bitch session: conflict b/c doing schoolwork and grades versus prepping for tests. kids wanted tracking b/c some kids would completely take over teacher's attention. favoritism. teacher doesn't have prior knowledge of subject matter. disagreeing with teacher about an answer leads to 'don't talk back' instead of teacher admitting she was wrong. wanted tutors back. teachers don't have time to help students individually. service learning project - kids didn't understand expectations; thought they'd selected their own topics but it turned out the teacher selected the topics for them.
first day--skittles and shared favorite music, book, etc. we should have paid more attention to what they were saying--this would have given us a better sense of what kind of reading they liked and we could have looked for something more relevant to that. we assigned the soohoo passage--in hindsight i think this was too hard too. even if you understand the words you might not get the concept.
hc/bmc trip positive in that they saw a close by college campus -- importance of family in black community. they liked the hip hop thing a lot. kids wanted to talk to more people. i got a kind of chilly feeling when we were walking around with the kids. walking through thomas on bottom floor--there was a black woman who was cleaning, kids went and talked to her b/c they felt more comfortable with her. in hindsight, we should have talked about what they felt about the field trip.
hs when we tried to make the connection like let's take this and make an interview with it, we realized that we had to go back and scaffold what was an interview. there were lots of different points where we kind of pushed them to the next level; now i'd know better how to guide that transition. e.g. when we moved from first to second interview. we had one round of interviews--we assumed they'd know the difference between surveys and interviews. we went over it, but the first time they just gave the interview questions for people to fill out. so then we looked at what they got and asked them what other questions they wanted to ask. they asked questions like, why do we have to wear blue. i didn't know how to say no. do you tell them no? i said, students really can't answer that question--think about whether you could answer it. a student said, well some students might know. so they still didn't really get it. someone suggested everyone write their own questions. one of the questions was really good to start an interview with--we came back and said, this was a great question and it covers all the questions you guys had. then we practiced the interviews--i interviewed another college student in the room and then they practiced with each other and then we went to another class to interview them.
ms in the beginning we had very detailed lesson plans down to the minute. we had difficulty sticking to the lesson plan. in hindsight, i think this is where not looking inward comes in. i hate it when teachers do that--'we're not on that now'. need to go backwards and forwards. at some point we had goals not lesson plans. we swung too much to the other end--we had one goal for the class but didn't have the structure to get the goal done in a meaningful way. for second class, we were going to have kids write a piece of their educational autobiography. we gave a quick explanation, kids seemed to understand, we walked away and let the kids write and then we came back. one of the students in my group who we'd assumed would know exactly what we were talking about had trouble organizing the table of contents and figuring out exactly what we wanted. she knew what a table of contents was but. . . they're more used to doing just what people tell them. when i returned to my group i ended up having to grab a book, show different pages including table of contents. probably i should have stayed with that group while they were writing. one day we had them bring in something related to their education. this one student brought in a 6 or 7 page educational autobiography that she'd done in 6th grade. each section had a part that seemed clearly defined by the teacher. so she'd been able to do it when told just what to do but when we walked away and said just come up with chapter headings, they were totally out of order. field trip to freedom theatre. needed to give the kids some historical context, e.g. story of the spider.
cambria: i think b/c you did something that the kids did every day and were interested in, the civic lesson was much better here. there was a huge gap between what we were teaching and how we were teaching it, and--
heather: that's interesting b/c at first we were like, the dress code--come on, we need to do something bigger--
jody: there were times your students were bored by dress code--
cambria: how did you overcome the bored thing?
heather: at first they thought there were these two adults coming in to listen and maybe they thought we were going to do something about it. then we said, let's do something about it. in middle of process, they thought nothing would change, it was taking too long. . . but then when we had a date, talked about how to present it, etc. they got more excited. but even the day of the presentation, they were like, you mean this is really going to happen? also when they did interviews with other students and they got to talk one on one with another class, it was really good for all of them. good for the class they interviewed b/c able to vent. our class felt like, i'm important, i'm doing something for us. and it was a casual conversation--told them to just jot notes--maybe it didn't seem so official and so . . . they definitely had more power to guide the conversation b/c there was a blank paper rather than a series of yes or no questions. so it was both more casual and also less casual in that they went into the classroom and were given authority--the other teacher knew, it was organized for them to take over.
cambria: our ultimate goal to write to kerry--a lot of kids didn't seem responsive when we mentioned kerry, they were more connected to local politician, knew exactly who that was. that took a lot out of it. we were jazzed about it -- oh, john kerry is going to write back to these kids. how we thought about kerry wasn't how the kids thought about kerry. something more tangible to them, e.g. local school board, would make more sense.
heather: this relates to the relationship between student voice and teacher voice. it's a balance. you have to guide this in some way and also want it to go in the direction that the students want.
jody: yes there's an element of risk when it comes to voicing students' perceptions and issues in local contexts.
cambria: lower performing schools get a lot of negative press, end up blasting the teachers even though they're not the main cause of the problem. as you get older you learn to shut your mouth. the more you have to lose, the less likely you are to say something or to speak out against the system.
heather: at the same time, people in higher positions might feel more sturdy, like they have more options. this is connected to the difference between what upper, middle and working class kids learn. upper class kids learn to question things in school, whereas working class people learn how to write five par. essays or fill out a worksheet.
cambria: also upper class parents always calling teachers to complain/. in urban environments you don't have this.
jody: so going in to do action research in these places is exactly opposite of the usual culture and expectations.
heather: and this relates to the dress code just because a dress code is a symbol of conforming to obedience, a working class thing that relates to not questioning. story about what happened in first grade gym class--if pulled over by a cop, don't argue, who should you be made at? ourselves. but at the same time it's a pretty disruptive class. what else is there to do other than say here are the rules, etc.
cambria: when kids have to get a job, write a college essay--no matter how advanced your ideas are, you can't write it in broken english or you won't be taken seriously. i was uncomfortable with my education; wonder whether these kids are uncomfortable with their education, even though they might not voice that. a lot of times kids won't say what's uncomfortable, esp. to an authority figure.
heather: so do you think that learning how to question authority is good for that comfortableness? it could make you even more uncomfortable to realize what you can't achieve or it might be better b/c you'd have the experience, like with dress code, learning how to think about it and learning about the avenues for speaking up.
cambria: yes, but when will they have time to do this kind of thing when they have to do all this testing. i would have rather been able to articulate what i had a problem with then--i would have gotten more out of my education. idea of culturally relevant stuff always going on - white kids don't think of themselves as having a culture b/c their culture is everywhere.
heather: teaching right skills to fit into the system on one hand and to challenge it on the other. the social system is such that someone has to be doing the deskilled work.
cambria: that's why questioning the dress code is better than worrying about academic things. learning how to question the system not only makes you a smarter person but also if you choose to remain in the system you know how to navigate it. also you can change the system if you realized that it's stratified. you're not better than anyone else, you might just be luckier.
overarching skills important for literacy--ability to step outside looking in and figure out what the environment is like before you step in it.
