"PERSUASIVE" Paper - Final

 

The best advice given to me in regards to teaching 9^th grade English in a depressed neighborhood came from a colleague who teetered between ‘burn out’ and ‘frustration’ from years of bureaucratic red tape that hindered her from seeing the students achieve the greatness she knew existed within them. Her guidance and counsel aided in my mental preparation for what lie ahead. She told me “If your students are prompt to their seats, the conversations over-heard are mutually respectful or smiles warm up even the coldest corner of the room, it is a safe bet that you are among a rare group of people that will, more then likely, make our job as an educator a bit easier. However, if you walk into the classroom and your students are standing on the desks, disrespecting one another with verbal assaults and snarls ring from the rafters, your job description as an educator just included that of ‘juvenile delinquent warden’ and you are in for a challenging year.” She went on to advise “If the later of the two presents itself, have a plan to regain control of your room by strategically combining a ‘shock and awe’ approach that will help maintain classroom focus as well as ‘out of the box’ antics that will ignite an acute interest in subjects the students may find less enthralling.”

As wise as my friend was, in that moment I was having a difficult time understanding “why” anyone would find it necessary to use a tactic that, according to encyclopedia.com was used by the military,  to “achieve rapid dominance over an adversary by the initial imposition of overwhelming force and firepower.” After all, these were just kids. Albeit most came from broken, unstable homes but they were children never the less. Still, she was a seasoned educator worth her weight in salt, so I made up my mind to do a little more research on instructors who opted to use ‘Shock and awe.” To my surprise, I found a few examples of teachers implementing a rapid dominance plan in their efforts to gain control of their classroom environment. One such illustration presented itself in “Stand and Deliver,” a movie based on a real life teacher, Mr. Escalante and the triumphs over social, physical and emotional challenges his students faced in their depressed neighborhood. On the first day of school, Escalante ‘shocks and awes’ his students by saying “There will be no free rides, no excuses. You already have two strikes against you: your name and your complexion. Because of those two strikes, there are some people in this world who will assume that you know less than you do. *Math* is the great equalizer...” I believe this direct and blunt  / shock and awe statement built an immediate report with the students because they knew he understood where they were coming from and although they were not sure in the moment, they knew, on a sub-conscious level that his ‘statement bomb’ was truth and in that truth, he earned their respect.

Another example that I happened upon was the story of LouAnne Johnson, a U.S. Marine (retired) who accepted a position as an educator in an underprivileged high school in California. On her first day teaching, she faced a class full of tough and aggressive teenagers who showed zero respect or interest in their new teacher despite her efforts to win them over in the traditional manner. Realizing she was not gaining favor among the students, LouAnne responded by returning to school the next day in street clothes rather then typical ‘business attire’ and proceeded to teach, unconventionally, karate. Her ‘Shock and Awe” approach worked, temporarily, because the students showed some interest in the activity, thus opening the door to the realization that said tactic could work on a grander scale provided she was able to hone in on the needs and wants of the students.

Upon reflection of the examples of ‘Shock and Awe,” I realized having this weapon in my mental arsenal would be a necessary tool should I ever need to grab the attention of students who were otherwise disengaged from the material I was presenting. However, it occurred to me that once I got their attention, I was going to need to keep said attention. Had it not been for my colleagues second suggestion on maintaining order, I may have wasted time fretting over my options, but she was right thus far with her ‘grab and go’ method, so perhaps there was credence in her ‘out of the box’ approach to retaining information. When I was in school, a common stance for teaching “required material” was the “Banking Method.”  The Banking Method is the process of passing on a cornucopias amount of data and trusting the student will regurgitate enough of the information to pass state standardized tests. As I do not subscribe to such application, “Out of the Box” thinking was a strategy I was very comfortable with, but would it fair well in an actual hostile classroom environment? Once again, I found myself seeking my references further experience to validate if such an approach may work and found that both Mr. Escalante and Mrs. Johnson coupled their personal ‘shock and awe’ with ‘out of the box thinking; and found great success.

Once Mr. Escalante addressed the social, economical and cultural biases with his students and shocked them into the idea of an alternative outcome to their futures, he determined the ‘out of the box’ approach best suited to his individual teaching style would be to speak a language the kids understood, slang and sarcasm. An example of his wit came when he was trying to explain negative numbers. A student, Raquel, posed the question “Can you have negative girlfriends?” To which Escalante replied “No, only negative boyfriends. Forgive us for we know not what we do.” By chiming in with, tongue in cheek sarcasm; he elicited a chuckle as well as admiration from his students. After time, the playful antics of bantering built a solid report between teacher and student, the end result, a group of student who sought to make their teacher proud. We know his approach was successful because his students went on to, not only take, but pass the AP Calculus exam and most went on to college. Something the majority of his students would have never done had he not thought, critically, out of the box.

