Bike

This post really has nothing to do with the blog I established. It has everything to do with getting a picture of my stolen bike online so that I can post it to mplsbikelove.com stolen bike forum.

Testing

We just got finished with week 1 of 3 for standardized testing. Some portion of our students are testing three days of the week. It's an extremely institutional and sterile process: students are in a silent room, are not allowed to have any materials with them other than testing materials, can only go to the bathroom one at a time escorted by a staff member, etc. It literally sucks the joy out of learning. I understand the need for some level of assessment of students, and I'm not saying that I have the answers on how that should be done, but I do feel that relying 100% on standardized tests is not the way to go.

As to how this fits in with textbooks....well, at a certain point, if schools have to meet certain standardized testing benchmarks, they are going to begin teaching to the test. And if standardized tests include lots of short, choppy, unrelated snippets of text followed by multiple choice questions, that is what schools are going to begin looking for in text materials. And if the complexity and coherence of a lengthy text are not sought after in the classroom, I am concerned about the thinking skills that we are teaching. As one teacher in Savage Inequalities is quoted:

The result of this regime is that the children who survive do slightly better on their tests, because that's all they study, while the failing kids give up and leave the school before they even make it to eleventh grade.....They have learned that education is a brittle, abstract ritual to ready them for an examination. If they get to college they do not know how to think. They know how to pass the tests and this may get them into college, but it cannot keep them there. We see students going off to Rutgers every year. By the end of the first semester they are back in Camden. So we teach them failure.

Top Four

So, someone named Courtland spearheaded a study of Indiana's textbook adoption process. Here are the top four factors the study found that textbook selectors used in making their decisions:

1. "Personal teaching style" of the selector
2. District curriculum objectives
3. A "flip test" for "eye appeal"
4. Publishers presentations

(Note that these were found to be nearly identical to the factors identified in the Texas textbook selection process, which is of course significant because of Texas' behemoth status as a textbook purchaser)

Missing from this list? Here's the top five that I can think of:

5. Current research supporting instructional style
4. Readability
3. Engaging to students
2. Emphasis on cultivating critical thinking skills
1. Accuracy of content

There are clearly lots of factors to account for in selecting textbooks, but choosing texts based on what looks pretty or appeals to personal teaching styles should not be among them.

'Nam

When I was in middle school, I was seriously convinced that God had made some colossal cosmic mistake that I was not living in the 1960s. I was certain that I was meant to be a flower child. This poster hung on my wall for years, and I would stare at it for long stretches searching for the wisdom of the hippies. Since I wasn't living the '60s, I placated myself by learning everything I could about the era. Music, movies, books....I was all over anything having to do with the era. The epic tragedy of the Vietnam War was naturally a focal point of my obsession, and I would endlessly pick my dad's brain about his experience as a hippie opposed to the war. The first time I saw some of the iconic photographs from the war feel indelibly burned to my brain for their striking power and the hold they had on my imagination. Even today, a simple Google search for "Vietnam" turns up some of those haunting images:





Now, I realize that not everyone shares this same fascination. But the Vietnam War is certainly a major part of American history, worthy of exploration in our history classes. Yet, according to Lies My Teacher Told Me, the average history class in the 1980s devoted only *4.5 minutes* to Vietnam. Coverage from textbooks sounds something like this:

Because some of the enemy lived amidst the civilian population, it was difficult for U.S. troops to discern friend from foe. A woman selling soft drinks to U.S. soldiers might be a Vietcong spy. A boy standing on the corner might be ready to throw a grenade. --The Americans

OMG! For real? What a disservice to an incredibly complex issue which still lives with us today. There are a lot of issues from Vietnam that can be debated and studied, but it is hard to paint America in a positive or even sympathetic light in this conflict with so many crystal clear instances of dishonorable U.S. actions that were just plain wrong. If textbooks are trying to paint America as the hero, it's hard to include Vietnam on the canvass.

Hero Making

I may have talked about this already, which probably means it is a theme of my studies.

U.S. textbooks shun complexity. America=hero. Anti-America=anti-hero.


Except that humans are messy, and so are nations. There's really no such thing as a perfect hero, and America is certainly no exception. Instances of U.S. wrongs examined by James Loewen in "Lies My Teacher Told Me" include:


The 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba (above), leader of the Communist faction in Zaire. The CIA backed Joseph Mobutu as Zaire's next leader; he was forced to flee in 1997 amidst civil war, corruption, and suffering of the people.


The 1973 CIA-initiated coup to bring down the government of democratically elected Salvador Allende (above), who was killed in the coup and succeeded by the notoriously corrupt and vicious regime of CIA-backed Augusto Pinochet.


1970s covert bombings of Laos during the Vietnam war, which were denied by the U.S. even as Laos became the most heavily bombed nation in history.

