Educational "Reform": An Aside

Hello, All!
Please don't despair; I have an absolutely charming "Historias del Juego" in the works, as well as a fun reflection on preschool level informational texts. However, I'm also taking a Critical Pedagogy course as part of my Masters on Bilingual Education. We have to write weekly mini-analyses, and I thought, "Why not double dip?" So I may be posting more asides... but I thought it best to begin with this one, as it seems particularly currently relevant. Also, the culturally-responsive pedagogy references are EXCELLENT.

As noted by Fullan (2015), teachers engage in “thousands of small innovations” every single day based upon our contexts and the needs of our students. What began as collaborative reshaping of curricula in concert with our peers, however, has become a money-driven enterprise known variously as educational reform, the innovation paradigm, or yet another influence of corporate neoliberalism. The emphasis of program over professional, argues Giroux, means that teachers are increasingly identified as skilled technicians of marketable product rather than as “transformative intellectuals” (2009). Rather than focusing efforts and capital on teacher-driven research specific to our communities, or to debugging national programs to fit our specific needs (Fullan, 2015), “neoliberal reforms that purport to address

racialized achievement gaps treat racism and culture as if they do not exist” (Sleeter, 2011, p. 8).

Baker’s “Overcome the Four Barriers to Change” (2008) is a manifesto of such corporate ideology. What looks like cheery self help on the surface has damaging ramifications. To become the “CEO of your life,” for instance, he argues you have only to disregard your “labels.” This is erasure of identity and negates the fact that people are labeled and discriminated against regardless of how they personally choose to identify. His opening thesis is that the opposite of growth is death – if you aren’t growing and changing, you’re dying! In order for success, find the good in every new change! This sort of mentality creates passive and obedient workers – rather than critical thinkers – and it presupposes that those in positions of decision-making are changing things for the better. We have only to change ourselves to fit their structure of power.

Whether we’re teachers or students, that mentality is very dangerous. Instead of being trained to obey prescriptive, market-driven mandates, we must assume our own autonomy and value as described by Giroux’s vision for critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy “reinforces the notion that public schools are democratic public spheres, education is the foundation for any working democracy, and teachers are the most responsible agents for fostering that education” (Giroux, 2011, pg. 495).

All this is not to say that reform is bad. Change is essential to every environment. The changes, however, in order to have efficacy and power in the long-term, must be specific to and driven from within the community. As noted by Sleeter, utilizing culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) – which is closely tied with critical pedagogy – is a reform that both honors student identities and yields higher standardized achievement (2011). Morrison, Robbins, and Rose (2008) outline twelve actions (or “reforms”) that are encompassed by culturally responsive pedagogy. (As a side note, only one of these actions includes the cultural celebrations that so frequently stand in as the entirety of CRP.)

None of these actions, nor those suggested by Giroux, have marketable, “teacher-proof” curricula attached to them – they rely on educator knowledge, collaboration, and care. As Fullan (2015) notes, “controversial material, which might form the very basis of addressing some of the social goals of education (e.g., in social studies curriculum), is less likely to be developed.” It is therefore our job to research and create curricula, and enact reforms that are appropriate to our context. Given the current institutional climate, it is also imperative for us to demand the autonomy to be allowed to do so in the public schools.

In order to enact such reforms, we must utilize a “combination of tightly coupled culture, ‘around clear and explicit themes representing the core of the school's culture,’ and of loosely coupled structure” (Boyd, 1992). In this way, teachers can address themes that we have determined to be important to our mission – but we can do so in ways that make sense to us. As well as having richer results, the buy-in is exponentially higher. Unfortunately, it is currently the norm to impose generic reforms upon a staff. Even if the concept of such a program is good, it will need to have the approval of and adaptation by educators; otherwise, it will fail. 

Any successful reform must also take time. A reform developed by staff must be continually examined and altered for efficacy and relevance; one proposed by an administrator or district must be vetted, adapted, and approved by the staff. Boyd notes that any change-maker, such as an administrator, must also take time and care to learn the mythology and social history of the school. What is the informal network like; what are the legends of the school and who are its gossips, spies, and soothsayers (1992)?

