So, I haven't finished reading yet, but I thought I would post about how eerily familar this book seems to me. At times, I feel like I am reading my own thoughts and my own experiences in the classroom. Like Fecho, I stumbled across working in a school simply because I needed a job. Yet, since then I have been consumed by the challenge and struggle to be a "good" teacher and help students find purpose in education and learning. Even with small successes in my own classroom, I, too, once felt "powerless to effect much change beyond the walls of [my] individual classroom" and "wondering if it would be better to cut my losses and move on to some other line of work" (17). Nevertheless, I find that Fecho gives me hope and agency. He reminds me of the value of the classroom.
I appreciate Fecho's honesty, admitting that he doesn't have the answers, and so far I have enjoyed following his narrative and attempt to find meaning in the process of teaching. I have been marking several points where he describes his classroom discussions of race and power since that is what I think I want to focus my teacher research project on. But, what I'm also curious about is his independent and collective inquiry practices. It makes me wonder why most schools do not encourage their teachers to take this approach and provide the structure and support necessary to do so. This would seem so much more beneficial to me instead of the handing down of information that occurs during typical professional development. I know when talking about teacher education, we stress the importance of reflective practices. Yet, sometimes I feel that our school system is headed in the direction of creating anti-intellectual teachers. How do we change this course? How do we encourage and support both preservice and inservice teachers to find agency through inquiry?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
He reminds me, too of "the value of the classroom" -- and especially of the small successes. i really like how he touches the mistyness and elusiveness of those classroom moments.
While the inquiry approach is a familiar one to me at the elementary school level (the idea itself isn't new), my guess is that it isn't widely implemented in classrooms. I'm not sure why that is.
What Fecho adds for me is that "critical" perspective, which makes inquiry even more attractive (and I already liked it!)
Sadly, notion of "inquiry" as professional development isn't anywhere on the radar in the district I came out of. The closest district-sponsored attempt was asking us to analyze our own data (and that's not agentive inquiry).
In Hoffman's class, I read an article about preservice teachers doing collaborative action research projects with their cooperating teachers. Lots of potential there, I think...
"anti-intellectual teachers"
I like the idea, but I'm not sure if we can simply lay this at the feet of the teachers. Perhaps we (though testing, standards, scripted programs, policy, and professional development) are creating anti-intellectual schools and by virtue of teaching in that environment, teachers are forced into anti-intellectual roles though they themselves may vehemently disagree with the characterization.
Something new for my brain to chew on. Thanks.
Anti-intellectualism is endemic to American Culture, not just teachers. Look at how well the Bush Admin plays the anti-intellectual card in response to global warming, as just one example.
Post a Comment