New "Call for Papers" from the Journal of Educational Controversy

We invite authors to contribute to our Volume 9 Number 1 issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy on the theme: "Challenging the Deficit Model and the Pathologizing of Children: Envisioning Alternative Models." This issue will once again be co-edited with Susan Donnelly, who was guest editor for our issue on "The Education and Schools our Children Deserve."


CALL FOR PAPERS

THEME: Challenging the Deficit Model and the Pathologizing of Children: Envisioning Alternative Models

CONTROVERSY ADDRESSED:

Martin Seligman, founder of the field of positive psychology, has said that, “Modern psychology has been co-opted by the disease model. We've become too preoccupied with repairing damage when our focus should be on building strength and resilience, especially in children.” Is this also true of modern education? Political and pedagogical responses, from the “War on Poverty” through “No Child Left Behind” to address the educational gaps in academic achievement of historically marginalized and neglected groups (the poor, minorities and children with disabilities), were often deeply rooted in a language of cultural deprivation and special needs. Has this deficit model begun to surreptitiously creep into our educational discourse for all children? Have we become too focused on needs and deficiencies and forgotten that children also have capacities and strengths? Does the current emphasis on accountability and standardized testing contribute to the pathologizing of children? We invite authors to respond critically to this argument, envision alternative models, examine historical causes and precedents, analyze political and social ramifications, and share real life stories on the influence these ways of thinking have on the classroom and on the learning as experienced by students.

DEADLINE FOR MANUSCRIPTS: APRIL 1, 2014

PUBLICATION DATE: FALL 2014

Authors can find the journal at: http://www.wce.wwu.edu/eJournal

Sorry, Great Hearts Academy!

This just in from Tennessee (with thanks to Diane Ravitch for the heads up:

New post on Diane Ravitch's blog Sorry, Great Hearts Academy! by dianerav The Tennessee legislature failed to pass the bill to gut local control. Greats Academy will not be able to open in the most affluent section of Nashville. Not this year. ALEC legislation failed. Charters unhappy. Angry moms prevail. An informed public will not sell or give away public education.

My two cents:

You don’t have to be an opponent of charter schools to recognize this as a sensible refusal to dive deeper into idiocy. What is odd to me is the “big brother” aspect of this — local districts can’t make reasoned decisions about charter schools and therefore have to be overruled by state officials who know better? Charter schools can be — and in a very few instances have been — crucibles of innovation. Turning to them can invigorate public school practice, particularly when they are in the hands of seasoned educators who recognize the limits, misdirections and political constraints of the public school establishment. But pretending that simply being a charter school is a formula for success is silly as a presumption and countered by data. Those closest to the impacts and costs can be trusted to make sensible decisions. And MNPS board and admin made a sensible decision in the case of Great Hearts.

My colleague (at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University) on this turn of events:

"No authorizer. No voucher. No parent trigger. No private charters. All around, a very good session ending"

So now let's turn to encouraging parents to "opt out" of testing for their children wherever the law offers that possibility.   If you are a parent in a state where the only "opt out" is for religious reasons, I suggest that you claim a religious belief in human potential (supported I'd say by all the faiths of "the book" -- Judaism, Christianity, Islam at a minimum).   Clearly, the current standards and testing regime violates the development of human potential.  

The School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Civil Rights and a Civil Liberty Issue

The School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Civil Rights and a Civil Liberty Issue


An Editorial Preview of the Journal of Educational Controversy Issue on the School-to-Prison Pipeline and the School-to-Deportation Pipeline

http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/CEP/eJournal/v007n001/

The School-to-Prison Pipeline stands as a direct contradiction to the vision of the public school as an institution for promoting and sustaining a democratic republic. Each year thousands of students are funneled through the public schools into the juvenile justice system as a result of school policies and practices that increasingly criminalize students rather than educate them. Most are students of color, students with disabilities, and students from impoverished neighborhoods. How and why this is happening is the focus of this issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy.

Are YOU ready for Public Education 2.0?

