Exploring Education: A Fresh Perspective on All Things Education!

2009-06-30T17:51:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone. I know it has been awhile. I have had some interesting turns on my own educational path. I graduated with high honors from Swarthmore in English and Education.

I traveled through Peru, visiting Lima, Cuzco, Machu Pichu, and Iquitos.

Now I have found a new home for the summer: Washington, DC.

I am working for the Student Conservation Association.

The SCA is " America’s conservation corps. Our members protect and restore national parks, marine sanctuaries, cultural landmarks and community green spaces in all 50 states."

I have a crew of 6 high school students from the Washington, DC area. We are working in Rock Creek Park,

and Dumbarton Oaks

Bad News for New York City Bound Teachers

2009-05-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

PANIC!

I was planning to develop a teaching career in new york city. I may have to think again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/nyregion/11teachers.html?ref=education

"In an effort to cut costs and avoid teacher layoffs, the Department of Education on Wednesday ordered principals to fill vacancies with internal candidates only."

Even scarier is this:

"But this year, the department anticipates fewer openings and will not hire externally except in certain high-needs areas like speech therapy and bilingual special education. Instead, principals can fill spots only with internal candidates, including teachers from a reserve pool made up of those whose jobs have been eliminated and many who have earned unsatisfactory ratings."

They will be hiring unsatisfactory teachers instead of fresh, energetic ones coming straight from teaching schools. People from NYCTF and TFA, who often have only a few weeks of teacher training, will prioritized over those who have been training for years.

Future Plans

2009-05-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

I begin my lifelong journey as an educator.

This summer I will work as a Summer Commuting Crew Leader for the Student Conservation Association in Washington DC.

http://thesca.org/serve/community-programs

6 High Schoolers and I will restore trails and sites in Washington, DC area parks, meet with leaders of the Environmental movement, learn about conservation and environmental advocacy, and take an incredibly fun trip at the end of the summer. I am absolutely pumped.

Some concerns I have:

My role as white male outsider.

The culture of SCA and other environmental institutions.

Being a good role model.

Being a firm but understanding boss.

Some things I'm looking forward to:

Getting Outside!

Working Hard!

Educating the Youth!

Being in DC during the Obama generation!

A Conversation About Standards

2009-05-08T07:11:00.000-07:00

Recently a reader was kind enough to post a comment on by blog:

"Pardon my ignorance, but don't kids need to know what they need to know regardless of where they are? And why would national standards stop you from having community involvement.

All of life has standards that you either meet or don't - why should schools be any different? It is time we start holding kids accountable for their own success - isn't "that" what this country is made out of - hard work by those who are passionate about something?"

I would like to comment about several points.

How do we define what "they need to know?"

Is it what is going to guarantee them economic success in the capitalist system of the US?

Is it what is going to give them entrée into the intellectual elite of the university system?

Is it what is going to make them thoughtful, curious, lifetime learners?

Is it what is going to inspire them to change our world and give them the critical tools to do so?

Another question, who is the they? Students are becoming increasingly, increasingly diverse. They bring with them different racial, national, religious and sexual identities. All of these imply a different worldview. These "standards" are never neutral. In fact they imply a dominant, normative set of knowledge and behaviors that is categorically white, European, and middle class. Often this "school culture" is constructed through content, like Literature and History, with capital L and H, but it also can be constructed through the attitudes and practices of Math and Science pedagogies. To assert that all students "need" to know this information, these attitudes, this culture...is racist.

Now, of course I admit that the reality is, for economic success and a greater chance of improving life chances, it is important to have access to a high level of standard academic fare. However, what happens is that these standards have been used against the students who were not properly prepared, by their communities and their schools to meet the standards, and so it becomes a loosing game, by which the standards are used to keep them from advancing to the maximum of their potential. Especially under the Bush administration, standards were used to color the public schools a "failures", so that public funds could be siphoned off to private schools, charters collaborating with "business partners", and faith-based initiatives. Public money in the private interest.

The interesting question is whether this pattern will continue under Obama. I hope that it doesn't, but Arne hasn't suggested otherwise.

If we are going to have standards, they need to be drastically rewritten, and the evaluation of those standards, and subsequently what is done with that evaluations drastically rethought.

Finally, I'm not sure what "all of life has standards" actually means, but the rest of the paragraph about hard work in success in the American dream...has largely, conclusively, statistically, been proven by sociologists and economists to be largely that...a dream. Social mobility is largely illusion, and for those who do achieve it, usually involves dramatic losses to sense of self, rootedness, and background.

In fact, that to me is the scary, underbelly to the Obama myth. I have tremendous respect for Obama, and I know he worked his but off, for decades, to get to where he is. But if anyone thinks he is a regular joe, they are off their rocker. He lived in Indonesia, Hawaii, had a government official as a dad, in fact two international father figures, and went to one of the best private schools in Hawaii. He worked hard, but he had a hell of a head start. And yet, the Obama myth suggests that any struggling Black kid in North Philly, College Park, South Bronx, East Cleveland, or any similar place can "make it" to the top. Do you believe that?

