Sunday, March 20, 2011

Trivializing "walk in your shoes" moments...

A hard lesson that I learned is that sometimes experiential exercises such as the ones advocated by TCI (Teachers Curriculum Institute - the people behind History Alive) are not the best types of lessons for events and eras that involve great suffering and tragedy, such as in this case slavery. These are lessons that my coworker and friend, Mr. Hayes calls "walk in your shoes" moments...

When I was in EDUC 542 - Teaching Secondary Social Studies at USC last quarter, I thought I had an effective way to portray the shameful chapter of Japanese-American internment in the form of a simulation and experiential exercise. First of all, I would have had announced that another teacher had dumped crumpled-up paper balls on my desk and that now I would declare war with that teacher. I would read my version of Executive Order No. 9066 that Any students of that teacher past or present would be told to leave the room, but they would have to leave most of their belongings around, with the exception of a few things they could carry in their hands. It was my hope that the students would protest and I would end the experiential exercise before they actually had to.

I was like oh my gosh, I think this might be a good lesson...that Guinness commercial ("Brilliant!) ran in my mind (kidding!)

Writing this lesson plan was a learning experience as I was looking into the term project. I had found an interactive, hands-on approach that would simulate slaves picking cotton. This lesson plan would brief students about the differences between the simulation and slavery in the Antebellum period pick cotton and clean them, while reading a primary source document from Solomon Northup about the process.  At first, I was like with the controversy with the usage of cotton picker as an epithet or a slur, I was taken aback and decided to replace the simulation with stuffing envelopes. However, I realized that would dangerously trivialize the suffering and the experiences the slaves went through. Therefore, the simulation could not be used, and would be ditched immediately in favor of a “What if” reflection piece that would serve as a warmup. I later replaced the simulation with a reflection on comparing two sets of images: one an image of Japanese children at Manzanar, taken by Ansel Adams, and the other, a political cartoon that portrayed the Japanese as stereotypically-alike with buck-teeth and slanted eyes receiving TNT from a stand labeled, "Honorable 5th Column..."

It's like moments like these that make me realize how dangerous experiential exercises can be. We do not know how our students will take them. Trivializing the experiences of slavery will not get our students to understand the tragedy that those who suffered through experienced. Often, experiential exercises might be viewed as a game and we might fail to establish the connections between the exercise and the content that we are studying. Do we really want to reduce Japanese-American internment, the Chinese-Exclusion Act of 1882, slavery, and other instances of discrimination to a game? Not to mention informing parents of the type of activity especially when the feelings and emotional well-being of students are concerned. How far is going too far in the name of eliciting empathy for the sufferings of the other? How far do we go in putting ourselves in the shoes of others?

I understand role-playing when it comes to the dramas we read such as Romeo and Juliet. I understand it when it comes to stories we might read that do not involve suffering or tragedy, but that is exactly that...they do not involve content that should not be reduced down to a theatrical activity...

Friday, March 11, 2011

Today's movement

Today's movement is not about truancy or cutting class as the movement's detractors want to suggest, but it's about students empowering THEMSELVES. How utterly predictable that those who are afraid of the voices of students are accusing them of being lazy and unconcerned about school.

Interesting question raised about today's walkout...

The question for today's National School Walkout I am hearing quite often is, "Are students being politicized?" as in the passive sense. That is a question that we must all answer, but a better question might be, "Are they politicizing THEMSELVES?" in the active sense...as agents of change themselves. Now what I see is that they are more active than we give them credit for and that they if given the opportunity will be a voice that cannot be silenced. There are too many instances on Facebook where students as young as 11 years old are organizing protests, vigils, and rallies in support of their favored causes. This is something that we should celebrate, not demean or try to diminish by suggesting that students do not have an independent voice.

A common theme that seems to be brought up is that they are being manipulated or being dragged into the political battles of adults and that this is shameful. That may or may not be a legitimate point. However, I am a firm believer that this can evolve into a dangerous talking point that threatens the legitimacy of student-led movements whether they are political or not. This is more rhetoric from the establishment that seeks to discredit any movements against it. By portraying the students as pawns or brainwashed by teachers, unions, or acting on their feelings, they hope to perpetuate the stereotype that students cannot think on their own, or that they are easily manipulated in contrast to the coldly, logical adults who always "know better." Their hope is that we see a bunch of young people in the streets and brush them off as they're just being kids and don't know any better.