Kevin Lynch, vice-chair of Canada's BMO financial group, recently contributed an editorial to the Globe and Mail arguing that public education should be ready for "Education 2.0". On the one hand, he should be commended for offering a justification of the value of public education in a context where many are eager to privatize. However, it is worth questioning the extent to which the value of public education can be so easily detached from its content. For example, among his suggestions for public education 2.0 include:

1. Curricula tied to labor market forecasts
2. Outcome based and "managed for quantifiable results"
3. Focused on innovation in industry and in "the knowledge economy"

I don't want to outrightly dismiss all of Lynch's predictions, and we certainly need allies for public education who come from a variety of backgrounds. However, in thinking through what "public education 2.0" would look like, it's worth asking if the conception of education on offer really has public value. Perhaps if by 'public' education, he means education for "global finance capital"?

I am sure that for some, Lynch is a bit of an easy target. His proposed reforms are common within industry and we can marshal all sorts of arguments showing that his (implied?) views on the value of public education are fairly anemic. But it does raise an interesting (or at least, strategic) problem: if in our political economy the kind of people that can offer real clout in terms of protecting public education just are those people who also have "corporatist" views on how public education should be operationalized and managed, and further, their support of public education is conditional on reforms that fall within such views, it puts those that seriously want to protect a robust conception public education from outright privatization in a difficult position. This is increasingly so as austerity measures in liberal democratic states become normalized.

"I'm not villainous or morally deformed; therefore, I cannot be a racist."

Jemal Countess/WireImage.com

"I am trying to imagine a white president forced to show his papers at a national news conference, and coming up blank. I am trying to a imagine a prominent white Harvard professor arrested for breaking into his own home, and coming up with nothing. I am trying to see Sean Penn or Nicolas Cage being frisked at an upscale deli, and I find myself laughing in the dark. It is worth considering the messaging here. It says to black kids: “Don’t leave home. They don’t want you around.” It is messaging propagated by moral people."







Ta-Nehisi Coates, in his opinion-editorial "The Good, Racist People," examines the present-day reality and pervasiveness of racism in U.S. democratic society. Many of our socially and economically privileged, primarily white students often perceive racism as something that is only performed by evil-doers and, as such, they could not be racist. To be associated with an ideology that modern America, according to Coates, has labeled as that of "trolls, gorgons and orcs" often conflates to our privileged students' complete denial of association. To be implicated in a system, which according to U.S. law, ended with slavery and has only progressively got better with the proceeding desegregation of schools and election of President Barack Obama is "insane."

Reading Coates' editorial may be uncomfortable for many of us, especially those of us who are socially, economically, and historically privileged. The reality of what Coates discusses is not something we want to believe and/or fully except as true. I think, though, this is what makes Coates' article an excellent addition for any classroom that wants to incorporate social justice issues that are occurring within U.S. society. It offers an opportunity for us as teachers to start a conversation with our students about racism in the U.S.--historically, presently, and systematically. The piece also opens the door for group conversations, journal reflections, or both, for privileged, white students about how seemingly "good" intentions potentially prevent one from analyzing their own internal biases. And finally, utilizing publicly-relevant, current news offers an opportunity for us as teachers to engage our students with the everyday and, in turn, open up doors for them to develop their own new and creative ways for working against socially-unjust and systemically-rooted everyday practices.
 

Making the Grade: Self-Worth, Status, and Mini-Vans

What comes to mind when you think of grades or GPA? As someone who only finished the GPA stage of her education journey a couple of years ago, I find myself immensely relieved that I no longer have to spend numerous hours worrying about whether or not I make the grade. I would also be remiss if I did not, at least on some level, acknowledge that I do miss the bursts of motivation, all-nighter writing sessions and so on, that accompanied my desire to make the grade. My ambition, though, for wanting to make the grade may be different than my friends, neighbors, or fellow colleagues. The question follows then, what do grades symbolize? Why do certain students find their entire self-worth/intelligence defined by the letters or numerical averages on a piece of paper? Who cares more about grades/test scores? Is merit distributed equitably for all students with high GPAs?

USA Today's Mary Beth Marklein draws attention to the fact that many U.S. universities and colleges are no longer looking at GPAs for admission. Parents, however, find the GPA to be an important marker of their child's intelligence. GPA/honor-student status is also a designator of elevated social class--bumper stickers for parents' mini-vans/sedans and flair for moms' purses or rear-view mirrors.

Prior to learning the statuses associated with high GPA, I would argue particularly those of class and whiteness, would grades have any meaning to students? The importance of GPA is learned and, for this reason, we should always be cautious of how a constructed concept may influence people/students of different social, economic, and historical locations.  

