Hi everyone,
I am particularly excited about this week's readings as they challenge everything we have been reading thus far.
First, I am particularly interested in your own experiences as educators and what you have perhaps observed with your colleagues. Mackinley, you mentioned this week that you consider yourself to be an LC educator, and I was wondering if you had implemented elements of SR discussed in Schiro such as the Highlander or the Math examples in your own classrooms. John, the closest example I can think of of SR at CESL is the service learning class, but it remains I think very much about trying to "solve" a foreign issue not directly relevant to our students' lives by having them more involved in the community, but not necessarily the community they are part of, such as bringing bags of clothes to Goodwill, painting a room at a local shelter, etc. I could see elements of SR, but not the entire logic or utopian vision of identifying problems, developing a vision and how to implement it and then enacting this vision for the greater good. Very often, I feel that such courses focus more on helping us feel better rather than really solving deep structural issues.
Therefore, I would like to move to the binary vision of the world (p. 165 and beyond): good guys vs bad guys (and eventually the masses). Does it not prevent people from seeing themselves as sometimes oppressors as well, if they think of themselves as good? Don't we generally think we are the good ones? I remember Freire particularly insisted on this aspect in Pedagogy of the Oppressed and in Pedagogy of Freedom, but it seems like the description given by Schiro limits it. What do you think? Since this ideology emerges from "cultural relativity", I find the words in Schiro sometimes incoherent with this relativity. How can someone consider himself a good guy only and not reflect on this contextual good/bad dichotomy? Did I understand Schiro's description correctly? Is it okay for someone who considers herself/himself a good guy to force the masses into what she/he considers to be good because she/he considers it as such? Is manipulation of the masses for their own good coherent with the SR ideology?
One thing sticks with me. When I met Paul Gorski, who is a social reconstructionist, he emphasized the idea that we do not have to convince people. We do not have to be liked to do the job, to do what is right, because what is right is right. I feel that even though SR considers cultural relativity, it also denies it sometimes by stating things like there IS a RIGHT/GOOD side vs a BAD one, inherently. While I agree with both aspects, the fact that there are elements of inherently good/bad, there are also contextual/cultural elements. Let's take the example of rape of a little girl: I do not think we will disagree: it is bad. However, some forms of violence are ritualized and even though perceived as violent, they are also accepted by the culture(s) performing them. For example, peace makers in Choctaw societies: a group of people would be born as peace maker and if a conflict arouse between two groups, then a peace maker would sacrifice himself/herself for the greater good. I don't know if I am going too far with this though, but I hope you get my point about absolute and relativity. All this to say that from my understanding, there are different types of SR ideologues: some are okay with imposing their views onto the masses and others do not share this idea and actually let the masses develop their own understanding, their own visions, their own tools for action, etc... Freire is for example, I think, a good example of the second group. What do you think?
Regarding teacher education, do we need to make major changes to what is being done to form teachers? Are colleges of education, staffed and taught by individuals privileged enough to receive college educations, equipped for social reconstruction? Some courses aim at SR, while others are so far removed from such ideologies! At our individual level of Graduate Teaching Assistants, what do you think Social Reconstructionists would recommend we do to implement their ideology in an environment focused on standardized tests and similar pace for everyone? When the risk is to simply not be hired or renewed or to be fired, what is the space for SR? Last month, I attended a short talk by Alexis Arczynski at the Center for Social Justice and she explained precisely that she had to avoid mentioning her focus on social justice on her CV and during job interviews in the past. How can we deal with this, when we are just still at the beginning of our career?
How can we implement SR when dealing with students who may not be able to quickly fathom pedagogical thoughts who differ from SA and SE? Students who have been used to evolving in a system denying - both at school, at home, and generally politically - their individual or community thoughts, opinions and beliefs for a more standard, collective and polished understanding of phenomena? I am thinking about some Chinese students from particular social backgrounds evolving in environments close to the Party, whose opinions on issues were not valued, and thus kept silent for so many years that they sometimes had difficulty formulating these thoughts even internally. Also, I feel that the format in higher education of semesters hinders the development of deeper bonds between students to undo the previous harm I just mentioned, and therefore start constructing an alternative vision. What are your thoughts?
What is the place of culture and intercultural encounters, intercultural competence development in this ideology? Even though this ideology challenges the dominant culture, does it allow space for exploring other cultures and being proficient in more than one's own?