This speaks intimately to my experience at my school this year. We have a new administrator and a state-mandated program that have instituted many reforms to our practice. These include a STEM curriculum, a state-wide verification process, a streamlined approach to scheduling and conducting IEPs, and daily phonics drills with “Fundations.” None of these changes are bad in that all have positive aspects. However, many of our staff members, myself included, have suffered substantial feelings of disillusionment and inefficacy. I posit that these feelings are not what Baker (2008) would call being “narrow and self-centered victims of change,” though those accusations have been leveled at us. Instead, I believe these reforms, though inherently positive, have been inappropriately instituted.

The administrator and state program both have been negligent on the accounts of time and of honoring our school’s informal networks. Changes are told to us, rather than our staff collaborating to create them, and they are expected to be instituted immediately; rather than our staff collaborating to modify and better the programs together, any alterations to the reform must be done “under the table.” My one small victory was that I flat-out refused to implement an English language letter-sound correspondence program (Fundations) with my Spanish-speaking three-year-olds. By standing my ground, I am able to use a self-adapted version of Estrellita instead (the Spanish language equivalent).

Our former administrator was exemplary at knowing and participating in our school’s “mythology,” and the reforms she proposed were bound by slow, collaborative timelines that ensured success and staff approval. The fact that she was removed by the district after a (literal) 100% approval rating from school staff, and replaced by a former district supervisor, is important to know. The fact that the administrator before her was incompetent and racist, meaning that we were used to essentially running the school, is important to know. The times we have rallied around our students, staff, and community when they were in times of crisis are of vital importance to know. I doubt our current administrator knows all of this; she didn’t take the time to find out, and certainly does not honor our experiences and informal networks as a school community. As a result, programs meant to better our school, through lack of time and care and shared governance, have fractured its culture.

To heal these wounds, we do not need to conform to a structure created without our input. We must eschew the blind adoption of market-driven reforms and continue to research, implement, and better our own reforms that work for our own specific contexts. We, as teachers and students, need to demand a systems restructuring around our ideas, histories, and identities – and we need to do it on every level of education.  

Resources

Baker, J. (2008). “Overcome the Four Barriers to Change.” RIS Media. Retrieved from

http://rismedia.com/2008/12/14/overcome-the-4-barriers-of-change/#close.

Boyd, V. (1992). “Creating a Context for Change.” Issues… About Change 2(2). Retrieved from

http://www.sedl.org/change/issues/issues22.html.

Fullan, M. (2015). The New Meaning of Educational Change (Fifth Edition). United States: Teachers

College Press.

Giroux, H. (2014). “When Schools Become Dead Zones of the Imagination: a critical pedagogy

manifesto.” Policy Futures in Education 12(4). Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2304/pfie.2014.12.4.491.

Giroux, H. (2011). “Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals.” Kaleidoscope: Contemporary and Classic

Readings in Education, ed. Ryan, K., and Cooper, J.

Morrison, K., Robbins, H., and Rose, D. (2008). “Operationalizing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: A

Synthesis of Classroom-Based Research.” Equity & Excellence in Education 41 (4), 433-452.

Sleeter, C. (2011). “An agenda to strengthen culturally responsive pedagogy.” English Teaching: Practice

and Critique 10(2). Retrieved from http://education.waikato.ac.nz/research/files/etpc/files/

2011v10n2art1.pdf.

Thanks for reading! Here's a fabulous watercolor portrait done by one of my students to thank you for your attention. 

Hasta pronto ~

Grace and Giraffes

(So... it's been a year and two days since I've last posted. Do forgive.)

Since January 27, it's been on my to-do list to revive this blog. SO, though my time is perhaps better spent creating a unit plan for our Habitats study, or adapting our book for next week (it's Alexander Calder and mobiles!), or or or -- I'm going to write briefly about an idea that has been knocking around in my head. 

About a month ago, our bilingual theater, Teatro Paraguas, hosted Albuquerque-based Working Classroom and their production of Blank Historias. The first part of Blank Historias was storytelling -- the audience picked a theme, and then we were free to come up and speak for five minutes at a time about it. The ensemble of actors, made up of school-age students, listened closely and took notes. Then, after a 10-minute 'intermission' of sorts, they presented a gestural, imagistic piece of performance art. There were cell phones and lit up exercise balls and toy cars and fabric that turned into the sea. It was pretty inspired, and beautifully rendered. The experience was made even more powerful by the fact that one of my student's grandparents were there - another granddaughter was a performer that night.

