In Lives On The Boundary, Mike Rose's struggles to understand not only himself and his literate journey, but the journey of others in similar situations. I believe that Rose showing his own desperate situation in high school furthers the impact of the overall narrative. Here is a guy, who by all means, was on the "wrong track" in high school and no one knew the better until one teacher took the extra time to realize Rose's potential and push him to aspire to more.
The thing is, this really happens more than I ever thought. One of my favorite professors at Millersville opened up to us one day in class and told us that people thought he'd amount to nothing. In fact, his standardized high school tests showed him to have "below normal intelligence" (sound familiar?) But Professor Miller didn't have a Jack MacFarland-- at least until he was forced to enroll to serve in the army during the Vietnam war. It was only then that someone realized his potential. He came back from the war and entered college on a provisional basis, and well, you can imagine the rest of the story. I was always thankful for Prof. Miller for sharing this story with us, for more reasons that I can express now...
My point is--how many other potential Tim Millers and Mike Roses are slipping through the cracks due to lack of educational development and terrible socioeconomic situations that arise at many school districts? Rose comments that during his Teaching Corps experience , " The curriculum I saw drained the life out of all this, reduced literacy to the dry dismembering of language--not alive, not communicative at all" (110). Because these children were deemed remedial and practically illiterate, they were force fed a curriculum not really based on learning (and thus learning how to write) but rote memorization of certain grammatical skills. And yet, this is what many people think of when they think of their English education. It is truly no wonder English had such a bad rap over the years.
Another highlight of Rose's novel for me was the chapter "The Politics of Remediation." Rose, for the most part, talks about his experience of running the UCLA Tutorial Center, but several of the points go beyond the Learning Center and speak about the university as a whole. The truth is that no matter where you go to school, being on a college prep track or not, is that many students come to college totally unprepared for what awaits them. Rose talks about meeting students in the LC that were honor students in high school that "these were the first students I'd worked with who did not have histories of failure" (173).
Despair and anxiety over school can come from any level, and I could appreciate the different tactics Rose used to navigate his students. Working in a learning center myself, I get a range of emotions from students coming in, from tears of shame at getting their first D or F, to outright anger. I feel like part of the reason they feel this way is the stigma learning centers have associated with them, much in part, as Rose points out, due to the college administration and professors themselves. Whether its trying to cut funding, or looking down upon getting help from the learning center, this is sending a message to the students that going to the learning center is a bad thing. Part of me thinks that the old regime views learning centers as an offshoot of open admissions and the "remedial" movement, and are just kind of bitter and jaded over that. These are the same people who probably refuse to accept the fact that developmental education has been around since at least Harvard. Of course, not all colleges and universities are like this, but it is still a problem that many Learning Centers are facing.
In this chapter Rose reminds us that literacy can come in all shapes and forms, and that perhaps the biggest literacy challenge new students incur at college is critical literacy. Rose defines critical literacy as: "framing an argument or taking some else's argument apart, systematically inspecting a document, an issue, or an event, synthesizing different points of view, applying an theory to disparate phenomena, and so on" (188). Reading this passage made me feel like the V8 juice commercial where someone gets popped on the head for not eating their veggies. That divine "Aha!" moment. Rose articulated to a degree, what I was trying to talk about last week when we were attempting to define literacy, and I was struggling with functional literacy vs. literacy vs. something else that I knew was out there. And this is it. Reading Rose's definition of critical literacy made so much sense to me, and yet, I can see why it is also a huge problem for entering freshman that aren't getting exposed to this during their years before college.
For now, Ill end with a quote Rose gives near the end of his book that also spoke to me: "To truly educate in America, then, to reach the full sweep of our citizenry, we need to question received perception, shift continually from the standard lens" (205)
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Lives on the Boundary
Let me first say that I have not read anyone else's blog, so if I am redundant, please forgive me. I prefer not to read what others have to say before I write so as not to jade my perceptions or opinions. And I hope that this type of blog is what Julie is looking for as this is all new to me. No summaries, only a response and discussion.
Rose struck a chord deep within me in many ways; I, too, grew up in Southern California, but my economic class was a bit higher, although with some similarities. Neither of my parents graduated from high school, but they had the privilege of not being immigrants. I, too, felt at odds with the world I emerged from, but, of course, not for the same reasons as Rose. I, too, attended catholic school after third grade because my father believed the public schools were not a safe place to be and could not offer the same quality of education as a parochial school. And, because I grew up in Southern California, I could picture so many of the things he described. Not because I had necessarily been to those exact places, but I had witnessed similar surroundings and attitudes and people.