We can also start discussing the aim of education/view of the learner/learning/teaching/knowledge and evaluation if you want.
Thanks Emma for your insightful questions! First off, I want to give my thoughts on the CESL's service learning class. Although I am not 100% familiar with the curriculum, I agree with you up to that point, to me that class seems not reflecting the 'pure' SR ideology.
ReplyDeleteAs you mentioned, the goals or activities in that class seem 'given' to the students, not discovered or analyzed by themselves. Thinking about the fundamental basis of SR curriculum, that is, analyzing problems, thinking about visions, and make actions based on the visions, and all of which are led by the students themselves, I agree with you that the service learning class would not touch the deep level of SR ideology. However, we see that it does touch SR connects and ideas, even superficially might be, because the class involve helping others (usually socially oppressed groups or minorities), especially when comparing this class to other pure academic courses.
This discussion led me to think of this question, and which seems tied into other questions you brought up as well. We see the different "degrees" of SR ideological curriculum; in this case, can we say that a not 100% SR curriculum is not following SR? For instance, can we say "no you're not a really SR curriculum, because the problems were given and the action was not authentic enough" to the service learning class? What do you think?
This is a recurrent topic I bring in my reflections. Are there limits to the ideologies? I know purism is not attainable and perhaps even defeats the purpose of these ideologies (LC and SR), but I am wondering what central and core elements make a curriculum fit in one ideology rather than another. For instance, if the issues are raised by the students, but the new vision is more led by the teacher than by the students, is this still SR?
DeleteI see benefits in the service learning class, because it raised awareness about issues, but I don't believe it impacted society/the community at a structural level. Once the students finish with this class, they do not go back to the shelter and do not change their consumption habits.
My deep feeling is that often, we have big altruist ideas with these classes, and we try to fix an issue with our bare hands, rather than look at the cause of the issue. Remember the starfish story, where the kid throws the starfish back in the water, making a difference one starfish at a time? Cute story. But what if instead of only making a difference one starfish at a time we tried to understand and act to avoid having starfish on the beach?
Agreed, Emma. I think this is one of the topics that we want to clearly make our stances on, as much as we can. To me, if the vision is given by the teacher, hmm, it's a more confusing case...it might be depending on how they (students and teachers) make their action plans. I mean, if they decide through an open-discussion and make a consensus (despite the fact that the teacher initially gave the idea), I would call it SR. However, if the vision was made dominantly by the theater, we know that the case should not fall into SR.
DeleteA thought on the starfish story. I would say that yes, it would've been better to avoid / prevent the situation of having starfish on the beach from the very beginning. However, the situation has been already made, and what the story told us would be the value of "action" no matter what the size is. (I'm not sure about whether you and I are referring to the same story....:)...I have looked it up, and the story I read is http://www.esc16.net/users/0020/FACES/Starfish%20Story.pdf).
The story I read seems tied to SR to some extent, as it talks about "action." Yes, not necessarily, based on analysis and making a vision, but the person throwing the starfish did the action (throwing) probably because he/she envisioned that "everyone" can throw the starfish back to the ocean. My explanation for the starfish story is not quite corresponding with the "analysis and envisioning" steps of SR, but with the action part.
The ideal case would be that people (who are suffering from the starfish showing up, or the starfish themselves) gather up and discuss what made the starfish stay on the beach (problem) and envision a new situation (society) that will not have that situation any more, and actions will be planned accordingly. Maybe our example here does not go with SR well, as it is based on the natural phenomenon? However, interesting topic, indeed, what do you think?
I agree with your ideal case, this is exactly what I meant in my previous post.
DeleteOne thing though: as we talked about teacher's guidance vs imposition, we have to keep in mind that SR acknowledges the fact that there is no neutrality in teacher's actions, curricula, and generally everything. Everything is political. Therefore, SR seem to also acknowledge that the vision developed by students through "discussion and experience" is greatly influenced teacher. I particularly appreciate the idea that if you don't challenge the status quo, this is political as well: you allow the perpetuation of the dominant culture, and therefore of injustices. This reminds me of the basic principle of daoism: wei vs wu wei: action vs action of non action (letting things go the way the are). Because the principle of neutrality and objectivity cannot be followed (nor wants to be), do you think that SR is, for this reason, too far from LC ideology? Is this one of the major differences that make them incompatible? My understanding is that SR is based on LC to some extend (cf Waks and Prakash's article).
