Snowball's Chance

CONNECTIONS REFLECTION In Christine Sleeter’s research review, she highlights a quote from Jan Hughes in 2007, “…students perceive racism as a tragedy of the past divorced from other historical issues.” And while the U.S. has made tangible progress in combating overt racism (with the abolition of slavery, the removal of “colored” bathrooms and drinking fountains and the like) over the years, it’s foolish to believe that racism isn’t still prevalent in our society. In the documentary Precious Knowledge , there’s an excellent clip showing Raza Studies teacher José Gonzalez explaining the bias in the system when he says “European-Americans make up 70% of the U.S. population but only 31% of the prison population. African-Americans make up 12% of the U.S. population, but 41% of the prison population.” This graphic is from their classroom textbook “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paulo Freire.   This incarceration discrepancy also reminded me of a passage from Alan Johnson’s “Priv...

  FNED 546 Weekly Blog Assignment #4 – Shifting the Paradigm from Deficit Oriented Schools to Asset Based Models: Why Leaders Need to Promote an Asset Orientation in our Schools by Shannon Renkly and Katherine Bertolini QUOTES REFLECTION Renkly and Bertolini’s article focuses on the difference between a deficit model (focusing attention on what is broken and how to fix it) and an asset (or abundance) model (focuses on what a student CAN do – their strengths, skills, talents, interests, and competencies). They believe in the asset model, stating that “…schools must focus on identifying and building up students’ assets to create positive development” and “We can make powerful changes when we break through the pervasive influence of the deficit paradigm and recognize the untapped strengths of students and teachers.” (Pg. 23)   To be truly effective, the transition to an asset-based model needs to happen not just in a classroom, but in the entire school. The benefits to the st...

  QUOTES REFLECTION In her article from The Harvard Educational Review, Jean Anyon looks at the failure of ongoing efforts to improve the status of urban education in the United States, and suggests ways to improve this issue. Anyon views the core problem of urban education as “…how job, wage, housing, tax, and transportation policies maintain minority poverty in urban neighborhoods, and thereby create environments that overwhelm the potential of educational policy to create systemic, sustained improvements in the schools” and suggests that “…policies to eliminate poverty-wage work and housing segregation (for example) should be part of the education policy panopoly as well…” Pg. 66 Anyon’s belief is that the struggle of urban education is inexorably tied to minimum wage statutes that still keep citizens under the poverty level, as well as affordable housing and transportation policies that segregate people of color out into urban areas rather than help them “bridge the gap.” Wit...

QUOTES REFLECTION Sal Khan’s The Broken Model is a searing condemnation of the “normal” education system in the United States, starting right away with criticism of the actual concept of “normal.”   “Normal is what you’re used to. It seems to be part of human nature that customs and institutions come to seem inevitable and preordained. This sense, even when it’s illusory, gives a stubborn staying power to habits and systems that have been around a while – even after it’s become clear that they’re no longer working very well.” (Page 61)   Khan uses this description of normalcy to highlight issues he has with the current (long-standing) structure of the U.S. school system, originally championed by former Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education Horace Mann. It was based on the Prussian model which some believe instilled values like promptness, attendance, obedience to authority, and scheduling time according to a bell schedule – all of which would prepare st...