I was surprised by Rose's presentation of education, how "the more things change, the more they stay the same" (5). I really had no idea that complaints of the inadequacies of students have been a hot topic since 1874 and at prestigious colleges such as Brown and Harvard. We often hear that American education has been on a downward spiral and that we need to get back to the basics. Weren't the basics the standard in 1874 and in 1896 and 1898 and so on? "Old-timers" tell of how things were different when they were in school; they learned so much more in that one-room schoolhouse than children of today. They knew they had better pay attention in school because they would be punished if the teacher contacted the parents about a problem or they received a bad grade. They participated in rote learning, and if it was good enough for them, then it ought to be good enough for today's children. I could go on and on, but society has been led to believe that today's education is failing our children, that we need to revert back to the "three Rs" in order to properly educate. At one time I mistakenly believed this because statistics can be so convincing. But when I learned that (as Rose points out on page 188) America is one of the few countries that educates (or attempts to) everyone, it makes sense that our average test scores would fall below those of countries that may only educate the "educable" or those who show promise or those without the baggage so that education is not "wasted." How can our test scores even compete?
Speaking of using tests to label people, Rose has proved this to be a farce. Using Millie as a prime example, we can see how tests can be so misleading and ineffectual. It's no wonder that many students see themselves as failures when their test scores "prove" they don't have what it takes. And as prepping for tests become the the means to the ends, we will lose sight of our goals in using only numbers to determine our curricula. Rose's criticism of using tests to determine what we need to teach really hit home for me as I spent a year at a local middle school as a state-funded PSSA "coach" teaching remedial reading and math. It was all about the numbers, when really it should have been about the needs of the students. For example, (and Rose touches on similar stories) one of our students could not read. His lack of reading skills had not been "diagnosed" at his previous school, and so he entered the school needing remediation. Af first, we noticed that this little guy tended to be a trouble-maker and we labeled him as such. But the root causes of his problems were more than we realized. Mom often kept him home because his younger brother was deaf, and she needed help. He could tell you about all sorts of things (as the students Rose portrayed on page 3), but he could not write about them. He listened attentively and could tell you about the book you just read to him, but he couldn't read it or write about it. And, he was a trouble-maker likely because other children made fun of the fact he couldn't read or write, and he had to find a way to lash back at them. Reading and writing became a "stupid thing to this fellow, and it became increasingly easy for him to stay home and help mom, knowing he was doing something "important." But all the standardized tests he took "proved" him to be illiterate. He will continue to take tests, and they will likely prove more of the same. He is only one of many I have interacted with who's life is truly on the boundary, and I often wonder what high school will bring for him. Will he have teachers who want to help or will they want to label him illiterate?
Rose also discusses throughout his feelings of inadequacies, the certainty of the misspelling of his last name on the certificate as Ruse.
I don't know what happened, but I lost much of what I just wrote!!! I will try to continue! I could cry!!!
I, too, have felt those horrible feelings of inadequacy. As a non-traditional student, I often asked myself why I am going back to school at such an age. I asked myself why I would want to put myself through this. I felt foolish thinking I could teach. I still feel foolish thinking I can learn everything I need to learn to teach everything I need to teach. I have had those moments when I felt like giving up, knowing I was only fooling myself. Who was I to think I could make such a difference in people's lives? That I could immerse myself in the humanities to be able to teach what was in my curriculum. Like Millie, I have been and continue to be afraid of words, feeling limited in my vocabulary and understanding (Ray, are you listening?). I, too, am afraid of failure, and have been tempted to throw in the towel and admit that I just can't do it. Like Rose, I felt unprepared to embark on this journey, and I often revert back to those old negative feelings, those feelings of inadequacy.
I keep trying to publish this danged thing and I keep losing what I write. I am now out of time, so I will have to share in class what I ended with.
Rose struck a chord deep within me in many ways; I, too, grew up in Southern California, but my economic class was a bit higher, although with some similarities. Neither of my parents graduated from high school, but they had the privilege of not being immigrants. I, too, felt at odds with the world I emerged from, but, of course, not for the same reasons as Rose. I, too, attended catholic school after third grade because my father believed the public schools were not a safe place to be and could not offer the same quality of education as a parochial school. And, because I grew up in Southern California, I could picture so many of the things he described. Not because I had necessarily been to those exact places, but I had witnessed similar surroundings and attitudes and people.
I was surprised by Rose's presentation of education, how "the more things change, the more they stay the same" (5). I really had no idea that complaints of the inadequacies of students have been a hot topic since 1874 and at prestigious colleges such as Brown and Harvard. We often hear that American education has been on a downward spiral and that we need to get back to the basics. Weren't the basics the standard in 1874 and in 1896 and 1898 and so on? "Old-timers" tell of how things were different when they were in school; they learned so much more in that one-room schoolhouse than children of today. They knew they had better pay attention in school because they would be punished if the teacher contacted the parents about a problem or they received a bad grade. They participated in rote learning, and if it was good enough for them, then it ought to be good enough for today's children. I could go on and on, but society has been led to believe that today's education is failing our children, that we need to revert back to the "three Rs" in order to properly educate. At one time I mistakenly believed this because statistics can be so convincing. But when I learned that (as Rose points out on page 188) America is one of the few countries that educates (or attempts to) everyone, it makes sense that our average test scores would fall below those of countries that may only educate the "educable" or those who show promise or those without the baggage so that education is not "wasted." How can our test scores even compete?