Our topic was "overcoming adversity." As I listened to inspiring stories about moving across the country and eating well and taking on leadership positions, a thought came to me: We cannot overcome adversity without the grace of others.

I had been having a really hard week. Heck, I've had a hard year - due to my friend and colleague quitting in November, there was suddenly a vacancy in the Spanish-language 3-year-old class. I had been teaching a bilingual medically-fragile classroom, but the new teacher hired was not Spanish-speaking. So, I was moved classrooms and positions, my medically-fragile English speakers stayed in my old classroom, my 4-year-olds were shipped off to the 4Y classrooms, and the 3Y Spanish-speakers moved with me.  Disruptive is an understatement. Perhaps you understand the extended radio silence? I had to rely so heavily on my friends and family (you know who you are and thank you) -- and also on the small moments of beauty and kindness that I had to fight to see some days.

Anyway, I was struggling to feel anything more than a kitten with its claws stuck on the screen, anything more than keeping my nose barely above the current. (I still have days like this.) I didn't feel very prepared to speak about overcoming adversity.

So I talked about my kids, and how they overcome adversity every day. I got up on stage, and alternating between English and Spanish, I talked about my wild and wonderful littles. "Como que hacen todas las maestras, voy a robar las historias de mis estudiantes. Empezaré con el concepto de que no podemos superar la adversidad sin la gracia de los demás."

As I'm wont to do, I meandered conversationally through a few anecdotes -- but I had been really moved, I realized, by something I had seen that day in our indoor play gym area (called "Choices"). A student of mine was playing in Choices in the little play store. She has Down Syndrome, and is just beginning to engage in cooperative play. A year ago, she couldn't walk. So we were both excited about her play schema. She was hawking her wares, shuffling around pots and pans and pulling money out of the cash register.

A friend of hers came over. This kid. This kid creates fabulous dramatic play sequences as a magical dog; he's curious about everything; he's precise, observant, and just generally advanced for his age. He surveyed the contents of the store, greeted his friend, and asked "¿Me das la jirafa, por favor?" Indeed, there was a giraffe puppet on one of the shelves.

This gave the little girl pause. She didn't understand "jirafa" yet. But she wanted so badly to do this transaction thing right. She looked around, said "sí," and handed him -- a plastic toaster.  It was his turn to take a moment; he studied the toaster, studied her, and gave another glance at the out-of-reach giraffe. Then he smiled. "Muchas gracias, amiga." And he went on his way.

To overcome adversity, we all need the grace of others.

Hasta pronto ~

Historias del Juego: Visitando al Dentista y Cuidando al Bebé

¡Buenos días!

Saludos from the midst of a happy, functioning, playful classroom: there's a student playing the toy ukulele and another two pretend feeding our pet rat cookies (that are, in fact, heart-shaped crayons we baked last week); in blocks, one student has made a Grecian-style house with lots of columns and a rooftop shower and another has walled a gorilla in a bunkbed to protect her from "los zombies."

I wanted to take a moment to record two Historias del Juego en particular that I've had back-logged for ages. Both are in my afternoon session - a rowdier, more social group.

1. Visitando al Dentista:
I had recently introduced a Tupperware full of shells but hadn't seen a lot of play with them. I was considering emptying out the sensory table and filling it with sand (though I think I'm going to try to hold off until after spring break for that one), when I found four students busily engaged. One student was reclined on the top of the aforementioned sensory table on her back; two were sorting through the shells and another basket of containers; and the fourth had appointed himself the medical professional in the situation.
 
