Задание по лингвотренингу

Merely raising standards in what we are currently doing is unlikely to lead to improvement. We need a different way of thinking and of involving students in the learning process. Noddings (1992) suggests that we do not need to cram students' heads with specific information and rules; rather, we need to help them learn how to inquire and seek connections.

Such an approach is consistent with the holistic, constructivist approach that maintains meaning is constructed by each person as new knowledge is connected to existing knowledge. Learning is no longer seen as acquiring knowledge, but as an active construction of knowledge. In this view learning is not a receptive act, but a creative one. This "change of lens," as Mary Poplin (1993) describes it, means that teachers interact with children in authentic ways as they make meaning of learning experiences. Knowledge is not viewed as static, something the experts know and students have to learn; it is created. As we learn, we change old knowledge with our new understandings.

In the constructivist approach, teachers are learners and facilitators of others' learning, not the ones who give the knowledge to students. Poplin (1993) believes that the single most important function of a teacher is to know how her students think, so she or he can create new experiences that can be related to the students' ways of thinking. She also thinks the curriculum should be connected to what students already know. It should be geared toward the students' developmental needs (what they are developmentally ready to learn). As much as possible, it should also be experientially based and it should be interesting to the students.

As Crowell (1989), Heshusius (1989), Piaget (1959), Poplin (1988, 1993), Reid (1988), and Rhodes (1991) explain, other tenets of holistic or constructivist thought are:

1. Errors are opportunities to teach, not behaviors to punish, and they are an essential element of the learning process.

2. Learning is transformational, not additive. As we learn about things, our understanding changes or transforms the way we view the thing. We do not learn by merely adding facts together.

3. All people are learners, always actively searching for and constructing new meanings.

4. The best predictor of what and how someone will learn is what they already know.

5. Learning often proceeds from whole to part to whole.

6. Learners learn best from experiences about which they are passionately interested and involved.

7. Learners learn best from people they trust.

8. Experiences connected to the learner's present knowledge and interest are learned best.

To implement this approach, we need teachers who are so comfortable with what they know and who they are that they can move beyond a self-consciousness with their teaching to an intense involvement in learning. They need to be able to encourage their students, to be willing to discuss matters about which they have no specific training, and to help students create and learn to investigate. We need to empower teachers if we want them to empower students. However, teacher empowerment does not happen in schools where the principal dictates policy and teachers' voices are not valued (Barth, 1991).

Loss of Teacher Voice

As Darling-Hammond (1993) points out, teaching is not routine. To be effective, teachers need to be able to vary techniques in relation to student needs. Teachers need to make many decisions about their students' learning styles, ability levels, stages of cognitive and psychological development, and experience with subject matter. These decisions are based upon teachers' knowledge of child development, learning theory, curriculum approaches, and assessment procedures. When administrators or school boards require teachers to follow a fixed set of prescriptions, as so often happens, their ability and motivation to adapt their instruction to their particular teaching situation is diminished. Under such circumstances, we are unlikely to have high-level teaching.

When students perceive school as relevant, interesting, challenging, rewarding, and welcoming, they rarely engage in destructive, oppositional, disruptive behavior. However, the reverse is also true. When teachers do not feel empowered to teach children rather than a curriculum, they are more likely to be confronted by more behavioral problems.

Unfortunately the literature repeatedly suggests that far too many teachers believe they lack the support and the sanction to be innovative. Too many schools exist that have conflicting explicit and implicit goals. For example, teachers are assigned classes with children who are having serious behavioral difficulties. The teachers are given the responsibility for organizing programs that will help the students improve behaviorally. Yet, when the child misbehaves, the administration may suspend the child without consulting the teacher. Even though the teacher disagrees with the administrative action, the teacher is expected to support the administration's position. This is both frustrating and discouraging to teachers. It undermines their sense of purpose and their sense of control. Additionally, it allows no comfortable means of evaluating practice and discussing how to improve.

Not only does control over teachers hamper their work with students, but it also interferes with their ability to be leaders and change agents. As Betts (1992) notes, we have attempted to treat education as a unitary system, but in reality it is highly pluralistic with many conflicting goals. By treating education as a unitary system, we have been forced to make unsatisfactory compromises both conceptually and in practice. We need teachers to be well informed, willing to take risks, and capable of creative problem solving. We also need to provide them with work environments that support their problem solving.

Management literature suggests that productive work conditions are ones in which people feel that their work is purposeful, that it has meaning beyond just earning a paycheck, that there is a collective commitment to the work, and that progress and improvement are evident (Schmoker & Wilson, 1993). Schools are needed that have a shared vision and understanding of purpose, that support risk taking and individualization, and that encourage teamwork and shared decision making.