Like Escalante, Johnson found a tool that she could use when the need for ‘out of the box’ thinking became an intricate part of maintaining focus. Desperate to reach the students, Mrs. Johnson exploited classroom exercises that taught similar principles to the prescribed work, but used themes and language that appealed to the streetwise students. By speaking to her students in the language they understood, and offering generous rewards such as candy bars and a field trip, Johnson was able to introduces the symbolism of poetry by show casing the works of Bob Dylan’s and Dylan Thomas, a subject no-one in the district would have assumed the students could ever comprehend let alone flourish in.

As a teacher in the new millennium, I have a plethora of examples from which I can pull from in an effort to engage, entertain and educate my students. In an ideal world, I will stand in the front of my classroom and captivate my audience and on their own accord, they will hear, understand and retain the breadth of information I am required to pass on. If I had my own way, I would be given free reign to creatively nourish the minds of tomorrows leaders without the bureaucracy of administrative red tape. But alas, I am a realist and I live in a society that thrives on ‘passing the buck’ with no regard to accountability to those any higher then the low man on the pole. Accordingly, my options are limited as to how far I can go in any one direction during the one hundred and ninety-six days of the academic year that I have the students. In the grand scheme of things, that is not a lot of time to hold court with an audience of adolescence, so quality of time is of the essence. Therefore, the advice given to me regarding maintaining order will not be in vein. I will implement the strategies of ‘shock and awe” to draw my students in and I will apply “out of the box thinking” to reinforce the material I am trying to pass on. Like Johnson and Escalante, my hope is that my students will find the desire to pursue higher education and perhaps, one day, find their way back to me with a report on how I made the difference between a good education and an excellent academic experience.




 

Work Cited

AMERICAN PROGRAM BUREAU. “LouAnne Johnson” APB Global Speaker

http://www.apbspeakers.com/speaker/louanne-johnson

ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Shock and Awe." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. 28 Nov. 2012 http://www.encyclopedia.com

LOUANNE JOHNSON. “My Posses Don’t Do Homework” New York: St. Martin’s, 1992

MENENDEZ, RAMON, “Stand and Deliver” Warner Home Video, 1998

PAULO FREIRE. “Pedagogy Of The Oppressed” New York: Continuum Books, 1993

http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/education/freire

ROMAGUERA, JOSE. “Dead Poets Society.” Connexions 12 June 2008 http://cnx.org/content/m16553/1.4

Children, Arts and DuBois

Creativity counts and for the child who does not find pleasure or confidence in the world of athletics, arts and humanities may very well be the trajectory forward a students needs to excel in a world that seems hell bent on harnessing brawn whilst secretly praying the brain wins out in the end.

The art programs being removed from our schools develop individual creative strengths and talents while giving them the confidence and problem-solving abilities they need to succeed in a challenging new century.

My personal observation is simple: Athletic departments in college pay big money for student athletes, but after college, said student usually does nothing in their chosen sports arena (as evident in the epidemic of obesity our nation is facing) whereas, the student who is lucky enough to be awarded an academic scholarship tends to be successful post graduation. Therefore, should it be understood that our priorities need to be rearranged? Perhaps if we start closing down athletic programs and building up humanities and arts, we may see a turn around in the tragedy that is our education system.

Boyce's Voice

So... I am not sure if the website http://www.shambhalasun.com isn't working or if I am doing something wrong, but I have not been able to watch the video assigned to us for homework. If anyone else is having an issue with the site, let me know and vice-verse... if you were able to watch the video, i would love to get an idea as to what the content is and what I can do to watch it cause like I said... I am having a bugger of a time trying to open up the video.

Handlin Our (unfinished) Bidness

I want to meet Geneva Smitherman! 

Never mind the fact that she tells it like it is (“We need to stop apologizing for the way things are and [help students] begin ..imagining the way things can be… to think…”) or the fact that she speaks a language her students understand (We just didn’t speak the same brand of English). No, never mind the fact that she saw an injustice in the system (she wasn’t allowed to teach Native Son) and decided to ‘go back to school’ to get her Ph.D. so she could become a superintendent and CHANGE the system… I want to meet this woman because she is a catalyst and advocate for THE KIDS! She  moved bureaucracy in her efforts to give the students what they need…the information to absorb and do with it as they will… and believe it or not… her plan worked because years after allowing her students a voice, they came back to her and articulated a proper THANK YOU…  When I grow up and finally find the courage to make a difference, I want to be like Geneva…

How Large's Idea may help students

From what I gathered regarding the Jerry Large article titled “Gift of grit, curiosity help kids succeed,” Large is basically writing a review of the book ““How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character” penned by author Paul Tough.