"Y éste, necesitamos," he declared, grabbing a cupped shell. He pressed it along the "patient's" belly, listening to the tops of the shells and generally auscultando todo.
Another student, inspired by this, grabbed a long kelp seed pod and knelt on the table next to the patient. "Abre la boca," he requested, poking the pod near her teeth, counting them, and hemming and hawing to himself.
After a couple of minutes, he switched places with the reclined patient and the former patient became a dentist.
"Hmmm," she said, "Okay. Open!"
And he opened his mouth. She repeated the routine - at one point, when she was brandishing the spout of a play teapot at his teeth, he hesitated. "Open wide," she said, "está bien." After a bit, the current patient exclaimed, "Quiero agua!"
The two assistants ran to get him a cup of water.
A little later, one of the assistants was examining imagined mouth detritus under our play microscope. He murmured under his breath, finally saying, "Estas.... estas son grandes."

Takeaways: What a creative and cool re-purposing of objects! Let students' imaginations run wild; be careful not to police their productive and cooperative play, even if you wouldn't have them ideally be lying on top of the sensory table or putting old bits of kelp near their mouths. Also, when you assign children to play areas and/or rotate them through after 10-15min, you rarely see this sort of cooperative, deeper play that lasts 25+ minutes.
Next steps: Perhaps create a doctor's or dentist's or vet's office in Ciencia or Casa.
Types of play: Symbolic, Socio-dramatic, Social, Object

2. Cuidando al Bebé
Another day, three students from the afternoon were busy parenting a little stuffed koala.



 

They were carrying him around, giving him food, wrapping a blankie around his legs and belly. (Just to check, in case you stereotyped, they were three boys playing this game.)
Student 1: ¡Ew, hizo popo!
The kids flew into a flurry of action: they lay down the koala, took off the blankie, began wiping away with imaginary toallitas.  One wrinkled his nose; another sang an improvised lullaby to the koala.
Me: "¿Están cambiando el pañal?"
Student 2: Sí!
Then, cleaned to their satisfaction, they all snuggled up on the couch with the koala and pretended to go to sleep.
Student 2: (as a whispered aside to me with his eyes closed) ¡Somos la familia durmiendo!

Takeaways: Let the kids play! ...And a brief soapbox moment: A lot of time I see folks worried about boys doing this type of play. They view it as effeminate, inappropriate, gay.  Then there's a whole subsection that argues that "it doesn't mean they're gay at all!" I agree with this second sentiment, but think we need to also stop framing it as "we can let them do this because don't worry they'll turn out straight heteronormative masculinity is intact phewwww." You know what? They might be gay. And they might not. But either way, learning how to care for littles is an unadulteratedly great thing. 
Next Steps: I feel pretty proud how I've built up Casa in response to student-led games like these:



I've added more animals, actual dolls, and a blanket that in addition to being adorable is a more appropriate size than the enormous magenta cobija I had before. Though, I do think my cardboard cuna needs an upgrade.

Types of Play: Symbolic, Socio-dramatic, Social, Object

Now the ukulele player is building a marble run castle, a student in a blue hat is laying out a blanket (and another is pulling out play money to purchase it).... and a whole block civilization has risen up.
 
 See?

Well, it's about to be sacked like Rome: time to clean up!

¡Hasta pronto!

Emerging Emergent Curriculum Documentation

¡Hello, Lectores, y feliz año nuevo!

I have a few minutes before our afternoon of professional development; let's see if I can get in an overview of what I'm up to in the emergent curriculum documentation department.

First off, read this neat article about an adorable pre-k class and their goldfish. Page 4 has a great overview on the components and value of documentation. As Lewin-Benham notes:

Documentation is the process

of recording children’s thoughts

and actions on a topic to maintain

their focus and expand their interest.

See? Neat!

After reading this, I decided to incorporate this concept into my Professional Development Plan.




 Okay, I'll admit it: I love writing Vygotskian (even when I spell it wrong, ha). I noted in my PDP that I wanted to use poster boards and have additional board space in the hallway.

So I got a couple foam boards and premiered this documentation feature with our Acorn Study.

 

I crafted these over the course of a couple of weeks -- beginning with the students' descriptions, then the photograph, then the art, then the post-reflections. The poster board sat in or near circle at all times, and I added to it with the students present.

There were immediate advantages to documentation:
1. Students could revisit the unit.
2. Students were thrilled when their words / images / art were added to the board.
3. It was always accessible.

But there were also disadvantages:
1. Foam boards are ungaingly!
2. Where the heck was I going to put those million foam boards?

