Chapter 8 and 9

Blah Blah Blah. That is exactly what I feel like right now. Just kidding! Kozol starts this week of talking about different programs that have been put in place over the years to somewhat close the gap between the education that more privileged students receive and those that are not so privileged.  Most of the programs he talked about failed and showed that putting money into the schools is definitely not the problem.  He also talked about the “new schools” or “pilot” schools that were being started.  I know from experience that in the beginning a lot of those skills appear to do alright but as years pass they do not differ much from the schools that are lacking.  “Lean on me. When you’re not strong and I’ll be your friend.” This is what came to mind when he brought up the infamous Joe Clark with the bat in his hand (Lean on Me).  I could not imagine being in a school where teachers walk around with bats and kick 300 students out.  In the movie, the students that were put out of the were those that were actually endangering the lives of others, but being an educator or any type of authority figure in a situation like that must have been scary and confusing for teachers who had no clue what to do.  The Houston incident mentioned was not surprising. I’m sure that they are not the only ones.  What caught my attention was where they helped the students cheat.  Walking around during a test and giving students the answers is not helping them understand the material. It’s actually hindering them. In the next chapter, different educational authority figures speak of the dire need for reform and change in the school system.  Educators need to be prepared to step outside of their comfort zones.  They need to be more willing to voice their concerns and fight both for their students as well as themselves. What stood out for me

           

Kozol–8

 

 

It is unreal the number of time I wrote “WOW!!!” in my margin, simply amazed, to put it kindly. First, I would like to ask how exactly it is a success to throw out 300 students with tardy or truancy problems, from a single school. (p. 199) It is wrong for this administrator to throw out these students, which he refers to as ‘parasites’ and ‘leeches’, and then proceed to boast ones own success in eliminating these problems and raising test score averages. Why don’t we just kick out every “sub-par” student and deny them an education, or even a chance, in the name of test scores? Bringing me to the events that happened in Texas, and several other places in our nation, in response to accountability and the demand for high test scores. The number and extent of these occurrences is absolutely amazing to me. I also think it show there is something wrong with the system in the first place. Some schools are cheating in order to receive monetary incentives for meeting external goals placed upon them, but I goes further that this with the misallocation of funds under NCLB. If school cannot provide “proof” of ‘adequate yearly progress’ and meet federal goals, they actually lose federal funds. This is likely to result in the loss of funds from schools that need it the most, since we have already seen that money really does make a difference in education. I think this backward logic goes along with the decline in both the number and percent of eligible children being served by the Head Start program due to lack of adequate funding, despite proclamations of the importance of Head Start. Yet the President “continues to insist that his agenda is succeeding.”

 

 

Kozol Chapters 3 and 4

In chapters 3 and 4, Kozol talks more about the isolation and career focus in the school system.  Chapter 3 really focuses on the labeling and classroom management that takes place within the inner city school systems.  Some of the things mentioned such as the “salute” the students did in response to their teacher’s call to their attention.  I remember the teachers in my elementary used to turn the light off to obtain our attention but the salute seemed so military like.  The labeling that starts as early as kindergarten is what caught my eye.  We think that the children do not notice that they are being separated off but they actually do.  It really affects their self esteem and overall outlook on life.  I never experienced labeling until I reached middle school where I was in “honors” courses until I reached 12^th grade.  My sisters were not in the program and talking to them on a daily basis they understood that a lot of the teachers did not expect as much from them as my teachers did of me and I did not like that.  I felt that being students in the same school teachers should have exceptionally high expectations for their students whether they were in honors or remedial courses.  Every student deserves the same shot, but the harsh reality is that there are some teachers that feel that preparing their students to do their minimal best is an accomplishment.  Now that my sisters are in college they are being presented with challenges that they are not prepared to take on because they were never challenged.  The scripted curriculum brought up made me see how passive education is being made in some educational settings.  Being scripted without any type of variation does not leave room for any type of student creativity and knowledge being brought out. I am realizing that I am not too excited about entering a school where the curriculum is strictly laid out and followed by all.  It will be jut my luck to enter an institution that values this type of instruction.  I do not feel comfortable having a classroom where exploration within learning is not highly valued.  I wasn’t excited about reading this week, which is why my blog is so short! Kozol depresses me.  