Speaking of using tests to label people, Rose has proved this to be a farce. Using Millie as a prime example, we can see how tests can be so misleading and ineffectual. It's no wonder that many students see themselves as failures when their test scores "prove" they don't have what it takes. And as prepping for tests become the the means to the ends, we will lose sight of our goals in using only numbers to determine our curricula. Rose's criticism of using tests to determine what we need to teach really hit home for me as I spent a year at a local middle school as a state-funded PSSA "coach" teaching remedial reading and math. It was all about the numbers, when really it should have been about the needs of the students. For example, (and Rose touches on similar stories) one of our students could not read. His lack of reading skills had not been "diagnosed" at his previous school, and so he entered the school needing remediation. Af first, we noticed that this little guy tended to be a trouble-maker and we labeled him as such. But the root causes of his problems were more than we realized. Mom often kept him home because his younger brother was deaf, and she needed help. He could tell you about all sorts of things (as the students Rose portrayed on page 3), but he could not write about them. He listened attentively and could tell you about the book you just read to him, but he couldn't read it or write about it. And, he was a trouble-maker likely because other children made fun of the fact he couldn't read or write, and he had to find a way to lash back at them. Reading and writing became a "stupid thing to this fellow, and it became increasingly easy for him to stay home and help mom, knowing he was doing something "important." But all the standardized tests he took "proved" him to be illiterate. He will continue to take tests, and they will likely prove more of the same. He is only one of many I have interacted with who's life is truly on the boundary, and I often wonder what high school will bring for him. Will he have teachers who want to help or will they want to label him illiterate?
Rose also discusses throughout his feelings of inadequacies, the certainty of the misspelling of his last name on the certificate as Ruse.
I don't know what happened, but I lost much of what I just wrote!!! I will try to continue! I could cry!!!
I, too, have felt those horrible feelings of inadequacy. As a non-traditional student, I often asked myself why I am going back to school at such an age. I asked myself why I would want to put myself through this. I felt foolish thinking I could teach. I still feel foolish thinking I can learn everything I need to learn to teach everything I need to teach. I have had those moments when I felt like giving up, knowing I was only fooling myself. Who was I to think I could make such a difference in people's lives? That I could immerse myself in the humanities to be able to teach what was in my curriculum. Like Millie, I have been and continue to be afraid of words, feeling limited in my vocabulary and understanding (Ray, are you listening?). I, too, am afraid of failure, and have been tempted to throw in the towel and admit that I just can't do it. Like Rose, I felt unprepared to embark on this journey, and I often revert back to those old negative feelings, those feelings of inadequacy.
I keep trying to publish this danged thing and I keep losing what I write. I am now out of time, so I will have to share in class what I ended with.
Thanks to Mike Rose for capturing the frustration of so many students on the fringes and the teachers who try to help them. He starts off discussing the "demands of a pluralistic democracy" (7). The school where I've been teaching for 23 years is like many schools in central PA. It's made up of mostly white kids, but over the past ten years we've seen more and more students from Philadelphia, Mexico, and Central America. It's not, however, just the kids of color who live on the borders of academia. I would say half of the "on-level" students I teach fall into the "underprepared" category that Rose explores.
Every year or two a new administration buys into what we've come to call the "flavor of the week" which is simply another program developed by a consultant...someone who has left teaching to get on the gravy train that has been created by the pervasive fear that our school will end up on the school improvement list because we haven't met our Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) on standardized tests.
Mike's story is tragic, yet hopeful. His personal history at home and in his community was filled with a pervasive sense of ennui. If he "made it" it would be despite the hopelessness of his background. Mike's few successes at school came from his own desire to learn and the caring of a few individual teachers along his way. Jack McFarland used a humanistic approach to English that tapped into Rose's curiosity. I saw over and over in this narrative the power of one teacher to light a spark in a student's imagination. Rose said that it (McFarland's class) "provided a critical perspective on society and it allowed me to act as though I were living beyond the limiting boundaries of South Vermont" (37). This is the magic moment for Rose. His perspective has grown outward. The window is open.
The big question that Rose tries to answer in much of the rest of the book is, how do we parlay that moment into a program or course of study that works for the underprepared student. The story of Harold broke my heart, but here again, it's the story of a one-on-one relationship with a teacher who cared and worked to help open him up to a new kind of communication.
