Rethinking School Reform Group 1 Chapter 1 Critical Teaching

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Rethinking School ReformGroup 1 Chapter 1
Critical Teaching

• By
• Laura Moore, Nicole McKee
• Nick P.

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Part 1 Rethinking Our Classrooms Teaching for
Equity Justice

• world is plagued by economic inequality, endemic
  violence, racial in justice
• Need Education Reform!
• Teachers can shape the classroom into places of
  hope, where students learn the academic and
  critical skills needed to make it in our society.
  
• Must have respect for children, their innate
  curiosity and their capacity to learn.

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• A social justice curriculum must strive to
  include the lives of everyone in our society ?
  this helps students learn about our society and
  the world we live in
• Traditional classrooms often leave little room
  student involvement and initiative ? NEEDS to
  CHANGE!!

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Part 2 - Untracking English

• Tracking helps create and legitimate a social
  hierarchy within a school based on perceived
  differences in student capability.
• Too many good intentions have been undermined by
  implementing a de-tracking policy without helping
  teachers reconstruct their ideas about students
  and curriculum.

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• One passage I really enjoyed learning about is on
  page 12. The author states One of the first
  obligations of a teacher in an untracked class is
  to look at student ability in a new light.
  Teachers must see the gifts that each student
  brings to class not the deficits. The teacher
  must absolutely believe in the potential of the
  student, but even more essentially, the teacher
  must believe in the right of the student to have
  access to a rigorous education. And the teacher
  must convey those beliefs clearly to the student
  who may be working off years of failure and poor
  work habits.

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• The real challenge in untraced classes is the
  difference in students reading ability. The
  greatest roadblock for those of us who want to
  untrack classes is our students inability to read
  difficult texts.
• (Q) How do we continue to assign challenging
  literature when not all of our students are
  initially capable of reading it?
• (A) develop strategies to help readers at
  various levels engage in the curriculum.
• In the dialogue journal, students become the
  authors of their own questions about reading,
  instead of reading merely to answer questions.
• In the dialogue journal, students become the
  authors of their own questions about reading,
  instead of reading merely to answer questions.

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Part 3 Unsung Heroes

• Do we Really need our National Idols in our
  Classrooms today?!
• Critics feel that its good to have historical
  figures such as Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln,
  Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, John F.
  Kennedy in the classroom for students to admire
  and emulate.
• Another Humanitarian we should also recall is
  John Woolman? Lived in the past before the
  revolution and refused to pay taxes to support
  the British Wars and who spoke out against
  Slavery.

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• This chapter was very interesting, especially as
  I came upon how the author pointed out that we
  see Theodore Roosevelt as such a great hero, who
  is at the stop of our great presidents and on top
  of Mount Rushmore when really he was a racist and
  all about the love of war.
• Granted things were different during that time
  period, however What if we were to Replace
  Roosevelt with Mark Twain?
• Roosevelt was congratulating an American general
  who in 1906 ordered the massacre of 600 men,
  women , and children on a Philippine Island.
• Twain was the Vice President of the Anti
  Imperialist and continued to point out the
  Cruelties.

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Part 4 Teaching About Unsung Heroes

• Bill Bigelow was a a U.S History Teacher who is
  the author of the Chapter Teaching About Unsung
  Heroes
• His ideas are extremely interesting and
  intriguing.
• He once assigned his students to write about
  themselves as individuals at the end of their
  lives. Students could construct their own papers
  as meditations about their individual
  accomplishments and even their regrets. Students
  would narrate their lives throughout the years.

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• show students what you are looking for, rather
  then just tell them.
• Save Students Work
• Have class discussions
• Brain Storm With Students

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• vital to alert students to currents of
  generosity, solidarity, democracy, anti racism,
  social equality in the past and present.
• Carefully analyze movements for change and
  acknowledge their shortcomings
• Need to Engage students in thinking about the
  relationship between and aims

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Part 5 The Truth About Helen Keller

• Theres more to Helen Keller then her hard,
  amazing life as a seven year old.
• She worked throughout her long life to achieve
  social Change? Need to teach that.
• she was a socialist and a tireless advocate of
  the poor disenfranchised

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• This chapter was particularly interesting and
  appealing because the author proposes a problem
  with children's literature.
• Children's Books stress the individual, rather
  then the larger social movements in which the
  individuals worked.? Needs to Change
• Authors should no longer only promote concern
  for self development, personal emotions, self
  reliance, privacy, competition
• ?Need to also show social development, service to
  community, cooperation toward shared goals
  community and mutual prosperity.

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• Helen Kellers story is an example of this bland
  flavor or writing which negates the power of her
  life's work.
• Helen Keller is depicted as a Kind of saintly
  role model for people with handicaps. ? Shes
  much more then that.
• She is portrayed simply as an icon a subject of
  the media
• Helen Keller herself would probably be
  horrified by this vague misleading
  representation of her life's works.
• Students Need to learn about the life long story
  of Helen Keller.

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• 6 picture books about Helen Keller, published
  from 1965 1997, were studied
• 4 of the 6 books focus mainly on the famous
  moment at the well ? the books freeze Helen
  Keller in her Childhood.
• According to these books Helen Keller is
  remembered for two things 1. Courage and 2. Work
  with the blind and deaf.
• NONE of the books mention that in 1909 Helen
  Keller became a socialist suffragist.
• These Picture Books OMIT THE REAL COURAGE! -
  shows courage at its Blandest

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• Do you see something wrong with these Childrens
  Books now a days?!
• Critics feel that Helen Keller Never gets to be
  an adult rather she is framed as a grown up
  child who over comes her handicap.
• Its Time to Stop Lying to Children