It is no wonder that elected officials like Michele Bachmann get away with blatant lies about U.S. history. If we don't hold U.S. Representatives to a standard of truth in analyzing history and applying its lessons to today, what do we expect of students in our public schools?

Glee rocks so hard

This episode is a couple of weeks old, but I think that Glee totally nailed it on sex education. Since this is one of the top issues facing censorship in textbook, I was especially interested in how they approached it. The educators clearly have differing opinions on how sex ed should be delivered, but the show clearly comes down on the side of empowering teens with information to make their own decisions and to protect themselves.

Big bad Marx

I just listened to episode #424 of This American Life, "Kid Politics". Like all episodes of This American Life, it was fantastic, but particularly so to to me because it focused on various incarnations of democracy in education. The first act got me especially riled up in terms of how we help students build knowledge. Do we didactically tell them what to think? Or do we give them information and help the build the skills to form their own opinions on issues? Obviously I favor the latter; the teacher from the program's first act certainly did not. She took her students on a field trip to the Ronald Reagan Museum's Discovery Center--in and of itself, a very cool field trip. It sounded like a pretty freaking awesome experience for middle schoolers (I think it was a class of 6th graders): a replica of the Oval Office, Air Force One, a "Command Decision Center", and the Press Room. Students were divided into teams of presidential advisors and press corps, with one lucky student serving as President Reagan himself, and role played the Invasion of Grenada.

I was really excited as I listened to the set-up of the activity; what a great way to explore different issues of leadership, decision making, and international conflict. But as the activity progressed, I became more and more frustrated at the disservice the teacher was doing to her students. Leading students through rote recollection of which countries were Communist and which were Democratic, she posed questions like:

• Why is Communism bad? (Because people don't get to have freedom, etc.)
  
• Do people in Communist countries get to keep all of their money? (No)
• Who gets all of the money in Communist countries? (the government)

Whoa. Talk about over-simplifying a very complex political topic. And posing such leading questions that clearly had a "right" answer....well, I just consider that to be completely unprofessional.
Yet, complex economic and political issues are often presented in such simplistic or skewed fashions in textbooks because....go figure.....publishers are "afraid of being labeled Marxist" as one top social studies editor told James Loewen in "Lies My Teacher Told Me".



The answer to being "labeled Marxist" is apparently to omit any reference to class struggle, present America as a flawless hero, and eliminate any debate about the course of history. When the student playing Reagan made a different decision than Reagan himself did, a buzzer went off and lights started flashing, clearly indicating that he had made the "wrong" answer. How are students supposed to truly build their own decision making skills if we insist on just thrusting information at them, and expect nothing from them but regurgitation of those same facts?

A teeny bit of textbook history

When I first conceived of this independent study project on the politics of textbooks, it was based out of a desire to learn more about the processes which govern textbook content approval. My curiosity was piqued from various articles I had read over the years discussing various textbook battles being fought in California or Texas, and their disproportionate impact on textbooks in the rest of the nation due to their buying power and the economics of printing presses. In my readings and research, however, I am reminded that ideological battles over how knowledge is disseminated are nothing new. After all, we have:

• Copernicus (1473-1543)
• Galileo (1564-1642)
• Horace Mann reform era (1830s-1840s, when Mann exerted major influence over education reforms. Most notable was the establishment of a common school system whereby public education became available to all children; most controversial was inclusion of religious-based morality teaching. Note that at the time this was controversial not because it included religion in public schools, but because it adopted a non-sectarian approach rather than pick either the Protestant or Catholic side.)
  
• State v. John Scopes (1925 Tennessee court case overturning an anti-evolution state law)
  
• Everson v. Board of Education (1947 Supreme Court case ruling that public school transportation could not be used for Catholic school students)

Of course, there are lots and lots of other pieces of this puzzle--this little list is only meant to be a sampling. The point is that ideological battles over what gets taught have been waged for a long time, and I don't think they'll be ceasing anytime soon. So what, then is, our responsibility to students? I view this through two lenses. On the one hand, as a society and community we seek truth and knowledge. So it seems like incorporating the truths of any given field in a textbook is a no-brainer. But then again, how do we truly build knowledge? It's not by having facts spewed at us and passively ingesting them. We build knowledge through interaction; by taking in information from various sources, analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing that information into true understanding. Seeking truth and knowledge is not limited to making sure the "right" words are in any given text, but that students are given the skills and opportunity to do the right thing with those words.

So! How Are The Children?

I'm currently reading about constitutional challenges to textbook content. There are multiple court rulings affirming the right of local school boards to determine the permissibility of materials used in class. Parents are most often the source of court challenges, when they read their children's school books only to find the content offensive to their moral or religious beliefs. The article I'm reading posits that this is likely because texts provide the only hard evidence of what their child is being taught in the classroom, which really made something click for me.


