Three legit education questions
Here are three things that are bugging me today.
1. What is our responsibility when confronted with biased or racist students?
In some situations, it's easy to recognize that you as the teacher needs to step in and intervene, specifically when the bias is egregious or directed at a specific student. But what are we supposed to do when a student admits racist views in their writing? What do we do when a student confesses homophobia in a comment or action? How do we know what is the "right" thing to say or do when the president of our country is saying similar things on the regular? Do we as teachers have a responsibility to counsel and correct our students away from views that are biased or racist, or is that the job of the family? Do we as teachers even have the right to make moral judgements about these things and say something?
2. In an educational world where we are being told that learning is messy, that activities should be student led and cooperative, that the quiet, controlled classroom is outdated, how do we get that loud messiness to be productive?
My wife, who is also a high school teacher, and I were talking about how we seem to be being encouraged to have messy classrooms. It makes sense that learning doesn't always happen in nice orderly rows, and that interaction with others and ownership of the learning activities often are keys to successful learning. However, in my experience, when I allow things to get messy, the students aren't usually focused on learning. They are focused on their phones, on a game, on a conversation, on whatever. They are not knocking around ideas and problem solving. They are not churning on the essential questions I've posed. They are off task because they can be. How do you create a "messy" learning environment where kids are focused on learning?
3. How do you change the educational culture of your classroom when the prevailing culture all around you is not going in the same direction?
I have these kids for one of six periods in their day. They are inundated with information from their phones, parents, and society about what is important, and that is usually not in line with my message. The school around them pulls them from class frequently for a million different things, and if they just decide to skip class, there is better than 50% chance they will simply get away with it. When I've tried to do something different, something more student focused or challenging, I tend to get blank stares, or more commonly, nothing. Most of my students don't care about their grades until the last week of the quarter. When my students miss class, they have no drive to make up what they missed, they just see it as a victory that they didn't have to come. I feel like predominant culture all around me discourages students from engaging, and is actively pressing me to conform and give the same old assignments and enforce the same old expectations. Swimming against the stream is tiring. How do you keep your momentum?
Great questions in here. Here are some of my ideas (intentionally called ideas and not answers because these questions are huge and don't necessarily have clear answers).
ReplyDelete1. I ask them hard questions. Most of the time I can ask, "If someone else were to hear you say that, how do you think they would feel?" and then I try to ask, "Where did you get that idea from?" and really push them to identify why they think the way they think. he scary part is that half the time they only think it because their parents think it. It's tricky because I never want to tell students what to think, but as long as I can get them to question misguided and harmful beliefs, I think that's a good start.
2. Classroom arrangement made a huge difference for me. After feeling much the way you do about student-driven and collaborative learning, I changed up my room. I made spaces for different types of work. There were desks facing out for independent work (which also let me see their screens), group tables up close to where I typically would be (to help ensure I could keep students on task), and then some spaces for students to stand up or work without desks. By having these spaces, students would have to think about the type of work they were doing and what space would be best for them. Didn't completely solve the problem, but it was a huge step forward for me.
3. I don't have an answer for you except to encourage you to keep on keepin' on. Share what you are doing as much as you can. Be your own PR person for innovative ideas and make sure that you don't close yourself off, which can be so tempting to do sometimes. Keep up the great work! Someday the rest of education will catch on.