Jacqueline’s Blog

      This is not a good week to talk about school culture.  Maybe that’s why Rhina assigned it.   I found out about a month that our assistant principal would be leaving to take a Principal’s position in Paulding County.  Then, we found out last week that our Principal was being reassigned to a different school within Cobb County.  This would make 6 principals in nine years.  As I read Chapter 9, I felt a lot like the teacher they quote at the beginning of the chapter.  I know that it takes continuity to create a positive school culture.  I am beginning to question whether we will ever have a consistent administration at this school.  As I read through this chapter, I identified with many ideas.  One was the qualifications of the teachers.  Now, our school has plenty of qualified teachers.   I would say about 15% have or are pursuing their Ed.S. degrees.  I would say about half of the teachers have their Masters degrees.  However, I will say that the way that tutoring and summer school are funded work to the deficit of the students.  Until the government says they will give us a certain number of teachers, I will always think that administration will employ the “cheaper” teachers.  Each year when funding is distributed, it is distributed in a dollar amount.  Then administration has to decide, do I want smaller groups for tutoring and summer school, or do I want more qualified teachers.  I am one of the most expensive people to employ for these programs even though I have unique qualifications.  I can understand why the administration approaches me last.  There are a lot of people that they have to pay less.  This is not beneficial to the kids.  They should be able to have the most qualified teachers for these programs as well as small teacher to student ratios.  But, I’m not sure how they could change that.  A colleague and I presented a staff development last week at a Staff Meeting.  It was a good presentation and I think the staff has had a shift in their thinking.  The next day, one of the teachers approached me to ask if he felt like he had disrupted the meeting.  He had gotten an email from the Intermediate Principal because he was being too disruptive.  That was crazy to me!  You have a lot of much bigger issues to address, yet, you go after the behavior of three teachers who had clearly participated in the staff development.  We already have a “school within a school” administration.  We are divided into two schools under one roof.  We have a Primary (K-2) school and an Intermediate (3-5) school.  One thing that the chapter didn’t address is that I think the culture of the Intermediate School impacts the culture of the Primary school.   When the Intermediate Principal tries to micromanage things, it depresses the Primary Staff.  We know that the hard work we do to try and prepare our students for the Intermediate school can quickly be undone since their climate is so poor.  I wish they would just build a separate building for the Primary school.  Then, I think we could overcome the negativity of the Intermediate’s climate.  Well, we will see if this change is a good one or not…only time will tell. 

I have to say, I’m glad that I heard Paul Gorski.  I was a little worried because some of his articles had so much rhetoric with little research to back it up.  Then, when I actually heard him in person, I understood him a lot better.  I know he was running short on time, but I’m glad tha he did the ten chairs example.  It gave me a clear picture of the distribution of the money in our country.  I was impressed by what I did know from his quiz.  I have since talked about it with my husband and some co-workers as well.  I’m not sure that I agree with every idea, but his basic premise is correct.  I don’t think many people are engaging in cognitive dissonance conversations.  I even see it with my colleagues.  I think that is what is preventing us from moving the educational system forward.  However, don’t listen to me…I seem to be a bit bitter.  I find more and more of my colleagues too comfortable with the failures of children and finding some excuse other then their instruction that is to blame.  I work in a position where I regularly find out what I am doing wrong.  Sometimes I find out from a colleague, sometimes I hear it from my teacher leader.  Once you engage in critical conversations on a regular basis, you realize that it is not personal.  It is only to help our children succeed.  If we would look critically at all aspects of education, we will see the issues that Paul Gorski speaks of.  I found out last week that we will be losing both of our administrators.  That means I will have six different principals in under ten years.  As I was walking in with a colleague the other day, she said…we are the guinea pigs.  They try out every new principal in the county on our school.  I asked why and she said that our parents won’t complain.  In my mind, it is not that our parents don’t complain, they just don’t have time to express it to the county office.  Oh well, another one bites the dust… Paul Gorski’s issues in action…