It's been really hard to find research sources about textbook content that is less than 15 years old. I'm not exactly sure why that is, but the idea that textbooks are somehow the only way for parents to keep up with what's going on in their kid's classroom seems really dated to me. Most of the teachers that I know maintain websites for their classes, send home some sort of e-newsletter or hard copy newsletter in addition to the school's regular communication, and regularly attempt more personal contact (such as conferences or phone calls) with parents. Building parental relationships is a major focus of my graduate teaching courses. It seems to me that in a well run classroom in 2011, parents have multiple opportunities to find out what's happening in their child's classroom. Maybe that is why textbook controversies don't seem to be as big of an issue in the education/academic world. Of course, battles still rage in some states (i.e. Texas, which is nothing to sniff at given its role in determining textbook norms for the rest of the nation). In my estimation, however, given everything else that schools are dealing with, the content of textbooks seems to rank pretty low on the list of priorities.

Thank you, Google

Ok, so I know that there are all sorts of scary elements to Google's impending world domination, but wow am I a huge fan of Google Scholar. I've been having a hard time finding more current articles about textbook politics, and it helped me unearth this gem: The Textbook as Discourse, which contained an article called "Textbook Content and Religious Fundamentalism". It outlines the modern history of textbook activism by right-wing Christians, as founded by Mel and Norma Gabler in Texas.

The article does an admirable job of examining their concerns. A variety of specific examples from different textbooks are given to illustrate the types of concerns held by the Gablers, all of which boiled down to essentially the same point: that textbooks should not promote a "humanist" view of the world, which rather than being the separation of church and state is actually the promotion of a different religious viewpoint. I find it ironic that all of the examples they give are ethical situations with open ended possibilities that students are asked to explore, which the Gablers and their activists claim leaves children vulnerable because their "moral values are not clearly defined". They claim this undermines the authority of the family in the moral education of the child. I can understand how people could have that need for control, but I see two major problems with it: 1) it doesn't acknowledge that at some point, every person needs to determine their own morals and beliefs, and that people need to be well equipped to make that individual determination, and 2) lots and lots of kids grow up in environments where they receive nothing in the way of moral education, and schools would be negligent if they provided no development of ethical reasoning skills.

Public Hearing on Social Studies Standards

Tonight I went to a public hearing at the Minnesota Department of Education about the proposed changes to the state social studies standards. This is basically Minnesota's version of a textbook review panel; they do not have a formal body that reviews or approves textbooks for classroom use, but there is a set of state standards about what should be taught in each subject area. I am familiar with the old social studies standards, a bulky and disjointed document that was difficult to follow with an odd mix of micromanagement and vagueness. The new standards are a huge improvement, in my opinion; much easier to follow, streamlined, with sensible guidelines and benchmarks that leave appropriate space for adaptation by the teacher.

But I digress. I went to the hearing because I wanted to see who was there, and hear other thoughts and opinions. I had no idea what to expect, other than the fact that there would probably be a panel of people in suites. I was pretty much right about that.


What I was curious about was whether there would be any Texas-style ideologues out to inject the social studies standards with a particular "type" of history.


The first person to speak was a middle aged white woman, and as she started I thought that I might be witnessing the beginning of a political rant. She introduced herself as the representative of a citizens organization that had a distinctly right-wing feel to it (Citizens for Freedom in Education or something like that). Her comments were very specific. She began by pointing out a reduction in times that the "founding fathers" are mentioned within the standard; she talked about the number of times the values of "freedom" and "prosperity" were written (yes, she had sifted through and counted); and stated their concern about capitalism not being presented in a positive enough light. All in all, it was quite respectful and although I didn't agree with a lot of what she was saying, I was actually really happy to see the public comment process working in that it allowed her to voice her opinions peacefully and meaningfully.

The rest of the comments came from teachers, professors, or other people in the education field and were interesting from an education perspective but not particularly political at all. All in all it made me feel pretty good about Minnesota's ability to keep politics out of curriculum development.

Rainbows in the Puddles

Lining up literature for this independent study was much more difficult than I thought it would be. A lot of the books I am reading were published longer ago than I would have liked; there just aren’t a whole lot of books on the politics of textbooks published recently. It’s striking to me, then, how frequently I see books published in the late 1980s or early 1990s that talk about the exact same issues that dominate discussions of American education today. In Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities, he quotes a high school principal saying

“We are preparing a generation of robots. Kids are learning exclusively through rote. We have children who are given no conceptual framework. They do not learn how to think, because their teachers are straightjacketed by tests that measure only isolated skills. As a result, they can be given no electives, nothing wonderful or fanciful or beautiful, nothing that touches the spirit or the soul. Is this what the country wants for its black children?”

A pastor from that same community, which is besot with chemical factories and waste dumps, offers a related perspective:

“The toxic dangers aren’t the worst. It is the aesthetic consequences that may be the most damaging in the long run. What is the message that it gives to children to grow up surrounded by trash burners, dumpsites, and enormous prisons? Kids I know have told me they are ashamed to say they come from Camden.