Kozol – Chps. 3 & 4

Reading chapter 3, I sometimes wondered if Kozol hadn’t got lost and found his way into a prison. The descriptions of Mr. Endecott’s classroom, for example, are really hard to swallow. The children in this classroom have been trained to respond to hand signals in an astonishing way. Trained well. Kozol mentioned that he “couldn’t find a single statement made by any child that had not been prompted by the teacher’s questions.” This must be difficult for any teacher in these systems who subscribes to a social theory of learning. Also mentioned was a lack of “references to any child’s traits of personality or even physical appearance .” The whole process of teaching and learning in these systems has become completely automated – it is an assembly line in which students are trained to mindlessly follow their teacher’s instructions before the assembly line moves on and the teachers begin to repeat the process anew. The teachers seemed to have been stripped of all creativity and individuality, and at times it sounds like they almost had a script.

I was very intrigued by the passage where Kozol attempted to extract the meaning of the word ‘meaningful.’ The students were only able to describe the word in relation to their curriculum standards. This caused me to think about the kind of learning going on at this school – students were learning facts and procedures, but were doing so out of context and totally without relevance. I would suggest that this kind of curriculum would produce almost no higher order thinking skills.

Chapter 4 read somewhat like Huxley’s Brave New World. For the children at that school, their future had been decided for them. At an age where kids generally allowed to think big, wanting to be doctors, lawyers, firefighters, policemen, pilots, and the like, these children are pushed toward a bright future in management. The principle’s comments later in the chapter, concerning her desire to instill in her students the belief that they can succeed, no matter what they have done, did nothing to change my low opinion of the practices at this school. No matter what they have done? Some of these children are five years old! Isn’t it a bit presumptuous to be talking about future felony arrests at five years old? Looking for a way to classify these views, Kozol hits upon a business model wherein schools produce a human product, and investments in this product might or might not pay off in the future. It seems to me that this neglects some things of immense intrinsic value. What of the value of these children’s youth? Of their understanding of their world? Of their hopes and dreams? Can we afford to these for whole generations of students in certain locations?

Kozol 3 and 4 – Oh how I hate thee!

The fun always comes first. Here are a couple of worthwhile Web sites to visit.

Adtunes.com is an ad music blog that serves as a guide to music used in television commercials, shows, film trailers, soundtracks and more.

OrwellProject.com is the online hub of reality TV, and it provides dedicated and up-to-date news, links, forums, casting calls, and more.

In last week’s class, Jonathan Kozol was described as an anthropologist. If I recall correctly (and I always can) from my previous courses at UT, anthropologists are first and foremost supposed to be objective observers. Kozol doesn’t seem to fit this description in the slightest. Funny how he never provides any details into how he selected the urban schools he chose to “observe.” But, I’m sure the selection process for his research focused on the worst of the worst in inner-city education. He makes bold statements about no “white student” ever being allowed to learn in the conditions of the urban poor. Yet, he never mentions looking for or visiting an underachieving school in any predominately “white” locale. It seems easy to draw broad controversial conclusions when you avoid any type of real world example that contradicts your beliefs. Additionally, he never seems to find an inner-city school in his cross country search that actually performs well or at least meets the “separate but equal” dictate of Plessy v. Ferguson. So here’s my sweeping conclusion of Kozol…you are an Ivy League Hack posing as an anthropologist and pseudo-authority on public education. By the way, how about turning that narrowly-focused gaze of yours on the “apartheid education” going on in higher education…or would that be considered crass (probably pronounced as “cross”) by your Harvard alums?