      I think about earlier this year when we talked about values in Rhina’s fall class.  I talked about how my family valued education most of all.  Now, after reading Gorski’s first article, I am wondering was this an example of a classist remark.  His first article really stepped on my toes.  How can I profess that I want to identify with people from all races, classes, religions, etc, when I’m not willing to question the idea that my class keeps me where I am while sometimes preventing others from being able to gain access to resources needed to help those in the lower SES?  That is a hard pill to swallow.  But, I think Gorski is right in asking us to question it.  If we don’t, I worry that more and more of us might experience some problems due to the growing corporate world that is more interested in raising profit numbers than providing quality products to ALL of the US.  I personally think that more and more of us will be faced with some of the same issues that face the lower SES if we are not careful.  We have tended to say healthcare, well, that doesn’t apply to us, we have health insurance.  However, then I hear about a colleague who paid $96 for eye drops because she used an eye doctor who wasn’t listed on her plan.  This is happening more and more.  We can’t continue to say that it is not our problem.  The capitalist society that we live in will continue to grow if we don’t speak up for the rights of ALL of us and establish some boundaries.  I think the corporate world has clearly passed some of the old boundaries and they are setting their sights on new goals to achieve.  This will adversely affect more of more of the US population.  The mortgage crisis is another example of this problem.

I found Gorski’s comment from his article Good Intentions are not Enough a great example of that.  He writes, “…despite overwhelmingly good intentions, most of what passes for intercultural educational practice, particularly in the U.S., accentuates rather than undermining existing social and political hierarchies,” (p.3).  What we are doing as educators is not enough.  I’m glad that I was able to read more of Gorski’s work because he does provide good research that backs up his claims against Ruby Payne.  I now understand the arguments against Ruby Payne’s work and I tend to agree with his thoughts.  I know that his ideas are hard to swallow because they call us to questions our own beliefs and understandings, and move our process forward, but I truly believe that it is necessary for the future of our children, our country, and the possible future of a peaceful world.  Here are some thoughts that I will need to think about:

 I question the idea that Ruby Payne and some of her employees have lowered themselves to intimidating any critiques of her work.  Even going as far as having a lawyer threaten to sue (Gorski, 2007, p.5).

Then I read the conclusions of many other researchers: “there is no appreciable and consistent cultural, world view, or value difference between people in poverty and people from other socioeconomic groups, and what does exist is a set of structural, systemic, oppressive conditions disproportionately affecting the most economically disadvantaged people such as a lack of access to quality healthcare, housing, nutrition, education, political power, clean water and air, and other basic needs (Gorski, 2007, p.6)”   I think if we are not careful, we will assume that the middle-class is immune to some of these problems.  If this weekend wasn’t a wake-up call, anyone of us can go from having everything we need, to having a natural disaster change everything.  We have got to get away from just taking care of ourselves, to making sure that quality resources are available to anyone and everyone who needs it.

 There were many more quotes that I need to ponder, but my blog response is already too long! I will share more if you ask…

         As I read this article, there were many things that I read that I remember talking about last semester. However, there was one area that I found very helpful. It is the portion of the web site that talked about Culturally Responsive Teaching is Transformative.  As a teacher, I always tried to respect the diverse cultures that were represented in my classroom. If I could make a connection to another culture, I would, but that was about the end of it.  As I read this portion of the web site, I was reading that my planning sequence needed to change.  The web site states, “Culturally responsive teaching does not incorporate traditional educational practices with respect to students of color. It means respecting the cultures and experiences of various groups and then uses these as resources for teaching and learning.”  I need to start my planning with the various cultures in mind.  Then the incorporation of these cultures will be much more deliberate and probably more successful and effective as well.

      The one area that bothered me on the web site was the multicultural calendar.  They listed Jewish celebrations, Muslim celebrations, as well as celebrations of various other cultures.  However, there were no Christian celebrations listed.  I am assuming that these were left off because the creators assumed that activities were already included for that area.  This morning, my preacher talked about the same thing.  We are becoming so tolerant of minority religions and cultures, that we neglect what seems like a majority religion in an effort to affirm the minority.  However, when we do that, we make some people within a majority religion feel devalued for being a part of the majority.  If we are to be culturally responsive, we must include some of the celebrations of ALL religions and cultures.  Not ALL but the majority.  I hope that the creators of this web site will choose to include Easter or Christmas as a way of including ALL cultures and religions.  We included Passover, why not Easter as well.  They both occur around the same time of year in a calendar year.  I know I probably stirred up a hornet’s nest with this opinion.  But, I truly believe if we are going to be culturally responsive, we must make sure ALL cultures and religions are valued…not just some.