Christopher Bauer’s Weblog

Greetings,

What follows is my critique of a lesson plan that I printed out, but failed to note down the entire URL, meaning it has been lost to me to the big WWW.  Turned in for grading in October of 2006.

The lesson under analysis was created by a Mary Jane McReynolds, from a New Mexico school in May of 1994.  Ms. McReynolds attended a Columbia Education Center’s Summer Workshop, which networked teachers from 14 western states.  This particular lesson plan, entitled “Consumer Borrowing and Saving,” understands the rise of personal bankruptcies and personal debt and seeks to educate juniors and seniors on the rightful place and purpose of consumer credit.

This, although not stated in the lesson plan itself, is actually a mini-unit.  The lesson plan itself designates this lesson as an “Economics or Social Studies lesson.”  I would agree, because ideally it would be placed in an Economics classroom, alongside discussions of other forms of payment: cash, loans, etc.  Should this not be possible, it would also work well in an Economics classroom during a discussion on supply and demand, particularly with the meeting of supply and demand, namely payment.  Outside of an Economics classroom, I could see it falling into a Mathematics classroom during a unit on interest, or compound interest, or in a History classroom, discussing the origins of credit.

I believe this lesson can do much to connect the larger ideas presented in the units before or after with the smaller, more concrete information regarding credit cards.  Indeed, in an economics classroom, it could be discussed how credit affects supply and demand, either aggregate or otherwise.  Also in an economics classroom, this lesson could be used to generate other awareness of various forms of payment, which, again, relates to when suppliers meet demanders.  Although not stated in the lesson plans, I also believe that having a foray into this topic from a linking topic in mathematics would help students understand how interest is calculated and how these formulas apply to their life outside of the mathematics classroom.  Indeed, in a history class, this sort of tangent would relate a “current event” to the “dry subject matter” covered in history.

Essentially, the student is expected to read from the book and participate in teacher-lead discussion on the pros and cons of credit use, other forms of payment, and deciphering which credit offers are superior to others.  The textbook is used to instill a basic understanding of terms and ideas, while discussion is used to takes these basics and turn them into something more meaningful.  Soon after meaning is established, credit offers and loan statements are used to teach critical thinking skills, as students must decide which are better than others, and why.  Understanding is ultimately evaluated by written responses originating from group work where the teacher outlines a situation and asks the students to respond with what they would do in that situation, based on the knowledge that was gained during the unit.

Personally, I believe this lesson plan would fit well into my teaching philosophy as it would help students become good critically thinking citizens.  One of the primary objectives of the lesson would be to give the student the tools and knowledge to choose between credit offers to pick the one that is the best.  Another is to provide students with the knowledge to know when one should buy with credit, or should attempt to buy it some other time or in some other fashion.  Overall, I would hope that this sort of mini-unit would prepare the students for a future outside of the classroom, by bringing this into the classroom.

One of my main concerns behind this sort of lecture, however, is who is privileged and who is disadvantaged in this lesson plan.  Obviously those who cannot critically read or take notes on the textbook would be at a disadvantage on the onset, while those with those skills would be at an advantage.  Later on, auditory learners would have the advantage, due to the class discussions, as well as those who can put forth their ideas to the classroom, whereas those who do not have those skills or who are apathetic to the “school-thing” would be in a weaker position.  This would be a good opportunity, however, for the teacher, who is acting as a guide or facilitator during the first half of the lesson, to help the first group develop those skills, to pick out the important parts of a discussion, to develop the skill of voicing opinions.  Perhaps even the direct connection to the “real life” outside of school will interest the apathetic students, or perhaps the apathetic students will react more favorably to being treated not as a bank account, but rather treated as an active learner, who constructs a body of knowledge.

