raising the status of teachers

sometimes i check out the "room for debate" feature on the opinion pages of the new york times, and recently, this article about ways (besides raising teacher salaries) to attract more people to the teaching profession.

i particularly liked the response of vern williams, a middle school math teacher in virginia, called "let us teach!" he writes that teachers need to take back the profession:

until practicing classroom teachers are allowed to make real decisions regarding curriculum, assessment, textbooks and professional development, the status of teachers will remain low.

this seems so obvious, and yet it is something that really resonates with me, as i think this accounts for at least part of the reason that i decided i didn't want to be a classroom teacher. mr. williams cites his experience working with johns hopkins university's center for talented youth one summer as proof that teaching sixth graders can feel as prestigious as being a college professor, if the institution you're working for hires selectively but then places confidence in the strength of your choices and methods as an educator. i've worked for the last three summers on the residential life side of mmla, a summer language immersion program for middle school and high school students. i'm going back this summer as a french teacher, and i'm so excited about it -- because in addition to the beginner french class i'll teach in the morning, for 2 out of the 4 weeks of the program i'll also be teaching a 2-hour elective entirely designed by me. i started working at mmla during its first summer and the program is far from flawless, but the directors put incredible faith in their instructors, and it pays off. the learning that occurs takes strange and numerous shapes, and is truly inspiring. i can't help but wonder what would happen if some of that same confidence and freedom was granted to classroom teachers across the country.

forgetting to remember

thanks to sarah for posting the article about bill gates, and thanks to jessica for pointing out the comments in response to the article. i always enjoy reading the comments after articles that seem polarizing or somewhat controversial and trying to figure out what kind of people are reading and responding.

this sentence in the middle of one of the longer comments jumped out at me:

there is no linear correlation between quality of teaching and student performance, and for one very good reason: nobody has the slightest idea, beyond common sense, of what constitutes quality teaching.

i agree with the gist of this statement, although i would argue that nobody has the slightest idea of what constitutes quality teaching because no one is using common sense. when i think about the teachers i had in grade school/middle school/high school, most of the ones that come to mind didn't teach subjects that i loved or even did spectacularly in -- instead, the ones i remember as being great teachers are the ones who worked hard to find ways to facilitate understanding in those students who didn't "get it" the first try, and the ones who didn't balk at getting slightly off-track or incorporating digressions and slightly unorthodox activities into their lessons if it was going to help people learn.

it's hard for me to believe that the people who think standardized testing is a good way to measure teacher quality, let alone student achievement, have ever taken the time to reflect upon their own experience with teachers in schools. what can we do to make them remember?

having fun at the mca

 

one of a two-part series in which paulina and i posed in front of the 12x12.

oh là là: a new french history museum?

i was skimming the times website the other day and i found this article about a new museum that french president nicolas sarkozy is planning to open. first, a bit of history:

about french presidents

they like to memorialize their presidencies by having national monuments built (and named after themselves) while in office. this sounds like i am generalizing/stereotyping, but it's just their way.

georges pompidou has the centre pompidou, an incredibly cool modern and contemporary art museum:

françois mitterrand has the national library:

and jacques chirac has the quai branly, a controversial museum of indigenous art from africa, asia, oceania, and the americas:

about sarkozy

the 9 months that i lived in france fell within the first year and a half of sarkozy's election, and were peppered with student, government worker, and transportation strikes, in response to reforms he tried to implement and as a result of general disgust with his person. in a way, sarkozy is much more american than french -- always pushing for productivity, unafraid of privatization, and unapologetic about his own blinged-out lifestyle. from what i saw and heard, the french population over 35 seems pretty split about how good he is for france, but the french youth? they hate him with a passion.

about the new museum

one reason why sarkozy is so unpopular among french youth is that he is anti-immigration and, well, downright racist (this is ironic, as one of his parents was a polish immigrant). which bring us to his proposed legacy: a museum of french history. while in theory there is nothing wrong with this, rest assured that sarkozy's take on french history will glorify all the usual suspects (ahem, napoleon), and gloss right over the travesties bestowed by france on places like algeria. the problem with history is that it's always told by the victors. this museum would be just one more slap in the face from a narcissistic power monger to the neglected and abused, though culture-rich, immigrant populations in france. normally, i'm all for new museums, but imagining walking through this one makes me feel nothing short of disgust.

mash flob!

i was looking at the mca's website to get an idea of the programming that will be going on during our class visit tomorrow night, and i stumbled upon this:

mash flob!

i got excited because i'm interested in alternative audio guides and programming that encourages a different kind of exploration of museum space, but then i noticed that instead of using a podcast form, the artist will be broadcasting live on fm radio. while i think this is an interesting idea that introduces a temporal element not present in similar experiences done through podcasts, who has a portable fm radio these days? not me.

more comments

i don't know what's going on with my blogger account, as i'm still not able to post comments on anyone's blog. i suppose for the moment, i'll just have to keep reacting via my own blog. i wanted to remark about two posts in particular. first, lee's post about AR apps:

when lee was talking about this the other night, i was a little confused about what an AR app would look like, but reading about these apps cleared things up for me. i particularly like the "nearest tube" app -- i would totally use something like that. this also made me think of gis (geographic information systems), a program that a lot of my friends who studied geography in college used to make these crazy-detailed maps overlaying various sets of data (normally dealing with the distribution of resources).

also, i liked sarah's post about "cyberped and revolution." this reminded me of an article i was reading in the new yorker the other day about mo ibrahim. he's a sudanese man who is largely responsible for the presence of cell phone towers in many parts of africa. he's made a whole bunch of money and is now giving away his fortune chunk by chunk to african leaders who reveal themselves to be genuinely for democracy and to have the interests of their countries' people at heart... i'd recommend checking it out, there's a very interesting correlation between political reform, youth engagement, and technology suggested there, too.

thoughts on the panel

it's tuesday night and my brain is already fried. hence, the bullet point form of my reactions from tonight's event:

•  major props to everyone else in the class for your past, current, and future work in schools. my brief stint teaching english in the french school system (which is extremely screwed up as well, although for different reasons) helped me realize that the classroom is not where i want to be. that doesn't mean i'm any less interested in the current state of our schools, or that a big part of me doesn't feel that schools are the most important place for art educators to be right now, but i know that i function better in and get more out of working in alternative settings. anyways, i'm really glad i have the chance to get to know you guys and be inspired by your work and ideas through this class!
• speaking of alternative settings, if you hadn't guessed, i am mostly talking about museums. thinking about the sad state of arts in schools makes me wonder, should museums be picking up the slack? do museum educators feel pressure to do this? what kind of museum programming is the most beneficial and most necessary for kids: family programs, teen lab-type programs, school tours, teacher workshops?
• i loved hearing from the girl from cyic about student organizing. what she said about the student bill of rights made me think of voyce, a multi-neighborhood organization of high school students working towards school reform. i did a research project for a class last semester that involved talking to some people from and about voyce, and it was so awesome to see what happens when youth are empowered to identify and work to solve issues that affect them directly.
• the "magical thinking" comment from the woman suggesting how liberals can live with the current state of the school system made me think about several of my friends who are coming to the end of their commitments with teach for america. tfa seriously expects their employees to have superpowers, or at least to be (enthusiastically) inexhaustible. i have witnessed several spectacular breakdowns à la "i just can't do it anymore!" over the past couple of years and thanked the gods i didn't go down that road...

that's all i've got. happy thesis-ing, everyone!

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