Obama Makes Me Cry

2009-04-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

I was having a great Obama day on Tuesday. The family was out with the dog, I felt so happy and proud to see our first Black first family in the limelight. And then I read Sam Dillon's NYT article about education : "Education Standards Likely to See Toughening"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/education/15educ.html

And I wanted to cry. I began to ask myself why I had spent all those hours during election weekend canvassing, calling, hoping, asking the electoral college gods to spur fortune, "that strumpet", to our favor. Why, as an educator, should I vociferously fight for Mr. Obama, if this is what we get:

Arne Duncan saying he wants to be "a catalyst for the development of national academic standards."

What happened to local control, community involvement, and autonomy?

What comes out of this article is that Arne and the Obama administration are pursuing "more of the same failed bush administration policies" to fix education. By the way does my quoted rhetoric sound familiar to you? If it does, it's because that's the rhetoric Obama used to call McCain the same as Bush in the election. Irony.

What's really dissapointing is the cheer-leading sils on the so-called progressive left that just love president Obama's plan.

The Center for American Progress: " 'They’re putting money and ideas behind what they think are the changes needed in public education,” Ms. Brown said. 'That signals their seriousness about major reform.' "

Randi Weingarten, of the so-called stick in the mud unions said she would "give the new administration the benefit of the doubt". The unions rocked it for Obama in the campaign! They should be all over his ass, making sure his education plan is bold, new, and progressive, instead of boring, old, ineffective, and not good for students! Sheesh.

Congressman Sestak was on campus on Monday and he loved Obama's education plan to death.

Listen, I love Obama as much as the next guy, but we need some people to stick up to him and tell him what is what. I thought the benefit of having a moderate democrat in office was so that we could push him to the left.

The Arrogance of our Educational Leaders

2009-04-06T05:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/education/04educ.html

"Mr. Fenty said he made the trip to New York to observe the “endgame” of mayoral control of public schools, a controversial governance model that New York adopted seven years ago and that Washington turned to in 2007."

As if all big cities must inevitably succumb to mayoral control.

"In another classroom, students for whom English is not a first language studied a drawing and tried to name the objects they saw — cows, birds, trees. Mr. Klein expressed approval when he noticed the children were dressed in white uniforms. “Muchas gracias,” Mr. Klein offered. “You look so beautiful! Does everyone like their uniform? So do I!”"

This sounds like some totalitarian dictator at an educational brainwashing session.

It just shocks me the way these men in charge run around town dictating the terms of the game to everybody else, as if they, and only they have the right answers. We really need to take back control from these people.

Mapping Experience

2009-04-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

A current dilemma:

A student I tutor asked me to help her with maps. I quickly realized that her schools had dismally failed her. As a freshman in high school, she had practically no fluency with maps, georgraphy, history, or political science. She didn't know the difference between the US and the rest of the world on a map, what or where Europe really was, how many languages people spoke in different countries, etc... It seemed more like she didn't have "map language" than that she didn't know anything about these issues, but I knew that she needed to know this stuff in order to succeed in school. I quickly pulled up a world map on a computer and launched into a 90 minute survey of all of world geography in history, including the 7 continents, basic introduction to government and economics, a brief brief brief idea of colonialism, and any other pertinent interesting information I could think of.

You can imagine how problematic this was. I'm stuck. I want her to succeed in school, but I don't want to fall in to the trap of enslaving her within the dominant discourse without any sense of critical thought. I tried to show some of the ways that the "map" of the world is unjust, but with 90 minutes, I was racing to tell everything I knew about the map. I am going to keep working with her on this stuff, and any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Major Props

2009-04-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

I want to give major props to a blog I LOVE. A fellow swarthmore alum and current teacher, Scott Storm's Pedagogy With Class is an amaaaaaazing blog on pedagogy radicalism and just good teaching. Please check it out!

http://pedagogywithclass.wordpress.com/

Data for Duncan

2009-04-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/education/02educ.html

Arne Duncan has said that to qualify for a second round of educational stimulus funding, schools are going to have to submit data on performance, teacher assessment, and data on student success in terms of graduation and college.

Yall are expecting a rant from me, right?

Well, actually I think this is a good thing. Of course we should be tracking and monitoring the performance of our schools and the success of our students. The thing to be worried about is what data is collecting and how is it being used. If data on struggling schools is used to shut them down, shuttle their students to privates, and take their funding away, that is B.A.D., BAD. But there is no reason why the government should throw away taxpayer's money without seeing any critical reflection on the part of administrators, politicians, and stakeholders on the ground.

Mais Quoi?

2009-03-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

Ummmmm?

"Staff at a high school in the US state of Texas had students settle their differences by fighting inside a steel cage, a local newspaper has reported." - BBC

Diversity Conversations Lacking in Our Schools

2009-03-17T15:16:00.000-07:00

Attended a talk today by Anita Chikkatur. Ms. Chikkatur is an alum of Swarthmore and is pursuing her Ph.D at UPenn while teaching at Carleton college. Ms. Chikkatur's talk was called Difference Matters: invisible and incomplete narratives about race, America, and inequality at a diverse, urban public high school.

