Therefore the Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go...The Master stays behind; that is why she is ahead.
Because she has let go of herself, she is perfectly fulfilled.
--Lao Tzu
Tao Te Ching
June 20, 2012
There is so much to the evolution of a teacher’s beliefs. Some can be explained by reflection, and then there are the roles of practice and training within the life of a career. All of these things resolve themselves in a praxis that is constantly changing if it is to be applicable to the learners in the classroom and the practitioner.
Rodgers (2002) and Fecho (1994) both define this process between the learner and the practitioner. Rodgers, quoting Dewey, defines this process as an “interaction” that is the first element of experience. Fecho repeatedly defines this as classroom “transactions.” Rodgers goes on to explain that there are both “educative” and “miseducative” experiences. A “miseducative” experience will distort growth and lead the participants in the process down a “callous, insensitive, and generally, immoral direction.” An educative experience is an experience, “that broadens the field of experience and knowledge, brings awareness to bear, and leads in a constructive direction, toward, ‘intelligent action’.” (Rodgers, 2002) I would argue that both experiences are equally worthy. If we are to accept that a boundedly-rational individual can indeed ignore or somehow otherwise become self-aware then we can also hold out hope for the possibility that that same individual can indeed learn from all experiences. Rodgers alludes to this when she maintains, “The creation of meaning out of experience is at the very heart of what it means to be human.” Rodgers goes further by quoting Aldous Huxley who said, “Experience is not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you.” (emphasis Rodgers)
It is this that I keep in mind when I review the cultures of my childhood and adult life. Most cultures of my childhood were grossly out-of-touch with the necessities of the gifted child that I was. Surrounded by many cultures that not only minimized, but were indeed, hostile towards the gifted child, and especially the gifted girl, was indeed a learning experience. It gave me the necessary experience as a stranger in a strange land, and enabled me to understand the struggles of all the children in the classroom, that, like me, are asynchronous in their development emotionally, maybe physically, but always intellectually.
My ability to look like the mainstream but walk outside of it has also helped me understand the struggles of children from underrepresented groups. In fact, the gifted child will always feel outside of the mainstream classroom. Gifted children belong to many cultures that don’t accept them because of their capabilities and sensitivities.
Rodgers quotes Dewey as asserting that reflection is, “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends.” (Rodgers, 2002) If this is indeed the case then further reflection as a young adult teacher showed me the paucity of my experience when I began my career in 1988. I was 22-years-old and began my first day as a substitute teacher in the Mission Hill section of Boston. This was a gritty area of the city most famously know several years later for the gruesome murder of a suburban woman at the hands of her husband who had murdered her there specifically so that he could purposely blame her death on the young African Americans that lived there. Here I was, fresh from the Los Angeles suburbs, feeling very ignorant and very alone. It was here, after college, that my true education began.
Over the next several years, as I taught throughout the city and suburbs of Boston, I learned the true devastation of poverty, and racism. This experience was amplified when I watched the riots in my hometown after the Rodney King verdict. I experienced firsthand the neglect of our nation’s children at the hands of school systems and burned out teachers. I was most astounded by the similarities in class between all of the poor children I taught. From Chinatown, to Dorchester, to South Boston their poverty and lack of hope overwhelmed me. Rodgers, would view this state as “disequilibrium” or “perplexity.” I would observe that I have yet to reach the balance that results from resolution. Having reflected on these truths over the last 24 years I have yet to reach a state of peace over the scarcity of opportunity in our public schools. It is this state of being that spurs me on to find those opportunities to make differences in the lives of children.
Rodgers defines this as “curiosity without which there is little energy for the hard work of reflection.” It is this situation that motivates Fendler to caution teacher minimizing teacher’s roles in school reform. (Fendler, 2003) When I did go back to graduate school in 1996 to obtain my license I was pleased to see that my program saw teachers as reformers. I was fortunate to be trained in a program that sought to make sure that their graduating teachers were well versed in ethnic studies, intercultural communication, linguistics, and were exposed to rigorous reflection into their own cultural norms and the cultural norms of the public education system. It was as a student teacher that I was once again back in the public school system. I was again disturbed by the rampant racism, and classism of the master teachers. Instead of seeing this as miseducation I was again revitalized in my quest to make things better in the classroom for the students in my charge. I observed many things I could not emulate.
Fendler references criticisms of reflection practices that, “do not promote social reconstruction of systemic injustices.” (Fendler, 2003) Students can use reflection to reinforce their racism. I would absolutely agree. Theories of cognitive dissonance and filters based on preconceived notions are plentiful. Reform can indeed be stymied by the racist, and classist assumptions of practitioners. This can be remedied, Fendler believes, by the public airing and critique of reflections by peers. (Fendler, 2003) I would go further that not only is this necessary but it is the only way to achieve progress. Current beliefs seem to favor a view of reflection that has evolved past petty culture and socialization and is now embedded in scientifically rationality. There is little in my experience as a stranger in a strange land to reinforce this belief. Teachers are still observing through cultural filters.
