The Why, Where and Whats of Teaching and Schooling

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The Why, Where and Whats of Teaching and
Schooling
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Why Educate? Why School?

• Remember the definition of each of these
• Education-deliberate, intentional and systematic
  and sustained effort to transmit or acquire
  knowledge.
• Schooling-activities and processes occurring in
  schools

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If you could only teach one idea, concept, value
or skillwhat would it be?

• Assume the inhabitants of our world are to be
  transported to a new planet in outer space. We
  take nothing with us but our ideas of education.
  What will you bring? Small groups

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Immersing Ourselves in Our Current Educational
System

• First, the Oakes Text
• Oakes book has a certain perspective-as you read
  it this semester, begin an analysis of your
  assessment of this.
• What does teaching to change the world mean?
• Book has two main themes schooling is a social
  and cultural activity, and we are immersed in an
  ever increasingly multi-cultural society

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• Schools must provide all students an education
  comprised of social justice and rigorous and
  authentic learning experiences. (xix).
• A socially just education includes not only the
  values and politics but pervades practice as well.

• The readings for today focus a lot on
  inequalities race, class, gender and language.
• Much of this falls under the discipline of the
  sociology of education-why?

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Who Populates American Schools?

• The Oakes text talks about an opportunity gap.
  How is this different than the more standard view
  of an achievement gap?
• 48 million students populate our schools
• About 10 of these attend private schools.

• Catholic school enrollment is down and enrollment
  in private, independent schools and conservative,
  Christian academies is growing.
• In addition, more and more families are choosing
  to school at home.

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• Population growth has chiefly been in the South
  and West-these school districts often dont have
  the same resources of those in the Northeast.
• In 2003, white students were in a slight
  majority, at 58.

• This is expected to change with the largest
  increase of minorities being Hispanic/Latinos and
  Asian. Private schools enroll proportionally more
  white students.
• Most recent surge in immigration is Latinos and
  Asians.

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• We have always been a nation of immigrants. The
  change is that immigrants now live in every
  region of the country, not just on the coasts and
  big cities.
• Children of immigrants are more likely to be less
  proficient in English, live in low-income
  families and have parents with less than a high
  school diploma.

• One of every 5 students speaks a language at home
  other than English, 70 being Spanish.
• Poverty rates in the U.S. are unmatched by other
  western, industrialized countries. Schools often
  bear the burdens of poverty.

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Gap Between Rich and Poor

• Chair exercise
• Developed by a Boston-based NGO (non-governmental
  organization) called United for a Fair Economy
• What are the implications for education and
  schooling?
• What about the issue of power?

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Economics

• Top 1 own a third of our nations wealth.
• Top 5 own own more than the remaining 95 put
  together.
• The bottom 60 together own less than 5 of the
  wealth.

• Gaps seem to be increasing over the course of the
  past few decades.
• The 10 permanent poverty rate in the U.S. is
  twice as high as in other industrialized
  countries.
• Our child poverty rate (21) for children under 6
  is the highest among the industrialized
  countries.

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What About the World?

• In a pioneering study, the United Nations
  University World Institute for Development
  Economics Research, (UNU-WIDER) illustrates the
  severity of the wealth gap.  Currently, the
  richest 2 of the world's population control more
  than 50 of global household wealth while the
  poorest 50 of the population control only 1 of
  the world's assets. Described as "The most
  comprehensive study of personal wealth ever," by
  UNU-WIDER, the study highlights concerns about
  wealth disparity among countries and regions of
  the world in addition to the compounding problem
  of individual debt.http//clients2.targetware.co
  m/calvertfoundation/Uploads/MyDocuments/unu.pdf

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Other Data on Widening Gaps
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Social Class

• What is social class?
• What is your social class?
• Has there been a time when someone related to you
  based on your class rather than you as a person?

• Have there been societies where there has been no
  class?
• TheC word is one of the most important, least
  talked-about concepts in our American culture

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Social Class

• Little consensus on what we mean by social class
• Different interpretations
• Most people put themselves in the middle but this
  covers a wide range of income levels
• General interpretations are that there are 5
  classes in the U.S.
• Upper-3 of population
• Upper-middle-10-15
• Lower middle class 25
• Working 40
• Lower or poor 20

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Achievement or Opportunity Gap

• Issues of gaps in income and opportunity will
  greatly affect what you do in the classroom
• There is a direct correlation between SAT scores
  and family income
• De Facto housing issues greatly impact schooling

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Unequal Spending

• Opportunity gaps between wealthy and poor
  districts
• Work of Jonathan Kozol

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Housing

• 1.35 million children are homeless on any given
  night (National Coalition for the Homeless).
• How does this affect educational practices?