Hi Emma, very thought-provoking question. For your question about the connection between LC and SR, I see your point and I do agree with you up to that point. However, I would say carefully "not necessarily" in the end. One of the takeaways I learned last week was that the "ideologies" themselves are distinctive, as their fundamental assumptions, mentality, aims, view of learners, learning, teaching and others are different. They are based on different foundation, thus direct to different aims. This is probably why Schiro call them "ideologies," the broad and deep term. However, we discussed that a teacher, as a person (meaning-maker), can take diverse ideological stances in curriculum making, planning, and enacting (LC for vocabulary learning, SE for classroom discipline...etc).
DeleteAgain I see that SR seems include LC because SR begins with analyzing problems by students in their real life. However, the procedures, philosophy, and the final aim is different; self-actualization (LC) vs. "reconstruct their culture" (SR, p. 176). I could be wrong, but to me, the ideologies are distinctive for those reasons, although it seems overlapping some aspects on the superficial level. For example, we see the different atmosphere and characteristics between the ponder water example and the Highlander example. What do you think?
And, to exemplify some more distinctive aspects between the two, I see the emphasis on "future" in SR, as SR visions the "future good society" out of the existing society (p. 164). In LC, on the other hand, we remember that the "present" meaning-making to learners developmental stage was another emphasis. Thoughts? :)
DeleteOh yes, the present vs future is definitely an aspect I noticed! However, I don't know if LC rejects the idea of making a better by having a "good" present by letting students explore what they are curious about.
DeleteOne point though: both ideologies focus on the local level at first: (LC) what students are curious about often comes from their own environment; (SR) what students find unfair/unjust (...) is often experienced in their own community.
Yes, Emma, I agree. They start from the students' local level at first. So, I see that there should be subtle sharing portions between LC and SR. I am with you for that! :)
DeleteEmma above you mention "Are there limits to the ideologies? I know purism is not attainable and perhaps even defeats the purpose of these ideologies (LC and SR), but I am wondering what central and core elements make a curriculum fit in one ideology rather than another."
DeleteI think this is where you must take a step back and look at the aims of education within each of the ideologies, and if that doesn't clarify, then l'd look at the views of knowledge, learning, teaching, evaluation, and the role of the learner (the charts we have been filling out) side by side. I started doing that in an effort to see the differences more clearly and it really helped.
Something else to think about is what the implementation of each of these might look like. I think that you can take the same "activity" such as a small group discussion following a brief introduction of content, but that discussion would look, sound, and feel very different depending on the ideology in which the teacher is drawing their vision and influence from.
Does that make sense?
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that they are distinctive, and I see the difference most of the time, but not everywhere. Prakash and Waks explained that they were all built on each other and somehow rejecting some aspects of the previous ones while taking what they like. There are definitely elements of LC in SR, but I have the impression that SR extends the "circle of we". When Schiro cites Brameld (p. 181) saying that the aim of education is "social self-realization", "social consensus", I see how the two ideologies bifurcate from one (cf the historical passage about Counts in 1932...). My understanding is that a major difference resides in the role of the educator: it acknowledges it has a political responsibility (a "civic responsibility", p. 169), who "need to assume the role of leaders in the struggle for social and economic justice." (Giroux, 2006, p.9) (I cannot find where this was in the chapter, but it is before p. 167 for sure). The educator here seems to have a larger directive impact, because she/he has a political agenda. I actually don't know how to phrase it properly. Do you see what I mean or am I unclear?
Also, do you think that LC is remote from social transformation, or that it allows only a few to explore and develop a vision of a better society?
My understanding here is that LC can have some students develop a vision but that not everyone is pushed in this direction, whereas SR aims at having everyone contribute to the vision and take action. What are your thoughts?
Hi Emma, your comment makes me not to put away the books and thoughts, thanks for that! :) I really see what you're saying, however, I carefully find two lines about views of learning in both ideologies that we may ponder together with.
DeleteIn SR, they said, "learning is primarily a social act rather than an individual act" (p. 181).
In LC, they said, "learning is a function of the unique interaction of an individual with his or her environment."