Chapter 3
“‘If you’re told to memorize something and you memorize it right,’ a child who had been identified to me as one of the best students in the class replied, ‘you get 100–and that’s Mastery…’” (83). Kozol then goes into his 20 questions to confuse a child routine to show how the student can’t possibly understand the word mastery. This is of course after he has ridiculed the school for not allowing the child to converse in a natural way based on his (or Kozol’s idea of an) age-appropriate vocabulary. “So a curriculum that was imposed, in part, to compensate for staffing needs of schools that had a hard time in recruiting teachers ends up by driving out precisely those well-educated men and women whom school systems have worked so hard to attract into these neighborhoods” (85). Wasn’t this turnover already happening before this new curriculum got implemented? Kozol is right that the canned curriculum provides a passive system for providing instructional continuity for the students given the teachers’ revolving door often found in inner-city schools. Yet, he still finds time to criticize any attempt at rectifying the situation by any means. Kozol seems to prefer the status quo rather than trying any alternate means to better the situation…oh yeah that’s right, he’s just an anthropologist (a.k.a. finder of flaws) and not an actual change agent. Didn’t ole Ralph Waldo, your fellow Harvard grad, say something about foolish consistency being the hobgoblin of little minds? Jonathan, you can’t point out the need for change and then do everything in your power to mock it because it doesn’t fall in-line with your wishes! Wait, that would mean that you actually might have to state what you think would be a solution and then other people could hold you accountable, wouldn’t it? Apparently, it’s just much more fun to write whiny books than proposals.

Chapter 4

“We all got gold stars in my elementary school if we brought in completed homework; many teachers give their students sticky decals…as rewards for finishing a book report of simply treating one another with politeness. Most Americans, I think, would smile at these innocent ad pleasant ways of giving small children small rewards” (97). Jonathan, if you had done some recent reading on educational philosophy, you might find that these types of reinforcement are also frowned upon now. “In the market-driven classroom, children are encouraged to believe they “own” the book, the concept, the idea. They don’t engage in knowledge; they possess it” (96). Once again, a frequently used term in current educational psychology literature that promotes students learning the value of “responsibility” for their education. It’s not trying to brainwash them with capitalistic ideologyyou jackass! Throughout this chapter, he talks about “HIS” problems with tying market-driven examples into educational processes. Has he ever studied the gaps in minority vs. white populations of the Fortune 500 companies? If he did, he might see some correlations between the racial differences in education and occupation. Perhaps these market-driven processes are trying to prepare them for a more successful life outside of high school and/or college. Kozol only sees it as a preparatory step into becoming a line cook, mechanic, or any other blue collar career path. He seems to think the world abounds with poets, painters, authors, dreamers, etc. Actually, people following those professions who find success are not quite as numerous as he would like to believe…and that is probably reflected across color lines. All in all, I really, really loathe this guy, and I wish someone would challenge his conclusions about the realities of urban education rather than just “yessing” him at every moment.

Welcome to the Show! …Now get in line.

Chapter 3:

Kozol admits that “all teaching is theatrical to some degree,” but what happens when this acting becomes the only way to instruct? To extend the metaphor, let’s discuss P.S. 65, a school in the Bronx that Kozol visited. The teachers and the students of this school are all actors preparing for an audition. An audition that will manifest itself in the form of a bubble test. Whether the teachers and students do well in this audition will define them and will determine whether they can go onto the play, or if they have to go home and become stage hands and janitors.

There is only one audition, one try, one shot. Oh no! So if this is it, we must use every moment we have rehearsing! Here is the script, sit down, let’s practice. Repeat after me, say your lines, say them again, memorize them. Don’t get one word wrong. What’s that? You want to improvise? I’m sorry, that is not allowed. Go sit in the back, (or go to the principal’s office but don’t be surprised if he isn’t there because he is rehearsing too).

Caught in this masquerade of actors and script, it is impossible to know what is truth and what is a façade. Perhaps students will become used to this “system of control on every form of intellectual activity,” but how will it profit them? Yes, if the school is lucky, the students will learn their lines and perform well in the audition. But then they must leave the theater… and enter the real world! [audience gasps].