I enjoyed the section where Rose developed his own curriculum and used summarizing, classification, and analysis as the basis for his course of study. I kept thinking about what drives curriculum where I teach. Grades 11 and 12 are heavy in literature with little time to slow down to take a hard look at reading and writing. There's little time to find out where the kids are or where they need to be. So often I end up in a meeting surrounded by other English teachers who don't want to give up Beowulf or John Donne because they love it. I don't know what the answer is, but a class of 30 kids with a curriculum that's full to the brim with literary challenges is not going to help those underprepared kids.
When Rose was working as a tutor, he described working with a student named Suzette. Her writing was filled with fragments, but a closer look revealed what Shaughnessy "was fond of calling the intelligence of the student's mistake" (172). She was trying to push herself to write more academically, but was having trouble with sentence structure. This was a real eye opener for me. I see this often in kids whose ability levels are all over the place, even kids in AP English Literature. I never thought about their mistakes this way.
It's easy to get angry and disgruntled. I found it ironic that the book was published in 1989 and there it is...the data machine...the use of charts, graphs, reports to try to define what's wrong and how to fix it. We are on the data train in my school district. We have new programs, new administrators, and new technology so we can look at, evaluate, and react to data. Rose says, "Numbers seduce us into thinking we know more than we do; they give the false assurance of rigor but reveal little about the complex cognitive and emotional processes behind the tally of errors and wrong answers" (200). Only a person can do that. Only a person can sit down with a student and listen and learn and try to teach that kid. It has to be a person who cares and can truly engage the student in a discussion that is genuine.
Emily's Rose Post
I find it interesting that Rose concludes his novel with an argument for the diversification of the traditional canon. Yet, to support his argument he uses himself as an example; an example of a man who gained his literacy through the Western traditional canon, which was not the enlightening factor for him, but instead the connections made by his teachers. If anything, shouldn't this argue that the text is irrelevant and the context is the key? He seemed to be arguing this point throughout his book, that the student was being taught, not the content of a course. I agree that alternative content should be considered in order to initiate students who live on the boundaries of education into the complexities of academia, but the complex nature of academia does remain, by Rose's own example of Lucia's eventual need to read Szasz in order to gain her ambition of working with the mentally ill. Perhaps the problem lies in assessment and the perception of the pedagogy needed to raise the level of nascent learners. As Rose point's out through his own experience, it is alternative educational tools connecting student's personal experience, and not drills on grammar, that produce results. However, there must be a step between this type of learning, the emergence from the label of mediocrity, and the ability to succeed in a college atmosphere. Here the gap in Rose's educational experience is obvious. He tutors elementary school children and than adults at the other end of the educational spectrum. He then moves into UCLA and tutors students, though disadvantaged, most likely the recipients of a better education and encouragement than the majority of students sharing their demographic. Between this time of identifying struggling learners, teaching them using materials relevant to their lives (which already are on the boundaries) and the appearance of literate college freshman on campus is a gap not touched upon by Rose. For it is here where the transition from familiar to the elite must be made in preparation for academia. For soon these students will meet the professors standing guard over their precious canon and Western ideas, gatekeepers to the elite realms of knowledge and resulting degrees therefrom. Also, here gapes the question posed, but unanswered, by Rose, does the traditional canon control access?
Rose is clear that in order to educate the educator must access the society of the learner. As illustrated in Rose's own journey towards literacy, it is a journey of both physical and intellectual space. Rose confronts South Vermont as socially different than the academic life he is entering with his growing education. As people gain literacy they gain access to different societies. Rose's discussion of South Vermont disturbed me in his manner of contrasting it to places of possibility toward which he was moving, away from his home. I remember my school district's diversity training for educators, mostly for its offensive nature. Rose's statements of interaction with his home, due to his growing education, reminded me of one comment made by our trainer in particular. She said that individuals living in depressed areas and hoping to advance in life through education would most likely need to leave their homes and families behind them. Regardless of what realities or prejudices such a comment might represent, Rose's own contrast of his home with places of progress struck me as odd when paired with his final lack of comment on theorists contending the nature of the classical canon as a keystone of access to the progressive places Rose sought in his own literacy and hoped for in the lives of those he taught to become literate.
I acknowledge Rose's comments on the overload of today's educators, the lateness of identifying students' true abilities, the harm caused by assessment and labeling, and the economic, political, and curricular restraints that make teaching more difficult. Yet I am still unsatisfied that the only answer suggested is the enchanting rendering of teacher of the year saga, whats moral is: teach to the student, for it truly is me and only me that can make a difference. Yeah, we knew that. I am psychologist, sociologist, confidant, cheerleader, coach, counselor, lunch money dispenser, wiper-of-ass, stander-on-feeter. I am a teacher. How glorifying and self-sacrificing it all is! And I am settling in to my life where nothing and no one is as important as my students and my job. All I hope for some day is canonization by the school board and retirement that will afford me a nursing home with a pool.