I believe that I have already alterations to the original lesson plan, in order to make it my own and tailor it more to my teaching style.  Among these changes was the emphasis on class discussion to construct the basic information into a greater understanding of the material.  I believe the lesson plan originally calls for a smaller amount of class discussion, and an increase in small group work to come to the same conclusion that I would hope to extract out of the discussion.  I would favor a class discussion over small group work, because that would allow me to direct the class towards the objectives and reduce the amount of time associated with small size group work.

Another alteration I have already made would be its application to courses other than Economics.  I believe that it would prove interesting to the students if we began talking about concrete, “real life,” examples of what we were learning in a math class, or the consequences of, and the resulting evolution of society due to, the rise of credit.

To specifically alter for introduction of a math class, I would have to provide the basics for the mini-unit from the school’s economics book, the internet, or from my own personal collections.  From this I would also introduce into the lesson mathematical ties, such as how the APY works, or how interest rate is computed or determined.  Finally, in a mathematics class, the final evaluation would have to be changed to reflect the mathematical focus in the unit, meaning I would alter the situations to have the student computing interest rates and other quantitative analysis that would be complementary to the mathematics program that I would be placed in.

For an introduction into a history class I would have to make many of the same changes that one would expect for the mathematics.  Initially I would have to wait until the proper point in the history class, namely the introduction of mass credit.  Then I would have to provide not only the basic ‘lingo’ of credit, but also specific instances on how credit has affected public policy and society in general.  After that, I would direct class discussion on how credit has evolved into present day before launching into the lesson proper.  The analysis would remain much the same, except span over time as well, giving situations that might have historical significance.

Greetings,

Although this happened a few weeks ago, I believe that it was an important discussion for me as my outlook on school changed somewhat significantly.  I had made a post where I referred school to “real life,” meaning what happens to students outside of school after graduation.

The grad student in charge of my TE 407 class, Brairthorn*, called on me to define what I meant by this statement, and to ask me one simple question.  I stated that I meant that I viewed school as something artificial, where the expectations and punishments were unrealistic or not reflective of what will happen “in real life”.  The example I put forth was the idea of tardiness and absences, and the consequences, after repeated occurrences, were detentions or suspensions.  After I finished talking, Brairthorn asked me, “How is that really different than real life?”  At that point, even though I stubbornly refused to announce it publicly, I realized how strange that line of thought was.

I mean, as another student put it, school isn’t as serious as “real life” but it certainly wasn’t as artificial as I thought it was.  Indeed, that student continued, explaining how school was sort of a “proxy for real life,” meaning that the consequences were made more artificial in order to train students in how to act in society, or how to get along with society, without seriously doing harm.

Greetings,

Today was my first serious observation of the Peacebloom High School with Miss Silverleaf. Out of the many things that I took note of, I would like to take notice of an assignment that Miss Silverleaf started in one of her classes.

Essentially she broke the class into two groups of roughly equal sizes, and assigned one with being “anti-imperialist” and the other being “imperialist.”  She provided the groups with one article pertaining to each side had them read that article.  Tomorrow she stated that she would have the groups meet and discuss their “point of view” and then they would have to chose a spokesperson to explain their point of view to the class as a whole.

While an excellent idea to begin with, I don’t think that this would go far enough in forcing intellectual stimulation that Miss Silverleaf would hope to get out of this.

Before that particular section of her US history class, we discussed the idea of behind the lesson.  She hoped that the students would “get into it” and hopefully start a debate.  Indeed, on the assignment board, she labeled it as a “debate”.  However, with the instructions that she gave the students, I do not this sort of debate that she and I hoped for would materialize.

I do wish I could be there tomorrow, to see how she reacts and prompts the students to debate the issues.  I will be sure to ask her on Thursday, when I come in again, how it went, and to try to debrief her on what she thought went wrong.

I would propose that a better way to promote the debate would be to turn this into more of a project than another assignment.  Indeed, telling them that I would expect them to role play their imperialist or anti-imperialist roles and perhaps attempt to break them into smaller groups for more effective classroom management would be, I think, more appropriate.

