I appreciate Bill’s stories of his student teaching because I just finished my student teaching and can relate my students to those of his first semester class. I feel that my students and the community all place at least some value on education and the school system. Points and grades are a reward and all students at least seem to want to “pass” all of their classes, which made my life easier as a student teacher that was just trying to deal with the day to day of becoming a teacher. Fortunately for me, though, my school had already implemented the use of multicultural literature and an emphasis on exploring different perspectives. I do think that it was more difficult to get all of the students engaged in this curriculum because many of them were from very similar backgrounds (white, middle class, suburban), and therefore couldn’t always relate. I think that the fact that students have very little exposure to problems faced by other cultures only accentuates the need for this variation of literature in the classroom.
The one thing that Bill said toward then end of his chapter that I had trouble with was, “The epiphany, if there has been one, during my student teaching experience, is this realization that a continuation of the educational status quo ensures that ‘othered’ groups will continue to be relegated to limited social and economic opportunities in a cycle that continually feeds upon and regenerates itself.” Throughout his story he discusses the small success of using culturally relevant texts to get his students engaged, and then their continued apathy and pressure to not value school. So, my question is, if the use of multi-cultural literature can work to get the students engaged and involved in your one class, how are we going to energize and empower those students to go out and be successful in the rest of their school careers and beyond? I think Bill did what he could with his final letter of encouragement, but things like that also need to be incorporated into the classroom culture from the start.
As for the rest of the readings, I agree that learning the history of your students is important. Aside from great methods and dynamic lessons, connecting with students and showing them that you care about their past as well as their future is one of the ways to become that “great teacher” that Byron mentioned in class.
2 comments:
I agree that Bill's decription of the cycle was disturbing. I dealt with those same issues in my first year of teaching. My students fed into the very systems of oppression that kept them from succeeding in the first place. I tried to incorporate issues of social justice and strong cultural examination into my curriculum, but some of my students refused to acknowledge that they themselves were a part of how they were being held in their positions of low power. I had to come to the same realization that Bill did: I can only do my best to help them view the world and themselves in a different way. However, in the end the power to change how they see things lies within them. Only they have the power to truly re-examine their identity.
Great point about what students take away from classes like Bill’s. Awareness and greater understanding are a good place to start—but then students need to be moved to make changes in their own lives and in the world. Although many students can be apathetic, adolescents also have a “keen sense of injustice” (a phrase I have stolen from a former colleague—and I used it to describe Bone—it really resonates with me). That’s a key facet of critical literacy: using writing, reading, etc. as tools to work for social justice.
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