Will they be prepared? Will drills and routine and monotony have taught social skills, and self confidence? Why, no no no! But employer, I don’t need to know how to get along with a group! I have memorized the script! Is that not good enough?!

Suddenly, the “acceptable containers” that knowledge has been stored in becomes musty in a world where containers are no good. Lines become forgotten, and the only skills remaining are ones that teach students to mask who they are. The abstract standards they fought to reach become obsolete as the play changes. Soon, there will be a generation of young adults all lining up to audition outside of a dilapidated children’s theater, because that is all they know.

Chapter 4:

I sat and ate lunch with nine kindergarteners last week at Lonsdale Elementary School. One by one I asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up. Two of three girls said “cheerleader,” while the last proclaimed, “a teacher!” (to which I was surprised and delighted). Five of the six boys said only “football player” and the last, (only slightly joking I assume), said “I want to work at McDonalds.” Of these nine, four were Hispanic and five were African American. Already, before they have even entered first grade, the majority of these kids have reduced their options to professional sports or minimum paying job. Why? Because that is what they see; that is what their siblings have done, that is what their parents have done… and no one has told them differently.

The fact that a school in Ohio is introducing students at such a young age to applying for managerial positions is a refreshing change to what these students are normally exposed to. Yes, Kozol complains that schools should offer more options, but I posit that simply using words like “manager” will seep into these children’s consciousness so they don’t always believe that they are meant to be at the bottom of the system.

The role of the school is again addressed; is this institution simply a breeding ground for “pint-sized human deficits” who will enter the workforce and hopefully not mess it up too much, or is it possible that schools can be more than the first step towards a job and adding to the economy?

Similar to chapter three where students are trained to be actors, chapter four addresses students being trained to be workers. The common theme between these two chapters is the training itself. In the end, it does not matter what you are conditioning a child to become. It is simply the fact that you are conditioning them, and that is wrong.

What can we compare this to… I suppose it could be like an apple which has learned its whole life how to become an apple pie. It’s not that there is anything wrong with pie, but the apple doesn’t realize that there are so many other things it could become—a partner with peanut butter, applesauce, a caramel apple, etc. Ok, so that was stretching it a little, but the point is that projecting a specific future for someone, picking one option when there are man– THIS is unjust. The apple needs voice in what it will become, just as students need voice in what they will be formed to become.

Many students, like Timeka with dreams of becoming a doctor, are not given opportunities to explore their interests in their schools. I don’t pretend to believe that it is possible to cater to every interest, especially in an elementary school, but I do believe it is possible to allow for more self exploration.

Kozol–4

The concept of “school-to-work” designed schools introduced in chapter 4 was new, and rather appalling, to me. I realize that part of schooling is to prepare students for their future adult lives, a large part of which involves their careers or jobs, but the fact the as early as elementary school they are actually structuring schools around this purpose, seemingly almost solely, is ridiculous, especially since they are pushing students, from a very young age, towards a certain job path. I feel that this system is set up much like the factory people speak of to pump out new workers. This is not what our jobs as educators should be. It is especially suspicious that these schools tend to be supported by local businesses. It is “business leader and political conservatives” who support such programs a segregated, low-income schools. To most educators this idea should seem detrimental to our children. We want to encourage children and help them to realize their full potential, such that they could have a different career in they so choose and strive for, rather than simply preparing their “minds for market”. I am incensed by the statement from Murray that falls in line with this mindset of education, “‘For many children,’…schools provide ‘their only chance to learn how to be adults companies can train…’” (p. 105).