Addressing Hard Questions Through School Keform

With so many issues that need attention, it is not surprising that we are in a period of school reform and restructuring. Spring (1989) notes that during almost every decade in the twentieth century large groups of people have complained that American public schools were failing. He suggests that when the conservatives are in power liberals criticize their laissez-faire attitudes, and when liberals are in power conservatives criticize their spending and idealism. Banathy (1991) suggests the following reasons our reform efforts have been largely unsuccessful:

1. They have been piecemeal and incremental.

2. Solution ideas have not been integrated within the system.

3. Our study of education has used a discipline-by-discipline approach.

4. Our thinking has been reductionistic and within the boundaries. We have not been thinking "outside the box" when developing solutions.

If current efforts at educational reforms are to be more than "window dressing," most agree that fundamental changes are needed that put the needs of students and their families at the heart of the reform (Kozol, 1991; Barth, 1991; Bullard & Taylor, 1993; Glasser, 1992). A debate is currently underway about how this reform is best accomplished (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1991). For example, Stainback and Stainback (1991) advocate total restructuring of our current system of providing services, while Kauffman (1993) argues for less radical change through thoughtful adjustment to our current system. Chapter 2 deals with these issues in greater depth.

Conclusions

Finding a Balance

While we develop the future, we also need to attend to the present. Our culture is changing. It is becoming more complex, diverse, and multifaceted. The power base is shifting. White, middle-class men are no longer the only ones with power. Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities are all groups that are developing a voice in our culture. This shift in the power base is also reflected in schools. Teachers and school administrators are trying to sort out how to maintain order while shifting some of the power.

Our schools need teachers who can deal with the shifting sands of our society, who understand the issues that undergird our current reform debate, who know what they believe and why, and who will actively work to promote reform in schools where it is needed (Fullan, 1993). Our schools also need teachers who know how to deal with day-to-day challenges in a manner that is compassionate, child-centered, ethical, and informed—consistent with our best knowledge.

To do this, teachers will have to balance the interests of a number of persons and determine priorities. Such decisions are difficult. Usually there are no clear-cut, "right" ones. Furthermore, there are multiple criteria for making decisions, many of which take time to evaluate. For example, referring to the case presented at the beginning of this chapter, if Mr. Bobrinski wants Clyde to learn about the importance of honesty in a relationship, it is unlikely that there will be any way of clearly determining whether his action was wise, at least not in the short term. Instead, Mr. Bobrinski must act in accord with his own personal moral standards, his understanding of his professional ethics, his school's regulations, the law, and his professional knowledge. Sometimes, perhaps often, he may have to consider to whom he is most responsible: his student or class, his family, his colleagues, the school district (his employer), or himself and his own needs and ideals. He will feel conflicted and may want help in making such decisions. Certainly he needs to develop tools that will help him meet the challenges of teaching.

In this book we have sought to present challenges. We have not glossed over the tough issues teachers face. We have selected case material that illustrates real world situations, rather than what we sometimes call best practice. We have also selected studies that were based on qualitative data obtained from teachers as well as on traditional quantitative research data, because we wanted to reflect qualitatively the types of challenges teachers face. We want our readers to debate the cases. We believe there are multiple ways of thinking about our cases. It has been our experience that teachers are best prepared to implement positive, constructive behavior management programs when they have practiced problem solving around these complex issues. Successful teachers are people who have found a way to match their actions to their personal values and beliefs. They are genuine—comfortable with themselves—and free to share themselves. They are powerful people who can share their power with others.

Underlying Assumptions of the Text

We have sought balance between solutions that work in the classroom today and system-level solutions that will take time to achieve, between concrete behavior management strategies and more abstract and nebulous relationship interventions, and between teacher as authority and limit setter and teacher as friend and facilitator. We have emphasized the importance of a shift in thinking, from behavior management or classroom management as strategies for managing children's behavior, to approaches that enable children to succeed in school. This shift in thinking is associated with several important assumptions:

1. The most effective approach to discipline is creating a school that has enriched, stimulating, activity-oriented learning environments where students are successful and feel valued. As Bullard and Taylor (1993) note, "A school where all children learn is the best school for all children. In an equitable school, where teaching for learning for all occurs, there are far less discipline problems. More students are highly motivated to study and learn, because they know they will get a fair shot at the target" (p. 10).

2. Schools must have the expectation that all children can learn, achieve, behave, and cooperate. It is not acceptable to excuse, avoid, or dismiss children because they are different, or because they have disabilities or so¬cial, psychological, or physical stressors. Not all children may meet the same standards, but they can all meet some standards.