Is merit distributed equitably for all students with high GPAs? Differences in a school's geographical location (i.e., inner-city, rural, or suburb), social location (i.e., public or private), and historical location (i.e., the school's federal report card or accreditation). Schools' variations influence students' merit when they get to the college's admissions board, but what about prior to that? When students from lower-socioeconomic positions achieve higher GPAs, are they granted the same level of merit as students from higher-socioeconomic positions? Even if they are, I would argue that a student from a lower-socioeconomic position might correlate self-worth/intelligence more strongly with GPA than a student from the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum. Why? Because in addition to the countless images of college success stories in the media, their parents most probably equated academic achievement with elevated social and economic status--that is, a way to make money, to help the family, to do better than "we" did. At least that was how it was for me--a first-generation college student.

What are universities and colleges doing to address how merit is distributed during admissions? According to USA today, one method used is recalculating students' GPAs according to the challenging nature of the courses students have taken. Well, I'd be curious to know how each schools' geographical, social, historical location and possibly the number of mini-vans influence that scale.

Private schools, public money

This morning, in Metro, the free newspaper that they hand you when you go into the subway station, there was a full page ad for Québec's private schools. These schools, which are currently generously supported with public money, are worried that the new Parti Québecois government may cut their grants, and they are trying to get out in front of this possibility by mobilizing public opinion. Currently, Québec provides over $1 billion per year in funding to private schools, and students in these schools receive approximately 60% of the per-pupil funding given to private schools.

In order to convince Québec taxpayers to continue to fork out more to those who have more, the Federation of Québec Private Schools has offered us five "truths" about the public system.

For those of you who don't read French, let's take a look at each of these "truths" in turn, and offer a bit of commentary on each one:

What I Learned in Gym Class

The New York Times reports that "Gym Class Isn't Just Fun and Games Anymore."  Gym class has been encroached upon by test prep for some years now, with hours and positions cut to accommodate increased time for math and literacy instruction, but this is different.  Gym teachers are, by choice or under pressure, or, most plausibly, by pressured choice, now including math and literacy instruction in gym classes.  Children, for instance, might be required to review vocabulary words while engaging in a gym activity, or practice math skills.

Why is this a problem? Why not multitask in gym class?  After all, I watch the news sometimes while running at the gym, and I think through research while swimming -- and where's the difference?  Because the true purpose of gym class is affective.  It's all about learning to deal with other people throwing balls at your head -- in fun! -- and to tolerate the humility of being unable to climb a rope.  Or, from a different perspective, to revel in your ability to spike that volleyball higher than the smarty-pants who has no trouble in math, and to run faster and farther too.  What I really learned from gym class: that there were kids who could do things that I simply couldn't.  Also, to be a good sport about this, or at least not to cry when it was time for the annual volleyball unit.

This could be said about the elementary and secondary school curriculum as a whole, I think: that when schools narrow the realms in which students can shine, they stunt children's nascent appreciation of the diversity of human talents.  Shining and limitations alike need to be broadly distributed -- because it's important for every child to find some things she's good at, and equally important for children to appreciate others' differing abilities.

And, last but not least, it's important for children to learn to persist in activities that they themselves are not very good at but that are, for good reason, worth doing.  When I was in middle school, I decided to join the cross-country team.  It was an odd choice, as I'm not especially fast.  I suspect I did so out of the realization that if I did not take action, I was destined to spend my whole life as the person who couldn't do a single sit-up, while around me stronger, more adept athletes played games that looked like fun, if only you had sufficient abilities to play.  For six years I was not only the worst runner on the team but one of the worst runners in the entire county, but I kept at it and made a lot of friends I wouldn't have had otherwise.  If I had been able to show off my vocabulary and my math skills in gym class, I'm not sure I would have bothered.

Of course, I knew I was no star athlete based on recess and pick-up games around the neighborhood, but it means something different when the New York States Board of Regents is counting the number of sit-ups you can (or in my case cannot) do.  I am not advocating humiliation as a general teaching tool; the point, rather, is that when schools provide a variety of domains in which children are encouraged to succeed, children come to recognize that people's talents are diverse and that respect, therefore, is to be distributed as broadly as difference.