The talk focused on the ways the high school failed to adequately address the issues of race class and gender clearly present at a diverse urban school. Chikkatur's research and talk focused mainly on the teaching of an African-American history class, which was interpreted as a way for the school to diversify its curriculum. The teacher, however, was ill equipped to teach the class as she had not studied African-American history and did not feel comfortable discussing race.

Here are a couple of Chikkatur's findings that I find most provocative:

Diverse schools should offer opportunities for students to discuss and critique race class gender and sexuality and critique systems of oppression in the US.

Schools right now often ignore the two "foundational holocausts" of the formation of the US: the genocide of the Native American people's land and lives, and the enslavement and transfer of Africans to American soil to drive the nascent American economy.

I certainly agree that diverse schools need to do more to get their students talking about what is going on in their schools and how that reflects forces and systems in the wider society. I know, from having attended diverse high schools in Atlanta and Cleveland where practically no attempt was made to address diversity, that this can have disastrous consequences for students of all backgrounds.

I was also interested by Chikkatur's insistence on a hierarchy of oppression, arguing that the Eastern European immigrant experience and the hardships experienced by that community can not be compared with those of the enslaved African peoples.

I wonder if we can come up with a way of talking about oppression and domination that doesn't equate oppressions that are obviously difference in scope and effect and yet doesn't denigrate the real experiences of people, communities, and histories.

Some great commentary on recent issues by Gerald Bracey and Pedro Noguera

2009-03-10T15:40:00.001-07:00

Spent some time skimming blogs for good commentary on Obama's ed speech.

This one, from Gerald Bracey on the Huffington Post, is great.
Gerald Bracey: On Education, Obama Blows It, Part II

Posted using ShareThis

Favorite line:

"I voted for Obama. I canvassed for him. I registered voters for him. But on education, he has yet to hit the basket. Diane Ravitch, never once called a bleeding-hear liberal and assistant secretary of education for George H. W. Bush, recently said that, from what she's seen, Obama is a third term for George W. Bush and Arne Duncan is Margaret Spellings in drag. She was not doling out compliments to either man. (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2009/02/is_arne_duncan_really_margaret.html."

Pedro Noguera's is great as well.

Favorite Line:

"The most successful charter schools -- and let's be clear, not all charters are successful -- have demonstrated that increased autonomy, combined with site-based decision-making over the use of resources, can sometimes contribute to greater effectiveness. There is no reason why similar strategies cannot be deployed in regular public schools."

Obama on Education

2009-03-10T14:18:00.001-07:00

Obama finally made a policy speech on education today. From the Washington Post, New York Times, and Education Week coverage of the speech a few things are clear.

Barack Obama cares about our children and their eduction. And for that we should be very grateful. These are not the Bush years, where pure cynicism and business interests were the rule of the day. Bush did not care about children or their education. He simply cared about pushing for the reforms that would benefit his friends in the business-style reform industry.

According to the white house website, Obama supports:

1) "Investing in early childhood initiatives" like Head Start;

2) "Encouraging better standards and assessments" by focusing on testing itineraries that better fit our kids and the world they live in;

3) "Recruiting, preparing, and rewarding outstanding teachers" by giving incentives for a new generation of teachers and for new levels of excellence from all of our teachers.

4) "Promoting innovation and excellence in America’s schools" by supporting charter schools, reforming the school calendar and the structure of the school day.

My Responses:

Much of Obama's rhetoric on education has stressed the need for America to be the best. Echoing jingoistic , conservative ideology of the Reagan years and the anti-Russian 50's and 60's before them, Obama is rehearsing a kind of America is best exceptionalism that we need to get away from. We live in an interdependent, globalized world. What we need is for every student to be educated to the best of their ability and in a way that allows them to be critical actors within the world in which they exist. Why is the level of education in Africa not as important as that our students score better on tests than Chinese ones? What we don't need is a kind of test-driven arms race between the students of the United States and China? What does that accomplish? Who wins? And what to they win? A medal?

The four pillars:

1) okay, all good people in education support early childhood initiatives, no controversy there, good move Barry.

2) Now, this one is complicated. It all depends on the specifics of how these policices play out. If by "testing itineraries that better fit our kids and the world they live in," we are talking about culturally relevant pedagogy that accoutns for race class gender sexuality literacy and locale, then I'm totally down. If we are talking about alternative assesment strategies like portfolios and teacher assesment, then I am oh, so down. But if we are talking about simply tweaking tests, then, yes, okay, do what the research says, but I am not so down. We have established that testing is detrimental to students' education and students' self concept. Why are we rushing to continue the same test-based reform ideology of the Republicans?

3) Again, sounds great right? This third pillar has some really good things and some not so good ones. The idea of creating a teaching corps, creating new incentives and routes to recruitment is all great. The more the merrier. Let's make sure they get the training they need, but seriously this is all awesome.

