Every Kid Deserves a Champion 1/31
Deficit Ideologies
In the article "Failing Still to Address Poverty Directly: Growth Mindset as Deficit Ideology" by P.L. Thomas, I thought it was remarkable to read it as a pre-service teacher and assume that the words "growth mindset" were going to be a good thing. As Thomas was quoting Carol Dwek who laid out definitions of fixed and growth mindsets. I found myself nodding along with the idea of the positive notion of a growth mindset. Seems like it made sense to me! I had to recognize that as a white, middle-class student, a growth mindset was easy to imagine because I didn't have to face what Thomas refers to as "two significant flaws with the growth mindset," namely the way that this ideology blames the student, and that it neglects to address the root of the problem, poverty itself.
The term "deficit ideology" was new to me as well, and I thought that his comparison to a teacher who grades an exam as "100-30=70%" made a lot of sense. I am fully behind the idea of seeking out the positive and encouraging and embracing THAT. It reminds me both of the introduction to the Christensen text talking about how she ripped apart her student's essay instead of pointing out the parts where he shone as a writer, and of a Ted Talk by Rita Pierson. I watched her talk "Every Kid Deserves a Champion" as an assignment in my first teaching class a couple of years ago, and I hadn't seen or read anything until then that had encapsulated the kind of teaching ideology I want to have. (I'll link it below!) At one point, she talks about teaching a particularly difficult class, and when one of the student got 18/20 wrong on an exam, she decided to put a +2 and a big smiley face at the top instead. She noted that "minus 18 sucks all the life out of you, +2 says I ain't all bad."
I will be very cognizant of how I think of the term "growth mindset" from here on out.
The bottom line, as Thomas succinctly said, is that teachers must decide whether or not to address the effects of education inequality by focusing on students directly, or taking a bigger stance against the real culprits of the problem. He succinctly quoted Chris Emdin when he said "It boils down to whether one chooses to damage to the system or to the student." I have often wrestled with the question of whether or not to pursue a career in a school whose students face these very problems of systematic injustices when it comes to educational opportunity. When Emdin puts it that way, it seems like an easy answer.
The Literacy Curriculum
Karen Cordeiro-Kaplan's article about the various literacies made the idea of "literacies" even more clear to me than it had been. In my first SED 407 my idea of the term "literacy" was challenged, and this article took that even further. Cordeiro-Kaplan discusses what it means to be "a literate person in school and society." Until this semester I would have described being literate as decoding and interpreting text. I'm learning how narrow that definition was. Her explanation of functional literacy, what she calls the "school-as-factory model" is the most common literacy curriculum found in schools today. Which is a shame, since it seems to address solely the decoding of text and includes none of the student's language or culture. The most important part of her description of why functional literacy fails is that these skill-based classrooms "fall along ethnic and class lines," and I have seen this in practice in my daughter's school this year. It is distressing to say the least.
Cultural literacy definitely makes more sense, as it takes in the actual lives and cultures of the students. Cordeiro-Kaplan notes that this approach "constitutes the only sure avenue of opportunity for disadvantaged children," though it's important to note that this literacy requires a shared amount of common knowledge, and once more, this "culture capital" is found most readily in upper-middle class culture, leaving lower income students at a disadvantage. Progressive literacy and its method of constructivism is the most appealing to my teaching sensibilities, as "a process that promotes learners as seekers and constructors of knowledge, not receptacles of knowledge." There are echoes of the recent personalized learning movement when she describes how progressive literacy "views students as agents over their learning." I can definitely get behind this.
NCTE Professional Knowledge....z.z.z.z.z.
I kid! I thought this was going to be THE MOST BORING part of the reading and I totally saved it for last. I am delighted to be so very wrong. One of the lightbulb moments for me was the idea that writing happens in the midst of a web of relationships. Who are we writing for? I think this will be a bigger question than I thought. As I stretch myself out of the idea of writing as a formula, I would like to encourage many different types of writing, for a wide range of audiences, and this is something I will stress in my classroom, I hope. The section about teachers helping students be better writers was important in this regard, as it demonstrates that writing "must include ample in-class and out-of-class opportunities for writing, including writing in digital spaces, and should involve writing for a variety of purposes and audiences, including audiences beyond the classroom." There is a place for all kinds of writing, and I'd like to encourage as many different types as possible.