3. There is no curriculum standard or behavioral practice that is always best. Rather than relying on a state-adopted curriculum standard, teachers need to use standards that fit their students. This does not mean that teachers ignore mandates given them by the state; rather, state standards serve as a road map. Teachers, like travellers, stop and take the time for repairs. They also take detours that enrich the trip. With success, students may progress and one day meet the state standards. With repeated failure, they are likely to spend their energies disrupting and opposing school, often getting pushed out by disciplinary or safety rules, or they may give up in despair over their failures and eventually drop out of school.

4. Schools and teachers need to give careful attention to developing and using educational approaches that accommodate individual and cultural styles and preferences. Much of the current practice in schools reflects

a dominant-culture orientation, and too frequently children get the message that their own heritage and culture is inferior. Differences need to be seen as strengths and points of enrichment, not as problems to be accommodated.

5. Teachers, administrators, and other school personnel need to start with an examination of themselves when they develop individual or classroom plans for students. When they view a child as the problem, they create the potential for failure. Rather than search for the deficits in the child, they should frame their task as capitalizing on strengths or on improvements and they should ask themselves How can I view this situation or this child more constructively and empathetically? What can I do to make the classroom more positive?

6. The most effective interventions, whether designed for individual children or for entire classes, occur within a context that supports the intervention. Children are part of the classroom system and classrooms are part of larger systems that must be considered when planning interventions.

We believe that creating positive, productive classrooms and schools requires a fundamental shift in thinking from an orientation towards what is wrong with a child or a teacher to a way of thinking about strengths the child, the teacher, and the school possess. The question is not What's wrong? Rather, it is What can we do to support or enable success? As a parent of a child with disabilities succinctly told school officials, "We spend our days looking at what our children can do. You spend your days talking about what they cannot do. The school system should listen to us." Discussion Questions and Activities

1. In the case presented at the beginning of the chapter, what do you think Mr. Bobrinski should do and why? If you were in such a situation, what would you do?

2. Schools have both a formal and an informal (or hidden) curriculum. The concept of the hidden curriculum refers to the unplanned, unintentional lessons that are taught in school. For example, when the class bully hits another child and the teacher or the school does nothing to protect the victim, a message is conveyed that it is OK to victimize others. If most of the children who get in trouble are from a minority background, children in the school may believe people from that minority background are troublemakers. When the names of all children who receive free lunch are read out loud, the message is conveyed that they are different; if the teacher's attitude is disdainful, the children also learn that receiving free lunches is bad. Children often translate such messages in personal ways ("If it is not good to receive free lunch, and I receive free lunch, then I am not good"). Think back to your own schooling and the lessons you learned from the hidden curriculum.

3. If local schools agree, visit a classroom and shadow one of the "troublemakers" all day. Look for actions, policies, or patterns that support this child's role as a troublemaker. Pay particular attention to patterns of behavior. Under what type of circumstances does this student seem to get into trouble and what happens when this student misbehaves? Where or who are the student's supports in the school? How does the school seem to feel about the child's family?

4. William Glasser (1985) states: "All living creatures, and we are no exception, only do what they believe is most satisfying to them. The main reason our schools are less effective than we would like them to be is that, where students are concerned, we have failed to appreciate this fact"

(p. 8). Do you agree or disagree? Have a debate in your class between those who support this statement and those who do not.

Self-Reflection

Much of the content in Chapter 1 has to do with setting one's personal vision for teaching. To help you with that task, answer the following questions.

1. What kind of school would you want your child to attend? Describe the curriculum, the type of teacher, the school atmosphere, behavioral expectations, and the evaluation strategies that will be used. In your ideal school, who makes the decisions about these features? 2. What kind of teacher do you want to be? Why did you decide to become a teacher? What are your best qualities as a teacher? What qualities do you most need to develop in order to be the kind of teacher you want

to be?

3. Describe the culture in which you grew up. How did your family interact (paying particular attention to the language you and your family used)? Describe your family rituals and ceremonies and your feelings about them. Describe a typical dinner at your home when you were growing up. What were your family's expectations for you and how were these expectations conveyed? What actions were praised/valued and which ones were punished in your home? Compare your own background with someone who seems quite different from you, looking for subtle differences in your experiences. Think about how these affect your outlook and perception of others.

4. Teachers touch lives permanently—sometimes in caring, helpful ways and sometimes in hurtful, destructive ways. Think about your teachers. Who was the best and why was he or she the best? Who was the worst and why? Write a letter to both (you may never mail it), telling them how you remember them and the way they treated you and what you liked or disliked about that treatment. Do the lessons you learned from these two teachers guide your own teaching?

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