Still, there is this longing, this persistent hunger. People look for beauty even in the midst of ugliness. ‘It rains on my city,’ said an eight-year-old I know, ‘but I see rainbows in the puddles.’"

Teachers need to be able to help kids to find the rainbows in the puddles, whatever that may be in a given community. Primary and secondary education is supposed to help us make sense of the world around us, and equip us with the skills and tools we need to make our way in the world. It’s not a process for which there is a one-size-fits-all approach.

"Our" Schools

This paragraph from Teachers & Texts by Michael Apple struck a major chord with me:

"...we continually find references to a particular concept -- our. It is 'our' country, 'our' school system, 'our' democratic society. It is in this very construction that a danger resides. For the repeated use of 'our' covers the reality of relations that are structurally unequal - relations that are not due to education and will not be solved by them."

I work at an innovative, project-based charter school in Minnesota. It is run by a teacher cooperative, and the students have a lot of freedom over their own learning as well as the structure of the school. Yet in this admittedly quirky microcosm of the education system, I see this very same construction of 'our' (or 'their', as this case may be) play out almost daily. Students are told that this is 'their' school, expected to be self directed in order to foster 'their' success, and disciplined using restorative justice based on what is deemed to be best for 'our' community. For a lot of students, this works really great. But for many others, there seems to be a serious cognitive dissonance between what the schools stated ideals are and the reality of certain students life experiences and situations. Not surprisingly, these are our at-risk students; the ones who have bounced between a dozen+ schools in their young lives (some have been to three different schools just this year), who have unstable and often tragic home situations, who have never had anyone make sure that they get dinner much less a bedtime story. It's not hard to see that for a 15 year old (or 12, or 18, etc.) with that kind of life experience under their belt, getting invested in any notion of "community" is not at the top of the list of priorities. They are just trying to survive; they don't have the time or skills or resources to figure out how to thrive. It is a really frustrating dynamic. I know and like and respect the majority of the teachers at the school, and I know they are all social justice minded teachers who don't want any kids to slip between the cracks. But I definitely think there's more than a little ignorance of what it really takes to keep certain kids from slipping through the cracks.

If I see this dynamic playing out even in just my little school with its foundational commitment to community, I have to believe that large institutions without such a core commitment very easily lose sight of what the word our really truly means.

Interesting Idea

Could technology render the bureaucratic battles over textbook content null? A school district in Missouri is considering replacing textbooks with Kindles (or other e-readers), which they argue would provide students with a wider array of texts available instantaneously. Apparently it's been done by a couple of school districts already. I see the appeal; e-readers are highly interactive and provide instantaneous access to learning tools like dictionaries, thesaurus, and references to other resources.

My question is what is the socio-economic status of these districts. How is it really possible that some school districts in the U.S. are considering providing students with such a high-tech piece of equipment, while others struggle to keep the lights on? It doesn't seem fair. Even though this Missouri district says it will only implement its plan if they can get the Kindles donated, I have to imagine that it's a fairly affluent district that can even dream of spearheading such an effort.

I have also seen firsthand how students treat their schoolbooks and materials, and I can almost guarantee that these Kindles won't last--I'd say that two years would be impressive, three at the very max. It's hard to see how that would really be a cost-saving measure, which is one of the arguments in favor of the plan that the district offers--saying that it would be saving money by not having to buy textbooks.

I can see points in favor and against making e-readers the primary text resource for students. Regardless of how I might feel about it as a teacher, parent, or community member, I think it's safe to say that e-readers are a technology that will be increasingly incorporated into classrooms. It will be interesting to see how this impacts the textbook industry, and by proxy textbook standards at the state level.

Education and Economy

A common theme of my readings on textbook content and curriculum is the relationship between education and the economy. “We need to educate children to be leaders in the technology/energy/health/ sectors!” is a common political battle cry from many corners. Politicians want to breed the next generation of workers, schools adopt approaches to comply and get funding, and textbook companies provide materials oriented in that direction. Refocusing on “core curriculum” is a common direction taken, as if somehow by just drilling harder better faster MORE on rote memorization and particular facts will make kids smarter.


This "core curriculum" as its always been taught just so happens to have little perceived relevance to the life and experiences of students for whom the achievement gap is widest. In Minnesota the high school graduation rate for African Americans is 44%. For white students, it's 82%. Hello! Let's connect some dots here. It shouldn’t really come as a shock that the “core curriculum” generally approaches subjects from a white/Euro-centric viewpoint, and although there are clearly lots of factors involved in graduation rates I think that the presence (or lack thereof) of culturally relevant materials is important to consider.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, just think this:

vs. this:

Apple reports that teachers tend to resist top-down approaches to school reform like "refocusing on core curriculum"; this doesn’t really surprise me. Teachers are professional educators, which requires having ownership over which decisions need to be made in the classroom. This varies from class to class, and teachers need the flexibility to do what their class needs for learning to take place. Part of this includes adapting materials and curriculum to the needs and interests of students.

