People Like Us

I had lots of fun playing the games and watching the clips. Well I guess the American notion of non class is just a dream.... Moving from class to class can occur, but it seems so marginally. And you must understand the rules and codes of power!!!

When viewing the character's short clips, I was struck by the absolute arrogance of

Joe Queenan.

His book title Balsamic Dreams: A Short but Self Important History of the Baby Boomer looks like one sarcastic manifesto. Who is the self important baby boomer?I'm so sensitized to the sarcasm and arrogance on television! I lived in Italy and I liked watching under the Tuscan sun!....

It was interesting to hear LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM's

(author of Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class) take on upward mobility and the accusation of "selling out and abandoning your background and your history".

The furniture game has an interesting premise, the things we buy do say a lot about us! I think more lifelike visuals would have made a greater impact.

Literacy with an Attitude: Educating Working-Class Children in Their Own Self-Interest by Patrick J. Finn

Talking Point: Argument

This author, Finn argues that student's social standing predetermines educational outcome. He outlines distinctions between the two types of education in America, powerful literacy, which empowers, and functional literacy which is produced by a domesticating education. He cites a multitude of theorists, a few appear here:

Aronowitz and Giroux identify three kind of intellectual qualities of teachers, Hegemonic (maintain existing order), critical (social critics, apolitical, represent the status quo) and transforming." Transforming intellectuals,..are self-consciously critical of inequities in our society". They see teacher's role as empowering students to become "agents of civic courage" that will make "despair unconvincing and hope practical". WOW-isn't that the kind of educator you want to be?

Freire made literacy desirable. He convinced the illiterate poor in Brazil of the value of literacy by showing them its power to "secure justice". They could relate. They struggled, they knew they would continue to struggle, they could see its direct applicability in their life, Freire made it real. Cleverly beginning with leaders in the community, he demonstrated through his culture circle that, "The more advanced a people's technology is, the greater the power they have to transform the world. Education, technology, and power are closely related". Through pictures, he came to a discussion and conclusion with his poor students. "Power is partly derived from advanced technology, and advanced technology relies on literacy. The lesson..:The literate are powerful and you're not. What are you going to do about it?" His students came to "want what the teacher has", namely an education and were cooperative. His goal was consciousness raising or "conscientization". Ultimately Freire's focus was on empowering those within their current class to affect change and not social class border crossing.

Anyon's describes differences in social class groups. I was taken back by the startling reality of the concrete differences between the very rich and poor. I couldn't help but notice the focus on adherence to rules and conformity when educating the poor. Anyon identifies three discretely "dominant themes" in each of the classes. Working class schools theme was resistance (they identify the teacher with oppression, "the hated one" and resist attempts to join camp), middle-class schools theme was possibility (hard work yields a good job), affluent professional schools theme was" individualism with a minor theme of humanitarianism", and the executive elite school was excellence.

Recognizing the importance of dialogue, Finn discusses the "discipline game" he uses to acquaint his students with the differences between dialogue and anti-dialogue (identified by the Study Circles organization). Anti dialogue limits dialogue, as educators we want to avoid this! The discipline game is practice in negotiation, with the added benefit of understanding "that teachers cannot accommodate students' requests without having their own needs met", and "of the parallels between good negotiating and dialogue and bad negotiating and dialogue".

Finally Peterson, a Freirian, and Bigelow and Christenson had students examine their own oppression, identifying with others oppression, employing dialogue and demonstrating for real, political activism. They recognize that creating an awareness of oppression in those oppressed without teaching and demonstrating action will lead to "cynicism and despair".

I am so inspired, I think I'll take a look at Peterson,Bigelow and Christensen's publication Rethinking Our Classrooms for some more ideas on social justice in the classroom.

Still Separate, Still Unequal: America's Educational Apartheid adapted from The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America

Jonathan Kozol: Talking Points: Questions: Thinking out of the Box

1) How would you, given access to whatever resources you requested, balance the playing field (should I say power field?) in one school in the Bronx, optimizing teaching and learning? How long do you think it would take?

2) Noreen Connell, the director of Educational Priorities in New York said,"When minority parents ask for something better for their kids", "the assumption is that these are parents who can be discounted. These are kids who just don't count-children we don't value". How could you, given access/influence to power brokers and limitless resources, change that statement to "clearly these children count".

3) What recourse do teachers have when asked to acquiesce when their building principal or administrator forces an absurdity on them? What kind of change could we engineer, political, legal, monetary etc. to encourage teachers to expose dubious practice or to encourage compliance of educators/administrators to honor children's time in school as a "perishable piece of life itself?"

The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children

Talking Points: 1) Connections 2) Quotes

In her book, Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom, Lisa Delpit presents a disturbing view of reality. She invites us to take a glimpse of a black special education teacher teaching in a black community, a black educator teaching a multicultural urban elementary, and a black principal in graduate school. Their commentary on communication with white people has a common thread. "They won't listen", "they listen, but they don't hear","They don't really hear me,.. What you have to say about your life, your children, doesn't mean anything." The silence that Delpit speaks of is an intentional decision of the non dominant educators to stop engaging the dominant culture educators because they disagree so fundamentally with how white people educate poor and black children. As there is no voice of those in the trenches actually teaching the poor and minorities, thus no dissension, white educators deduce that agreement in how to teach children of non dominant cultures has been reached. Recall the words of Johnson, "The trouble around the difference is really about privilege and power-the existence of privilege and the lopsided distribution of power that keeps it going". Silence is certainly lopsided....

Delpit asserts, "Children have the right to their own language, their own culture. We must fight cultural hegemony and fight the system by insisting that children be allowed to express themselves in their own language style. It is not they, the children, who must change, but the schools. To push children to do anything else is repressive and reactionary." Strong words... Delpit recognizes the necessity, like Johnson, to speak plainly about the power game that exists in U.S. education today. She states "I prefer to be honest with my students. I tell them that their language and cultural style is unique and wonderful but that there is a political power game that is also being played, and if they want to be in on that game there are certain games that they too must play." But she underscores her statement of reality with the understanding that playing the game doesn't mean agreeing with it. Delpit offers examples of teachers who use two forms of communication, the power code formal English and the informal, heritage English. Codes of power are important to understand for students. It is critical for instructors, the conduit of code, to understand how their communication is received both directly and indirectly. Delpit comments on a particular method of "de-emphasizing power", an indirect form of communication by white educators that is understood by white children of the dominant culture as a way to meet the student in a less threatening way, but by children in the non-dominant culture is understood as a request with alternative choices.

She writes of the culture of power and similar to Johnson's "luxury of obliviousness" states that "those with power are frequently least aware of-or least willing to acknowledge its existence". Like Johnson, she sees the solution to leveling the power playing field coming from those in the dominant position, "I am certain that if we are truly to effect societal change, we cannot do so from the bottom up, but we must push and agitate from the top down."