Two Steps Forward . . . Several Back

Posted on July 22, 2009 by JimS

Judith SotirBy Judith Sotir

I absolutely agree with Judith McDaniel (What Students Want and How to Design for It: A Reflection on Online Teaching, posted on July 19, 2009) that online learning of any sort requires a different dynamic than traditional teaching techniques. Although technology has moved from an interesting idea in the latter part of the last century to a defining role in this century, I don’t see schools necessarily following suit.

A good example is a recent workshop I did for staff from a local school district. The instructors specifically requested a workshop on “Using Blogs and Wikis in the Classroom” and were willing to give up some summer sun hours to attend. The tech coordinator (or facilitator, since the position of technology coordinator was eliminated and a principal stepped in to fill the gap) was more than willing to set up the workshop. However, when I got to the school (and remember, the TOPIC was blogs and wikis), I found that the firewalls blocked all access to any form of social websites, including blogs and wikis. I spent a good amount of time with the IT department getting access to a limited number of blogs and had to verify the content of those (even my own, by the way) I was given access to.

laptop with the words The Internet crossed out by a red St Andrew's Cross

Even after gaining access, throughout the workshop, that access was spotty, as links were sometimes allowed and sometimes blocked. From the instructor viewpoint, wanting to bring these tools into the classroom was questionable, given that experience. While filtering websites is important to schools, better dialogue is needed to allow instructors the access they need to teaching tools while still maintaining control of questionable content.

As a former school board member, I recall similar issues in the late’ 80s and ’90s with the IT department, administrators, and even board colleagues regarding having access to the Internet itself from the classrooms. While they saw the value of administrators and staff using the Internet, they balked at allowing the same access in the classrooms. I understand well the frustration of instructors who want to use these tools with their students but run into brick walls when they try.

While not identical, limiting access to Internet resources strikes me as similar to banning books. Instead of allowing instructors to develop educational content as needed, a concern from a limited group blocks all access to these sites. A better dialogue needs to be developed, including perhaps even a faculty liaison committee to bring these concerns to the proper channels. Simply assuming that teaching with computers is the same as traditional teaching keeps students from the tools they need to succeed in the real world.

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Defining One’s Diversity Philosophy: A Crucial Skill in a Changing World

Posted on December 8, 2008 by JimS

osborne80By Randall E. Osborne
Staff Writer

In a world that is becoming increasingly “smaller” due to technology and ease of travel, it seems imperative to help individuals to expand their diversity views BEFORE they venture out into that world. In other words, it seems important to make an effort to expand people’s abilities to accept difference before they venture out into a world that is so obviously different from any one individual’s background. In an effort to do this, the author incorporates a diversity philosophy into his internet course on the Politics and Psychology of Hatred. Through assignments on middle class mentality, analysis of hate sites on the web, reading books about the Holocaust, personal explorations of privilege and other assignments, students are required to explore their own personal philosophies and views about the importance of difference.

The following is excerpted from a “Philosophy of Diversity” survey created by Cornell Thomas and John Butler (2000). Students are given an opportunity to answer questions about their diversity philosophy and then score them to determine whether they had more responses in assimilation, tolerance, multiculturalism, or inclusiveness. These categories were defined by Thomas and Butler in the following manner:

Tolerance = acceptance and open-mindedness of different practices, attitudes, and cultures; does not necessarily mean agreement with the differences. Implies an acknowledgement, or an acceptance or respect. Not necessarily an appreciation and usually consists of only surface level information.

Essentialism/Assimilation = the practice of categorizing a group based on artificial social constructions that impart an “essence” of that group, which homogenizes the group and effaces individuality and differences. The word implies that we are forming conclusions, relationships, and other cultural ties based only on the essential elements, as determined by “us.” It also implies that there is some minimal level of understanding that applies to groups.

Multiculturalism = the practice of acknowledging and respecting the various cultures, religions, races, ethnicities, attitudes and opinions within an environment. The word does not imply that there is any intentionality occurring and primarily works from a group, versus individual, orientation.

Inclusiveness = the practice of emphasizing our uniqueness in promoting the reality that each voice, when, valued, respected and expected to, will provide positive contribution to the community.

This was a learning experience for many students. For example, the “lesbian-identified bisexual” wrote that she was surprised to find that several of her responses had only been tolerant. She said osborne1she had expected that, because she was different, she should have all multicultural or inclusive responses. Another concern she brought up revolved around the possibility of using inclusive language but having the goal of making all people think or act the same way. This sparked an interesting debate about both inclusiveness and assimilation.

Before another assignment was due, students had a chance to “talk” via email and to “interact” through two discussion forums, one centered around the relationship between fear and hate, the second related to our moral or ethical obligations when dealing with hate. These fora allowed students to share their views and develop a sense of trust with each other. Next came the “hate site” assignment. It required the student to go to sites on the web that promoted hate and to analyze them by describing each site, defending its right to be there, and then explaining why it should not be there. By the time we were faced with the “hate site” assignment, many of us had already started to develop a sense of understanding regarding our own assumptions and biases. What resulted was that many of the students this semester did not “pat themselves on the back” over their own acceptance of difference after the evaluation of these sites; instead, many of them discussed their own reactions to the sites, sharing how it angered them or frightened them because some of the sites were written so well that they could almost be convincing.