People are not manufactured goods, and education can’t be approached from a factory perspective. Which brings me back to the emerging theme in my understanding of textbook content processes--that in focusing on the inclusion or exclusion of this word or that opinion, we are missing the bigger picture. There's no way we're going to see it if we continue to devote entire state school boards (like Texas) to blatantly injecting ideologically derived information into our nations textbooks.

Savage Lies

Savage Inequalities is blowing my mind. Stories of children in East St. Louis who literally live in toxic waste sites, and pictures of schools where everyone--students, teachers, principals, parents--know they are getting the short end of the proverbial stick literally bring me to tears. It feels frivolous that so much time and energy is expended on the particulars of textbook phrases when there are schools that don't even have toilet paper.

But then....

Lies My Teacher Told Me is also blowing my mind. The author shares an anecdote from when he was teaching a freshman class at Tougaloo College, a predominantly black school in Mississippi. When he asked the class what they knew about Reconstruction at the beginning of a unit on the era, here is what he found:

"The class concensus: Reconstruction was the time when African Americans took over the governing of the Southern states, including Mississippi. But they were too soon out of slavery, so they messed up and reigned corruptly, and whites had to take back control of the state governments.

I sat stunned. So many major misconceptions glared from that statement that ti was hard to know where to begin a rebuttal. African Americans never took over the Southern states. All governeors were white and almost all legislatures had white majorities throughout Reconstruction. African Americans did not 'mess up'....For young African Americans to believe such a hurtful myth about their past seemed tragic. It invited them to doubt their own capability, wince their race had 'messed up' in its one appearance on American history's center stage. It also invited them to conclude that it is only right that whites be always in control. Yet my students had merely learned what my textbooks had taught them."

To me, this drives home the point that what is in our textbooks really truly does matter. It is not simply an intellectual exercise. What people learn about their past has a direct impact on their present and on their future, a legacy seen all too clearly in the disparities between impoverished East St. Louis/ and wealthy school districts across the nation. If textbooks reinforce the status quo, it will never change.

Don't Mess with Texas

There is a reason that Texas is at the center of so many textbook battles:

Oh yeah. Your green friend and mine: money. Texas and California are responsible for the largest shares of textbook sales in the nation, so naturally textbook companies are going to adhere to whatever requirements they have in place. Which, in Texas, is a three-step process besieged by zealots and salesmen where the question of what is going to be the best tool to help students learn does not seem to factor into the equation. It also, horrifically, results in some very disturbing revisions to history such as giving Jefferson Davis (leader of the Confederates during the Civil War) equal space to Abraham Lincoln (you've heard of him, right?). The most recent round of revisions by an avowedly right-wing state school board are detailed here.

*Shudder*

Love, savagely

Oh yes. It's that time again.

That inglorious manufactured holiday where retail exonerates you to spendspeND SPEND otherwise you must not truly love your boyfriend/girlfriend/partner/husband/wife/whatever and schoolchildren get hopped up on fifty different kinds of sugar while engaging in blatant popularity contests over who gets the most Valentines.

As you can probably tell, I'm not a big fan. I did go out to eat with my honey, but only because we are broke and had a Groupon to spend at the restaurant. The rest of the night I spent curled up with Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities, which I've gotta say is a total mood-buster.

I can't even count how many times this book has already made me cry, and I'm only on the second chapter. Urban, minority school districts in toxic vicinity to industrial plants who can't even afford toilet paper much less textbooks are so far removed from the heated battles that rage in the bureaucracies of Texas and California. Entire school boards, administrative bodies, and citizen organizations are devoted to nitpicking every single element of textbooks. Yet as many critics note, even with this level of scrutiny textbooks lack a coherent voice or any level of compelling dialogue. And then there exist schools who will never get their hands on those hotly contested books, who need to deal with issues like sewage buildup, who are serving teen moms and gang members. What a disconnect between different sectors of America's education system. It seems like as a whole, there are a bunch of disparate groups running around hyper concerned with particular elements of education (textbook content! curriculum reform! school vouchers!), each of which are just tiny bandaids for a system in need of massive overhaul.

Textbook Commerce

A lot of my reading the past couple of weeks has dealt with the business of textbooks. It's pretty simple, really: publishers need to make money, so they want to produce what consumers (schools) will buy. This means producing materials that are in line with state textbook parameters, which are largely dictated by the two largest consumer states--California and Texas. However, a lot of the readings I've been using are from the mid-80s to early 90s, and it occurs to me that the commerce element of textbook publishing (and book publishing in general) is changing radically right now. It makes me wonder--how relevant will textbook content processes even be ten, fifteen, twenty years from now?

Students can already do independent research on the internet. With the increasing popularity of electronic books, the range of choices and resources available to students will only expand more. That is, available to students who have access to the technology, which of course is closely related to affluence. As the resources available to rich kids broadens, I fear that means that kids in poverty will be even more limited by the constraints on materials made by bureaucrats who put political interests ahead of kids real educational needs.