In the article "Failing Still to Address Poverty Directly: Growth Mindset as Deficit Ideology" by P.L. Thomas, I thought it was remarkable to read it as a pre-service teacher and assume that the words "growth mindset" were going to be a good thing. As Thomas was quoting Carol Dwek who laid out definitions of fixed and growth mindsets. I found myself nodding along with the idea of the positive notion of a growth mindset. Seems like it made sense to me! I had to recognize that as a white, middle-class student, a growth mindset was easy to imagine because I didn't have to face what Thomas refers to as "two significant flaws with the growth mindset," namely the way that this ideology blames the student, and that it neglects to address the root of the problem, poverty itself.
The term "deficit ideology" was new to me as well, and I thought that his comparison to a teacher who grades an exam as "100-30=70%" made a lot of sense. I am fully behind the idea of seeking out the positive and encouraging and embracing THAT. It reminds me both of the introduction to the Christensen text talking about how she ripped apart her student's essay instead of pointing out the parts where he shone as a writer, and of a Ted Talk by Rita Pierson. I watched her talk "Every Kid Deserves a Champion" as an assignment in my first teaching class a couple of years ago, and I hadn't seen or read anything until then that had encapsulated the kind of teaching ideology I want to have. (I'll link it below!) At one point, she talks about teaching a particularly difficult class, and when one of the student got 18/20 wrong on an exam, she decided to put a +2 and a big smiley face at the top instead. She noted that "minus 18 sucks all the life out of you, +2 says I ain't all bad."
I will be very cognizant of how I think of the term "growth mindset" from here on out.
The bottom line, as Thomas succinctly said, is that teachers must decide whether or not to address the effects of education inequality by focusing on students directly, or taking a bigger stance against the real culprits of the problem. He succinctly quoted Chris Emdin when he said "It boils down to whether one chooses to damage to the system or to the student." I have often wrestled with the question of whether or not to pursue a career in a school whose students face these very problems of systematic injustices when it comes to educational opportunity. When Emdin puts it that way, it seems like an easy answer.
The Literacy Curriculum
Karen Cordeiro-Kaplan's article about the various literacies made the idea of "literacies" even more clear to me than it had been. In my first SED 407 my idea of the term "literacy" was challenged, and this article took that even further. Cordeiro-Kaplan discusses what it means to be "a literate person in school and society." Until this semester I would have described being literate as decoding and interpreting text. I'm learning how narrow that definition was. Her explanation of functional literacy, what she calls the "school-as-factory model" is the most common literacy curriculum found in schools today. Which is a shame, since it seems to address solely the decoding of text and includes none of the student's language or culture. The most important part of her description of why functional literacy fails is that these skill-based classrooms "fall along ethnic and class lines," and I have seen this in practice in my daughter's school this year. It is distressing to say the least.
Cultural literacy definitely makes more sense, as it takes in the actual lives and cultures of the students. Cordeiro-Kaplan notes that this approach "constitutes the only sure avenue of opportunity for disadvantaged children," though it's important to note that this literacy requires a shared amount of common knowledge, and once more, this "culture capital" is found most readily in upper-middle class culture, leaving lower income students at a disadvantage. Progressive literacy and its method of constructivism is the most appealing to my teaching sensibilities, as "a process that promotes learners as seekers and constructors of knowledge, not receptacles of knowledge." There are echoes of the recent personalized learning movement when she describes how progressive literacy "views students as agents over their learning." I can definitely get behind this.
NCTE Professional Knowledge....z.z.z.z.z.
I kid! I thought this was going to be THE MOST BORING part of the reading and I totally saved it for last. I am delighted to be so very wrong. One of the lightbulb moments for me was the idea that writing happens in the midst of a web of relationships. Who are we writing for? I think this will be a bigger question than I thought. As I stretch myself out of the idea of writing as a formula, I would like to encourage many different types of writing, for a wide range of audiences, and this is something I will stress in my classroom, I hope. The section about teachers helping students be better writers was important in this regard, as it demonstrates that writing "must include ample in-class and out-of-class opportunities for writing, including writing in digital spaces, and should involve writing for a variety of purposes and audiences, including audiences beyond the classroom." There is a place for all kinds of writing, and I'd like to encourage as many different types as possible.
You completely stole my idea using Every Child Needs a Champion!! Obviously, I completely agree with you on that. I can not even begin to explain how much I love that video, it fills my heart and I hope it influences everyone else the same way!
ReplyDeleteLike you, I expected the NCTE to be a little bit of a bore, but to my surprise it has a lot of great information and points to help teachers with what they need to understand before they can teach it to students. I actually enjoyed reading many of the sections of the article more than I thought I would! A little lengthy, but worth it!
Side note: They follow back on twitter too!!!!!