Indeed, as I have said, rather than in earlier works of this edublog, I intend to make this more of my own musings, what I can use, what I don’t want to, what I can improve in the world around me. I also intend to post things that I see as important stepping stones in my transformation from a student to a teacher.  This idea has a great deal of merit, I just believe I would run it differently.

Greetings,

I had my “first” encounter with students today in Peacebloom School*. Yes, I had encounters with students before, thus it really isn’t my “first”, but it was the first time with students from this school, and under the tutelage of Miss Silverleaf*.

Today was a relatively unusual day, as it was “Cabin Time” day. The usual schedule was modified and classes shortened to provide forty minutes for students to talk amongst themselves about the problems facing the school. Minutes would be taken by the student facilitators, which would then be brought to the student council, which would then attempt to work with the administration to bring about a resolution.

Although I thought this was a reasonable idea to begin with, I noticed that the youngest members of the group, the freshmen, did not participate. I asked Miss Silverleaf afterward why she thought that was and, simply, her response was that they were not used to this sort of open dialogue, and do not know how to make this sort of thing work for them. This rang true to me, as I don’t think the freshmen were used to this, indeed, I was not expecting this sort of equalized dialogue that was used, at least in the High School level, however, I do not think the topics discussed were geared towards them either, especially regarding how things ‘used to be’ and how they changed, in the students opinion, for the worse.

This is, however, an interesting tool that I might be able to utilize in some way. Directly giving the students direct power to talk about changes that can happen in the school is healthy. More directly, I can use this in my classroom, for example, if something drastic happened in my school or in the world. This would allow me to still give facts that are known, and allow the students to form their own opinions on what it is that should be done next and help students with higher forms of thinking and expressing themselves. The biggest flaw that I can see in this sort of activity would be the large amount of student participation that would be required for this to be a success.

*Pseudonyms, of course, are used.

Greetings,

It has been a busy day for me today.  Here is another Q-and-A session.

Classmate C asks:

“Here’s a question….should we indoctrinate our students or not? How do you make sense of this question?”

From my understanding, I believe that indoctrination of a student would be “pounding of a certain belief or set of beliefs into their head” (for lack of a better way to describe it). To answer your question I believe that it is our job to do so, but also to not do so. Let me explain.

We, as teachers, should not indoctrinate our students to believe everything we (or the government, special interests, etc) think, believe, etc. If we were to do this, and do it well, would it even be possible to make society “more just”, assuming that is your goal? I would say no, since I know that I am biased in some ways and probably don’t know how biased I am in some other ways. I suppose what I am trying to say the most is that if we indoctrinate our students toward some vested interest, then we aren’t going to make society better, but rather worse.

On the other hand, we need to indoctrinate our students to some extent. By this I am referring that we (as a majority) want our students to “think critically”. I would call that process of teaching them, indoctrination. It is the “pounding of a certain belief or set of beliefs into their head.” Also along with this, we will probably “rub off” on them, transmitting some of our beliefs and values to them.

I would say that according to me, indoctrination is necessary, but I guess there is a fine line where indoctrination becomes unacceptable.

Greetings,

As with the last post, this is a question posed by a classmate, in which I responded to on the message board that our class has set up. I believe posting these Q-and-A sessions on this medium will shed some light on my psyche and might, if this is done properly, show how I have changed since I had begun the Teacher Education Course series.

Classmate B asks:

“Ok so this may seem like a stupid question, but what does it mean to even indoctrinate someone? As far as the class is going, I think there are some good things going on. But the guest speaker today again reiterated in my mind the “so what?” aspect of teaching social studies. Yeah it’s great to see the trend going on with/history of the teaching of the subject, but so what. I feel like this is more of the “TE” stuff. That doesn’t really make sense, but I just feel so overloaded with theory and discussion that I’m just getting antsy to actually DO.”

I am guessing that we need to have some sort of an answer to this “so what” question that comes up all the time. If we can’t answer this question about a social studies history lecture, can we really attempt to answer it once we get in the classroom and start teaching?