Who Do We Think We Are?

I'm currently researching California's textbook adoption process, and stumbled across a fantastic report from the Fordham Institute titled "The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption." There is a whole section devoted to California's "social content standards" which were implemented in 1976. As far as I can tell, these standards are implemented by a bunch of bureaucrats who are trying not to offend...well, pretty much anyone.

Now, I am all for fair representation of the glorious diversity in the good old U.S. of A. But, ummmm....have you met America? We are a pretty divided place. There is an interest group for everything, and they often have opposing viewpoints: Feminists vs. Fundamentalists; Homos vs. Homo-haters; Evolutionists vs. Creationists...etc. Even if there aren't opposing viewpoints, how is it even remotely possible to satisfy everyone's interest? Gender balance, equal representation of people with disabilities, various ethnic backgrounds, religious beliefs, and socioeconomic status....I just don't see how it's realistically possible for one textbook to incorporate all of these various stakeholders (or at least satisfy their interest groups) into a quality textbook that is (gasp!) a quality and compelling text for students.

This kind of reminds me of a conversation that I had with a classmate of mine once upon a time. We were talking about test scores and how different regions of the U.S. stack up against each other (urban vs. rural, east coast vs. west coast, etc), and also how the U.S. stacks up against other countries. I brought up Finland, which generally speaking blows the U.S. out of the water on most standardized metrics. My classmate immediately shot back that Finland is extremely homogeneous, making it much easier to develop a national school system that works for everyone.

Oh.

Duh.

Finland =
US =
Right. There are simply more complexities when you are trying to do something on a national scale in a place that has a plethora of different backgrounds in its social fabric.

Now, just to be clear, I firmly believe that children and teenagers should be exposed to the rich diversity of our country and the world. I just as firmly believe that children and teenagers deserve a quality education. What I'm seeing in the California system of implementing diversity in teaching materials doesn't seem to accomplish either of these things. Textbook editors have scrubbed their materials of anything that might be controversial. Which equals BORING, and what a shame! Controversy has shaped us, and kids should get to know about it!

What really gets me, though, is that in all the reading I've done about these social content standards and various review panels, it is often several paragraphs, pages, or even chapters before I see the words "students" and "needs" put together. It's like we can't see the forest for the trees. And who, exactly, do we think we are that by wordsmithing texts to their graves we can indoctrinate children into a way of thinking deemed correct by some bureaucrat somewhere? The more I read about these tedious processes where the goal of educating children is completely lost in the shuffle of people making themselves feel important, the more I tend to believe that maybe we're going about this all backwards. Maybe state panels and bureaucracies should have less control in regulating textbooks or materials instead of more. Maybe teachers, who know their students, should be more entrusted to provide students with what they need. Or maybe--and this is pretty radical--we can give students more freedom to explore the topics of interest to them, thereby developing a more authentic understanding of the world. After all, are we trying to produce robots who can regurgitate facts as approved by some panel somewhere? Or is our goal to develop nimble leaders of a dynamic and shifting world?

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

Michael Apple seems to be one of the big names in educational theory as far as the politics of textbooks go. I'm reading about three of his books right now, including Teachers and Texts: A Political Economy of Class & Gender Relations in Education. So far I'm loving it--and even though it was published in 1986, it feels just as relevant today as it must have 25 years ago. Take this little nugget as an example: when talking about how teaching, a profession dominated by women in the 20th century (especially at the elementary level), is increasingly controlled and managed by male administrators (i.e. superintendents, principals, and curriculum designers), Apple observes

It is the history of the state, in concert with capital and a largely male academic body of consultants and developers, intervening at the level of practice into the work of a largely female workforce. That is, ideologies of gender, of sex-appropriate knowledge, need to be seen as having possibly played a significant part here. The loss of control and rationalization of one's work forms part of a state/class/gender 'couplet' that works its way out in the following ways. Mathematics and science teaching are seen as abysmal. 'We' need rapid change in our economic responsiveness and in 'our' emerging ideological and economic struggle with the Soviet Union.

Whoa. Substitute "China" for "Soviet Union" in that excerpt, and it could have been written yesterday. Even putting the global superpower competition element aside, the very same conversations are had in education today about our woeful inadequacies in teaching math and science (which, as someone who has spent a fair amount of time observing math classrooms recently, I have to say is completely warranted). How much are these inadequacies tied to the fact that (mostly women) teachers are constricted by the texts and curriculum they are required to follow by (mostly male) administrators, bureaucrats, and politicians, rather than exercise their professional expertise in guiding classes according to the needs of their students? A lot, in my opinion!

Teachers, moral codes, and women

I am a feminist.