So I stressed and complained to my EA... And then we got our brains cooking! We took down all of the art from the bulletin board near our Música/Teatro center and put it back up around the room. Then, she titled the board Otoño and divided it down the middle - half for my AM class, half for my PM one.

Instead of writing directly onto the bulletin board, then, I wrote (modeling better stay-within-the-lines literacy too) in a notebook and showed it to students. My EA took pictures, and sometimes additional notes. Then, I would print the pictures along with student observations and captions, and put them on the board.

 
Some of the events featured:

•  Students building the scarecrow from La Viejecita Que No Le Tenía Miedo a Nada
• Student summaries from the short animated film about Día de Los Muertos. Watch it and weep everywhere.
• Voting for favorite Jack-O-Lantern expressions
• Creating our leaf graphic
• Our pumpkin seed seasoning recipes

At the same time, I put out a request for children's shoe boxes. When we wrapped up our Otoño unit, then, I had a handy place for manipulative/story prop/thematic object storage!
 
(CHECK that homemade memory game using leaf types from our mini-arboretum by our school.)
Following a fab idea from my EA, we can then store those boxes in different play areas. This one, for instance, is stored in Ciencia. 

After the conclusion of the unit, then, my EA moved the board contents to the hallway and readied the board for our Winter unit:












This way, students have easy access to review our current unit -- and can review the past one as we trundle to and from outside and indoor gym play.

Next steps:

• Color pictures?
• More student art!
• More 3D media (a la the bellotas on my foam board)
• Build in a weekly time for each student to review the unit during free play.

¡Me quedan 3 minutos antes de la junta, entonces me voy!
Gracias por leer!
Thanks for reading!

Historias del Juego: Un Castillo Discreto

Today, two students were playing in blocks:

You're lucky too! I managed to get a photo without faces so it's blog-worthy.

This is just a brief post, mostly to get myself jump-started on the back log of notes I have for different posts throughout the fall.

What was wonderful to see about this "castillo de casa para la gente para que se acuesten," was the range of abilities incorporated into play. My little pequeñita is one of my more advanced students , ready to tackle the world though maybe kínder first (she was the one who wanted to whack Trump). My pequenín has just recently learned how to build with blocks - for the first 9 weeks his version of block play was destroying everyone else's fabulous structures. But he and his area partner played beautifully and cooperatively for close to a half an hour ; she tolerated him throwing some people or grabbing some of the folks from their restful response, he watched and emulated the building and sleeping actions.

After this photo was taken, he hurled the postman. His friend coached him to bring it back, the postman went back to sleep, and when it was clean-up time they collaborated in putting away all the blocks into their designated areas. Hooray!

Tipos de juego: Social, Object, Fantasy

¡A Votar! An Election Entry of Disillusionment, Activism

(I know this post is far overdue, but I haven't had the heart.)

The day after the final debate, I held up a photograph of the two presidential candidates in the newspaper. I asked my students if they knew who they were, to judge whether talking about the election in class would be remotely relevant to their realm of experience.

In both classes, at least half of my students began an instant and passionate clamor. Included in the commentary:
"¡Los vimos peleando en la tele!" (I saw them fighting in the television!)
"Donaltrum es un hombre malo." (Donald Trump is a bad man.)
"Me gusta Hillary." (I like Hillary.)

I was confirmed then that, like always, our littlest citizens are bright-eyed and taking in everything around them. So, I planned a special election day for November 7.

First, we read an informational slideshow I put together.

 

To all you parents and fellow teachers of young children, I feel you! It was not easy to explain concepts like Economics and Education and Foreign Policy - though I did simplify them into categories of Money, Education, and Mexico. In this election, it was also hard to represent one of the candidates without delving into language far too derogatory, scary, and offensive for my littles. But I did my best. 

We ended the book with a mock election. I taught the word ballot, and gave each student a picture election ballot with two boxes. I collected them - about 3/4 of students in both classes understood the concept and colored next to the candidate they chose - and we tallied them, and declared a winner. I reinforced that this is what their parents would be doing the next day.

 

(I'm sorry I had to crop out her face for privacy reasons. This pequeñita's got a true fire in her expression that any activist would take heart from!)

