Teacher or Instructor

The role of the teacher in the overarching education process is certainly crucial. They are the guider, mentor and facilitator of specific knowledge and inquiry. Yet, the position of the teacher has certainly changed over the past few decades. This position has gone from being a “teacher” which teaches morals and knowledge, to “instructor” teaching a prefixed curriculum that leaves little room for creativity. Over the last decade there has been an great emphasis on assessment. This came about even more so with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in which schools started to become accountable for raising student performance with both regional and statewide testing. Through my observations of the public school system in New York State there has been numerous references by teacher says, “pay attention, you need to know this for the test”. Therefore not only is the teacher’s curriculum determined by the state, but teachers have to teach towards a test rather than create a curriculum that factors in the multicultural and regional differences of the community that the educational system serves.

In Lynn Astarita Gatto’s essay, “Success Guaranteed Literacy Programs”, we learn of literacy practices that make students learners of knowledge rather than reproducers of it. If we teach just for a test then students “only learned what was required for the state’s standardized tests” (86). Therefore Gatto’s teaching practices went beyond what the state expected of her. Sometimes there are districts that do not offer the same type of flexibility. In Patricia Irvine and Joanne Larson’s essay, “Literacy Packages in Practice” we learn of literacy packages that are bought by the district. The goal of the packages is to raise students’ low reading levels by “standardizing instruction and retraining those teachers suspected of having marginal skills” (49). Personally I feel that both teachers and students will rise to their expectations. Therefore if you expect more from them they will rise to the occasion. Irvine and Larson mentions this by saying literacy packages “attempt to script teachers’ behaviors, deskilling them in the process” (50). Therefore they do not have the ability to implement their own creativity. From this we can see how the district imposed the role of teacher to instructor. These reading packages also hold a deficit view of the culture of the community.

Throughout this blog we have seen the importance of out of school literacies to bring relevance to in-school literacies. We have seen that by making literacy important to students they will gain acceptance in the material and want to engage in it. Therefore it is appropriate to question, how do corporations know what is best of make literacy relative to students in a given community. Gatto questions:

Do teachers feel so powerless that they will allow publishing companies and district officials to tell them how to best provide literacy instruction for their students? (87)

Gatto counteracts this questions by saying she uses literacy that is relative to her students therefore they become valued as learners. They learn that “their ideas and opinions count” (88). Therefore Gatto has learned how to reclaim the role of teacher to bring about meaningful and relevant literacy instruction. For a great video about making teaching relavent and its abiltiy see: L’ Ecole Buissonniere.

Gatto has learned what to do to counteract the forces that want her to have a prescribed teaching style. With so much research support Gatto’s style of teaching, why are reading packages and other non-personal teacher methods encouraged? I feel this is a result of the neoliberalism forces that are becoming prevalent in our education system. See blog: Neoliberalism and Education, Bad Combination. From this blog we can see that their is a constant attempt for private enterprises to have a hand in the public education system. Therefore we can see how their is an attempt from these enterprises want to make the curriculum standard for all students. In this way they negate the role of the teacher as an effective tool of instruction so they can impose their product. Their product is framed around the ideologies of increasing standards and they are hiding the truth. The truth is they are privatizing the educational system and pursuing their corporate agenda.

Neoliberalism and Education, Bad Combination

In this blog post I want to discuss the realities of neoliberalism. It is important to discuss neoliberalism at this time because all the concepts of the other blog posts can be tied into the epistemologies of neoliberalism. According to P. Lipman in the essay, “Education Policy, Race, and Neoliberal Urbanism”, neoliberalism is defined as

an ensemble of economic and social policies that promotes the primacy of the market and individual self-interest, unrestricted flows of capital, deep reductions in the cost of labor, sharp retrenchment of the public sphere, and withdrawal of government from providing for social welfare (45).

From this we can see the epistemologies of neoliberalism as a drive to make all the spaces within the public sphere (libraries, parks, roads, ect..) adhere to market forces. For example, the No Child Left Behind law brought a market style drive to education. If schools are not performing well than resources are taken from that school, further letting it fail. This is similar to a corporation that may cut labor or resources from a division of the company that is underperforming. Some conspiracy theorist may believe this market style approach to education is an effort to privatize education with federal tax dollars. This brings about the emergence of charter schools or federal education vouchers for students to attend an alternate school.

Who benefits from intense privatization of public services? Lipman offers insight by saying that a large amount of wealth will transfer from middle and low class families to the very wealthy (47). Lets look at this through an example; if a park is purchased by a rich capitalist they can decide to charge the public to use it. Therefore this will ensure that the wealthy capitalist makes a profit off a once public space.

If neoliberalism had its way this would occur:

Lets look at this from an educational perspective. There has been a lot of debate over privatization of education in the United States. Lets look at the extreme case in which a soft drink company owns a district. The soft drink company can then supply materials that ensure the continuation of consumers of its products. Lets also consider the owns of the soft drink company happen to be very religious. Therefore they have the ability to impose its religious objectives onto the students.

Those who are most effected by neoliberal ideologies tends to be students of color. The students of color will not be given the rules to enter the culture of power. In addition, by the wealth going from the poor to the very wealthy this will increase the separation of wealth and further make the poor poorer.