Again, I presumably see the subtle and very delicate overlapping aspect here, but I do see the distinctiveness is more meaningful here. :)
The words used in SR, as critical and hopeful language use matters in SR ideology, also seem to reflect the social-ness across the ideology. For example, the word, "civic" you mentioned also refers to the "social-ness" rather than individual-ness. Thus, you see my point, although I agree with you up to that pint, I still would like to stand on the "distinctive" side on our discussion about the bifurcation and distinction. Any thoughts? Any comments and critiques are welcome as always. :)
For the teacher's role in SR, you mentioned that educators carry "a larger directive impact, because she/he has a political agenda." I see your point. One word catches my eyes for this topic was that teachers are considered as "colleagues" (p. 169) in SR, "who can be trusted and confided in as a friend" (p. 169).
DeleteThus, I see your point, but teacher's role would be empowering students by guiding them (teaching them the value of freedom and social injustice in the beginning would be a type of direction, but the fundamental goal is different here, we know). One interesting and compelling notion in SR to me is that teachers emphasize that the future is the students' (as the students are the individuals, masses, and society in the future), thus, educating them the value of freedom, justice, liberation, and humanity is what teachers must do in hopes of empowering the students to "reconstruct their culture so that its members attain maximum satisfaction of their material, social, cultural, and spiritual needs" (p. 176). So, I see the directive aspects somewhat in the beginning, however, in the end, the teacher's role is not directing rather empowering and encouraging (transforming) the students' critical thinking and actions.
Hmm, this discussion let me think about this question to critique what I just said. What if the students, even after taking all of the discussion and experiences that reveal the social injustice, decided not to take actions and want to stay remained following the status quo? Can we say that if it's the case, teaching in SR is not effective?
One of my favorite movies is Matrix, you know, there is a real world out there controlled by the machines. Humans are sleeping in huge towers, in a water tank, connecting to an illusion of the world (codified world) through cables. A group of resistants wake up people by unplugging the cables on their back and ask them to take one pill out of two, one for going back to the system, and one for staying outside and fight against the machine. One character there chose the resistant pill, but, the real (critical) life out of the machine-made illusion was so painful, no fancy foods, no money, no cars and others. So, he decided to betray the resistant colleagues and tell where they are to the machine headquarters in the illusionary world, by saying "I understand the cake taste is not the real taste, but when I bite it, you machines send the delicious signal to my brain, this is not real. But, you know what, I like it. I'd rather go back to the illusion world, than staying outside wearing this boring dress and eating the porridge all day."
Sorry about the long story. To make it short, I was just wondering about what if one of our students think in the guy's way? What should teachers in SR respond to her/him? I could be off the topic, but for some reason, this story resonates with me.
I see what you mean (and I love the Matrix as well). A similar story comes to mind when I read this: the Independence of India. A main argument was that even though it meant perhaps increased poverty, it was through freedom and self-determination.
DeleteEmma, I would like to discuss your one of your second questions about the "relativity."
ReplyDeleteYou asked: Is it okay for someone who considers herself/himself a good guy to force the masses into what she/he considers to be good because she/he considers it as such? Is manipulation of the masses for their own good coherent with the SR ideology?
For this particular question, I would say no. Because the one person's "goodness" is determined by her/himself, the goodness seems not the good SR refers to. The "good" individuals, masses, thus society, are based on collective analysis and critiquing the current problems (racism, sexism, war, poverty, and others). Another big point here would be the "collective" ideas. SR pursues collective consensus, good for society, not for particular individual groups, thus the culture piece may come for consideration as well. Thus, the utopias in SR is about seeking to "change society" (p. 165), rather than seeking individuals escape from it. Your question and the context above seems tied with the second case, thus, I would carefully say no. What do you think?
Hi there. Man, you folks have been B.U.S.Y!!!!! Yowzers!!!!
ReplyDeleteSorry it took me awhile to get this summary of Apple's article up. It took me a looooooooooooooong time to get through it. It was a hard read for me. I'm not sure exactly why, but there were times when I had to reread the same sentence 7-8 times before I could wrap my head around it. Total, I probably spent over 6 hours reading the ~20 page article. :( Anyways, this is what I took away from it, and I will answer any questions to the best of my ability.
"The Politics of Official Knowledge: Does a National Curriculum Make Sense?" was written by Michael Apple and presented at the John Dewey Lecture in April 1992. His focus is on the political control of knowledge and how that impacts decisions such as curriculum, testing, and school choice. He argues that these are all intertwined around the "rightist" agenda.
