What does a great school look like?I thought, what if we were to create a series of letters to one another, a kind of think aloud about educational best practice. We all have a slightly different perspective on the how of educating urban kids, but I think we all share a similar purpose: to educate our way out of America's problem of institutionalized racism and classism (please correct me if I am wrong). I am starting with fellow educators whom I have worked with over the years, but want us all to invite kids, other teachers, parents and community members to the conversation.
What do leaders, community members, teachers and kids do to make a great school?
What more do we need to know and wrestle with to create and run a great school?
I really want us to open a school one day in Denver that truly embraces democracy, that is created by the community I live in, a school that I would want to send my child to, but that also serves a diversity of children and serves them well. I think it is through conversation and research that we could identify first what this school looks like in our community and second add voices we have never heard before to the conversation, diverse voices of parents, kids, community members and other educators.
I am going to start a new site today that we can all post to, an open letter. We can invite others to the conversation along the way and perhaps get a start on something that could be bigger than us someday. I look forward to hearing from you all.
Thank you all for your deep thinking and deep commitment to kids.
Sarah
Dear Sarah, I hope your time at Harvard is all you had hoped it would be. I am very excited for you and I thank you for including me in on this conversation about developing great schools.
ReplyDeleteYou mention you want to open a school that embraces democracy. So, a great school that does this would be one reflective of democratic principles and processes, yes? I am wondering if it would be helpful then to develop a common language around what this democracy is along with what the principles are and the how the democratic processes manifest. For starters, how would you define a democracy in this context?
Recently on a trip to Minneapolis, I spoke with Asad Zaman, the executive director of a charter school that serves primarily Muslim children in the Twin Cities. The school's mission is as follows (from the school’s website):
The mission of the Tarek Ibn Ziyad Academy is to contribute to building a diverse, virtuous and moral America by helping children to understand their stewardship role in the world, embedding in them a sense of care, responsibility, love, tolerance and cooperation. Strengthened by these virtues, our students will be prepared to participate actively in civic life and take leadership roles in their communities. In addition, the Academy aims to help students integrate into American society, while retaining their identity.
Asad states he now wishes to create a university. When I asked him about his motivation to do so, he said that his intention is birthed from concern that the Somali children in his state are not able to access educational equity and programs that will support them -- so these children continue to struggle. There are over 30,000 Somali children in Minnesota.
I mention this because the kind of democratic school to adequately serve Somali children may vary from one that supports a different population or community.
So, what is democracy to you and how, if at all, does a specific population or community play a role in forming and participating in this democratic school? Karla
Dear Karla,
ReplyDeleteYou ask me to define democracy, and then provide me of an example of the rifest democracy controversy of the decade. I believe our American culture (definition: the white American culture of power) may have the most to learn from those willing to extend good will after so little good will has been extended to them.
A portion of Asad's description of his perfect school is, "to help students integrate into American society, while retaining their identity." I have to ask, is integration the ideal of democracy for minorities? Or is democracy looking at the culture of power and putting it in check so all communities have access to the advantages of the culture of power? Or is it simply understanding the rules of the culture of power so one can become a part of the privileged? If so, as a privileged white American, what must I give up in order for others to gain access? Is this the heart of our century long struggle for democracy, the people who have power do not want to give it up?
I reread the Lisa Delpit article last week, The Silenced Dialog. I had read it many times before, but experienced it differently this time. Before I read it, I read another article discussing why it was so hard to get teachers to change their teaching to more progressive methods (i.e.) project based learning. Essentially it said that progressive teaching requires teachers to teach in a way that they have never been taught, and while we may implement parts and pieces of the methods, we never are able to truly let go of our previous cultural thinking around they way teaching is done.
The second article was about teaching as a cultural activity and it compared the US method of teaching mathematics with that of Japan's. In US classrooms we are predominantly concerned with kids getting the "right" answer and knowing the "right" method of solving problems. In Japan, teachers are mainly concerned with documenting students’ thinking, right or wrong, and discussing students’ thought processes, deconstructing the work to understand where students go wrong and why. Japan has far superior scores to the US in math. Is it their methods? Is this democratic teaching?
After the first two readings I was feeling confident that I knew the best method of instruction, a way of learning that would work for all students. The third reading was Delpit. I was thrown once again into doubt.
“The following discussion will explicate these aspects of power and their relevance into the schism between liberal educational movements (progressive teaching) and that of non-white, non-middle-class teachers and communities.”
“I describe the estrangement that I and many teachers of color feel from the progressive movement when writing process advocates dismiss us as too skills-oriented.”
Delpit says that while we progressive educators want the same for our our child as everyone else’s, parents outside of the culture of power want, “to ensure that the school provides their children with discourse patterns, interactional styles, and spoken and written language codes that will allow them success in the larger society.”
After Delpit, we read Doug Lamov, Teach like a Champion. It was not my first experience with Lamov. After leaving my last school (a project-based charter school in Denver, CO), I have chosen to work in a “no excuses” charter. The school uses the Uncommon Schools’ Taxonomy, 49 tips to becoming a “Champion Teacher.” I sat in on a Doug Lamov training session in Boston recently.