Yep, I said it. I am also gay, pro-choice, pro-environment, and pretty progressive on most contemporary issues. The fact that American textbooks gloss over facts and circumstances that I find to be critical--say, for example, the genocide of Native Americans, or the fact that many Founding Fathers were slaveowners--was the impetus for my project on the politics of textbooks. But NOT because I want to brainwash my students with my way of thinking; rather, because I want factual information to be shared, and critical thinking skills fostered, among students.
I am proud of the fact that I'm an opinionated person, but I already know that's not going to be a centerpiece of my classroom. I know that I'll have to be out as a gay teacher, because that's just who I am. But I'm perfectly aware that could be an issue, probably not so much with my students but possibly with their parents and/or with my administration. Teachers have, for a long time, been held to a somewhat different moral standard than the general public...which probably has something to do with the fact that they're mostly women.

Exhibit A:


It's not showing up so well, but this is a teacher's contract from 1923 which stipulates, among other things, that the teacher agrees

-Not to get married
-Not to keep company with men
-To be home between 8pm-6am
-Not to loiter in downtown ice cream shops (after all, we all know how smarmy ice cream shops are!)
-Not to leave town without permission from the Board of Trustees
-Not to smoke or drink
-Not to dress in bright colors
-To wear at least two petticoats at all times (!)

Etc, etc ad nauseum. Ugh! How is it that there's any level of expectation that a teacher's life outside of school is anything other than their own?

I'm Annoyed

This project on the politics of textbooks was born because I'm about to become a teacher, and have been fascinated by the battles fought over the materials used in schools. I know that teaching is inherently political, and I'm steeling myself for that. I have a personal world view that I've worked hard to cultivate and develop, and I'm not apologetic about that--I think that everyone has the right to their own opinions. As a teacher, my goal is absolutely not to impart my opinions on students. My goal is to help kids nurture their intellect, to learn about the world and society around them in a way that allows them to formulate their own opinions, and develop into citizens making positive contributions to society. Ok, I realize that sounds kind of cheesy and totally lofty. But I'm serious!

My sights are set on becoming a great teacher, and it irritates me that I have to worry about the quality of textbooks that I'll be provided with. There is so much that teachers have to think about....first and foremost, of course, the students: building relationships, classroom time, dealing with student issues. Then, of course, there is parent involvement, lesson planning, grading...the list goes on. It's a lot to balance, and the sheer energy required to deal with all those kids is no small element of the equation. To have to use textbooks or curriculum that have a overtly political agenda....ugh. It's just another sign that as a society our focus is not so much on excellence in education.

Jekyll/Hyde

Sometimes I feel a little bit like Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde in my own feelings about different education issues. On the one hand, as I learn about different battles over various topics covered in textbooks, I find myself thinking "jeez! simmer down everyone! this is not the end of the world! what a student reads in a textbook is not going to define their view of the world--teachers play a big role in guiding students through topics, there are supplemental materials, other influences, etc. etc...".

But then, I see something like this, and I snap back to the reality that just as Michael Apple and many others have said, teaching is a political act. It *does* matter what we teach, how we teach it, and what school textbooks say--otherwise entire legacies of oppression can just be swept under the rug as Rep. Michele Bachmann does so glibly here. How can we learn from the past if we rewrite what actually happened?

Top Textbook Issues

In my study of the politics of textbooks, it's become clear that there are some themes in which issues are most fought over:

*Evolution vs. Creationism

*Comprehensive vs. Abstinence-Only sex education

*Columbus: sinner or saint?

*History of : existent or non-existent?

And so on and so forth. At times it feels absolutely surreal that these are even topics of debate, when the historical and academic evidence is truly so one-sided. It feels like such an epic waste of energy to even have to defend them. (If you have any doubts about which side I fall on, here's a hint: green means go.)

Balance

Today in my yoga class, my teacher talked a lot about balance. Not necessarily the balance of standing on one leg with your foot above your head (although cultivating good balance is definitely recommended if you're going to attempt such a pose), but the idea of finding harmony between competing interests. She was relating it more to our physical and spiritual yoga practice, but I think the lesson applies to textbook and curriculum content as well. Teachers need to cover a lot of ground with students on a whole range of topics, and with all of the different stakeholders involved there is bound to be controversy about what is taught at one point or another. I totally get that. I am really making an effort (in life, not just on this blog) to be more empathetic and tolerant of different viewpoints, so when I think about parents all up in arms about creationism or sex education I try and take a deep breath, step back, and remember that they are in all likelihood perfectly well intentioned people who care deeply about what their kids are learning. And at the end of the day, I have to believe that these controversies will find their own balance--the fulcrum of which will be Truth, not Ideology.

Exhibit A: Dan Savage & Amy Richards talk Abstinence-Only sex education



Exhibit B: Family Guy on Evolution/Creationism



A whole lot of people have poured a whole lot of time, energy, and money into fighting about classroom controversies like these. I don't think that we're serving the best interests of children with all of these battles. We should be presenting them with scholastically sound materials, not ideologically whitewashed ones. Our sights should be set on cultivating engaged, curious learners, with the ultimate goal not being to brainwash them into believing one thing or another, but to facilitate their development into intellectually agile individuals who can make up their own minds.