He points out that the complicated textbook adoption policies & committees have existed for many years and exemplifies a toned down version of the hidden curriculum and/or agenda that he foresees being a problem with a "standardized set of national goals and guidelines" to "raise standards and to hold schools accountable for their students achievement or lack of it" (p.225). He goes on to say that you must respond with "WHAT group is in leadership in these reform efforts" and "WHO will benefit and who will lose as a result of all this?" (p.225).
He then makes a brief case of how liberals have tried to make a case for a national curriculum before. He uses verbs such as "active, inventive, thoughtful, collaborative, participatory, cooperative" to describe what the teaching and learning would like. He also includes the statements "The content and pedagogy of examinations would have to be tied to those of the curriculum and teacher education" and that such a conversion "will not be easy, quick, or cheap" (p.226).
Apple then takes a turn to describe in detail how the rightist movement emphasizes that "public" goods and products "are the center of all evil" and "private" goods and products "is the center of all that is good"(p.228). He continues by including how the rightist movement includes the facets of neoliberalism and neoconservatism (and how these two ideals are contradictory).
Apple returns to the discussion of the rightists desire to privatize as he compares the democratic attempts to enhance schooling versus the neoliberal focus on choice and consumption. He reminds readers that "we 'already know' that public servants are inefficient and slothful while private enterprises are efficient and energetic"(p.229). He also emphasizes that access to private resources (or a variety of "choices") is dependent on their ability to pay, which is dependent on their class or SES, and that the rightist agenda is to maximize this, while minimizing public resources which is dependent on the needs of the people.
Apple then moves his argument to how a national curriculum would be viewed by the consumer. He states that it could be viewed as the government "doing something about raising educational standards"(p.230). He also mentions that it provides a "framework within which national testing can function" and "a device for accountability... so that parents can evaluate schools"(p.231).
Sorry, I got a (last minute) call to pick up my daughter from daycare because my husband had to fly unexpectedly this evening. Anyways, to continue what I was saying about Apple...
ReplyDeleteHe continues by explaining that contrary to what some may believe, a common curriculum "is not a recipe for cohesion...but the renewal of divisions"(p.232). He grounds this quote from Richard Johnson in the idea that true cohesion can only occur when differences and inequalities are brought to the forefront and made clear from the beginning. He references Foucault by stating that "if you want to understand how power works, look at the margins, look at the margins, look at the knowledge, self-understandings, and struggles of those whom powerful groups in this society have cast off as 'the other'"(p.232).
Apple believes that the marginalized (those whom the rightist believe have little to no value) are a great source of knowledge, particularly with regards to how culture and power are related, much to the detriment of the "neoconservatives" who have tried hard to convince (if not create) society of the existence of a uniform or common culture in the United States.
Apple examines the impact of national curricula, testing, and privatization on Britain's democratic processes to enhance schooling and their outcomes, and links them to what he foresees being likely issues in the US. He states that one of the major effects has been the "depowering and deskilling of large numbers of teachers"(p.236). He also includes that the rightist agenda includes using diversion techniques to falsely reassure those teachers who are left behind in the transition to privatization. Lastly, he predicts that class and race divisions will continue to increase as the "access to private resources" philosophy is maximized, and accessibility to public resources is minimized.
Apple offers a conclusion that suggests that there could be some positives that arise from the predicament of this common curriculum. He sees it as being one way in which groups could unite around a common agenda of school reform. He also sees the opportunity to create a society of "culturally literate" people. He also encourages people to question the disparity and "growing gap" between the rich and the poor in other areas of society and closely compare those gaps to the gaps in education and schooling.
So... any questions???? ;)
Thanks Makinely for the great summary and thoughts! I agree with you that Apple has made our brains mixed here and there. However, this was a eye-opening reading indeed.
DeleteA quick question about your understanding of the notion of "culturally literate." You seem to say that Apple seems to support creating a society of "culturally literate" people. However, I think that Apple critiques the notion pointing out its limitation and dominant-culture-orientedness. Rather he argued that we should support "creation of the conditions necessary for all people to participate in the creation and recreation of meanings and values" (p. 238). I think he is critical on the notion of "culturally literate." My interpretation might be incorrect though, what do you think? :)
I actually have a question for you guys regarding Apple and what he advocates (SR in general, actually): for the pursuit of research, how does SR ideologues envision the place of building medical "advancement" and "development" of research (I apologize for the terminology, I don't know how to phrase this from a constructivist perspective)? Constructivism and constructionism disagree with the idea that "hard sciences" have a Truth, but I was wondering how they considered we would continue treating the medical world (among others fields, and I am sorry for categorizing).