Kozol 3 and 4

    Chapter three begins by talking about the implemented techniques and curriculum being taught within some inner-city schools.  Kozol explains that its purpose is to raise test scores, raise the graduation rate, meet expected outcomes, and much more.  Kozol says, “Although generically described as ‘school reform,’ most of these practices and policies are targeted primarily at poor children of color; and although most educators speak of these agendas in broad language that sounds applicable to all, it is understood that they are valued chiefly as responses to perceived catastrophe in deeply segregated and unequal schools.”  Kozol discusses the influence of B.F. Skinner and how these Skinnerian approaches are often played out in penal institutions and drug rehabilitation programs.  After introducing us to a bit of the curriculum, he brings up the fact that he visited P.S. 65 in the Bronx and begins to give a detailed account about the techniques that this school uses, including a program called “Success For All” or SFA.  I have worked in a Project GRAD school that has implemented this program and I absolutely saw it working.  The classroom was fun, the children were insightful, and the teachers were creative.  I understand that every classroom is different and I wish Kozol would take this into account.  This program has shown time and time again that it is increasing the literacy rates within some of these inner-city schools.  Yes, the program is scripted and definitely hard when there are observers in the classroom wanting to see how the program is suppose to work, but teachers can make the lesson all their own.  I thought for those of you who are not familiar with the program to grab some information from the Project GRAD website that implements SFA.   Success for All (SFA) is the reading program implemented in most GRAD schools. SFA is a research-based reading program for students in grades Pre-K–5, which also provides support in the middle school grades for students performing below grade level. Key elements in the SFA reading program are the following:

• Offers a daily uninterrupted block of reading instruction of at least 90 minutes, in addition to other language arts instruction in language and writing
• Requires at least 20 minutes of additional reading practice per day, which may be homework
• Supplies daily one-to-one tutorials for the following minimum percentages of students functioning at the lowest level on their grade levels: grade 1: 30%; grade 2: 20%; grade 3: 10%
• Uses flexible, homogeneous groupings in which instruction is matched to the students’ reading levels and delivered through cooperative learning and active student involvement
• Employs a set of systematic assessments for regrouping multiple times during the year
• Accelerates students through the reading levels at their own pace

            I will be interested in hearing what you all have to say about scripted classrooms.  I feel comfortable saying that although people may look at these programs and say “there is little sense that anything a child learns has an inherent value of its own” (76), I feel like have not seen a successful classroom implementing these programs.  The children in my classroom loved school, their teacher, SFA, and the other methods used in their school.  I may be naïve, but I look forward to hearing everyone’s opinions.  Not everything about these programs are great and by no means am I saying that I want this for my classroom, but I do think that these programs can be effective in inner city schools.  By the way, I never ever saw that “salute”.  That is just weird.

            ‘“We want every child to be working as a manager while he or she is in this school,” the principal explained. “We want to make them understand that, in this country, companies will give you opportunities to work, to prove yourself, no matter what you’ve done…..Even if you have a felony arrest…we want you to understand that you can be a manager someday”’ (93).  That is a powerful statement coming from a principal from a school using a program called school-to-work.  This program is based on the idea that once children complete school, they are prepared for entering the work force and be an active member of society.  Kozol explains that when he walks into a classroom in this school, even in a kindergarten class, that children are surrounded with a workplace environment and ideas put into their heads that all they may amount to are the posters on the wall, including JCPenny, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Sears, and others.  It is a shame to think that these children may look at these jobs as “the best they can do”.  There is nothing wrong with these jobs, but these jobs are never going to offer the children a way out of poverty.  There are management positions within each classroom that the children must apply for including, the coat room manager, door manager, pencil sharpener manager, soap manager, line manager, and so on and so forth.  Okay, so I have never seen this program specifically, so I cannot comment on its effectiveness, but in the inner city schools that I have worked in or observed they do implement a similar curriculum for teaching children responsibility.  I had a hard time understanding why the teachers were SO focused on everything about the workplace and that these programs can’t just have a program for maybe an hour a day or implement business strategies into math or social studies.  It seems like the people implementing these programs do not want these children to succeed, but be successful in the businesses that do not offer much more than just minimum wages.  On pg. 97 it talks about a head of a Chicago school, who was criticized for emphasizing rote instruction because some people believed it would turn those children into “robots”.  To that, the head of that Chicago school said, “Did you ever stop to think that these robots will never burglarize your home?” he asked, and “will never snatch your pocket books…These robots are going to be producing taxes….” WOW! I can’t believe anyone would ever actually say that.  It seems like as long as businesses are attached to schools or promoting this type of curriculum, our children will no longer be looked at as children, but as future workers of America.