Gym class, in sum, has never been all fun and games.  For some people it wasn't fun.  For others, it was too important to count as a game.  I'm all in favor of making it more fun, and even for including health information, but keep the test prep out it.  (Incidentally, one teacher in the article remarks that she includes health information because "during a 30-minute class, it would be difficult for the children to keep moving constantly."  Seriously?  During a 30-minute class, it would seem difficult to prevent children from moving constantly.)  Glad though I am never to have to play it again, long live volleyball.

Academic Capitalism Meets Volunteer Work: Why I Hate the Co-Curricular Record

A few years ago, I read Denise Clark Pope's book Doing School, an ethnography of high-achieving high school students in Silicon Valley. One of the more memorable anecdotes concerned one of the high-achieving students, Eve Lin, who was very careful to conceal the fact that she had been volunteering at a hospital from her friends. It was not out of modesty that she did this--her primary concern was that her friends would start to volunteer at the hospital as well, thereby robbing her of any edge that she would have in the college application resumé arms race. After all, if everyone's got "hospital volunteer" on their resumé, the exchange value of this designation would go down significantly.

Although I found Eve's story pretty interesting, I figured that it was at the safely at the margins of student life. One expects to hear about these sorts of things happening in places like Silicon Valley and New York City. However, I was recently surprised to hear that the same sort of thing, which we might call "resumé building charity capitalism," (if I'm in a good mood) is now being given substantial institutional support at several Canadian universities. At Dalhousie University, for example, the student services office now offers a document called the "Co-Curricular Record," which is basically an official transcript of your volunteer service. If you've done hospital volunteering, student services now wants you to "get accredited" so that this activity will appear on an official "co-curricular" transcript issued by the university.

Just check out this handy little video that Dalhousie University (a much longer version of the video can be found here) made in order to justify the existence of this ridiculous document:

Med school wants to know whether people have done volunteer work, and this must surely mean that there is a pressing need for accreditation of this type of work. Otherwise, how shall we separate the real hospital volunteers from the fake ones? In addition, if we don't monitor and accredit all of this goodness and selflessness, how can it possibly be turned into academic capital? I mean, don't the students who pile up the most volunteer hours in the most places deserve to be rewarded in terms of some serious exchange value? That's surely what the spirit of volunteerism is all about. I mean, folks like Jesus and the disciples may not have been very strong in terms of their academic transcripts, but imagine their outstanding performance on their co-curricular records! We'd definitely give them lots of points for an outstanding effort as President and Executive Officers of the Loaves and Fishes Club, but we might have to avoid certifying their leadership roles in the Anti-Usury League. Employers might not like all that moneylenders-out-of-the-temple stuff, after all.

Fascinating snippets from James' Talks to Teachers

It's a busy time around here in January, so instead of writing a longer post, I'm going to offer you a couple of thought-provoking excerpts from a book that I just finished teaching in our doctoral seminar, William James' Talks to Teachers. I am a huge fan of this book: it's concise, elegantly written, and still incredibly relevant even 120 years after it was conceived.

From the chapter on habit, here's James on the importance of developing productive habits early on:

We all intend when young to be all that may become a man before the destroyer cuts us down. We wish and expect to enjoy poetry always, to grow more and more intelligent about pictures and music...We mean all this in youth, I say; and yet in how many middle-aged men and women is such an honest and sanguine expectation fulfilled? Surely, in comparatively few, and the laws of habit show us why. Some interest in each of these things arises in everybody at the proper age, but if not persistently fed with the appropriate matter, instead of growing into a powerful and necessary habit, it atrophies and dies, choked by the rival interests to which the daily food is given.

We say abstractly: "I mean to enjoy poetry, and to absorb a lot of it, of course. I fully intend to keep up my love of music, to read the books that shall give new turns to the thought of my time..." But we do not attack these things concretely, and we do not begin today. We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and postpone, until those smiling possibilities are dead. Whereas ten minutes a day of poetry...and an hour or two a week at music, pictures, or philosophy, provided we began now and suffered no remission, would infallibly give us in due time the fulness of all we desire. By neglecting the necessary concrete labor, by sparing ourselves the little daily tax, we are positively digging the graves of our higher possibilities.

Or, more pithily, are you going to be an interesting middle-aged person or are you going to be someone whose tastes are frozen in time at age 22?