Until than, can we toss around some ideas that may support the above job description, like re-prioritizing tax expenditures allowing more schools with more teachers and smaller class sizes? How about integrating students of all abilities with sincere thought and preparation (I am not talking about a class with twenty children who can barely read, two on grade level, and three who hope the teacher doesn't mind that they read the whole play last night, even though the class just started it yesterday)? Can we stop purchasing prefabricated teaching and lesson plan systems from education corporations (whatever they are) that decrease individualized education and make learning into a supposedly measurable and prefabricated commodity. These are serious issues that need amelioration in order to free teachers to teach to their students' needs.
Rose is clear that in order to educate the educator must access the society of the learner. As illustrated in Rose's own journey towards literacy, it is a journey of both physical and intellectual space. Rose confronts South Vermont as socially different than the academic life he is entering with his growing education. As people gain literacy they gain access to different societies. Rose's discussion of South Vermont disturbed me in his manner of contrasting it to places of possibility toward which he was moving, away from his home. I remember my school district's diversity training for educators, mostly for its offensive nature. Rose's statements of interaction with his home, due to his growing education, reminded me of one comment made by our trainer in particular. She said that individuals living in depressed areas and hoping to advance in life through education would most likely need to leave their homes and families behind them. Regardless of what realities or prejudices such a comment might represent, Rose's own contrast of his home with places of progress struck me as odd when paired with his final lack of comment on theorists contending the nature of the classical canon as a keystone of access to the progressive places Rose sought in his own literacy and hoped for in the lives of those he taught to become literate.
I acknowledge Rose's comments on the overload of today's educators, the lateness of identifying students' true abilities, the harm caused by assessment and labeling, and the economic, political, and curricular restraints that make teaching more difficult. Yet I am still unsatisfied that the only answer suggested is the enchanting rendering of teacher of the year saga, whats moral is: teach to the student, for it truly is me and only me that can make a difference. Yeah, we knew that. I am psychologist, sociologist, confidant, cheerleader, coach, counselor, lunch money dispenser, wiper-of-ass, stander-on-feeter. I am a teacher. How glorifying and self-sacrificing it all is! And I am settling in to my life where nothing and no one is as important as my students and my job. All I hope for some day is canonization by the school board and retirement that will afford me a nursing home with a pool.
Until than, can we toss around some ideas that may support the above job description, like re-prioritizing tax expenditures allowing more schools with more teachers and smaller class sizes? How about integrating students of all abilities with sincere thought and preparation (I am not talking about a class with twenty children who can barely read, two on grade level, and three who hope the teacher doesn't mind that they read the whole play last night, even though the class just started it yesterday)? Can we stop purchasing prefabricated teaching and lesson plan systems from education corporations (whatever they are) that decrease individualized education and make learning into a supposedly measurable and prefabricated commodity. These are serious issues that need amelioration in order to free teachers to teach to their students' needs.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Lives on the Boundary
“I just want to be average.” Ken Harvey, Mike Rose’s religion class cohort, just wanted to be average. In a conversation about achievement, working hard, and doing the best one can do, Ken Harvey made it clear he had little ambition. He made a statement that not only stayed with author Mike Rose for years, but also made him realize as he became an adult what exactly that meant. It is a quote that so many of today’s students want to voice but most likely can not articulate. They are suffocating inside the very walls of the place that is supposed to help them understand content and concepts. A place where they are supposed to become literate. But what does literacy mean? They decide that if they relieve themselves of meeting their own or others' expectations, they will be able to once again breathe. Things have not changed. Students today are gathered inside these same walls, and when they leave, many are not literate. They are not proficient enough to be able to communicate for the purpose of surviving in what they have made “their” world.
Mike Rose’s view of literacy was shaped by his early experiences and became the mirror he looked in when he tried to decipher the process of literacy. His struggle to truly define literacy made him, like many teachers, a true believer in the educational process. Educators everywhere know that student discourse plays a large role in literacy. As educators, it is our job to know our students, to tap into that discourse, and to engage students by using what they already know in order to feed them the things they don’t know. This is evident in each student I have the privilege of working with. Each student needs something different from me and it is only by getting to know them that I am able to help each student find the pathway to literacy.
Rose believed that writing was social (page 109). “We hear stories read by others and we like to tell others about the stories we read. We learn to write from others and we write for others to read us.” I wondered as I read this how he came to realize this as a teacher. This is an idea that appears to be so simple once it is written in black and white. Kids like to write when they have an audience. When they think their peers are going to read and possibly comment on their writing, it actually makes the writing worth…writing. Why would they want to write if nobody will see it but one person? It was when I read this that I decided to have my students work on blogging projects this year. One of the main reasons was to give them an audience, to give them a purpose to write, and allow them the freedom to learn how to both read and understand constructive criticism and well as learn how to give it.