I believe it is important to know where we are in the grand scheme of things. By this I mean that history is important to know where we have come from, the trends that are actively working on us, the trends that have existed and seem not to be active anymore. This context affects nearly every choice we make in some way, shape, or form. It is also important because if we know what trends that are working on us now, we can tell what we are going, or at least make predictions.

I suppose that is a brief answer to your question, B, but at least it is a start.

Greetings,

In my current class, this question came up on our online message board. I have cleaned up my response a little bit, and added hard breaks where they didn’t show up in my actual response.

Classmate A asked:

“This is something I wanted to bring up in class in relation to the readings but, since we are talking about indoctrination and our own political views, etc. etc., I have been curious to know, when do teachers start getting in trouble (with parents or other staff or the principal) for showing their views or even different interpretations of history? In reading these articles and thinking about all the controversial issues that will come up in our classrooms, it makes me wonder how easy it is for teachers to go too far and offend people. Just wondering what others’ thoughts might be.”

Well, I guess you would not want to be like this guy. From my understanding, he espoused only one viewpoint, which was highly critical of President Bush and upset a few students and even more parents. So I guess the biggest suggestion I have would be to make sure you present both sides of the argument to the best of your ability.

I suppose aside from that extreme, I would assume the next biggest thing to avoid “bad” situations is to make sure you meet or even exceed curriculum expectations. If you can teach the students everything they are expected to know, and still have time for debate over troubling topics, I don’t think that very many people can create a logical argument to get you fired or even in trouble.

In conclusion, I would claim that if you structure your discussions in a way that represents the different sides, and still get through all that can be expected of you, I seriously doubt that many people can really get you into trouble.

Greetings,

As I was reading an article by William Stanley, I was struck with the memories of a conversation that occurred in TE 407.  Stanley, in his article, outlines the historical significance and the major differences between what Stanley believes to be the three major schools of though that exist in the school system today, one that stems from George Counts, one from John Dewey, and the final one, stemming from, most recently, George Posner.  Stanley does a fine job of outlining each school of thought as “critical pedagogy”, “critical thinking”, and “maintaining the status quo”, respectively.

After reading this, I re-affirmed my belief that critical thinking is my something that I would really like to strive for, not only in myself, but also instilling in the students I will have.  I believe this because I do believe that there are flaws in our current society, racism, reverse racism, sexism, and many more ‘isms’ are present in society and are defended every day by those who believe that they are somehow better than their peers in ways that cannot be changed or even challenged.

The reason why I disagree with critical pedagogy is because I do not feel that it would be morally right to encourage change in my students.  If they do not see anything wrong with the system they exist in, and have thought critically about it, should I really try to sway or force them into seeing that something is a problem?  I say that I am not that morally pure or even morally sure that I can say that I must be heard in my moral convictions.  On the other side of the spectrum, if they find much more that they would like to change that I cannot see why or would want to change, again, could I say that I should be heeded more than their own critical thinking.

Finally, one of the flaws that was pointed out to me by my instructor: What happens if I educate my student very well in the art of critical thinking, and the student then turns that into an instrument of even, to commit genocide, subjugate third world countries and the like?  Well, first, I would say that I did my job well, if that is my only goal.  Then I would say where are the other critical thinkers (including myself) who should have risen up and challenged him on critically thought out, moral, ethical, or ecological bounds?  I would argue that committing genocide, or subjugating third world countries would be morally wrong, because if we were given liberty and freedom by our government, and they were not, and we imposed our will on them for our own good, then one must think of the treatment of those peoples and understand that this cannot be done.  I could also argue that destroying the ecosystem will also not help humanity in the long run, because destroying the world slowly is not any morally acceptable (to me) than committing genocide immediately.

In general, I suppose that my argument resides on moral grounds almost completely, but this is a part of who I am and my outlook on life, and in that vein, I cannot separate my logical side from my moral side, but I can restrain myself (at least partially) from forcing my morality on my students, as I know that my moral side might not be completely moral and I may have flaws and faults that may cause unforeseen problems in the future.