DeleteHow does SR interact with fields of human endeavor that benefit from standardized collaboration on a massive scale? For example, space programs and medical research, where tens of thousands of people around the world use the same terminology and understanding (socially constructed) concepts? How does an education system that strives for SR puts a man on the moon? Do these things matter as much as they do now, compared with the fight of inequity? I suppose the man on the moon is not the best example, but what about fighting diseases?
Does it mean SR requires a complete shift in our understanding of the world as well, where we abandon this type of pursuit? Does it aim at homogenizing epistemological stances as well?
I guess I am trying to see how this is practically done.
John-
DeleteI do think that Apple would be fine with the statement that he wants to see a society of culturally literate people, however I felt that in the rest of my summary I made it clear (as mud) that he would only value this being accomplished through a democratic process where all voices are heard and valued, and no political agendas dominate. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. It's hard to summarize an article where every sentence is a loaded one.
Mackinley, thanks for your follow-up. :) I see you point. We may clear up what he meant by "culturally literate." I agree with you that Apple "would" be fine with educating people be culturally literate, however, his point seems going far beyond that. Being "culturally literate" does not necessarily imply that the people can participate in the process of creation and recreation of meanings, as "culturally literate" implies that people should know the facts, concepts, skills, and values, all of which already set up by usually/historically the "dominant" groups. This is probably why Apple cited Williams on p. 238, Williams said that the true "common culture" involves, "...determination of meanings by all the people....in a process which has no particular end.." (p. 238). The term, particular end, here may be tied with the concept of being "culturally literate," thus, Apple's point is critiquing being culturally literate, as you mentioned, not to shift it totally, but going forward on top of that. Yes, my "logic" of thinking here is also muddy. Any comments please? :)
DeleteHi Emma, your question about applying SR to medical or hard science fields is very thought-provoking. Based on the readings and discussions, I think that SR still can work for those fields that seem to hold Truth, e.g., fighting disease. To tell you my conclusion first, I think that SR notions, analyzing problems (social class, discrimination, crimes..etc) - envisioning better world - making actions collectively through dialogues, is essential in medical and rocket science fields. For example, if those fields are set up in hierarchical culture, and no questioning is allowed, some inappropriate or mis-led experiments or studies (or immoral (thus criminal) studies) cannot be critiqued openly, thus, the further development may be stuck, or being directed towards one side of the dominant groups on the highest rank. Although I am not the best person to talk about both fields, my understanding is that scholars and researchers in medical and rocket science fields often meta-anlayze concurrent or past research results to find out any mistakes or to find alternate ways. I think that healthy SR ideologies are embedded here, and it must be fostered along the way as it is how any fields are developing by themselves.
DeleteAnother example regarding this discussion is that I heard that any newly developed medical treatment should be approved by international scholarly conference by the major doctors with a good number of empirical data. I see the "legitimacy" here, however, isn't this legitimacy also biased? What I mean is that the fact of approving something by the major conferences is still based on hierarchical mindset, and the belongs and not belongs (sorting out) hegemony. What if a local medical doctor figures out a phenomenal treatment, but due to her/his financial issues or other constraints, she/he can't present his treatment in the major conferences? Is it right to call the treatment not legitimate? In this example, I think which may be an interdisciplinary case, I see that there is power dynamics of the major groups as well as the power of numbers.
With that in mind, let me cite one of your questions here. "Does it mean SR requires a complete shift in our understanding of the world as well, where we abandon this type of pursuit?"
This is a great question....however, I would carefully say no to this question. To me, SR seems not pursue a complete shift or complete reconstruction, rather, they purse reconstructing a society "based on" the current society. To my understanding, they don't mean to abandon the whole world, but remove the social problems by envisioning a better world and making actions. This means to me, they may keep the good aspects of current society, they will try to touch and scratch out the problems mainly. So, "complete shift" and "abandoning" may not explain SR effectively in my opinion. What do you think?