I sense that the movement to deny students the right to vote in the communities they go into college is connected to the youth activism in the streets of state capitols around the country. Everywhere, the voices of the establishment, and by that, I mean politicians, those in the media, and corporate-tycoons such as the Koch brothers, basically the dominant group that holds the power in this nation, are trying to restrict their right to vote, because “a dearth of experience and a plethora of the easy self-confidence that only ignorance and inexperience can produce.” in the words of state Representative Gregory Sorg and House Speaker William O’Brien who proclaimed that students only vote with their feelings.

Another talking point seems to be a general distrust on whether they would behave in a "civil" manner. Well, what defines civil? Are we to believe that students are so lacking in self-control that they'll discredit whatever movement that they have decided THEMSELVES to stand up for? Anyone can be a boor, anyone can become uncivil. Yet we are to believe that students are prone more so than others?

Above all, why do we not give students the credit they deserve for being their own voices? Too often, we assume that they are accounts to deposit information and knowledge. That is the very notion that critical pedagogy fights. Instead of downplaying their passion and their activism, we should do well to listen to their voices and learn from their own experiences, because not only are they learning from their own experiences, they are creating their own experiences whenever they protest. Perhaps the lesson to be learned also on this day of student activism is to TRUST STUDENTS and their ideas. Students KNOW BETTER and we should all keep that in mind.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Resistance and Revolution

Mobilizing Teaching Not only for knowledge but for Resistance and Revolution

Inspired by Michael Morgan, who created the Teachers for Revolution group at the MAT @ USC, I too want to brainstorm ways how we, not just teachers but more importantly students can make the change in our lives that we deserve, instead of waiting for the establishment to move at its snail-like pace.

Critical Pedagogy not only involves identifying ways in which the oppressors divide and conquer the people and ways to fight back, to get the consciousness of freedom moving in forms of direct action but...

  1. A focus on personalizing education for all students regardless of background, socioeconomic class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. Is the material relevant for us students? Do the standards connect to the lives of students or do they favor a certain group? Do the material and curriculum we present leave behind groups who do not identify with them? Why should students care about the material they learn in school? Why should they care about a bunch of dead guys supposedly making history while the voices of the forgotten linger in the dustbin of history to be silenced into oblivion.
  2. Student activism, not led by teachers or such, but student led. A prime example is the National Student Walkout promoted by Wisconsin High school students themselves, belying the myth of the apathetic high schooler unconcerned about anything besides video games. Change comes from the people, and who better than students who are the future leaders of the nation.
  3. Students creating history themselves in an active manner, instead of learning passively about people whom they may not relate to. The protest above is history in the making, and it might be studied by future generations of students and inspire them to even greater heights. Passivity in the standards should be replaced with standards that highlight the struggle of the people to gain legitimacy, to fight for their rights, and to push back against any and all attempts to oppress them.
  4. Focus on students creating knowledge instead of relying on the banking model of education, where teachers "deposit" information into the minds of students, a model that Paolo Friere criticized in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Students are not blank slates that come without knowledge and an awareness. You ask them about the issues in their own lives, and they will show you a side different from the establishment's stereotype of the apathetic student, yet another example of a stereotype used by those in power to demean and to diminish those who could potentially rise up against them.
  5. Big Ideas, not in the form of statements as if what the teacher says goes but rather in the form of questions where students find and research the answers for themselves. Yes, how we present the questions and material may in itself be biased as well, but it is a step above presenting a big idea to guide students' research instead of having the research lead students to THEIR answers.
  6. Student-based texts, not only relating to the standards themselves, not only having them create blogs, but creating their own voices. Their voices should not be just solely used to learn the material and to present it in their own way. They have their own concerns, their own fears, their own goals in life, their own opinions on the events around them. Yet we ignore their voices at our own peril. You look on Facebook and you see protests being led by students such as the protest at Gunderson High against the Westboro Baptist Church people. Likewise, we have many examples of primary sources that we read. The example that comes to mind is the Diary of Anne Frank, who was 15 when she died in the death camps. Numerous others include letters, journals, diaries, blogposts, etc. Students will find a way to have their voices heard, and the school leaves those voices behind in favor of a hidden curriculum that silences dissent and silences innovation, risk-taking, and change.
  7. Standards which are student-orientated, with a focus on critical multiculturalism, not liberal multiculturalism which trivializes diversity to the "let's celebrate all cultures, especially their foods!" but a critical multiculturalism that challenges the status quo and the institutionalized isms that back the status quo and the establishment's power.
  8. Students above all...