Now the problem I have, and it is a big one, is a merit-pay based system, which is essentially what Obama is proposing, and by the way he has indicated his willingness to go up agains teachers' unions, the very ones that worked their buts off to get him elected, to push through this reform. Under a merit based system, outstanding teachers could get paid much more. Now since I plan on being an amazing teacher, this sounds great to me! Right?

But think about this. Imagine two rubrics under which performance could be measured:

1. Standardized testing. If raises are linked to score increases on tests, then this could encourage cheating by teachers at the worst and an even more dreary test-driven slave master approach at the best.

2. Selection or assesment by superiors. Imagine school politics. How in the world could this be done effectively without encouraging favoritism?

Obama says we need to find a way to move bad teachers out of the classroom. I agree. But how are we defining bad teachers? Who gets to define it? What happens when a teacher who is pursuing a politically unorthodox curriculum that stimulates his students but offends his superiors is characterized as "ineffective"? That's why the tenure system we have is crucial.

4. Okay, the school calendar thing I'm not really going to touch. I don't know enough about it. Charters. Charters. Charters.

Positive aspects of charters:

1. sometimes they work.
2. sometimes really cool charters get created, like all black afrocentric curriculum charters.
3. having a self-concious mission can often create results.

Negative aspects:

1. they skim the best students and resources away from the surrounding schools, moving the cream of the crop away to islands of excellence (a phrase obama used). But EVERY student deserves excellence.

2. they often use recruitment policies to keep out special ed students and students with behavioral problems.

3. they are notoriously unstable and can have their charter revoked at any time, effectively ending all the work and promise that created the charter and put the students their in the first place.

4. they are often a site for pofit seeking, business interest, direct-instruction education types to pursue their goals.

We should learn from the positive aspects of succesful charters and incorporate those into our system of education. but Charters are by nature provisional and therefore can never be a long term solution to the woes of our education system.

Which brings me to my strongest criticism of Arne Duncan and Obama:

They have no systematic, comprehensive, long-term vision of a succesful school system. They piece meal embrace policy solutions that may or may not work. What we need is VISION.

Bush and the Republicans. They had a vision. It was evil. But at least they had one. That is what we need from Obama. And I'm afraid we will be waiting for quite some time.

Personal Attention

2009-03-03T09:03:00.001-08:00

I was checking out this article on the experience.com education site... Interesting that the public school teachers say they only spend 4 % of their time giving personal attention to students! How can we fix this?

Powershift

2009-03-03T08:20:00.001-08:00

(Youth educating youth at Powershift...)

This weekend I attended a unique educational opportunity. The conference Powershift.

The conference brought 12,000 youth climate activists from all over the country to build the movement to end the climate crisis and lobby congress for change. There were panels, presentations, workshops, films, a career fair, grad school fair, lobbying training, and lobby day on Monday.

For my part, I opted to train participants in the ins and outs of Lobbying. The training was put together by Wellstone Action. These types of training programs, outside the standard curriculum of colleges and high schools are so powerful, that they tempt me to seek a career doing workshops and trainings rather than a career within the imprisoning halls of a high school. We shall see.

Some provocative questions stay with me whenever I go to conferences like this. What happens when you bring together are large amount of people around a specific issue, who may have very different ideas of what change needs to be made or how to make it. Thinking specifically about Powershift, what happens when the participants (and remember the whole idea of the conference is about empowerment) shift the power away from the organizers and come up with their own agendas? For example, a brilliant young woman fiercely questioned the environmental advocates who led our legislative briefing questions, saying the platform we were asking for was not bold enough to stop the most catastrophic effects of climate change. What happens when conference participants on their own organize direct action tactics that were not sanctioned or organized by the conference?

Furthermore, one of the major goals of powershift was social justice, equality, and dismantling of opression within the movement. To that end, there was strong representations of oppressed commnities at the conference, African-American youth from ecocnomically depressed areas, Native American reservation youth, to name two examples. But what was to stop the dynamic of having a mostly white participant body from continuing oppression. The occasional workshop on race or class privelege or dismantling oppression would most likely only be attended by people who are already allies. Even more, on the lobby day, where it would certainly be possible to have groups of 60 people meeting with 1 congressperson for 10 minutes, and factual knowledge and appropriate political discourse is prized, who is given voice, who takes voice, and what does this mean?

To learn morea bout the organizations involved with powershift check out:
Green For All-- pushing for "green the ghetto"...aka Van Jones
Energy Action Coalition--Youth led coalition of climate activist organizations
Sierra Student Coalition-Student run arm of the Sierra Club
National Wildlife Federation--one of the oldest conservaqtion orgs in the US

Literacy Lecture

2009-02-18T09:18:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to a lecture. Here is the description:

The Language of Schooling and Academic Success

Louise Wilkenson
Distinguished Professor of Education, Psychology, and Communication Sciences at Syracuse University
7:30 p.m. Science Center 109

Students in the United States must develop proficiency in English that
is sufficient to meet the increasingly complex academic discourse
requirements of American schooling. Students' school achievement
depends upon their being proficient in academic language, which is the
language of classroom instruction and of textbooks. This presentation
will describe the sociocultural and linguistic components that define
academic language proficiency, including the academic discourse
requirements of schooling. Implications for teaching students whose
first language is not English, as well as effective classroom teaching
in general will be addressed.

