[MD] 42

[Dan Glover]

Arlo,

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:51 AM, ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:
> [Dan]
> Parlay that into the classroom. School is far more than a student learning from the instructor. Peer pressure to conform, social hierarchy, fear of failure and fear of success not only on the
> students' part the the instructors' as well, even bullying... these all play an enormous role in learning.
>
> [Arlo]
> Certainly. And there are many more either unintended or 'invisible' effects/consequences. Economic sorting has long been unspoken 'goal' of most industrial-era public education (which holds over to today). There is little secret that very early on decisions are made as to which students will receive the bulk of educational resources and which will be passed along to eventually occupy low-wage factory or similar labor. Some of the issues you point to above stem from the social capital aspect of education, where worth very early on is tied to perceived future economic worth. Bullying, which occurs throughout social structures, not just education, is the visible, violent arm of social conformity.

[Dan]
What qualities do the good instructors possess that the mediocre ones
do not? Is it access to money? Is it a product of economic success?
Are these qualities something that can be taught? And if so, why are
they not taught on a more pervasive basis? Does peer pressure run
rampant among the instructors as well as the students?

>
> [Dan]
> Perhaps making some sort of applied ethics course mandatory for first-year students might be analogous to learning how to roll their socks on the proper way.
>
> [Arlo]
> By "first-year students" you are suggesting college freshmen? Shouldn't something like this be integrated all the way down to the first years of public school? I think schools have tried to approach respect, diversity, empathy, but without a coherent structure to support this practice, it often ends up made impotent by larger community and cultural (often familial) forces that mock such attempts.

[Dan]
I think a more structured program would work better for older students
while the younger ones learn more by emulating the adults in their
life. To the degree teachers engage the students they can have either
a minimal impact or an enormous one. Show, don't tell.

>
> [Dan]
> Again, maybe I am being over simplistic here but doesn't it all start with learning respect, not only for our own self and our body, but for others too?
>
> [Arlo]
> Most certainly. But this gets back to the question "why educate?". Many argue that its not the role of schooling to teach 'respect' (formally, or even informally), this is up to parents who have, in this view, the right to teach their kids that mocking 'retards' and 'fat kids' and 'fill-in-any-slur' is okay. To view an extreme case, wouldn't the Westboro families argue that it is their right to teach their kids that "god hates fags"?

[Dan]
I think this is indicative of a short-sighted point of view. The kids
who are being taught hate and intolerance today are the same ones who
will grow up to teach their children hate and intolerance. It is the
same with domestic abuse. Boys grow up learning it is okay to slap the
little woman around if she gets out of line. Girls learn to play
submissive roles and to expect violence, to even search it out. Where
do the parents who teach their children these things learned it from?

It isn't enough to talk about the Golden Rule in kindergarten or in
Sunday school. It seems to me that elementary school teachers have the
perfect opportunity to effect real change in these kids not by
teaching them outright--by telling them no, this is bad--but by subtle
subliminal suggestions using body language or pictorial imagery. That
the parents will object is a given. But perhaps a hundred or two
hundred or even three hundred years from now people will read stories
of the hatred that permeated the 21st century and wonder why. Again,
show, don't tell.

[Arlo]
My feeling on this is that 'respect' has to be something valued by the
culture as a whole, that this is part of the 'it takes a village'
understanding that much of who we are is appropriated from social and
cultural historical structures. A culture that values violence will be
violent. A culture that values intolerance will be disrespectful to
anyone different. A culture that values social status will turn all
forms of behavior into social capital. A culture that values wealth
will turn all forms of material into economic capital.

[Dan]
Glorifying the winner begins early. I remember coaching Little League
and playing against teams fanatical about winning and yet with players
sadly lacking in fundamental skills. The coaches of those teams went
out of their way to acquire the best pitchers available. They
dominated the opposing teams to the extent none of the batters could
get a hit thus the fielding skills were non-existent.

I would hear kids on my team grumbling about how they wished they
could be on that team. They wanted to win too. I didn't listen.
Instead I kept on teaching the fundamentals of the game despite our
losing most of them. By the end of the season we were playing pretty
good ball, good enough to give top teams a run for their money in the
post season tournament.

When I see some of those boys today they tell me that they never had
as much fun as they did the years we played ball. We never won a
championship. We rarely played .500 ball. But they're right. We had
fun. It is my hope that if those boys ever coach a team they will
remember those lessons and pass them on to their players.

Teachers have to begin doing the same thing. They cannot wait until
some politician decides to do it, or the superintendent, or the
principal. They have to take matters into their own hands and pass
along a little motivation to their students. Have some fun with it.
That is in my opinion the only way anything of value will ever
succeed.

>
> [Dan]
> So, maybe... maybe you could teach a class you weren't qualified to teach if you developed a theory, applied it, evaluated the results, reflected upon your progress, and went back to the theory again. Maybe.
>
> [Arlo]
> This is a big area of discussion in education circles, and heated one. Here is an article from a year ago that touches on most of the points.
>
> http://indianapublicmedia.org/stateimpact/2013/01/15/should-indiana-teachers-be-experts-in-the-subjects-they-teach/
>
> I don't have an answer here. I do think, based on what I've read, that at the minimum, content expertise is not enough. Teachers do need to be well practiced in pedagogy. So if we start with the statement that first, before anything else, teachers need this skill and practice, and then from there start asking to what depth and breadth does content expertise also contribute to learner success, and if this is domain dependent, age related, etc., I think we'd be off to a good start.

[Dan]
This is an interesting article. Thanks for recommending it. I'm unsure
how much leeway instructors have in their classes but after reading
this it seems not much. The higher-ups seem to believe they can
legislate better education while not really listening to those in the
trenches.

As I said, I think a grass-roots approach is better. Too many
educators seem trapped in short sighted political agendas rather than
focusing on long term success. Maybe it's a product of our instant
gratification culture. Every few years a new plan is introduced which
invariably fails along with all the past plans.

Education shouldn't be looked at as an assembly line product. Test
books tend to propagate the same old messages while anything new and
exciting a rogue instructor might devise for the students is shuffled
off as outside the boundaries of legitimate education. Throw them in
the garbage can and perhaps some real teaching might actually occur.
Or not.

>
> [Dan]
> I haven't had the opportunity to read Granger other than the quotes offered here so I cannot comment on that.
>
> [Arlo]
> Sadly, I checked Amazon and see that Granger's book is not available in any format other than hardcover (with minimum cost around $60).

[Dan]
That might have something to do with why it is #2,524,847 in Books. An
e-version at around $10 might spice up sales a bit (I know, no one
wants to think about marketing but if no one is buying the book a lot
of good ideas are going to waste) as well as inform more people of
this work.

>
> [Dan]
> I think rather than relying on others to do the heavy work like education reform, the instructors have to take charge at a grass-roots level.
>
> [Arlo]
> I see many teachers either beaten down by a system that demands conformity to these broken structures. I agree, there needs to be movement at the grass-roots level, but there also needs to be, at least, a relaxing of institutional structures (including policy) for any real progress to take hold. I think change begins at the level of cultural discourse, and when (or if) values become dominant within the culture, then change is not only inevitable but natural.

Dan:
That makes sense. Thanks for sharing some great ideas.

Dan

http://www.danglover.com