Hi both, I should tell you this, one thing that is very related to our topic (social injustice, and SR) just has happened to me. So I'm dealing with it getting out of the feeling of the oppressed, but critical action maker for a better world. I will keep you updated for that int our class soon. I will visit our blog back and forth more to talk. Thanks! :)
ReplyDeleteHope you're okay John! Mackinley, I read Apple as well and find your summary very close to the text.
ReplyDeleteI am amazed at the argument Apple brought regarding the so-called official cohesion resulting from a national curriculum (rightist perspective) and the actual expected results (from a more liberal/leftist perspective) where it actually leads to stronger divisions and a clearer oppressor-dominant/oppressed-minority dichotomy.
France recently had it's former president talk about immigration and national identity. While this is not directly related to Apple's article, I cannot help but see the links: Sarkozy (former French president, rightist, neoliberal) mentioned that once someone comes to France and wants to be French, this person has to accept that his ancestors are Gauls (one of the many tribes conquered by Caesar). National identity, just like curriculum, are often influenced by curriculum ideologies and political ideologies. In this case, this national entity related to Gauls negates diversity (even in the case of the tribes living on this territory 2000 years ago), imposes a cultural and ethnic hierarchy, and revolves around exclusion, nostalgia and racism (cf Apple p. 233).
Thanks Emma, I ended up writing a "legal" letter. I will let you know when we meet. Keep you fingers crossed please. :)
DeleteFor Apple, I think your example is really great to illustrate the cultural and ethnic hierarchy. This approach of leading people "culturally literate" is not difficult to see around the world including my country and the US as well. But, your case about Gauls was quite surprising to me. One thing catches my eyes in Apple was his critical thought about "culturally literate" (p. 238). I usually see the difference between "literate" and "culturally literate" in a good way to see the latter is more appropriate than the former. However, Apple thought is going beyond that. He said, "culturally literate" is not enough either, rather, we should encourage everyone to participate in discussing, co-work for what "culturally literate" means, and towards its creation and recreation. I really like this concept. In your example, maybe, can we expect any government acknowledging that immigrants' diverse "racial backgrounds" actually refer to our nationality? We may agree that there is no absolute race, rather we have a "human race" if we want to use the term. How would the dominant group supporting the national curriculum react to this Apple's critical suggestion for critical cultural literacy?
Yes, Apple is indeed making our brain swirling.
Hmmmm... John, while on a personal level I appreciate it, I think in this context using the term "human race" leans more towards the common culture that Apple frowns upon and says is detrimental to our society. By lumping everyone into one group of "humans", do we discredit the immense diversity that each individual has to contribute to society's determination of what is valuable?
DeleteMackinley, I see your point and agree with you up to that point. Thinking about Apple, my use of the term "human race" may be interpreted that way. What I meant and what I was trying to say was actually critiquing the immigration polity that Sarkozy set up (thanks for the example Emma!), demanding the immigrating people to accept Gauls as their ancestors. In that story, the Sarkozy government seemed assuming that the is different "races" (again I don't really want to use this term, but due to lack of my lexicon...), although there is no absolute notion of a race. I said, "If" we want to use the term, I would call that, borrowing Sonia Neito's argument that we read in the Understanding Different Cultures class, there is only one "human race", of course, there are diversities and interdependences in that and I do value it. :) My mere point in my previous comment was counteracting against the racism-based policy about the Gauls. But, I see your point still, thus, I am sorry for any confusion. Any thoughts please?
DeleteEmma in your original post you stated "Mackinley, you mentioned this week that you consider yourself to be an LC educator, and I was wondering if you had implemented elements of SR discussed in Schiro such as the Highlander or the Math examples in your own classrooms."
ReplyDeleteI would say that there have been some "hot topics" that my students have explored before based on their own interests, however I have not/do not engage in SR teaching. Perhaps the most recent example I can think of was when my students expressed concern and confusion as to why there massive cuts to the education budget in the state of Oklahoma for the 16-17 school year. This led to a conversation about entitlement and accessibility to education, which led to questions being asked about how much money is spent elsewhere on education. From there the students wanted to investigate how much money was spent on education in other parts of the state, the country, and globally. Once they saw the disparity, they had many more questions and eventually it turned into a huge investigation about global access to clean water.
The difference though, and the reason that I would say it was LC learning and teaching and not SR, is that the "lesson" or "discovery" of the disparity or injustice of was a "side effect" and not the "intended effect" of the investigation.