Perhaps what is necessary is the problem of asking the right questions. Dewey call this “intellectualization.” This is the third step in his six phases of reflection. (Rodgers, 2002) Authentic questioning (Harpaz & Lefstein, 2000) is: a creative activity, a special elaboration of previous knowledge, awakens motivation, and leads the learner to an answer. This leads to a community of thinking where questioning is divided into three stages. One, there is the fertile question stage. This is a question that can motivate students. This fertile question has six characteristics. These questions are open, undermining, rich, connected, charged, and practical. Two, there is a research stage that leads to a greater community of thinking. Researching together makes bonds. Three, this is the concluding performance stage. This model is used more specifically in content learning but can also be applied towards teacher reflection as well. This framework can be used with teachers together as a method to critique personal reflection.
Fecho (2004) uses this within his classroom as well. He sets up a structure with a clear framework of questions where further study can evolve. These are his keys to working with his learners in a milieu where filters could cloud reflection. His “work across cultural boundaries…” includes: allowances for participants to be themselves, providing a structure that allows inquiry, helping participants find relevancy, and building on student strengths to give insight into student needs. Notice, that the student/practitioner/learner/teacher is never allowed to rest on their laurels. Instead, all parties are challenged to reflect through questioning and peer review. As Dewey says, “A question well put is half answered.” (Rodgers, 2002)
June 25, 2012
In her book Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius, Angeline Stoll Lillard, refers to a “Lockean model of the child.” She goes on to describe American education as “associative” and, due to an emphasis on standardized tests, mostly discouraging of integrative learning. This has lead to a tradition of most teachers teaching as they were taught as opposed to using more progressive, constructivist methods such as those outlined by Dewey and others.
Three years in a Montessori showed me the power of the learner. The children taught me, how with the right preparation, and the right materials, it was possible for a child as young as three to work independently, assess their own progress, and verbalize the metacognitive strategies they used. I also learned a tremendous amount regarding assessment, motivation, and classroom structure including the physical environment and the use of differentiation.
Dr. Montessori and Dewey were contemporaries and reflect the philosophy of their time. Both have bodies of work that emphasize the transformative potential of education and the ability of the education practitioner to effect change to society through education. This pre-World War emphasis on the human spirit is laudable and can still have worthwhile implications. However, the work of Herbert A. Simon (post-war) and current brain research has tremendous implications for seeing the potential of a boundedly rational human more realistically.
There is so much to the evolution of a teacher’s beliefs. Some can be explained by reflection, and then there are the roles of practice and training within the life of a career. All of these things resolve themselves in a praxis that is constantly changing if it is to be applicable to the learners in the classroom and the practitioner.
Rodgers (2002) and Fecho (1994) both define this process between the learner and the practitioner. Rodgers, quoting Dewey, defines this process as an “interaction” that is the first element of experience. Fecho repeatedly defines this as classroom “transactions.” Rodgers goes on to explain that there are both “educative” and “miseducative” experiences. A “miseducative” experience will distort growth and lead the participants in the process down a “callous, insensitive, and generally, immoral direction.” An educative experience is an experience, “that broadens the field of experience and knowledge, brings awareness to bear, and leads in a constructive direction, toward, ‘intelligent action’.” (Rodgers, 2002) I would argue that both experiences are equally worthy. If we are to accept that a boundedly-rational individual can indeed ignore or somehow otherwise become self-aware then we can also hold out hope for the possibility that that same individual can indeed learn from all experiences. Rodgers alludes to this when she maintains, “The creation of meaning out of experience is at the very heart of what it means to be human.” Rodgers goes further by quoting Aldous Huxley who said, “Experience is not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you.” (emphasis Rodgers)
It is this that I keep in mind when I review the cultures of my childhood and adult life. Most cultures of my childhood were grossly out-of-touch with the necessities of the gifted child that I was. Surrounded by many cultures that not only minimized, but were indeed, hostile towards the gifted child, and especially the gifted girl, was indeed a learning experience. It gave me the necessary experience as a stranger in a strange land, and enabled me to understand the struggles of all the children in the classroom, that, like me, are asynchronous in their development emotionally, maybe physically, but always intellectually.
My ability to look like the mainstream but walk outside of it has also helped me understand the struggles of children from underrepresented groups. In fact, the gifted child will always feel outside of the mainstream classroom. Gifted children belong to many cultures that don’t accept them because of their capabilities and sensitivities.
Rodgers quotes Dewey as asserting that reflection is, “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends.” (Rodgers, 2002) If this is indeed the case then further reflection as a young adult teacher showed me the paucity of my experience when I began my career in 1988. I was 22-years-old and began my first day as a substitute teacher in the Mission Hill section of Boston. This was a gritty area of the city most famously know several years later for the gruesome murder of a suburban woman at the hands of her husband who had murdered her there specifically so that he could purposely blame her death on the young African Americans that lived there. Here I was, fresh from the Los Angeles suburbs, feeling very ignorant and very alone. It was here, after college, that my true education began.