Then, to create some schoolwide excitement for the election - and also do some color + fine motor + sensory work - we went to the table. I asked the AM class what colors the US flag was - we used those colors to create a "¡VOTE!" collage poster for the lobby.


(It should be noted that they chanted "A Votar, A votar!" the length of the hallway when we went to hang it up."

The afternoon was tasked with the colors of the New Mexican flag:



(A student took this picture)

We felt excited. I know because of citizenship status, some of my families cannot vote; but my students left bouncy and chattering about the election.

On election day, I excitedly planned a little blurb for morning circle. Something along the lines of - "Hey, look! Any one of us can one day be president!" I did my nails.

 

Instead, the next morning, I put on black. I shellacked black over my nails. I had been crying. Many of my families, when they came in, had been crying. From different staff members - cooks to substitutes to full teachers - I heard the phrase "el próximo Hitler" throughout the day. In circletime, we read and sequenced La Viejecita Que No Le Tenía Miedo a Nada, and the parallels were awful to me. If only we could've relegated that scaremonger pumpkin head to the backyard forever!

I saw a meme recently that if Clinton had won, we'd be talking about maternity leave and raising the federal minimum wage. Instead, we're fighting about SNL and Hamilton. I found it funny, but more accurate to those in my field: Instead, we're learning about our students' immigration rights in the event of an ICE raid, and fearing how Betsy DeVos will try to gut our system.

It was then and there I swore, beyond living a daily life of anti-oppression to the best of my abilities, I needed to do something extra each day. I urge you to do the same. (Call a lawmaker, donate to PP or Standing Rock, push back against misconceptions and microagressions.) #personalispolitical.

One of my first acts, then, was updating our blackboard in our entryway mural. I asked my college friend and former Arabic teacher to translate the Arabic - the scrawling handwriting is mine.

 
Even if most families don't notice it, I reasoned, it will be a good reminder for our staff.
But they have. Several of our Middle-Eastern families, a front office staff member told me, have profusely thanked her for that message. "It means so much," they said.

Parents have written me in our daily notes expressing their fear, uncertainty, disillusionment. I have written back to the best of my abilities, and also sent home the district's packet. (Thank you, SFPS. You make me proud to work with you.)

Another moment I recorded on Facebook.
 
(I admit I did laugh at the time, but then played the good social emotional development teacher and we brainstormed better ways that she could voice her anger. I also suggested that she would one day make a very good president and she about burst into sunshine.)

I had one final activity related to the election. (Though you better bet that, given the title of this blog alone, social justice and equity inform every lesson of every day in my classroom.) My good friend teaches upper elementary in Denver; she had shared just how upset and frightened her students were. So, we read a letter about their fears and anger. And we wrote back:


(by the PM, I realized that in some respects my handwriting has not progressed passed about fourth grade and I too sincerely benefit from guiding lines.)

What have you done in your classroom recently to ensure safety and activism?

¡Hasta la victoria siempre!
La Maestra Alix

Historias del Juego: Starting a Howl

This is a short little post:

Yesterday, we were playing in Morado (yes, it's a Wednesday thing), and students were really reveling in climbing / sliding / rolling up and down the big plastic cave.


(Here's the pic again for reference)

This was the PM class, so a different set of niños than last time. One little critter who is notoriously shy - like, at the beginning of the year he once burst into tears at the prospect of handing another student a marker - can come out of his shell a little during free play. His favorite thing in August and September was ambushing me and growling like a tiger. Fun, cute, but very singleton play.

Yesterday, though, he scrambled up on top of the plastic cave, put himself on all fours, faced west (towards the camera in the above picture), threw his head in the air, and began to howl. It was a good howl, too, with the yips and growly bits all worked in nicely.
And do you know what he did?

Yep, Zootopia lovers: he started a howl.

Within three minutes, he was joined by four other students, all howling with abandon. They all adopted his posture, direction, and even emulated his style. It was great to see him not just participating, but also instigating social interaction. It was also pretty adorable. They posted on top of the cave and howled for at least five minutes - until it was time to go inside.

Types of play: Social, Fantasy, Imaginative