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Racial Inequality

• Children of color are more likely to grow up in
  poverty. 10 of white children are poor, 34
  African-American and 30 of Latino children are
  poor.
• Children of color are overwhelmingly living in
  segregated, urban areas. Whites continue to
  exodus to the suburbs in many localities.
• Level of segregation for blacks and Latinos has
  been increasing
• Sheff v. ONeill journalistic inquiry

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Urban Education
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Some consider we have a crisis in inner city
schools
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• Urban schools reflect the intersections of race
  and socio-economics
• People of color and poor are concentrated here
• Hartford-80-90 of students are students of color

• Sociologists of education tell us that there is a
  positive correlation between socio-economic
  status and academic achievement
• More and more people are moving to the cities
• What might this mean for educational policies?

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A Case Study in Urban Education
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What to do about urban schools?

• Research shows some things do foster achievement
• Orderly environment
• Clear school mission
• High expectations
• Careful monitoring of student progress

• Positive home/school relations
• Effective compensatory programs such as Head
  Start
• Increase in teachers of color
• Increase in multi-cultural curricula
• School choice-needs more research

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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• What implications for education and schooling
  does are inherent in child poverty?
• http//www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

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Student Bill of Rights Act

• CT Senator Christopher Dodd introduced in 2002
• Would hold states accountable for providing all
  students with the fundamentals of educational
  opportunity.qualified teachers, guidance
  counselors, challenging curricula, smaller
  classes.
• Where is this bill now?

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Solving the ProblemsMoving Beyond Oakes

• There has never been agreement on how to solve
  these social ills nor on the role of schools to
  help with solutions.
• There is little agreement about why we have such
  achievement or opportunity gaps.
• Some theories school funding, curricula, teacher
  education, parents, poverty, genetics, lack of
  economic opportunities.
• Theories need to be tested. Our hunches are not
  enough.

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Educating Citizens for Global Awareness-Noddings
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• Carlson-Paige and Lantieri essay
• What helps nurture young people to become
  socially and morally engaged?
• Berman and Boulding et. al. say
• Caring environment
• Lots of opportunities for their own
  decision-making

• Modeling of prosocial behavior
• Opportunities for taking the role of the other
• Effective conflict resolution skill building

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Laying the Groundwork

• What is a global civic culture?
• What does a global citizen look like?
• The question-how do we teach our students toward
  such citizenry?

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What are Some of Your Ideas as to the Qualities
Inherent in Global Citizenry?

• List 3-4

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Educations Role in Creating Global Citizenship

• The educator Elise Boulding describes civic
  culture as the patterning of how we share common
  space, common resources and manage
  interdependence.

• John Dewey, the founder of the field of
  educational philosophy, asks us to think about
  what kind of person do we want our students to
  becomewhat sort of self is in the makingand
  what kind of world are we creating?
  Boulding-Building a Global Civic Culture

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Noddings Book

• Education holds the key to building the defenses
  of peace (ix). Daisaku Ikeda
• Qualities Necessary for Global Citizenry
  according to Daisaku Ikeda (Foreward)
• Wisdom of perception of the interdependence of
  all life

• Courage to respect differences
• Compassion and empathy for all life

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3 levels of Global Citizenry

• Local, national and international
• Teacher is most important element in the
  educational system (Ikeda, xi).

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Conditions Necessary to Teach for Global Citizenry

• Peace, according to her, is a precondition for
  global citizenship.
• Peace education must play a role.
• Must include the elimination of global poverty
• http//www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
• She distinguishes between caring about and caring
  for-local as relating to global

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Protecting the Earth

• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint
• http//www.educ.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/438/environm
  ent/webstuff/footprint.html
• http//www.canadianarchitect.com/asf/perspectives_
  sustainibility/measures_of_sustainablity/measures_
  of_sustainablity_footprint.htm
• http//adbusters.org/metas/eco/truecosteconomics/f
  ootprint.html