Jacqueline’s Blog

     I really liked this chapter.  I thought many of the characteristics that he talks about that teachers should learn to have are also qualities that people in our society should have.  Humility is a key one for me.  It is one that I am always striving for.  I liked his quote in the book: No one knows it all; no one is ignorant of everything.  I see this with people in my family who have come from different life experiences.  Many times, I would comment about a situation and the response that I would get from them is something like ”you don’t know”.  I have always tried to maintain the philosophy that someone always has some kind of knowledge or skill that they can offer to the world.  I hate to see when people think they know it all or that someone else doesn’t know what they are talking about, because I think they miss out on a good life-learning experience.  I wrote out in the margins that you can be certain that there will be times in your life of uncertainty.  Once you realize that, I think most people live their lives with a little more peace.  They know the uncertain times will come, but they also know that with humility, it can be a great learning experience.

   The other area that I found profound in this chapter was lovingness.  When Freire talks about armed love, I do think of teachers. I fight so that children will believe in themselves. I fight so that children will aspire to any occupation in the world.  I fight so that the children of today will be as passionate as I am to pass on that armed love to someone else.  If there are a handful of children that go on to make a big impact on this world, then I have done my job.  However, there are many times that other people in this world will fight against you.  They will fight to bring children down to a level of self-doubt and disbelief.  You, as a teacher, have to fight harder and louder than those who will delight in the fall of success.  If you are successful of that when you are teaching that child, hopefully, they won’t ever forget!  Then, twenty years down the road, when the world seems like it is closing in, they will remember the teacher who fought for them, who believed in them, and the former student will push on towards the goal!

     As I read this chapter, I think back to college and my Educational Psychology class.  It always disturbed me that we couldn’t agree on a road map for educating our children. I wonder if other countries ponder back and forth about how to teach their children.  Then as I started teaching, I realized that there would be times that I wouldn’t agree about something with other teachers that I work with.  I guess that I was lucky because the first principal that I worked for was a true Instructional Leader.  She knew how to help the faculty collaborate and grow stronger in our instructional practice. She didn’t allow any teacher to pass on the resonsibility of educating ANY children to anyone else. Special Ed? ESOL? Non-engaged parents? It didn’t matter. It was my job to educate my students.  And she knew that what might work for one child, might not be a strength in learning for another.  She allowed us the freedon to use a variety of strategies.  But, she also held us accountable for those strategies as well.  At the end of each semester, she wanted us to write down which five children were showing excellent progress and what we were doing with them.  She also wanted to know which five students were still struggling and what strategies had we tried with those.  That helped me see that some of these students did learn differently. I appreciated how she held us accountable for the education of our children and still gave us a bit of freedom about how we did it. Little did I know that those kind of instructional leaders are few and far between.  I have been teaching nine years since that time, and I haven’t had a good instructional leader since.

       As I look at how we as a nation have swung back and forth on a pendulum, I wonder how many of those times, were teachers or administrators passing the responsibility of educating children on to someone else.  That’s kind of how I felt when I read about all the different eras where the focus was on skills instruction and not on the process or teaching children how to think.  I think that during those times, people feel like it is okay just to give the “basics” because their parents can give them the extra.  The reality of it is that they don’t.  And if one of these kids that I’m teaching is a teacher for my child, I don’t just want them teaching them the basics.  I want them thinking like Benjamin Franklin.  I want them to impart on my child the exposure to think through any situation and come up with possible ways of solving them.  I recently heard a teacher telling another colleague that we should be doing timed math tests.  She said, they worked for me so why shouldn’t they work for our kids today.  I understand where she is coming from in that the kids get plenty of repeated practice in an area that is important for further instruction.  However, I wonder, if those same kids were given math problem solving, would they be successful?  I’m not so sure.  Not if all we are doing is giving them the rote practice.  We have to teach them how to think.  I don’t know what challenges the children will face in the future.  If I don’t teach them how to think and reason through the process of problem-solving, I may prevent them from faces those challenges prepared.  I read a lot of ideas and philosophies in this chapter that I still hear today.  It is scary to think that the philosophy that a teacher has may determine the success of that child’s educational future…

As I read this article, I was thinking about some of the things that the author shared.  One thing I thought was interesting was how her father felt like the Asian Americans would not have been put in internment camps if they had been able to speak up better.  I have thought about that part of history alot.  I think it was a dark time in our country’s history.  I wish the Asian-Americans would have been able to speak up.  But, then again, I wonder, would it have made any difference?  I fast foward to today and the same questioning of loyalty that seems to be occurring at times to Muslim-Americans.  It comes from a sense of mistrust.  But, this mistrust comes from a lack of understanding.  And for most Americans, this doesn’t motivate us to learn more about an unfamiliar culture.  It causes us to jump to more conclusions.  I wish her father would have been correct, but as I look at how our country handles some things today, I wonder…

 However, after reading tis article, I admire this culture as well.  One of the reasons that Asian-Americans have diffiulty speaking up is in an effort to try and solve problems for themselves.  I think this is an admirable quality.  I also wonder if this tenacity also causes the gap in academic achievement between American schools and some schools on the continent of Asia.  Do these students learn at a young age about a drive that they must exhibit which maintains an attitude of persistence?  How can we take a positive character trait like this independence and begin to teach it in our culture?

    In reading this article, I was reminded of people in my life in my past that this article helped me identify with.  I went to school with a girl who was of Phillipino decent.  In high school, I remember how much it use to offend her when someone called her Asian.  There is a part of the article that talks about how 4 billion people from 50 countries could be considered Asian, including people from diverse cultures such as Turkey, Japan, India, the Phillipines, and Indonesia which in my mind explains her frustration nicely.  When I stop to think about those cultures, they do vary widely.  I can see why people might be offended by being grouped with such a large area.  Each one of those countries has a unique culture and identity.  When you put them all in a group together, you undermine the individuality that comes from each country.  If we traveled to those countries and spent some time experiencing their culture and talking with the people, I think that people might start to clarify the identities in their minds. 

I think many people in the past have just grouped all of these countries together due to a lack of knowledge and understanding.  But, in this day and time,  with all the technological advances that we have available, we should be closing this gap of understanding. We can visit some of these countries through virtual tours on the internet.  We can conduct a unit of study.  I think that as an educational community explores these cultures in more depth, we will begin to see the large differences among these cultures.  I also think that this may help with some of the trends that we are seeing in students who are performing poorly in school.  We have failed to validate this population’s identity.  Some of these kids may be growing up not feeling value towards their own culture.  By exploring more cultures in the educational context, we can affirm students who may come from one of these cultures.  This may provide the encouragement the students need to dream big.

I also agree that the main issue that may be of consequence to academic achievement is one of class issue.  However, in my mind, this issue may not be as easy to solve.  In my county, I teach in an area where the students can be transient and needing federal assistance for food.  I am also noticing that it is our schools that are beginning to fall behind in areas like teachnology.  I am not sure what we can do to try and level the playing field for these kids.   I think the playing field will need to be leveled in some way for our children to continue to compete with other kids their age.  I haven’t exactly come up with a great idea yet.  But, I have a feeling that after I complete this degree, I will begin trying my hand at writing grants in an effort to raise the “institutional resources” needed for our students to achieve.