Book Talk - Ender's Game

Below is a link to the powerpoint I will be presenting in class.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1I7-lEom67MQa6XK2VHFFK4EubdKk61VG

Teaching is a Breakfast Sandwich

I understand this excerpt from Paulo Freire's book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, is from 1993. I understand that it has been separated from us by a degree of time and a few turns of the hourglass. But I'm not sure I agree inherently with Freire's assessment of what teaching is. They may be his observations, and I respect that much, but it seems to me that he is applying a pessimistic realism to the "ideal" pedagogical practice, or at least his summation of what others think it to be.

What he's describing is direct instruction, and while that shouldn't be the catch-all marmalade that we spread on our teaching toast, it shouldn't be by-and-large tossed out. This breakfast spread still has some time on the ol' expiry date.

What we as educators need to understand is that we cannot rely on a single mode of instruction to reach all of our students effectively. We have to mix and match. Pair that marmalade with, I dunno, maybe some rye toast and a rasher of bacon. Every now and again swap the marmalade for peanut butter. Instead of relying wholly upon direct instruction, we need to mix it up, is my point, the roundabout way of getting there notwithstanding. Constructivist theory is all the rage these days, but it cannot and should not be a wholesale replacement for direct instruction practices. They need to be mixed and matched to better attend the needs of our respective classroom cultures, and the needs of our individual students.

What's more, it is in my opinion that Constructivist theory should follow direct instruction. Mustn't we teach definitions of vocabulary words before students write them? Shouldn't we deliver the Pythagorean Theorem and drill it into memory before we can expect them to know how to apply it?

I think it's necessary to build up a knowledge base first before trying to do anything practical with said knowledge. We have to give our students the necessary components--the eggs, the cheese, the marmalade, the sausage, and the English muffin--before we can expect them to build a delicious and nutritious sandwich from it. Education isn't a transfer of information like water from kettle to cup. It is the presentation of information and encouraging its practical use. Teaching is a breakfast sandwich.

Teaching Literature: Subjective Versus Objective

In the handout we were given in class, the author takes a long, verbose scenic route to describe two truths to literature and how to consume it. We, as teachers, have to identify when to test students upon these two truths of preference and the type of text, or, to put it differently, how we read it. What's important about a text? The objective facts of the writing itself? The main character lives in Florida, his name is Paul, the antagonist is his older brother Erik (Tangerine by Edward Bloor). Or do we worry about the subjective analytical details? The "zombie" in the beginning of the book - what does it symbolize? What is the dynamic between Paul and his parents? What factors contribute to Paul's opinion of his older brother? Why is Paul afraid of him?

The point is that when reading a text, or at least a piece of fiction, and when assessing our students, we need to know what we're looking for. Do we want them to understand the text in an objective or subjective sense? Each way is valid for different reasons, and you'd be ill-advised to use a test meant for interpretation (essays, discussion) for objectivity, just as you'd do a disservice to the students by using a fact-based assessment to glean the students' understandings of subjective ideas.
The article (textbook?) offers some helpful tips to narrow down what you're looking for and how to employ techniques to weed those sorts of sought answers from your students. As teachers, we ought to understand the difference between black/white/yes/no questions and open-ended ones. It shouldn't take ten textbook pages for us to be able to make the distinction. What should be focused on is how to approach that distinction so that our students can understand it, and know when the expected answers are Boolean or wide-reaching.

CA CCSS

In spite of the fact that these standards are "for grades 11-12 unless otherwise specified," and I am currently placed in a 7th grade classroom at a local middle school, there are some bits that I can likely scale back for use with students who haven't quite yet developed their critical thinking and analysis chops. It's nice that the CA CCSS is written in an accessible way, as it makes slight modification easier. Although the odds of needing to do this are slim to none, given that 7th grade already has its own CCSS to which I must adhere. That being said, however, some of the techniques and other tidbits may be useful in a preparatory sense. What I mean by "preparatory" is that my students will have to grapple with questions such as the ones listed under the "Reading for Understanding" heading, where they are thinking more metacognitively about what they are reading. If I can pose these questions a few years early and sort of plant that seed of inquisitive pedagogy, it stands to reason that I can soften the blow when similar questions make themselves apparent in later grade levels, easing the difficulty curve and potentially impressing their future teachers with their analytical skills. One of the parts of reading that I see older students struggle with is comprehension of what's read, and the aforesaid section helps with that skill, I think.