What I find amusing, if not out-right comical, is that Tough is a new father. Three years into the job and is professing to be an expert in the field of raising successful children by writing a book about character building and somehow correlates the affections (hugs and kisses) of a mother rat to that of the affections of a mother and her infant / adolescent children and how said affections will build strong character.

When my daughter was three, she was loving, tender and always happy. A place I am sure Mr. Tough is at with his own three year old. The fact that he and his wife have read ‘many books’ on the topic of child rearing is commendable, coupled with their wish for their child to be successful in their academics ranks right up there with what most parents want for their children, but a few books read and a parent of three years an expert does not one make.

When Large or Tough are grandparents, then I might listen to what they have to say about successful child-rearing. Tell then, I am not sure I would trust the man who thinks rat-kisses made up the good characteristics of a mouse.

Final: Thesis Driven Essey Comparative Paper Nov 10, 2012

One of the most controversial and emotionally driven concepts to explore in the world of education are the characteristics’ that make up ‘good’ teachers and according to much discussion within the English 101 classroom at Olympic College, most students agree that a ‘good’ teacher is an ‘effective’ educator. “Self-confidante,” “excellent communicator,” “compassionate” and “inspirational” are but a few of the characteristics discussed at length. All of which, undoubtedly have their merit, but for me, the most important aspects of a good teacher are the ability to identify a problem within the system, implement the necessary changes, and display a willingness to ‘get involved’ outside of the classroom by becoming an active advocate for the children within the class / school. Interestingly enough, I have encountered two educators in my life that I feel exude the ‘total package’ of what make a good teacher. One, Mrs. Kingsbury, I have had the privilege to ‘study under.’ While the other, Mr. Escalante, is the main character in a fact-based movie that I watched in class.

In 1978, I asked Mrs. Kingsbury what she thought she was to me and she replied, “My role is to inspire you to become the person you have yet to imagine for yourself. I will dare you to dream beyond the scope of your imagination and I won’t let you give into the temptation of giving up when the odds are not in your favor.” I can remember thinking that I had never heard anything more poetic. My next few thoughts were “what” “why” and “how.”  ‘What’ would I dare to imagine if I couldn’t read beautiful words? Yes, I was dyslexic. Ink on paper looked more like stagnate ants then identifiable words therefore ‘seeing’ with my imagination wasn’t much of an option. Then came the ‘why.’ Why did this woman care whether I could comprehend the hieroglyphics as they presented themselves? I mean, she was going to be paid whether or not I understood the lessons, right? Finally the how… How was she going to hold fast to the conviction of not letting me give up, when I was not convinced pushing through was an option? Little did I know, Mrs. Kingsbury had a passion for the under-dog and one of her pet projects was to impart her enthusiasm for learning onto her students. To do so, she figured out individual curriculums that melded the strengths around the area of weakness, thus creating a fusion of sorts that nurtured the brain until it was able to make the necessary adjustments conducive to comprehension. For her part, she developed a reading program that allowed students with dyslexia an opportunity to ‘hear’ the story aloud before ‘reading’ it so that the brain had an opportunity to process the letters in a way that aided comprehension through the disability. What this meant for me was an introduction to the world of imagination. I ‘heard’ the story she read aloud. I imagined every detail and formulated a motion picture in my mind that I could relate too. After I listened to all of her words, I was asked to read, aloud, the same text and if my words did not mirror what I already had envisioned, then I was asked to go back and re-read the material until it correlated with what I knew to be true. Just as Mrs. Kingsbury recognized and adopted a progressive method to overcoming a learning challenge, so too, did Mr. Escalante, although his challenge was more cultural bias then academic he handled the adversity in an equally, if not more so, impressive manor. There is a line in the movie where he says to his students “There will be no free rides, no excuses. You already have two strikes against you: your name and your complexion. Because of those two strikes, there are some people in this world who will assume that you know less than you do. *Math* is the great equalizer...” I believe this direct and blunt statement built an immediate report with the students because they knew he understood where they were coming from and although they were not sure in the moment, they knew that what he was offering was somehow going to be their ‘way out.’ Mr. Escalante went on to develop one of the largest and most successful Advanced Placement programs in the nation.