Heroes

I mentioned in my last post that I'm reading the book Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen. It's pretty much my new favorite book and I might be getting borderline obsessed with it. Loewen studied twelve different history textbooks used in U.S. high schools, and examines how they contribute to students understanding (or misunderstanding, as the case may be) of our society. His research is stellar, and highlights one of the reasons that I want to be a teacher: students are not encouraged to think critically, to form their own opinions, or to make connections between the past and the present. I think this shortchanges students in such a major way, and could be nothing short of disastrous for society.

In his first chapter, Loewen talks about "hero-making". Think about how historical figures are presented.....either angel or pariah. We don't really talk about how many of our beloved Founding Fathers were slave owners; we don't learn about how President Wilson was a big old racist and dragged his feet on women's suffrage; we hear only about how Helen Keller overcame her deafness and blindness as a child but nothing about her decades of activism as a socialist and communist. It's almost as if we don't trust that students can handle nuanced, multifaceted characters. What are we so afraid of? That if students find out America was founded by slave owners, they might not be loyal citizens? Will finding out that Christopher Columbus not only did not "discover" America, but also brutally raped, tortured, and murdered indigenous peoples be too difficult to wrap their heads around?

I don't think so. Students are plenty smart enough to be presented with facts that they can discuss, debate, and decide for themselves their thoughts and opinions on. I was in a 6th grade class once that did a great job of this with Minnesota history--students had to wrestle with the question "James J. Hill: Robber Baron or Empire Builder?". The teacher did a great job of guiding the students through material in a way that allowed students to make their own determination about the nature of Hill's legacy. What an important skill to have. We live in a world with flawed people, and very few things are black and white. Learning how to navigate through the shades of gray is not only important for each student as an individual, but in my opinion it's essential for a healthy society. Perhaps I'm being too simplistic, but I see a connection between students in classrooms with distinct black/white/right/wrong presentations of history and adults who accept the "you're either with me or you're against me" polarities of today's civic society. Maybe, just maybe, if we can teach students to deal with complex, nuanced situations, we won't need to have Jon Stewart dissect hyperbole for us like this:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-20-2011/word-warcraft

Or this:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-18-2011/petty-woman

Let's remember that we're all flawed characters, that nobody's all good or all bad, and treat each other with respect--whether we're in the classroom or we're in Congress, it seems like a lesson that we could all use.

P.S. Sorry I couldn't actually get the video embedded into this post--the link was broken!

In the Beginning

Greetings! Welcome to my first post to this blog. However you ended up here, I hope I entertain you with this little project of mine. I'm in a grad program to become a teacher, and have created an independent study course (with my favorite professor from the U of MN-Morris) about political research & analysis....specifically, researching and analyzing the politics of textbooks. It sounds a little wonky, I know. But just think about it....textbook content is powerful stuff. If you don't believe me, take it from this Texas school board member with an "orthodox Christian worldview". Seriously, this clip is amazing/frightening...he's done things like elevate Jefferson Davis as an equal of Abraham Lincoln, and claim that Sen. Joe McCarthy's communist witch hunts have been exonerated by history. Yowzas.



I mean, really. I totally get that people have different beliefs, and that is a-okay by me as long as we can all be adults about it. Clearly this Texas school board dude is not on board the grownup train. Someone needs to teach him the sandbox rules, especially the one about how just because you believe something doesn't mean you get to claim it as fact. Seriously, you can't. My girlfriend and I have had that fight, like when I really *believe* that I was the last one to take out the garbage but she really *believes* that she was. We've done the legwork for you. (Just don't tell him that we're gay--I'm pretty sure that doesn't fit into his "orthodox Christian worldview".)

One of the books I'm reading for my independent study is "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James W. Loewen. My friend Joey recommended it, and I'm so glad he did--so far I'm loving it. One of the things that Loewen observes that really strikes me is that college history professors think that high school history classes are just bunk--they actually have to un-teach the bad history that students know from high school before that can start teaching actual history. How ridiculous!

When I'm a social studies (history/geography/global studies) teacher, I want to do right by my students--not only by providing them with good texts, but by teaching them to be critical thinkers...to explore nuances and complexities and wrestle with big issues and all those other lofty goals that I'm sure all new teachers have. (My glasses are not completely rose-tinted...I fully realize that I'll be molding young minds in between dealing with things like stolen iPods and mean texts and smoking in the bathroom and all that other fun stuff that happens in middle/high school).

Obviously figuring out what's in textbooks and how it got there is super relevant to me, and I think it's fascinating. Rather than keep all the stuff I'm learning to myself, I'm putting it here--just in case you think it's cool too. If you've got any thoughts/questions, comment away!