It seems to me that such an exploration would be healthy for everyone. As people are exposed to more people in the world (through travel and through technological access to that world), stark differences in viewpoints and ideologies are going to become even more apparent. If we are to avoid having these differences only strengthen existing prejudices or even prompt hate-based behavior, it seems necessary to promote progression along the diversity philosophy continuum outlined by Thomas and Butler. This must be done at home, through schools and through the media.

Reference

Thomas, Cornell, and John Butler. 2000. Diversity philosophy. Paper presented at the Race, Gender and Class conference, Southern University at New Orleans.

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Michelle Rhee – What’s Really at Stake?

Posted on December 3, 2008 by JimS

Jim ShimabukuroBy Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

She’s on the cover of Time (week of December 8), in a classroom, unsmiling, dressed in black, holding a broom, with the cover title, “How to Fix America’s Schools,” set to look as though it’s the lesson for the day written on the blackboard. Framing her head is the huge “TIME” trademark. She is Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of Education, District of Columbia Public Schools. And the question for the “class” is, Does she have the answer to America’s failing public school systems? Is it, finally, time to make the kinds of sweeping changes that she represents?

Her goal’s clear, “To make Washington the highest-performing urban school district in the nation” [1]. The yardstick is a simple one: reading and math scores on standardized achievement tests. And her formula’s just as simple: reward teachers who can help her reach her goal and get rid of the ones who can’t.

time_mag_cover_dec8This unflinching focus, she says, places the student’s best interest at the forefront of schools. Higher scores will eventually translate to college degrees and better jobs, which are the tickets out of poverty, discrimination, and all the other social ills.

The underlying assumption is that all students can significantly improve their scores IF they have teachers [1] who are willing to set that as the primary goal and do everything it takes to reach it. In this picture, there is absolutely no room for failure. Little or no gain in scores is a sign of failure, and failure means a quick exit from the teaching profession. When student success is weighed against teacher security, there is no issue. Tenure is a dead horse. For teachers, the decision is a simple one, too: Deliver higher scores or get out.

“She is angry at a system of education that puts ‘the interests of adults’ over the ‘interests of children,’ i.e., a system that values job protection for teachers over their effectiveness in the classroom. Rhee is trying to change that system” [2].

What about the gray area, the affective dimensions that defy objective measurement? Rhee says, “The thing that kills me about education is that it’s so touchy-feely. . . . People say, ‘Well, you know, test scores don’t take into account creativity and the love of learning.’ . . . I’m like, ‘You know what? I don’t give a crap.’ Don’t get me wrong. Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don’t know how to read, I don’t care how creative you are. You’re not doing your job” [1].

michelle_rhee01In pursuit of her goal, Rhee has the complete backing of D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who appointed her chancellor in June 2007. “In her first 17 months on the job, Rhee closed 23 schools with low enrollment and overhauled 27 schools with poor academic achievement. She also fired more than 250 teachers and about one-third of the principals at the system’s 128 schools” [3].

Rhee scares the daylights out of me because she may very well be the wish that we’re warned to watch out for, the one that we might actually get. Now that we have someone with the power to really change the system, I suddenly have cold feet. Yes, she seems to make sense. Student achievement should take precedence over the needs of teachers. But are there other issues waiting below the surface that might just jump out and bite us if we follow Rhee?

For example, despite the radical nature of her approach, the bundle that we think of as “school” remains pretty much the same. The burden of accountability has shifted to the teacher, but the roles, resources, goals, and environment remain constant. Even pedagogy seems to be the same–more homework, more demanding tasks, more discipline, more testing. In other words, the same, but more of it.

One could argue that Rhee’s changes don’t go far enough and need to include innovations in information technology. There’s the possibility that these innovations could enhance learning by dramatically altering schools as we know them without some of the harsher consequences that seem to be a part of Rhee’s strategy.

Another issue is the effectiveness of strategies that Rhee lumps into the category of “touchy-feely.” Are these affective, student-centered, holistic, indirect methods proven ineffective? Or are they, perhaps, just as if not more effective than Rhee’s hard-nosed direct approach? Are we ready to toss these out as useless?

Yet another issue is the similarity of Rhee’s model to test-oriented systems in Asia. Is Rhee simply transporting a traditional model from China, India, Japan, and South Korea to the U.S.? If yes, then are there consequences that we need to be aware of?

Finally, are we beginning to draw a line between schools in general and poor urban schools in particular? A line that requires a radically different approach for the latter? Are we bending to the notion that schools not only can be but should be different for resource-poor inner-city schools? If this is the case, then could we be developing a system that channels or tracks children into careers at an early age, forever excluding college for many in favor of technical training? This could result in a form of economic and racial discrimination with far-reaching consequences.

In conclusion, my initial reaction is that Rhee’s ideas sound good, but I’m not quite ready to dump what we have now for an approach that we haven’t fully discussed or studied. At this juncture, an open discussion about the implications of Rhee’s tactics may be in order. I’m sure there are many other issues at stake. Thus, please share your thoughts with us. Either post them as comments to this article or email them to me at jamess@hawaii.edu

(Note: For a quick background, see Amanda Ripley’s “Rhee Tackles Classroom Challenge” [26 Nov. 2008] at Time.com and Thomas, Conant, and Wingert’s “An Unlikely Gambler” [23 Aug. 2008, from the magazine issue dated 1 Sep. 2008] at Newsweek.com. Finally, go to YouTube and do a search on “michelle rhee” for lists of videos.)

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