ReplyDeleteI was struck by how little discussion there was on the taxonomy during the training. Questions focused on the how of implementing the 49 techniques, not the why. Two weeks later, we had a guest speaker from an Uncommon school in New York. The training used many of the same teaching video clips I had seen previously at the Lamov training and the same methodology. This time however people asked questions challenging the why of the taxonomy. These question caused a heated discussion in our cohort as many felt the questioning was disrespectful and others felt it was natural to question for the purpose of learning. Isn’t this democracy, the right of the student to question?
As a student in a Lamov style classroom, I felt stifled. I felt my individual learning style was not valued and that if I did not conform, some punishment awaited me and I am a 35 year old graduate student. How would a younger student feel, particularly one who was just beginning to develop his own learning style? Does democracy allow for the stifling of the individual’s quest for self in order to get through the lesson?
Friday night I went to see Waiting for Superman. My heart strings were pulled. I wept a little and yet I still have a difficult time believing that the charter school sector, which provides only 4% of all American children with an education, is the answer to the reform movement that needs to happen in this country so all students have access to a public education that includes them in the 21st century economy. Is this democracy, educating students so they can work and earn a comfortable living?
In your letter yow wrote:
I mention this (Asad’s School) because the kind of democratic school to adequately serve Somali children may vary from one that supports a different population or community. So, what is democracy to you and how, if at all, does a specific population or community play a role in forming and participating in this democratic school?
I suppose a democratic school will look different in different communities, but what I wonder about is having a school specifically designated for one group to meet its specific needs creating a population that is not truly representative of all the members of a community. Do children gain something from diversity that they cannot get from a homogenous group? The no excuses charter school I am in works predominantly with kids of color from lower income areas of the city and the mission of the school is to create a college going culture and get kids into college. Is this the path to democracy, separate but equitable?
What do I mean by democracy? Clearly I have more questions than answers. Do others have a definition of democracy?
Best,
Sarah
Cohen, D. (1990). A revolution in one classroom: The case of Mrs. Oublier. Chapter 28 (pp. 440-469) in The Jossey-Bass reader on school reform. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Stigler, J. & Hiebert, J. (1999). Teaching is a cultural activity. Chapter 5 (pp. 85-101) in The teaching gap: Best ideas from the world’s teachers for improving education in the classroom. New York: The Free Press.
Delpit, L. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children. Harvard Educational Review, 48(3), 280-298.
Lemov, D. (2010). Planning that ensures academic achievement. Chapter 2 (pp. 57-70) in Teach like a champion: 49 techniques that put students on the path to college. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
You know your questions completely resonate with me, and my opinions can waver daily. However, it always comes back to the Delpit argument for me. I think it’s ironic how this conversation about democracy is occurring through written language, as much progressive discourse is. I truly became a teacher because I believed that education is the most important civil rights issues of our times. The written, spoken, and read word have been essential tools in our predominate “democracy” AND the dissent against it. That is exactly why Malcolm read the Oxford dictionary from cover to cover while incarcerated.
ReplyDeleteI am a bit simple these days. I don’t ponder creating a school or even leading one (not much at least), I mostly stay focused on one area of activism, and that is teaching kids to read and write. And this is exactly what their parents want me to d; what they want their neighborhood school to do. They are empowered parents that believe that their kids should be on the same playing field with their privileged counter parts. I think democracy is them having this choice, and parents have the right to make choices regarding their student’s education and the student has the right to exercise choice as they grow and mature. This is why educators and communities have rallied for school choice.
I work in an “uncommon” middle school and recently toured 3 similar middle schools in Boston. My analysis is that the model works well for strengthening academic skills- and although I can’t speak for other schools, just my own, there is a perception that struggling learners are pushed out and our school does’t serve all students. These perceptions are rumors (made mostly by people that have never stepped a foot inside of the front door or spoken deeply with staff, students, or families) in that I can say with complete integrity that the 4 schools in my network are working tirelessly to serve all students, and the leadership feels passionately about allocating resources and trying interventions to help all students be successful. If schools that fill this niche, the niche that Delpit calls for, righteously and fairly, then our students will have the opportunity to engage in this discourse of democracy and change their own lives. I think this can start in high school. We have a high school developer, a Chicano/Native man from East Denver- he is currently developing our high school that will open in Fall 2012, where he will be principal. He speaks to the staff about the importance of academic skill and rigor as an issue of equity and social justice, but also about the importance of finding the balance between this and critical pedagogy. As this develops, I know where my voice will stand. Our students are the most fantastically respectful, hard working, and skilled middle schoolers I know. They impress me every day. I am joyed that they are developing a skill set that is similar to mine, so that they can engage in the conversation about democracy and other issues that are important to them. This is my greatest hope and my greatest push.
Hi everyone :-) - how cool to see you digging into this. Has me miss PS1 and all our staff development in a big way.
ReplyDeleteHow about this:...democracy = participation, and that to distinguish and build democracy, you distinguish and build an ethic of participation
Brady
Hi Sarah.
ReplyDeleteComing from someone with the very unique background of active participation in three democratic learning communities (JCOS, CICS, and PS1), this is an interesting question.
But I am writing not because i can add anything to the conversation at this point, but because of the very real potential that the last standing community in that trilogy may be subtracted soon. I am speaking of the Open School.
Please be aware that the State is threatening JCOS with a number of "turnaround" tactics, including replacing the school's leadership in two years.
If you would like to know more, and perhaps join that conversation, let me know. A group of supporters (originally the CICS Foundation, now renamed Friends of the Open School) meets regularly and is gearing up for action.
-mike