The students Mike Rose touches, from the elementary students to the veterans, are better men and women because of the teacher that would not give up on them. For those who wanted it, each of them took from Rose what they needed. He inspired hope. Many of the high points were centered around the student-teacher discussions. Rose saw the glimmer of the bulb in his students' eyes and he did not give up until it was a bright light. He did not give up until they knew they were not only capable of getting it, but until they knew were capable of more. Many of us have been through the public school system and know that it is those teachers we remember; those that inspired us and made many of us want to be just like them. Many of us began as “just average”. It takes a lot for us to make it in what was sometimes camouflaged as an easy world. A teacher who did not give up on us was exactly what we needed.
Mike Rose’s view of literacy was shaped by his early experiences and became the mirror he looked in when he tried to decipher the process of literacy. His struggle to truly define literacy made him, like many teachers, a true believer in the educational process. Educators everywhere know that student discourse plays a large role in literacy. As educators, it is our job to know our students, to tap into that discourse, and to engage students by using what they already know in order to feed them the things they don’t know. This is evident in each student I have the privilege of working with. Each student needs something different from me and it is only by getting to know them that I am able to help each student find the pathway to literacy.
Rose believed that writing was social (page 109). “We hear stories read by others and we like to tell others about the stories we read. We learn to write from others and we write for others to read us.” I wondered as I read this how he came to realize this as a teacher. This is an idea that appears to be so simple once it is written in black and white. Kids like to write when they have an audience. When they think their peers are going to read and possibly comment on their writing, it actually makes the writing worth…writing. Why would they want to write if nobody will see it but one person? It was when I read this that I decided to have my students work on blogging projects this year. One of the main reasons was to give them an audience, to give them a purpose to write, and allow them the freedom to learn how to both read and understand constructive criticism and well as learn how to give it.
The students Mike Rose touches, from the elementary students to the veterans, are better men and women because of the teacher that would not give up on them. For those who wanted it, each of them took from Rose what they needed. He inspired hope. Many of the high points were centered around the student-teacher discussions. Rose saw the glimmer of the bulb in his students' eyes and he did not give up until it was a bright light. He did not give up until they knew they were not only capable of getting it, but until they knew were capable of more. Many of us have been through the public school system and know that it is those teachers we remember; those that inspired us and made many of us want to be just like them. Many of us began as “just average”. It takes a lot for us to make it in what was sometimes camouflaged as an easy world. A teacher who did not give up on us was exactly what we needed.
Who Needs Freshman Comp, Anyway?
Ok, most of you know me, a few don't. For those unfamiliar, hopefully, you're in for what I'm hoping to be a conversation- and thought-provoking (pronounced 'good') time via these blogs. I hope we all add to each other; I hope I'm up to the task of keeping it hopping from my head to the page to your eyes to your head. Now be prepared (ask Mary or Sandy or Julie), my mind has many a perverse twist, the smallest of which follows: I like to go about things the "wrong way."
Two things struck me between the eyes from Rose, aside from how much the photo on the back of my book makes him look like some sort of Bizarro-Seinfeld:
2. Page 196--"That is, though professors may like to teach, like to talk about knowledge they've worked so hard to acquire, it is pretty unlikely that they have been encouraged to think about, say, the cognitive difficulties [of]...how to conduct inquiry...[or] the reading or writing difficulties that attend the development of philosophical reasoning." Really? Really? REEEEEEALLY? No kidding?
Try talking to a salesperson at Circuit City about how your nifty little HP computer works. You'll come away thinking you've got a good grasp on the topic. Then pop your head into that weird "stop that, Dave, you're hurting me" looking room on 3rd floor in Olmsted. The one with all the transistors, motherboards, parallel trinary processors and total perspective vortex generators. Ask one of the Initiates of the the Technocratic Hermetium the same benighted questions. I know I'd probably understand terms like "electricity," and maybe even "peripherals." Then I'd get buried by the acronyms: CPU, DOS, OSX, RAM, ROM, DSL, TRB, LSD...My point? That guy knows what he's talking about. So do his colleagues. They are IN. I am OUT.
Most college Freshman haven't even been to the metaphorical Circuit City, above. They thought that the Bon-Ton and Sheetz would be enough to get by on and no one ever told them otherwise. This scares the crap right out of me. Right out of the room, building. Right out of the county. I want to teach these people Freshman English, and I simply don't have the time to get yet another degree, this time in educatio-psychologico-help you out-ology.
1. Page 172 "I learned about budgets, was exposed, without sunscreen, to academic politics." Just like most criminal issues, that academic establishment. Just follow the money. That had to be a shocker. I've been The Man's pinkie finger for about 11 years now. I know about budgets, cutbacks, destruction of people over a few saved bucks. I can't wait.
0. There's a bad word on page 146. It's 4 lines from the bottom of the page, thrust filthily between two dashes.
Two things struck me between the eyes from Rose, aside from how much the photo on the back of my book makes him look like some sort of Bizarro-Seinfeld:
2. Page 196--"That is, though professors may like to teach, like to talk about knowledge they've worked so hard to acquire, it is pretty unlikely that they have been encouraged to think about, say, the cognitive difficulties [of]...how to conduct inquiry...[or] the reading or writing difficulties that attend the development of philosophical reasoning." Really? Really? REEEEEEALLY? No kidding?
