The UBC Bookstore finally got around to re-stocking copies of The New Teacher Book, so at long last, I had the opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. By and large, most of the comments seem to be supportive of the text, but popularity is a tenuous beast. Nonetheless, I found the first two sub-chapters immensely helpful, and I’ve no doubt several of those titles will be snug in a bookshelf in my home library within the next few years. Their list didn’t presume to be all-encompassing, but I thought I might supplement it a bit with a few resource references of my own. First, I’ll touch on a few pedagogically-relevant authors, but I’ll also have a few Social Studies/History-relevant too.
Alfie Kohn: (Wiki Ed)
Kohn’s work has had a profound impact on my attitudes towards pedagogy (and parenting). He’s somewhat of a prolific author, but I’d recommend some over others. These are my favorites (so far):
- No Contest: The Case Against Competition – This book made Kohn famous, and rightfully so, in my opinion. It is supremely relevant to educators to be informed on the impacts of competition, and to begin thinking of creative ways to replace it with cooperation. If teachers allow a competitive environment to flourish in their classrooms, we all suffer.
- What Does it Mean to Be Well Educated? – And More Essays on Standards, Grading, and Other Follies – This is a compact but incisive exploration of the “real goals” of schooling. He suggests that we generally ignore the “real goals” of schooling in favor of “misguided models of learning and motivation.” It’s very approachable and discusses a very relevant question. He certainly changed my views on what I think it means to be “well educated”.
- Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes – This provocative text explores the effects of managing children with a ”Do this and you’ll get that.” attitude. He argues that people “do inferior work when they are enticed with money, grades, or other incentives” and that “the more we use artificial inducements to motivate people, the more they lose interest in what we’re bribing them to do.”
- Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason – In 2006 Kohn won a gold medal from the National Parenting Publications Awards for this book. I’ve seen to it that all our friends with children have a copy; I must’ve bought seven or eight copies by now. Anyone who regularly engages children and adolescents could benefit from reading this book.
- What to Look for in a Classroom, The Schools Our Children Deserve – Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and “Tougher Standards”, and The Homework Myth are also worth a gander.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRE2gqjQx5Q[/youtube]
Kohn on punishment
If that piques your interest, you might also see Kohn on positive reinforcement.
John Taylor Gatto: (Wiki)
John Taylor Gatto is an American retired school teacher of 29 years and 8 months and author of several books on education. He is an activist critical of compulsory schooling and of what he characterizes as the hegemonic nature of discourse on education and the education professions.
I can’t recommend Gatto strongly enough. Whereas Kohn’s work has great relevance to parents, teachers and administrators (ignoring the pundits), Gatto’s work has relevance to anyone who is a product of a North American public education.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26DvPQ7EIQ4[/youtube]
John Taylor Gatto – “Classrooms of the Heart” (1991)
- Dumbing Us Down – The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling – This is a concise yet devastating attack on the institution of modern compulsory schooling. It was built around his essay “I Quit, I Think”:
Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents. The whole blueprint of school procedure is Egyptian, not Greek or Roman. It grows from the theological idea that human value is a scarce thing, represented symbolically by the narrow peak of a pyramid.
That idea passed into American history through the Puritans. It found its “scientific” presentation in the bell curve, along which talent supposedly apportions itself by some Iron Law of Biology. It’s a religious notion, School is its church. I offer rituals to keep heresy at bay. I provide documentation to justify the heavenly pyramid.
Socrates foresaw if teaching became a formal profession, something like this would happen. Professional interest is served by making what is easy to do seem hard; by subordinating the laity to the priesthood. School is too vital a jobs-project, contract giver and protector of the social order to allow itself to be “re-formed.” It has political allies to guard its marches, that’s why reforms come and go without changing much. Even reformers can’t imagine school much different.
David learns to read at age four; Rachel, at age nine: In normal development, when both are 13, you can’t tell which one learned first—the five-year spread means nothing at all. But in school I label Rachel “learning disabled” and slow David down a bit, too. For a paycheck, I adjust David to depend on me to tell him when to go and stop. He won’t outgrow that dependency. I identify Rachel as discount merchandise, “special education” fodder. She’ll be locked in her place forever.
In 30 years of teaching kids rich and poor I almost never met a learning disabled child; hardly ever met a gifted and talented one either. Like all school categories, these are sacred myths, created by human imagination. They derive from questionable values we never examine because they preserve the temple of schooling.
That’s the secret behind short-answer tests, bells, uniform time blocks, age grading, standardization, and all the rest of the school religion punishing our nation. There isn’t a right way to become educated; there are as many ways as fingerprints. We don’t need state-certified teachers to make education happen—that probably guarantees it won’t.
How much more evidence is necessary? Good schools don’t need more money or a longer year; they need real free-market choices, variety that speaks to every need and runs risks. We don’t need a national curriculum or national testing either. Both initiatives arise from ignorance of how people learn or deliberate indifference to it. I can’t teach this way any longer. If you hear of a job where I don’t have to hurt kids to make a living, let me know. Come fall I’ll be looking for work.
- The Underground History of American Education – This is a stupendous resource with monumental breadth. It’s mostly available free online, here. It’s a common assumption that schools “fail”, and the solution to this is often “more funding”. Gatto shows with crystal clarity that we aren’t looking at a failed educational system; we’re confronting a thoroughly insidious hegemony intent on universalizing stupidity. IMO, this is an absolute must read.
If you’re curious about the general context:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uexMYBkfCic[/youtube]
History of Compulsory Schooling
And now for a few relevant to Social Studies/History:
- The Paradigm Conspiracy: Why Our Social Systems Violate Human Potential — And How We Can Change Them, Breton & Largent
- Toxic Sludge is Good for You!: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry and/or Trust Us, We’re Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future, Stauber and Rampton
- The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States, Paul Avrich [This is published by AK Press, which has a terrific catalogue of titles, and an affordable monthly bookclub too.]
Edging into chapter 2, “Curriculum is Everything that Happens” and “How am I Going to Do This” were somewhat less helpful. There weren’t any major points of contention, but there wasn’t anything ‘new’ added to the dialectec either (aside from the references). The advice they give seemed reasonable enough. I especially appreciate the attention to union activism, which I think is tragically deficient in most instances. If we allow ‘curriculum’ to entail “everything that happens”, it seems like the usefulness of the term is suspect. If curricula are “everything that happens”, are they engaged in the curricula while peeing on each other in the bathroom? What about while they’re out back, smoking reefer? Or when they’re planning out how they’re going to cheat on your test? I don’t think we do ourselves any favors by being unnecessarily nebulous in our semantics. There may be derivative effects, but I see the curriculum as the corpus of study as designed by a pedagog for the purpose of instructing pupils. There’s value (and harm!) in specificity.
In regards to eeking out with your sanity, the authors and editors provide the reader with good suggestions. Other teachers in your social circle will help you through dark times. In my case, I’ve got a mutual support network a priori, as my wife is also a Social Studies teacher. That puts us in competition for jobs, but the benefits of our cooperation are of inestimable value.
Tobey
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