biases

It's really true that once you start thinking in the ways encouraged by critical literacy, you look at everything differently. Today I was looking at the executive summary of No Child Left Behind, and was struck by what I saw. In laying out the reasons why NCLB is necessary, it said that high school seniors trail students in Cyprus and South Africa in math. I was appalled that the authors of this document thought that being worse than these countries was necessary to include. Are these the only countries where students scored higher than the US students? Why were those the countries they chose to reference? What does this say about how the authors viewed these countries?

Reflections...

When I began teaching about a year and a half ago, I entered the classroom with expectations of what I should accomplish as a science teacher. I had just completed a summer of training and classes that emphasized some strategies for raising student achievement. However, once the year started, not everything that I learned in theory became part of my daily practice. Now, as I'm in my second year, I've been able to start incorporating more new strategies and to work toward becoming closer to the teacher I want to be. One of the things I've been focused on recently is critical literacy, particularly this past semester as part of one of my graduate school classes.

As I reflect on my overall experience this past semester with critical literacy, I am left feeling excited about the potential opportunities that exist for it to become a more significant aspect of my classroom. One thing that surprised me most was that the more I thought about critical literacy, the more apparent the opportunities to incorporate it into my classroom became. Looking into the future, these are things that I will continue to have as part of my classroom. Getting critical literacy to be part of my classroom to the extent that I would like is going to take more work, time and thought on my part, but I think it has the potential to offer something very valuable to my students. I look forward to my continued journey with critical literacy!

Only girls are good

The other day I came across a book that I have of quotes from children. The book was put together by the teachers at a preschool school, recording what their students said. In the past, when I read the book I enjoyed laughing about the funny things that the kids said. As I looked through the book recently, I had a different response. This time, I thought about where these quotes might have been coming from and how a teacher might use these as part of the curriculum. Many of the things these preschool students say could be used to address the preconceptions of these young children or other societal issues raised by what is said. Through a critical literacy curriculum, these quotes could be the foundation for what is done in the classroom. For example, one child said “If you're going to be good, you've got to be a girl. Only girls are good." I think this quote is not only interesting because of the underlying assumptions the student is making, but also for its value in starting a conversation about gender. When a statement like this is made by a preschool student, it must be based on something that student heard or saw. Thinking about something like this from a critical literacy perspective offers the chance to ask questions and discuss with students where these ideas came from. Although this example comes from something said by a preschooler, older people also say things on a regular basis that can be analyzed to discuss the bias of the speaker or to show how a person's background and perspective impacts how they view a situation. Opportunities for critical literacy can be found almost anywhere, sometimes all it requires is listening carefully and thoughtfully to what others are saying and asking meaningful questions to help start the thinking process.

Our Way

As I was reading "Our Way: Using the Everyday to Create a Critical Literacy Curriculum" by Vivian Vasquez, I found myself relating to some of the ideas expressed in the article. Like Vasquez, I struggle at times to balance framing what I do off of the ideas and perspectives of my students with my own agenda for the day or the overall curriculum. Reading the Power Ranger example was interesting, particularly because of how it represented the ongoing potential opportunities for critical literacy in a classroom. It made me wonder how many similar instances I've missed in my classroom.

I enter my classroom everyday with a plan of what we will do and what will be accomplished by the end of class. Having this lesson plan is important, but as I read this article, it made me wonder if perhaps I focus on using it too much. Maybe I should be more willing to allow issues raised by my students to guide what we do.

However, as a high school teacher in the time of No Child Left Behind, is this feasible for me? The flexibility to structure a curriculum around the social issues found in texts and surrounding the things students say and do can create a meaningful classroom experience for students. But, with standards that need to be mastered so that students excel on a test that can determine the fate of their school, there may not be space for too much flexibility. I think critical literacy is very important and there is room for it too be a major aspect of a class, but I don't know if it's possible to take advantage of every opportunity to adopt a critical curriculum and still help my students learn about all of my subject area standards.