Try talking to a salesperson at Circuit City about how your nifty little HP computer works. You'll come away thinking you've got a good grasp on the topic. Then pop your head into that weird "stop that, Dave, you're hurting me" looking room on 3rd floor in Olmsted. The one with all the transistors, motherboards, parallel trinary processors and total perspective vortex generators. Ask one of the Initiates of the the Technocratic Hermetium the same benighted questions. I know I'd probably understand terms like "electricity," and maybe even "peripherals." Then I'd get buried by the acronyms: CPU, DOS, OSX, RAM, ROM, DSL, TRB, LSD...My point? That guy knows what he's talking about. So do his colleagues. They are IN. I am OUT.
Most college Freshman haven't even been to the metaphorical Circuit City, above. They thought that the Bon-Ton and Sheetz would be enough to get by on and no one ever told them otherwise. This scares the crap right out of me. Right out of the room, building. Right out of the county. I want to teach these people Freshman English, and I simply don't have the time to get yet another degree, this time in educatio-psychologico-help you out-ology.
1. Page 172 "I learned about budgets, was exposed, without sunscreen, to academic politics." Just like most criminal issues, that academic establishment. Just follow the money. That had to be a shocker. I've been The Man's pinkie finger for about 11 years now. I know about budgets, cutbacks, destruction of people over a few saved bucks. I can't wait.
0. There's a bad word on page 146. It's 4 lines from the bottom of the page, thrust filthily between two dashes.
Sometimes it takes years....
I nodded my head in agreement often while reading Mike Rose's Lives on the Boundary. I've often wondered not whether, but how many students who didn't see the value of education in high school turned it around and saw the importance of it at some later point in their lives. For many of the students I've worked with who "live on the boundary", their teenage years are so filled with the drama of their everyday existence, that they often see school as a vehicle that gets in the way. He drove that point home countless times in this book as the sentence, "Her life did not radiate outward..." (89) clearly captures. He credits student Ken's "I just wanna be average" comment as a defense mechanism to block out the "suffocating madness...with identity implied in the vocational track" (29). How often do we misunderstand the signals kids send us?
His comments about background knowledge really struck a nerve with me as well. Many teachers assume that their students have much more of it than they really do. This is particularly true for students of poverty. I've found that their background knowledge rarely comes from solid educational or reliable sources. In fact, much of it comes from movies or hearsay. Their gullibility for believing urban legends is huge! But, when given the necessary frame of reference, students who might otherwise be considered "slow" can keep up with the best of 'em.
His take on the value of errors has merit. I've talked before (in a previous class) about the value of diagnostic teaching (although I understand that sounds "medical" and it is, in fact). But, really, it's the errors and the reasons why students make errors that can reveal the most information about students. That's why I 'strongly lobby' for one-on-one testing for students who fall way below grade level in reading. The anecdotal evidence that can be collected during this kind of testing is so valuable to me. Mistakes are important - but understanding why or how a student arrived at that mistake is the key! He credits Mina Shaughnessy with coining it "the logic of error." It's a good term. And I agree with Rose that often it's a misunderstanding of what the test is asking that causes many students to fail. This can easily be picked up in a one-on-one setting. However, he did break major testing protocol by rewording directions. But look at the results he got! Nonetheless, I couldn't agree with him more that testing and analyzing the results it bears can be dangerous in the wrong hands. So many decisions are made based on testing results that may or may not be accurate. With the crush of NCLB, I seem to be witnessing that on an ongoing basis. Yikes!
Similarly, his insight about children and defiance is something I share as well. "Now I came to understand something about the misery that sparks such combative defiance, the desperation it reveals: The children's rebellion was all the more troubling because of its ultimate loneliness" (112). Although I don't know how to fix it, I see that problem as well. Rose and I agree that, when working with students who live on the boundary, understanding where they come from and what they've been through (in fact, understanding the cycle of poverty and the way it rips through people) helps mold effective teaching.
His comments about background knowledge really struck a nerve with me as well. Many teachers assume that their students have much more of it than they really do. This is particularly true for students of poverty. I've found that their background knowledge rarely comes from solid educational or reliable sources. In fact, much of it comes from movies or hearsay. Their gullibility for believing urban legends is huge! But, when given the necessary frame of reference, students who might otherwise be considered "slow" can keep up with the best of 'em.