The speaker basically argued that English Language Learners are often able to learn English well enough for social interaction and to Read for Pronunciation... so they can read out loud something to you, but NOT for Comprehension, so they wouldn't be able to tell you what they read or understand it. She says that this will have drastic consequences against their academic success and so individualized action should be taken to help them.

She cited the concept of different tiers of words.

Tier 1: common general words: baby, daddy, etc.

Tier 2: more academic, words

Tier 3: esoteric contexutualized words

She submitted that elementary teachers need to explicitly teach these tier 2 words as early as possible.

While Dr. Wilkenson and her colleagues clearly have good intentions and are working towards something that they think will be beneficial to the communities they have described---English Language Learners (those students for whom English is not their first language)---it definitely reeked of cultural defitism. There is something WRONG with these students that NEEDS to be fixed. And we, the wise educational researchers know exactly how to FIX them. We will fix them, integrate them into the system, mainstream them, and take away their differences. It is the subtractive schooling that Valenzuela writes about (citation will come). Take away from them all the strengths they have: their native language, home culture, identity; create a deficit for them, identify them as in trouble; and figure out how to subtract their otherness in order to make them just like everyone else.

Look, of course she is right that somebody who cannot perform in writing the way that somebody from a literate, middle or upper middle class family would is going to have trouble in school and be punished academically for it. But that to my mind identifies a problem WITHIN SCHOOLS, not within the student. Are we going to change the student to fit the institution or can we change the institution to recognize the strengths of the student?

I am attending the following lecture tomorrow and will report!

Thursday, February 19th
The Black Struggle for Education: Civil Rights, Community Activism, and
Parental Choice.
4:30 p.m. Science Center 101

Moderator: Cheryl Jones-Walker, Visiting Assistant Professor of Black Studies and Educational Studies

Panelists: Professor Dionne Danns, Education, Leadership and Policy Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington; Isaac Ewell, Director of the Gates Small Schools Project, and a board member of the Black Alliance for Educational Options; and Professor David Stovall, Education

2009-02-05T20:25:00.000-08:00

Some organizations I think are cool!

These are awesome people on the ground trying to make praxis: turning theory into reality!

Ed Liberation

New York Collective of Radical Educators

USSA

These organizations are a great resource for those working as teachers but wanting to do more to implement their radical values. Sometimes it can be hard to get past the nitty gritty of working all day just to keep your kids under control, make lesson plans, and stay on top of everything not to mention, figuring out how you are going to overthrow the system! These organizations do lots of events, dialogs, campaigns, and organizing to keep you in touch with youth, and to keep you in the movement!

Love and Solidarity,

Marc Engel

For the Love of the Art

2009-02-09T18:03:00.000-08:00

I was browsing the experience.com education website and read their most recent article:

Will you love teaching ?

The article asks teachers what they love about the job and then lists their responses:

1. The Students

2. Responsibility

3. Creative Work

4. Summers Off

5.Other Faculty

6. Variety

While I certainly agree with "the students," "creative work," and "other faculty," I thought of some other reasons why I want to get into the field.

Social Justice

This can be viewed from two lenses. 1- Highly qualified and critical teachers are not being employed in large numbers in poor communities of color. Attempting to correct this disparity on an individual level is one motivation.

Then there is also the idea of trying to help students develop critical lenses with which to analyze and critique society in a way that leads to an understanding of institutional injustices and curricular forms of oppression. Furthermore, a radical teacher might be able to work with students on activist projects towards justice and liberation.

Teaching What You Love

I can't get away from this. I love books. I love reading. I love the stories. The conflicts. The characters. The writer's vision. There is a sense in which a good teacher should want to teach because they truly love the work of the domain they are teaching.

Public Service

I have to admit, I also am on the public service kick. As a teacher you are employed by the state to hopefully help transition youth into critical and actualized members of society, who are productive members of your community.

I would love it if you all would write in what it is attracts you about education!

Love and Solidarity,

Marc Engel

Opportunities? for Aspiring Teachers

2009-02-05T07:37:00.000-08:00

Hello faithful readers...it turns out during this week I've been a less than faithful leader. Swarthmore college turned up the heat on me with presentations on Fyodor Dostoevsky and Shakespearean plays. Wow, there is so much going on out there in education right now I don't even know where to start. But I think I'll begin with what is going on in my life, education wise. College students all across the country right now are trying to finalize their summer plans, and so am I. We education majors often look to organizations that could give us some hands on teaching experience before doing the real thing. Probably the one most well known summer teaching opportunity is

Breakthrough Collaborative: http://www.breakthroughcollaborative.org/

The students Breakthrough recruits are mostly students of color from low-income communities. The program uses a multi-year process and youth teachers to give these students guidance and instruction to keep them on track for college.

some other summer teaching programs that people do are CTY- Center for Talented Youth
http://cty.jhu.edu/

The catch? Well, you only get a 1000 dollar "living expenses" stipend for the 6 week program. I don't know about you, but for 1000 dollars don't go very far for rent, food, transportation, etc... The other thing is that it is only a 6-week program. So for folks looking to take care of a sizable chunk of their summer, this doesn't help either. The other downside is that the application is relatively involved and competitive. One has to write up lesson plans, activities, come up with three references, do several interviews. And who at top colleges has time to do all of that?