Turkish science education

Over spring break, I had the opportunity to travel to Turkey with a group of teachers from DC. The trip was part of a professional development program designed to improve science education in DC. The Turkish teachers we met with had great things going on in their classrooms -- students who were engaged in the learning and performing at a high academic level. There were many things I saw that I would like to find a way to better incorporate into my classroom. However, one thing that wasn't seen in their classrooms was an emphasis on critical literacy. The Turkish school we visited is very successful in developing students who have the potential to be top-notch scientists, however, I wonder if they ever have the opportunity or ever are encouraged to critically examine what they are learning and the scientific literature. It left me thinking about what priorities should be in a classroom. Can a high school science class successfully incorporate critical literacy which still academically achieving at a high level? In a school like the one I visited in Turkey, where a major goal is continuing to produce some of the nations top science students based on their test scores, what would happen if they changed their teaching style? Would test scores stay up if the teachers focused on critical literacy? I believe in the value of helping students develop the ability to critically analyze their world, but I am curious how it would change a school like the one I visited in Turkey.

Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children

In Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children, Vivian Vasquez shows how using critical literacy as the basis for an elementary school classroom can create students who ask questions and take social action on what they see as unfair in their lives. At times it was hard to believe that students who were so young accomplished what these students did.

As I was reading this book, I kept thinking about what these students must be like now. I would think that these young students continued to use their questioning and social action skills as they continue to grow as learners. As a high school teacher, I would love to have students in my class who were in this elementary school class. The skills nurtured by Vasquez are likely things that will continue to frame how the students looks at society and their world from that point on.

Another component of what Vasquez did that I appreciated was that her classroom was not only focused on social critique but also social action. When critical literacy emphasizes only social critique, it can lead to cynicism and discouragement. Encouraging social action and facilitating the social action when necessary can help to empower students instead of discouraging them.

Children's literature

I spent my day at a conference at AU dealing with critical literacy. The presenter, Dr. Jerry Harste, discussed using children's literature to build a curriculum. There were numerous interesting ideas of things that could be done in the classroom. However they were geared more toward an elementary classroom. As a high school teacher, I found myself thinking about how these ideas could fit in my classroom.

One class where I plan to work in some of these methods is my ecology class. To begin with, I think that often it isn't acknowledged that a textbook is not a neutral text. As we use our textbook, I need to find ways to help the students realize that it is not neutral, that it is written with its own bias.

Despite the age of my students, I think children's literature can still play a role in what I do. There are children's books about most topics, and using a relevant book could be a good way to begin breaking apart and analyzing the bias in what we read. Additionally, there are children's books that could be used as a starting point for social action by students.

This conference helped show me ideas of ways that I can branch out with what I do in my classroom. Even in a high school classroom, children's literature has the potential to be a powerful tool.

Why are we doing this?

To introduce my students to lab skills and the scientific method, we started with a basic lab -- how you can fit the most drops of water on a penny. I left it up to my students to come up with the potential variables and their procedure.

Initially, a student asked me, why are we doing this? Putting water on a penny didn't seem like real science to him. It was great to see him thinking about why we were doing it. As we talked about the lab and the different ways he and his partner could do it, I watched him start to realize that their could be more to it than he initially thought. He and his partner then came up with some very original ideas for how to accomplish their goal. I want to encourage questions and discussions like this on a regular basis because thinking critically about what we are doing everyday helps build a foundation for critical literacy. If students become accustomed to considering all possibilities and thinking about their biases, then critical literacy is something that will come more naturally.

When given the opportunity and being encouraged to think about all possible ways to fit the most drops of water on a penny, I was impressed with the creative ideas my students had. I am excited to start reading about issues in ecology with these students so that I can watch them apply their own outlook to the readings. I hope to see them carry over these critical thinking skills to our readings and class discussions.

My newest class

This week was the start of a new semester. For me that means I am teaching one new class, ecology for 11th and 12th graders. At the first meeting of the critical literacy class I'm taking, I thought my ecology class would be the perfect place to introduce students to how to look at issues from a critical literacy perspective. Throughout the class, I am planning to focus on environmental issues and I am hoping students will start to think about how they view these issues and what shapes their perspective.

In class today, students thought about whether they consider themselves an environmentalist. First students discussed it based on their personal definitions of environmentalists based on the previous context in which they knew the word. After that we looked at other ways that it could be defined and students reevaluated their initial thoughts and the way they define the word. It was great to hear their discussions and see how different outlooks can modify their thinking.