By taking action to implement the programs designed to assist students in progressing forward in their academics, both teachers chose to ‘get involved” and thus became advocates for ‘keeping the students in class.’ For Mrs. Kingsbury, this meant ‘off the clock home visits’ that allowed her to become part of the extended family. In doing so, she was able to address any ‘home challenges’ she may have stumbled across and by default, head off potential reasons why a child might side step or forgo their education. Her gentle, yet honest demeanor often times put the parents in a state of ease, thus allowing Mrs. Kingsbury an insight into the ‘need’ of the family to which she would frequently find ‘creative solutions’ to meet said needs. An example of her vested interest took place when a young man in one of her classes posed the possibility of dropping out of school to provide for his family. After she listened to the situation she was able to assist the family with immediate relief (food and one months rent) thus enabling the boy to refocus on his academics and not the worries of 'life.' Her problem solving skills and solution oriented approach gave credence therefore the end result was the students willingness to trust that solutions were abound.  Like Mrs. Kingsbury, Mr. Escalante also partook in the advocacy of students 'staying in school' by taking appropriate action when one of his students, Anna, faced outside pressures to ‘quit’ school due to hardship within the family business. According to an interview conducted in April 2012 by Jay Mathews, of the Los Angeles Times, the ‘real’ Anna is  a girl names Leticia Rodriguez and the dramatized version of Escalante confronting Anna's father, Mr. Rodriguez, was an actually event. As the interview detailed Leticia's recollection of her time with Mr. Escalante, Mathew's writes: “The [actual] confrontation was as dramatic as the movie [depicted]." Rodriguez continued "Women are just here to get married and have kids and that's all, her father told the teachers. She [Leticia] has to work.~ Escalante exploded with rage, threatening to turn him [Anna's father] in for violating child labor laws. The teachers left El Farolito [feeling] defeated. Only the next morning did they learn from Rodriguez, flashing a rare smile that her father had cut her work duties to two nights a week and promised to put a desk in the restaurant for her.” 

As you can see, both Mrs. Kingsbury and Mr. Escalante went ‘above and beyond the call of duty’ to encourage and inspire. They identified challenges, posed applicable solutions and followed through with their commitments to guide their students past adversities. These educators are an example of what every child deserves when they go to school each day and if we had more teachers like them, then perhaps George W. Bush’s now infamous coined phrase would hold merit… "Leave No Child Behind!" 

Footnote: Sadly in May 2010, Mr. Escalante succumbed to his battle with cancer and in August 2012, Mrs. Kingsbury passed away from natural causes, thus rendering neither available for further comments. The impact these two teachers have had on countless people is immeasurable and, unfortunately, we will never know how many more lives will be positively impacted because of their innovations, dedication and heroic efforts in becoming ‘great’ teachers.

Work Cited

Bush, George “Patriot Act” April 2005

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_w_bush

Mathews, Jay  “Lessons For A Lifetime”  LA Times

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/04/opinion/la-oe-mathews4-2010apr04 

Woo, Elaine “Obituaries” LA Times

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/31/local/la-me-jaime-escalante31-2010mar31  

“Stand and Deliver,”  Ramon Menendez    Warner Brothers, 1988, DVD

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094027/quotes

Freire and the Banking Methos

Am I the only one who got lost while reading Freire’s “The Banking Concept of Education” from Pedagogy of the Oppressed – Chapter 2?

When I first read the handout (four days ago) I thought I struggled with it because I had a horrid head-cold and sifting through the material was like trying to read hieroglyphics off the pyramids in Gaza without any working knowledge of what the pictures mean. So, imagine my surprise when I re-read the paper and still found it difficult to follow along with any real proficiency.  

From what I am able to intelligently piece together, Paulo Freire is an author, educator and advocate for liberation. He believed that children today (in the 1097's) have been force-fed information and data in the collective efforts to ‘fill the students with the contents of [his] narration – contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engenders them and could give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become hollow, alienated and alienating verbosity.” In other words, the kids are being taught nothing more then facts and data with little or no real understanding as to ‘how’ or ‘why’ they need to ‘know’ the information.

If my understanding of what I read is correct, and Paulo was privy to the new state mandates regarding the increase in standardized tests to assess the aptitude of our youth, I believe he would probably roll over in his grave, shake his fists in the air and shout his disbelief and outrage at the atrocities that are a direct result of the ‘banking method.’