Where neoliberal tends to deal with a weakened state, neoconservatism tends to call for a strong state. According to M. Apple’s essay, “Whose Markets, Whose Knowledge?”, the issues of neoconservatism “is especially true surrounding issues of knowledge, values, and the body” (47). In terms of education, Apple continues to state that a neoconservatism would want to call for “mandatory national and statewide curricula” and “a ‘return’ to higher standards” (47). This neoconservative perspective does not look at multicultural education as a means to achieving higher standards.

From this we can see how both the neoliberal and neoconservative perspectives see the world as black and white. They see the world as both the public and private spheres. When responding to society crises the solution tends to come only from the public or the private and little attention is given to those solutions outside these spaces. Therefore for a more complete society we need to look beyond neoliberalism and neoconservatism to see the solutions that benefit us all.

Both neoliberalism and neoconservatism look at the individual as the only unit in the society and do not take into consideration the power of society. From many indigenous societies we learn that the focus is the health of the tribe and all situations deal with how they affect the tribe. Therefore we can see how our society can be easily caught up into neoliberalism because capitalism deals greatly with the individual efforts rather efforts of the collective. Certainly efforts of the collective are much more powerful and speak to the multicultural society that we live in. Therefore this is why there is such resistance to neoliberalism; it widens the economic gap and it is mono-cultural.

Einstein Quote

It is almost a miracle that modern teaching methods have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiousity of inquiry; for what this delicate little plant needs more than anything, besides stimulation, is freedom

What we Learn From "Informal" Epistemology

When we talk about diversity we often talk about the physical differences between us. In this blog I have often looked at color of oneself as the primary tool of separation and discrimination. I have not looked at how the difference in thinking practices separate us. These thinking practices is known as epistemology and the study of the differences in thinking practices is known as epistemological diversity. As a note, epistemological diversity is not the study of ideologies of a governing body, rather it is what entails the practices of knowledge and education that encompass a way a society thinks.

In my future classroom I cannot forget that this epistemological diversity exist. This is the reason for a differentiated curriculum. That is a curriculum that caters to the different learning styles of the students. Students bring with them a learning style that is independent of the school system. It is one that may be based on a students family and cultural background. It may take into effect visual, audio or written discourses are better suited for that those learning styles.

It is important to remember that generalizations cannot be made based on a students skin color, gender or physical appearance and the learning style that works for them. Often society has “labeled” certain races to have a learning style that is not realistic. In Lomawaima and McCarty’s essay, “The Strengths of Indigenous Education: Overturning Myths About Indian Learners”, we see that “Native individuals were assumed to lack the verbal, cognitive, even motor skills necessary to succeed in schools” (16). This assumption leads to an image in society that Native Americans are “stoic and silent” (19). This is an assumption that only benefits the educational system and we see in the other blogs that it would be one that keeps Native Americans from being successful in the formal educational system, hence lacking the ability from entering the “culture of power”. Also formal education system are continually seeking ways to make sense of the world in simplistic and one-dimensional way. Therefore by making sense of Native Americans in this way it caters to the idea that, “standardizing institutions demand myths demand myths that simplify the world” (22). Lets look at the how Indigenous education system is set up that contradicts the idea that Native Americans are static and stolid.

When students in the United States think of formal education the image is usually clear. Formal education involves a location, usually with brick or concrete walls. There is also an individual who holds a certificate that deems them the title of a “teacher”. In contrast Indigenous education is considered to be informal, in that it does not take place within the confines of a concrete box. Although labeled as “informal” the Indigenous education is one that adheres to certain pedagogical goals. According to Lomawaima and McCarty the educational system is structured by, “gender, age, and clan or rank” and the reason for the education system is for “strength and leadership” (28-29). In our “formal” education system we measure success on rankings on standardized tests, whereas the educational goals of the Indigenous system is “to produce competent, caring adults” (30). I believe this a beautiful pedagogy that every educational system should be based off of. If the current educational system took into account the epistemologies of Native Americans I believe we would be in a very different world. See the video below for a greater understanding of this:



These ideas of Floyd Red Crow Westerman from the video would be passed down through songs, stories, observation, and through the simplistic acts of caring for animals and plants. Of course words and lectures are given also to instruct and discipline. In Lowawaima and McCarty’s essay, Buffalo Bird Woman “recalled that her Hidatsa grandfather often talked to her and scolded her when she was naughty” (36). So we can see that everything wasn’t song and dance as it is often thought to be.

The Indigenous system often took place in the home. All societies including the Native American see “the home as the central educational system” (38). Often to educated Native Americans they were taking away from their home. In my blog “How Languages are Lost and How they Are Important” we see that Native Americans were taken from their home to be taught in boarding schools. This went completely against the epistemology of Native Americans and seen as the primary means to create control.

From this we can see many of the primary differences from the formal US education. How can these epistemologies be incorporated into the formal education system? In a similar way to my “Embracing Mathematics” blog, we need to not dismiss the culture’s contributions to a education system. Rather I need to show students how their culture contributed to the subject matter and in turn the students may feel that they too can have a part in it. Therefore it has a relevance and meaning to their lives.