While we are on the topic of applications, there are a few other programs I would like to discuss with you all. Several college grads at my school decide last second that education might be a good career path to them. They haven't done any of the coursework to get a license to teach. Enter Teach for America and the various teachers' fellows programs. Teach for American offers basically a Peace Corps model teaching experience for graduating college students or adult career changers; you get a crash course (and I think its important to emphasize the abbreviated nature of this crash course) in education during the summer, some short student teaching experience, and then you are in the classroom to start teaching. The advantages are that you only have a 2-year commitment, you get your certification to teach and a Master's degree practically for free (big plus, for people like me it could cost anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 to get a master's), and a guaranteed salary. Programs like Philadelphia Teachers Fellows, Washington DC Teacher's fellows, and the biggest most sought after one: New York City Teacher's fellows, all have similar systems and perks.

Okay, sounds great right? Here are my problems with these programs.

1. They don't look for EDUCATION students! I know, it sounds crazy. But honestly, these programs will disqualify you if you've studied education too much. Because they want a blank slate, where they can pump you full of their philosophy and their style, and get you to teach according to their goals. Furthermore, and this does make some sense, they are looking to attract people who weren't going to go into education. The downside, is that it reserves the rewards away from the people who have always been committed to making a difference in education.

2. Very, very little training. Schools that TFA and teachers fellows put teachers in are the hardest, most difficult places to teach in. They are riddled with problems, don't have a high level of institutional support, and have great and deserving, but very tough kids. Sending idealistic college students, who (statistically) most likely came from a white, middle or upper middle class background, into these classrooms with little training or support doesn't seem to help anyone. Neither the teachers, nor the Students.

3. Doesn't encourage lifelong teachers. TFA's 2-year commitment seems to encourage people to do the program for 2 years, then go to med school, or whatever other prestigious career they had in mind. There isn't an emphasis on selecting, training, encouraging, and building a corps of dedicated teachers who want to stay in the system for life.

And of course, these programs do little to address the institutional and structural problems facing our nation's schools. After all, TFA's website boldly states that educational inequality is our nation's greatest injustice....so what is TFA doing about inequal funding policy?

Finally, and after this I will get off of my soapbox, these programs are fully complicit with the corporatist, standardized testing, frenzy that has been killing our schools since the 90s. Rather than working on alternative ways to assess student learning so that they can actually learn something rather than how to take a test, these programs pump more teachers into the field who's number 1 goal is a number on a test. We have to understand that this entire movement, while it may have SUPPORTERS from a diverse group people, the KEY INTERESTS in the movement are those businesses that stand to profit the most: the testing industry, and the privatized education industry.

So choose wisely fellow teachers and stay true to your critical principles!

Love and Solidarity,
Marc Engel

Regime Change

2009-01-26T19:09:00.000-08:00

An old president leaves office, a new one takes the oath. An old blogger retires his post, a new one begins hammering the keys.

My name is Marc Engel and I will be sharing with you my hopes and aspirations, anxieties and insecurities, rantings and treatises, all in good blogging taste of course. I'm taking over for a dear friend Evan Nesterak, and we all know he did a wonderful job. I will do my best to live up to his standard.

I am interested and committed to many terms in Education: Critical Multiculturalism, Critical Pedagogy, Radical Education...that is education which is antiracist, antisexist, and anticapitalist.

I will try my best to flesh out some of these concepts as I myself struggle through them...their ideology, their theory, and that ever elusive praxis....the taking of theory and putting it into action.

Of course, there is also the practical side. Bills gotta get paid folks...Getting certified to teach, taking tests, licenses, states, finding a job, interviewing, etc... All that wonderful career-ey stuff will be here.

Because I am an idealistic college senior who wants to teach English literature in a subversive way, join the movement to reform education in our country in a JUST and RADICAL way, but of course have enough dough for challah and hummus.

That's all for now, but expect more throughout the week.

Love and Solidarity,

Marc Nathan Engel

Education and the Future

2008-12-12T09:18:00.000-08:00

Thank You Experience.com
I have had the pleasure to blog for experience.com for the past summer and fall semester. I would like to thank them for the opportunity to share my thoughts about education and life. Blogging has definitely been an educational experience in its own right, and I hope, as I have learned from it, others have learned or at least thought about the words I put forth.