As a whole, though, I like how the standards are structured in such a way so as to complement each other. Reading and writing are so closely intertwined (reading a lot creates better writers, and writing a lot creates better readers) that using standards to leverage that relationship only makes perfect sense. Separating writing and reading (and speaking, if you ask me) is an exercise in futility, one that results in the inability of students to relate to a text, discuss it adequately, and form intelligent responses, be it in writing or otherwise.

CCSS - Standards, Not Curriculum

What I found interesting about the chapter titled "The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts Instruction in Grades 6-12," which is from the book titled CCSS: Origins, Goals, Challenges, is the fact that the standards (and even the notion of how to address and define standards) are a whirling machine, always changing and re-orienting themselves. The struggle between federal and state standards, the differences from state to state, and the challenges therein, create a complicated whirlwind of politicking, coercion, resistance, and cooperation--a process that seems to be antithetical to the means it aims to achieve. It appears that Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are the latest and most effective (considering widespread use in the States) in this long train of reinventing the wheel, as it were, but how long before the work that so many have put into these standards is discarded and the wheel turns again, finding new ways to complicate matters in the name of blanketed inclusion and ironic efficiency? Now, I don't mean to imply that inclusion or efficiency are negative things--quite the contrary. My issue stems from the fact that we don't stick with one "machined part" long enough before trying to dissect it and find a better way to accomplish the same task. And while it may be a byproduct of scientific inquiry (the standards we hold most dear are research-based, after all, and the scientific method demands and necessitates redefinition of observations) as well as a byproduct of the simple march of time (politician A enacts policy, policy is put into effect for a short term before politician B takes his place and enacts a new policy, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum), but it seems to me that we owe our species the apt investment it deserves.

I of course imply that education is the most important investment a people can make into itself. If we do not hold education to be the positive feedback loop that it is and tend it just so, then we are remiss in our duties to future generations. If CCSS is the best we have, then so be it. But when the next iteration of some form of educational standards rears its inevitable head, perhaps more care should be poured into its creation, with more cooperation and less politicking, than generations before; simply because we owe it to ourselves and our children and our children's children.

To clarify, I don't dislike CCSS. I only wish that it met more needs of more varieties of children (every child is different, you know) while simultaneously holding all students to an acceptable standard. And that may be an idealistic pipe dream, but even so, we must strive for that dream.

Discussion as a Way of Teaching - a Response

What strikes me (although at this point in my educational career, it really shouldn't) about the reading is that we have to pay equal mind to the form, function, and features of discussions as much as to what is discussed. As with any teaching method, the form and function need be tended before the content within can be adequately transferred. Students who aren't engaged or who don't feel included will be negatively impacted by the exercise at hand. It's true for day-to-day classroom instruction, and it's true for class discussions. I like that the author presents a wide variety of possible discussion formats, allowing us, the audience and prospective teachers, to pick and choose what will work depending upon our class compositions, relevant course material, and the needs of the students.

As a prospective English teacher, myself, discussion is imperative to pushing students to think about what they read critically. It allows me as a teacher to model what critical thinking looks and sounds like, and encourages participation by putting the students all on an even playing field. The whole reason I had opted to teach Secondary students was for the opportunity to explore deeper concepts, read between the lines, and pursue more difficult or mature subject matter. You can't expect a third-grader to sit and have a discussion with you about the importance of foreshadowing in To Kill a Mockingbird. However, getting into highschool, students have the developed mental chops to take a bite out of more abstract concepts and link otherwise nakedly unrelated ideas. While language is the lynchpin of communication, it, by association, becomes a lynchpin for understanding humanity, and opening the doors to explorative thought. How can a student hope to put their complicated thoughts and complex feelings into words if the importance of language isn't stressed? With this notion in mind, it becomes apparent that practice makes perfect, and it follows that open, explorative (yet directed) discussion chips away at the granite of linguistic ignorance and therefore the slate of real, honest thought. Poetic, I know.