Over the next several years, as I taught throughout the city and suburbs of Boston, I learned the true devastation of poverty, and racism. This experience was amplified when I watched the riots in my hometown after the Rodney King verdict. I experienced firsthand the neglect of our nation’s children at the hands of school systems and burned out teachers. I was most astounded by the similarities in class between all of the poor children I taught. From Chinatown, to Dorchester, to South Boston their poverty and lack of hope overwhelmed me. Rodgers, would view this state as “disequilibrium” or “perplexity.” I would observe that I have yet to reach the balance that results from resolution. Having reflected on these truths over the last 24 years I have yet to reach a state of peace over the scarcity of opportunity in our public schools. It is this state of being that spurs me on to find those opportunities to make differences in the lives of children.
Rodgers defines this as “curiosity without which there is little energy for the hard work of reflection.” It is this situation that motivates Fendler to caution teacher minimizing teacher’s roles in school reform. (Fendler, 2003) When I did go back to graduate school in 1996 to obtain my license I was pleased to see that my program saw teachers as reformers. I was fortunate to be trained in a program that sought to make sure that their graduating teachers were well versed in ethnic studies, intercultural communication, linguistics, and were exposed to rigorous reflection into their own cultural norms and the cultural norms of the public education system. It was as a student teacher that I was once again back in the public school system. I was again disturbed by the rampant racism, and classism of the master teachers. Instead of seeing this as miseducation I was again revitalized in my quest to make things better in the classroom for the students in my charge. I observed many things I could not emulate.
Fendler references criticisms of reflection practices that, “do not promote social reconstruction of systemic injustices.” (Fendler, 2003) Students can use reflection to reinforce their racism. I would absolutely agree. Theories of cognitive dissonance and filters based on preconceived notions are plentiful. Reform can indeed be stymied by the racist, and classist assumptions of practitioners. This can be remedied, Fendler believes, by the public airing and critique of reflections by peers. (Fendler, 2003) I would go further that not only is this necessary but it is the only way to achieve progress. Current beliefs seem to favor a view of reflection that has evolved past petty culture and socialization and is now embedded in scientifically rationality. There is little in my experience as a stranger in a strange land to reinforce this belief. Teachers are still observing through cultural filters.
Perhaps what is necessary is the problem of asking the right questions. Dewey call this “intellectualization.” This is the third step in his six phases of reflection. (Rodgers, 2002) Authentic questioning (Harpaz & Lefstein, 2000) is: a creative activity, a special elaboration of previous knowledge, awakens motivation, and leads the learner to an answer. This leads to a community of thinking where questioning is divided into three stages. One, there is the fertile question stage. This is a question that can motivate students. This fertile question has six characteristics. These questions are open, undermining, rich, connected, charged, and practical. Two, there is a research stage that leads to a greater community of thinking. Researching together makes bonds. Three, this is the concluding performance stage. This model is used more specifically in content learning but can also be applied towards teacher reflection as well. This framework can be used with teachers together as a method to critique personal reflection.
Fecho (2004) uses this within his classroom as well. He sets up a structure with a clear framework of questions where further study can evolve. These are his keys to working with his learners in a milieu where filters could cloud reflection. His “work across cultural boundaries…” includes: allowances for participants to be themselves, providing a structure that allows inquiry, helping participants find relevancy, and building on student strengths to give insight into student needs. Notice, that the student/practitioner/learner/teacher is never allowed to rest on their laurels. Instead, all parties are challenged to reflect through questioning and peer review. As Dewey says, “A question well put is half answered.” (Rodgers, 2002)
June 25, 2012
In her book Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius, Angeline Stoll Lillard, refers to a “Lockean model of the child.” She goes on to describe American education as “associative” and, due to an emphasis on standardized tests, mostly discouraging of integrative learning. This has lead to a tradition of most teachers teaching as they were taught as opposed to using more progressive, constructivist methods such as those outlined by Dewey and others.
Three years in a Montessori showed me the power of the learner. The children taught me, how with the right preparation, and the right materials, it was possible for a child as young as three to work independently, assess their own progress, and verbalize the metacognitive strategies they used. I also learned a tremendous amount regarding assessment, motivation, and classroom structure including the physical environment and the use of differentiation.
Dr. Montessori and Dewey were contemporaries and reflect the philosophy of their time. Both have bodies of work that emphasize the transformative potential of education and the ability of the education practitioner to effect change to society through education. This pre-World War emphasis on the human spirit is laudable and can still have worthwhile implications. However, the work of Herbert A. Simon (post-war) and current brain research has tremendous implications for seeing the potential of a boundedly rational human more realistically.