Work sited:

Stanley, William B.  “Social studies and the social order: transmission or transformation.”  Research & Practice. v69 i5. p282.  Sept 2005.

Greetings,

Today for class we read a selection from Dalton’s The Hollywood Curriculum: Teachers and Teaching in the movies.  In this, I thought it was most telling when Dalton was discussing the teacher as an outsider.  This idea that a lone teacher, rebelling against the system and refusing to adhere to the status quo.  From the author’s analysis, she claims that this trend in the movies is a direct result from the history and the millions that Hollywood has made from the “Rugged Individual,” for example the lone cowboy who rides into a town and single-handedly defeats the marauding outlaws, or the army sergeant who prepares and then leads his men in combat, achieving some great task.  Dalton comments, in no positive terms, that this may be (more or less) accurate with the cowboys, but less so with the army sergeant, and even less so with the teachers.

To me, however, this is not some flaw or fault of the Hollywood elite, but rather with film making in general.  The movies are 60 to 90 minutes long and there isn’t enough time to establish a relationship between the audience and the actors on the screen.  If there is no connection between the audience and the actors, then the movie will flop and be useless.  Therefore the lone, rugged individual becomes a viable, and necessary, tool in the film making industry.

Work Cited:

Dalton, Mary.  The Hollywood Curriculum: Teachers and Teaching in the Movies.  Peter Lang Publishing.  New York.  1999.

Greetings,

What will follow is my first philosophical statement. In my current TE class, we are required to write a philosophical statement, essentially what we think our goals are and what our classroom will look like when we become teacher ourselves. Then late in the semester, and in later courses, we will revisit this philosophical statement and revise it to our reflect our changing views.

Without further ado…

It is my belief that the ultimate purpose of a teacher is to educate students in how to become ‘good citizens’. Although this phrase, ‘good citizen’, may differ from one person to another, I believe that a good citizen is a person who will gather information and then analyze the information as to make the best decision possible in order to fulfill their goals, whether it be to maximize their benefits, minimize harm done in the situation, or, most generally, make the best choice available.

From this fundamental purpose of a teacher, I believe that I will want to provide a good environment to hone these skills on a regular basis. A well-honed, analytical mind is trained and maintained through constantly approaching new problems, researching them, presenting a case, then defending against the dissenting opinions. Namely, the skill of thinking critically comes from debate, logical construction of arguments, and understanding that these situations are not isolated debates, but new ones are constantly formed and created.

This, I believe, is where the student-teacher relationship should begin. Although there is a need for an aura of authority from the teacher, as to maintain discipline and order in the classroom, the teacher needs also to build a sort of professional relationship with the students, as s/he guides the student’s education in the direction of more complex and critical thought. This professional relationship can include, but is not limited to, understanding the basic personal life of the students, hopes and goals of the student, and a mutual respect, and will allow the teacher to motivate the student more easily than if this relationship was not present. The teacher must also show the student that critical thought does not happen on the school grounds only; it happens everyday in the “Real World” and the student will need to put the skills honed in the classroom to good use.

This final point and goal of a teacher, allowing the student to realize that the problems that the student faces in school is not isolated, but is related to problems that exist outside of school, brings me to my final belief, the connection between teacher-student-social studies. It is my belief that social studies is the study of societies, either through social constructs such as economics, politics, through physical barriers such as those represented in geography, or through the beliefs of what happened in the past, history. Each of these studies are not isolated, as one directly affects the other in countless ways, and this web should not be studied merely in the classroom, but the students must realize that what happened in the past and why it happened have a lasting impact on current or recently occurred events.

Ultimately, I believe the role of a teacher, and more specifically a Social Studies teacher, is to create good citizens, people who will gather information, realize what the best choice is for them depending on their goals, and then act on those decisions. These citizens will make a lasting impact on society as they will have the ability to act on their decisions and beliefs.