Education: the Past and the Future
There are a few ideas that seem to permeate many of my posts. First, appreciate education in its own right. Find a topic, an idea and pursue it; not because of its payoff, not because others tell you you should do it, not because somehow you feel like you have to do it. Find something that gives you joy, where you need no motivation, an idea that occupies your mind no matter what you're doing. If you follow your heart, because that is really what you're doing, you will find a way to make use of your love, you will be happy, and the world will be a better place; because when you are passionate that passion grows. Lead by example and lead with your heart.

Second, pursue education inside and outside of the classroom. From early education through college and beyond. I often feel a strict curriculum can be detrimental to real learning. Sure, by the end of the year students can regurgitate facts and figures, but what have they really learned? We must teach students how to think about and approach different issues and problems. Take the environmental problem for example, what good is a student who knows how severe the problem is, without being able to propose a solution?

I have gone to public school, parochial school, and an all boys private school. My K-12 education happened in 4 states. I have had a pretty ranging experience and I must say that when I really felt I was learning was when I was challenged to think about issues, not just remember facts that I forget as soon as I turned in the test. I knew I was learning when I found myself applying what I had already learned to a new task. We must focus on fostering this type of growth in our students.

On the college level, I feel it is very easy to get into the rhythm of classes and feel like we are learning so much. We are learning a lot, but let us not forget that people are writing about our various topics of study for a purpose; to teach us about something about life, to convey to us a thought or feeling that will affect how we view the world. So, instead of being satisfied with what we learn in the classroom, we must apply that to our lives. I urge every student to become involved in a group or cause through which you can apply what you've learned. The two forms of learning will grow upon one another, until you see no difference between learning for in college and learning for life. You will know when you reach this point, it will be a feeling of warmth and invigoration. A happiness about life and what it can offer. The following quote from a Zen Buddhist Text:

"The Master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play,
his labor and his leisure,
his mind and his body,
his education and his recreation,
his love and his religion.
He hardly knows which is which.
He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does,
leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.
To him he is always doing both."

Education for all
The opportunity to learn and grow intellectually and morally should be available to all. With the current financial situation it is becoming more and more difficult to afford higher education. This article in the Philadelphia Inquirer discusses that it is not a lack of motivation, but a lack of opportunity that prevent people from pursuing higher education.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20081212_Helping_more_students_afford_higher_education.html

At Swarthmore, there have been discussions of affordability and opportunity wound deeply within issues of class, and race. There is not an easy solution to the cost issue, but that doesn't mean nothing can be done. We must do everything we can to provide opportunity to those who may see it slipping away day by day as tuition increases. I urge you to read the the discussion of the issue by students themselves in Swarthmore newspaper "The Phoenix." (Debate over financial aid policy intensifies)

The question we must ask ourselves:

Is education a RIGHT or a PRIVILEGE?

I believe education is a right, and just because someone's parents happen to have more more than another's shouldn't prevent someone form going to college. After all, did any of us choose to be born? We had no part in the matter, so by shear luck we are alive and were born. And we did not choose to be born anymore than we chose into what situation to be born. So why let arbitrary chance decide who gets what in education?

Well, some may say as a society we have limited resources, and unfortunately these resources cost money; so those who can pay will, and those who can't---we will either help through aid, or they will not get the chance at a higher education. But why must we choose who gets what in education?

The Iraq War costs billions and billions of dollars. Why send so much on destruction, when we can construct an unparalleled education infrastructure here in the US. The website www.nationalpriorities.org has a place where you can see the trade offs between the war in Iraq and other more productive uses of our tax dollars. (http://www.nationalpriorities.org/tradeoffs)

National Priorities
"Taxpayers in the United States will pay $656.1 billion for total Iraq war spending approved to date. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:

193,370,980 People with Health Care for One Year OR

679,232,570 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year OR

14,170,626 Public Safety Officers for One year OR

11,251,447 Music and Arts Teachers for One Year OR

101,437,848 Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR

5,103,740 Affordable Housing Units OR

289,177,337 Children with Health Care for One Year OR

90,037,052 Head Start Places for Children for One Year OR

10,777,823 Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR

9,479,502 Port Container Inspectors for One year"

So let us live life with the purpose to learn and foster learning in others. Learning is progress, learning is change. There is so much we can offer to the world let us realize our potential as we help others realize their's. I repeat one of my favorite quotes:

"If you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, travel together"

-African Proverb

Change.gov

2008-11-24T09:49:00.000-08:00

Participation and Change.gov
The November 11th Democracy Now episode emphasized the importance of the people's, the masses', participation in government. We must show Barack Obama and Joe Biden what we value what we care about, and we must realize that even though the election is over, our task if far from completion. Obama and Biden were elected because of the strength, effort, and will of the people. We must now help them enact the change we hoped for by selecting them. It is not over it is just beginning.

There are many ways to show Obama and Biden what vision we, as Americans, have for our country and our people. But I want to alert people's attention to the website Change.gov. It is the website of Obama, Biden and their tranistion team. Here you can submit ideas, view policies in action, with video. This is groundbreaking and the transparency is like never before. But efforts like this from Obama and Biden mean nothing if we as citizens don't use them. So I encourage all to go to the site, submit ideas, and participate in your future. This is an opportunity not many others have in the world, it is a priviledge. Let us make the best of it.

