and in most cases, efforts to address this have sought to aggressively prep "at-risk" students for standardized tests. Working class parents and parents of color are understandably focused on helping their kids compete in white, middle class society. To this end, they largely channel their energies in support of their children's education in terms of traditional measures of achievement. Lisa Delpit poignantly and critically examines this phenomenon.
This line of thinking is to suggest that in addition to the clearer barriers of access faced by working class parents and parents of color, there are ideological barriers that have been created by the way we as a nation frame educational inequality. Progressive educators are perhaps creating another tiered educational system by emphasizing the need to close the achievement gap as defined by standardized tests while simultaneously devising private, charter, and independent schools that reject standards-based education for its inhumane treatment of children and inability to develop the cognitive and non-cognitive skills we want our kids to have.
Educators should be looking at how children attain sustained, critical learning, but it is our responsibility to make sure that these ways of "having wonderful ideas," if they are truly the "best way" to learn, are accessed by all children.

Reflecting on Going to the Movies

The in-class demo of Going to the Movies was very useful insofar as it gave me a model of responses to difficult situations and impasses in this type of field work (e.g. subject's attention drifts, she is unable to explain what she is doing in a manner that illuminates her thinking, she resists suggestions that she review what she has to make sure she doesn't have repeats, etc.) I found the game that Dr. Duckworth played (having subject close her eyes, removing a row, reopening eyes and identifying) to be the most useful aspect of the demo, both in terms of helping me know how to do the work and in helping the child begin to see patterns.
The experience was bizarre; I have never observed a child without interacting with her, and I think it made me more uncomfortable than the situation made her. I did the fieldwork last week with a peer, but seeing it done with a 6-year old made me really want to find a child with whom I could conduct this exercise.
One of the central discomfiting elements was that I could not figure out what the girl was thinking and there were long stretches when she did not seem engaged and I did not feel that she was really trying to figure out the question of the work. In the end she did seem to have figured out something of a system, but I was skeptical about the strength of that experience. In other words, if we were to do an exercise that required her to do essentially the same task, but with a twist, would she begin where she left off with the paperclips? If not, would she at least move more quickly through the task, either consciously or subconsciously drawing on what she learned? The overarching question here is: how do we know when learning has happened? We can see progress in a session, and we can assume that there is a cumulative influence of small lessons over time, but how can educators know when a skill has been acquired, when an idea is understood in such a way that it will be transferable to other types or moments of learning? This same question is relevant in more traditional models of learning. How do we know that a kid really understands equations just because she passed an algebra test? So much is at stake in education, and I believe in non-traditional education, but how can I advocate for a model of learning that would require such a massive overhaul of education when I don't know how to evaluate its efficacy? How do I make other people believe? Do we need more research, or do we just need to publicize and package what there is? How can we combine what we know about the positive effects of this work with what we know about the dehumanizing effects of traditional public education.
A big question for me to consider this semester (and beyond)--How do I synthesize the lessons of my classes and see the arts as a method of learning, humanizing schools, engaging family and community in learning, and reinforcing a positive school-defined social role? When this can happen, schools will be more humane, more efficacious in teaching kids what they need, and students will achieve and attain at higher levels.

role of teacher--re a111a in particular

I am feeling some ideological dissonance between my sets of classes, Dropping Out of High School/School,Family, Community Partnerships v. T440/S300. This resonates with me:
"If being educated means no longer needing a teacher--a definition I would recommend--it would mean that you had been presented with models of teaching, or people playing this external role, and that you have learned how the role was played and how to play it for yourself....What we hope, of course, is that as the formal, institutional part of education is finished, its most conspicuous and valuable product will be seen to be the child's ability to educate himself. If this doesn't happen, it doesn't make sense to say that the processes we try to initiate in school are going to be carried on when people leave school."
I, Thou, and It, p. 54

too much of the education talk in this country is centered around artificial goals, but here is a genuine and legitimate goal for schooling--prepare people to teach themselves. Of course we should be concerned with whether kids can get jobs, but framing the goal of education in terms of economic competitiveness not only obscures a more wonderful goal such as the one above, but it also denies that fact that students with HS diplomas are more likely to get jobs or higher paying jobs because employers assume that a HS diploma is evidence of a host of cognitive and non-cognitive skills they want in an employee. Some of these are probably taught in schools--like obedience. But doesn't every employer want an independent thinker, a problem solver, a "self-starter"?

I, Thou, and It

"in human affairs generally, "love is not enough." The more basic gift is not love but respect, respect for others as ends in themselves, as actual and potential artisans of their own learnings and doings, of their own lives; and as thus uniquely contributing, in turn, to the learnings and doings of others."

Initial Thoughts

[This blog will serve as my process journal for T440, "The Having of Wonderful Ideas" with Professor Eleanor Duckworth]

I look forward to surrendering myself to this class; I am pretty sure it will be the most challenging academic experience I have ever had insofar as it is is completely different for every other class I have taken, including art classes. The point is not right answers or end points or researching authorities. The point is to have wonderful ideas.

Before coming to HGSE, I read essays from The Having of Wonderful Ideas and was blown away. I had studied with Freirians before, but never ones who adopted the approach in their own teacher training, nor those who extended the methods beyond the arts and informal learning environments, into the academic classroom. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to study with such a person. When I arrived, however, and began looking through the course catalog at all the offering I began to question the validity of taking HWI as one of my precious few options. Wouldn't I learn more in a class that was more traditional? I realized that in spite of my initial impressions of Dr. Duckworth's approaches and analyses, I--an artist an arts educator--was stuck in a mindset of standards and tests as the ultimate measures of learning. My learning experiences growing up were so competitive and grade-based that my own judgement was trumped by my ingrained values.

"Going to the Movies" was wonderful. Like many in the class, I remembered the formula to answer the question. Only when I later looked at the assignment did I realize that "that question" (how many there are) was not asked. I had heard what I expected to hear. As did the girl with whom I conducted the exercise this weekend. The tendency to answer a question with a rote formula is so pervasive, the impression that we are being tested even when all signs suggest that we are not, is so pervasive that it overpowers our inputs. Why would we be doing this exercise if not to come up with a correct answer? The formula fails us once again when we are asked how we can tell that we have them all and no repeats. My answer was "by looking," but I knew that I had 24. Pressed further, I said something like "well, everything takes a turn being in first place, then in second and then there are only 2 choices an the the next one goes in pace 2." My subject's answer was "because I did it methodically," but she also counted. When I showed her a repeat, it did not shake her much, because she knew the "answer."

I have high hopes for this class. Some are so personal and individual that no class could meet them. I hope that the class liberates me from the need to have the right answer. I hope the class encourages me to figure out things on my own, instead of relying on finding experts, even if other people are watching. This class is already challenging me to rethink the value and functions of my own thoughts on learner confidence, and I think that is the first step.