His take on the value of errors has merit. I've talked before (in a previous class) about the value of diagnostic teaching (although I understand that sounds "medical" and it is, in fact). But, really, it's the errors and the reasons why students make errors that can reveal the most information about students. That's why I 'strongly lobby' for one-on-one testing for students who fall way below grade level in reading. The anecdotal evidence that can be collected during this kind of testing is so valuable to me. Mistakes are important - but understanding why or how a student arrived at that mistake is the key! He credits Mina Shaughnessy with coining it "the logic of error." It's a good term. And I agree with Rose that often it's a misunderstanding of what the test is asking that causes many students to fail. This can easily be picked up in a one-on-one setting. However, he did break major testing protocol by rewording directions. But look at the results he got! Nonetheless, I couldn't agree with him more that testing and analyzing the results it bears can be dangerous in the wrong hands. So many decisions are made based on testing results that may or may not be accurate. With the crush of NCLB, I seem to be witnessing that on an ongoing basis. Yikes!
Similarly, his insight about children and defiance is something I share as well. "Now I came to understand something about the misery that sparks such combative defiance, the desperation it reveals: The children's rebellion was all the more troubling because of its ultimate loneliness" (112). Although I don't know how to fix it, I see that problem as well. Rose and I agree that, when working with students who live on the boundary, understanding where they come from and what they've been through (in fact, understanding the cycle of poverty and the way it rips through people) helps mold effective teaching.
Everyone Deserves to Enter a Conversation
Hello, everyone and welcome back to our quest for wisdom-if not wisdom, then some knowledge.
As teachers, tutors, parents, and mentors, Rose makes the case that we have responsibilities. Our responsibilities require a plan of inclusion not exclusion all people from reaching their potential, desires, and needs. He offers proof that "they know more than their tests reveal but haven't been taught how to weave that knowledge into coherent patterns" (8). He acknowledges that everyone is not easy to teach, either through background (Chin), desire (Tranquilino), or access (Lila). Others have not yet discovered how and when they want to enter a dialogue (Concepcion and Vincent). Still other students, according to Rose, live in a world outside "the canonical curriculum" (235). Finally some will never "enter the conversation". For each and every "success' and "failure", we need to accept our own limitations as professionals.
Unfortunately, from an educational perspective, our society does not seem to have patience with those students who require a different way of teaching. They are found lacking. In our heart of hearts we know everyone is not always an "A" student. "Being average" or "adequate" should not be labeled a deficiency. Through his stories, Rose tells us how progress measured by academic, financial, and average success rather than the ability to interact with a world denies the possibilities of creativity and cohesiveness within our society.
I believe the ability to inspire a love of learning and knowledge as a constant part of a personal everyday life will allow for interaction with our world and others in it. I leave this posting reflecting on Rose's metaphor where being "on the boundary" requires us as teachers to take students marginalized to "an in between zone, a kind of border territory, both, a site of possibility and vulnerability" (246). I believe in the potential of this site to transcend class, gender, race, and ethnicity and become where "our cultural commonplaces" allow an "entering [into] a conversation"!
"The humanities presume particular methods of expression
and inquiry-language, dialogue, reflection, imagination, and metaphor
. . . [and] remain dedicated to the disciplined development of verbal,
perceptual, and imaginative skills needed to understand experience."
-The Humanities in American Life Report,
Report of the Rockefeller Commission on Humanities
Rose's Lives on the Boundary offers a narrative that shows how the blending of everyday, personal needs can find expression through the development of "out of the box" academics. By naming the students and telling a story rather than just quoting statistics and experts, Rose makes us look beyond labels of "undereducated" or "illiterate". We soon learn that they, "the educationally under prepared" have communication needs to interact with their world.
As teachers, tutors, parents, and mentors, Rose makes the case that we have responsibilities. Our responsibilities require a plan of inclusion not exclusion all people from reaching their potential, desires, and needs. He offers proof that "they know more than their tests reveal but haven't been taught how to weave that knowledge into coherent patterns" (8). He acknowledges that everyone is not easy to teach, either through background (Chin), desire (Tranquilino), or access (Lila). Others have not yet discovered how and when they want to enter a dialogue (Concepcion and Vincent). Still other students, according to Rose, live in a world outside "the canonical curriculum" (235). Finally some will never "enter the conversation". For each and every "success' and "failure", we need to accept our own limitations as professionals.
Unfortunately, from an educational perspective, our society does not seem to have patience with those students who require a different way of teaching. They are found lacking. In our heart of hearts we know everyone is not always an "A" student. "Being average" or "adequate" should not be labeled a deficiency. Through his stories, Rose tells us how progress measured by academic, financial, and average success rather than the ability to interact with a world denies the possibilities of creativity and cohesiveness within our society.
I believe the ability to inspire a love of learning and knowledge as a constant part of a personal everyday life will allow for interaction with our world and others in it. I leave this posting reflecting on Rose's metaphor where being "on the boundary" requires us as teachers to take students marginalized to "an in between zone, a kind of border territory, both, a site of possibility and vulnerability" (246). I believe in the potential of this site to transcend class, gender, race, and ethnicity and become where "our cultural commonplaces" allow an "entering [into] a conversation"!
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