Lastly, for those of us in education this is a chance for us to starting changing the education system for the better. I hope that teachers who see the possibility for change, will use this opportunity to share their ideas and opinions. For the teachers who day in and day out see education in America become more standardized and less thought provoking. More rote memory and less thinking. Change is now. Get your message to the President-elect, and get your message to others. Furthermore, ask your students to get on the website. Get them thinking critcally about the issues and get them to take action. This is how we will build the America we all dream of, through active and constructive participation of many. Because we must work as one to get where we hope to go. I will end with and African Proverb: "If you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to far, travel together."

"A house built by slaves"

2008-11-12T09:42:00.000-08:00

The White House
"A house built by slaves"
It was extremely moving to see the Obama's visiting their future home, The White House, a house built by slaves. Yesterday on the independent radio/tv news program Democracy Now, Alice Walker read her open letter to Barack Obama. Alice Walker was the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize. She won the award for her work The Color Purple. Walker exudes a calming wisdom as she reads her eloquent and powerful prose.

I suggest that everybody take a few minutes and listen to Walker's words. They are profound and capture some of the magnitude and hope of this historic moment.

Click the link below for the entire show from Tuesday November 11th. I reccommend watching the entire episode, however for just the Walker portion, go to minute 9:56 and watch from there.

Enjoy!
http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2008/11/11

And please leave your thoughts and comments about the clip, the election in general, or any other thoughts you may be inspired to leave.

"Work Hard. Be Nice."

2008-11-06T09:48:00.000-08:00

As a senior at Swarthmore, I have to decide on my future. What to do, where to go? Right now it's all up in the air. My friend, Chris, who is thinking about applying for Teach For America sent me this video about KIPP Schools.

The schools are inspirational, and utilize alternative instruction methods to empower youth with a solid education. Watch the profile of KIPP schools on Oprah below. It will make you understand how essential education is to an individual, because of how it makes the child feel. Hopefully with the new Presidency education can help all. (The only link to the video is through facebook, so you must have an account to see the video).

http://www.kipp.org

The video:
http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?ref=mb#/video/video.php?v=1049580592849

The Benefits and Burden of Academia- The Writer-Professor

2008-10-26T18:54:00.000-07:00

The past two posts have focused on how there may be too much catering to the current view and understanding and not enough exploration into new areas of study, utilizing the New York Times Magazine "It's all about Teaching." Also, as Barry Schwartz points out, it may be that in our market crazed society, the Universities have no choice but to meet the demands of the students. But as discussed previously, when the market encroaches into non-market sectors we lose. Though universities may be making an honest effort to accommodate students, it may not serve them as well as we intend.

Today's post discusses another article in the NY Times Magazine. The article is entitled "Those who write, Teach," by David Gessner.

The Writer-Professor
Gessner discusses his transition from a full-time writer to life as a professor. The benefits are measurable. A steady income and the benefits of health care, the chance to teach eager students, and on the whole a more stable life. But Gessner points out that a question about this transition is often left unanswered. "What exactly does all this teaching do to our writing? And what, if anything, does it mean for a country to have tenured literature?"

Gessner eloquently describes what may be lost for the person in this dual position. "There was an essential fanaticism in all their efforts (Thoreau, Dickinson, Melville), then sense of an entire life thrown into the great project of creating works of art. Even if we grant that you can be as original within the university as up in your garret, we must concede the possibility that something is lost by living a divided life. Intensity perhaps...the creation of literature requires a certain degree of monomania, and that is, at least in part, an irrational enterprise. It's hard to through your whole self into something when that self has another job."

I believe that Gessner is not alone in feeling that he lives a divided life. I feel that many of us may feel drawn towards one area of work, only to be tethered by our "obligations" to another area. Those in all levels of education may feel this tug-of-war. This dual between passion and pragmatics. How do we rectify the two?

For Gessner, as for many I believe, compromise is difficult to reach. He worries that his "own words may have grown tame along with [his] life." Later he writes, "I don't know how long I can survive in captivity...I do love teaching and recognize how lucky I am to be living for at least part of each day in the real world, but while I try to be commonsensical, lately I have begun to feel something rising up inside me."

The answer?
This internal battle is not new and the question is not an easy one to solve. I do have an answer, but it's more of a suggestion and one's own path can only come from within.

What we must realize is that we all can contribute to society, and an individual must find the area of work, where he or she contributes best. Some of us are called to teach, some of us are call to write. But we must understand that "Those who Write, Teach" as the title says. Meaning that if an individual feels he/she can educate, challenge, probe the minds best through literature they must write literature. If an individual feels they are best suited to teach in a more formal way, it is their duty to teach. After all someone must teach students the literature that is out there. If a teacher or writer decides to cross over and eventually comes back, his/her students (or readers) will be better off, because of the gained experience.

It's a dilemma, how to use our time. But all we can do is go for it for who know how long we've got.