Kozol chapters 3 and 4

In chapter three Kozol introduces us to these “scripted” classrooms that we briefly talked about in class.  Every aspect of learning seems to be rated on “levels of proficiency” and one poster in particular Kozol points out has 50 levels listed.  Students are taught catch phrases such as “active listening”, “authentic writing”, “meaningful sentences”, and of course, “word mastery”.  Everything in these schools reminds me of boot camp or a mini militia of urban kids.  The most ridiculous part of this chapter has to be the line leader rubric in which has 32 possible slots a line leader can fit in.  What really is poignant about this chapter that we discussed in class is the idea that teachers, most of whom seem inexperienced, are put into classrooms where they have a rigid schedule of timed and scripted lessons that must be followed exactly.  There is no spontaneity on the part of the teachers or the students.  No laughter, no smiling and certainly no breaking away from a lesson to be amused by what Kozol describes as the joyfulness children naturally bring into a classroom. 

            Chapter 4 is even more extreme as we get into schools that are business minded.  Classrooms have helpers known as “managers” and there is a managerial slot for everything you can think of.  The kindergarten class that bore a poster with the names of major corporations such as Kmart, Wal-Mart, Sears, and so on was teaching “children to be cashiers.”  When the educational systems start to tell a child at 5 years old that their potential will never be anything more than a Wal-Mart cashier, they grow up to believe this.  And reading further on I suppose that the school systems really don’t think much of these children when the principal says, “even if you have a felony arrest, we want you to understand that you can be a manager some day.”  These kids can’t even write their names yet.  So in short, schools are playing to corporate demands to under educate our youth so they don’t become smart enough to realize that working at Kmart is a crap job.  Children are talked about in terms of “robots” and meeting market demands.  Most of these children will probably grow up and work for minimum wage and continue the cycle of poverty for the next generation of their family.  Education is the starting point to break the cycle.  It just isn’t happening. 

Kozol–3

I think the idea of the canned “scripted rote-and-drill” lessons, described in chapter 3, as a response to the “perceived catastrophe in deeply segregated and unequal schools” is ridiculous. Even if these lessons led to better standardized test scores, they don’t lead to true learning or meaningful understanding. This is yet another way in which these tests harm children, since these lessons are designed to raise scores of low performing schools. I agree that there is no way that affluent schools would stand for the implementation of such curriculum. Not only does this teaching style not require any actual thoughtful consideration, but it discourages it. This is painfully clear through the following statement made by the principal at a school using such a curriculum, “‘If you do what I tell you to do, how I tell you to do it, you’ll get it right…If you don’t, you’ll get it wrong.’” I also think the policies in the school focused on the chapter three, one that uses such scripted lessons go ridiculously far. The fact that there is a posted list of terms, for the teacher and students to see, which “could be used to praise or criticize a student’s work” and that different phrases fall into different “Levels of success” is absolutely crazy. I do not understand what the purpose of this list is, or why a teacher would even need such a list in order to provide students with useful, meaningful feedback. Also seemingly crazy is the fact that, in elementary school, they use a form of classroom management adapted from an industrial efficiency model. What is the point of studying and training to be a “teacher” if you are stuck in a school such as this where you have no free reign over the classroom and engage in no actual teaching in your classroom? I think most new teachers who enter situations such as this have these same feelings and become frustrated by the situation, and their complete lack of freedom to do anything about it, thus leading to the low new teacher retention rate. I think this whole thing is summed up quite well in the following sentence (found on p. 85): “So a curriculum that was imposed, in part, to compensate for staffing needs of schools that had a hard time in recruiting teachers ends up by driving out precisely those well-educated men and women whom our school systems have worked so hard to attract into these neighborhoods.”