Collaborations strengthen connections to school, each other
by Guest blogger on Apr 07 2011 Posted in Community voices
This guest blog post is from Philadelphia public school teachers Christina Puntel and Geoffrey Winikur. They're writing in response to the Inquirer's “Assault on Learning” series. This is the first in a series of posts about their experiences collaborating on curriculum.
The Inquirer's series looked at the school violence issue from multiple perspectives, but did not address the link between curriculum and student agency as learners. Our teaching practices have been transformed through the opportunity to collaborate within Philadelphia Writing Project’s Summer Institute. Further, we have been involved together in school-based projects where our agency as teachers, and the creativity and expertise of our colleagues, informed exciting, mulitdisciplinary collaboration.
In order to develop a culturally relevant curricula, we must learn from our students in order for them to learn from us. Borrowing from Freire, Ladson-Billings, and hooks, we find that by making this dynamic explicit and transparent, there is a sense of real collaboration and a genuine notion of working together around students' best interests.
Our collaborations have led us to a common belief that teachers work best when we create classrooms that value the student as a maker of knowledge. Students are genuinely excited to learn when offered a curriculum that welcomes who they are, and values their race, language, and identity. We fully understand that these goals are shared at every level of the District. We want to offer our particular experiences creating these classrooms. We hope to open the dialogue for other teachers in order to generate a healthy and productive dialogue to celebrate what is working in schools. Ideally, the SDP community as a whole can benefit from each others’ collective knowledge.
While we understand that successfully dealing with issues of school violence must center around restorative practices, mediation, quality mental health care, and other proven methods, we recognize that a culturally relevant curriculum is essential to helping students develop intellectual self respect. This is especially true for students whose educations are often compromised by the chaos and disruption caused by school violence. We are not talking about making everything "feel good" or "be easy." On the contrary. We are talking about intellectually engaging, culturally relevant curricula. This is teaching and learning that encourages students to develop strong relationships with schools and offers them the chance to demonstrate what they have learned in ways other than traditional tests and standardized assessments. This could be the kind of reform that never fails. Philadelphia has a proud legacy of such pedagogical innovation and if we build on this past, then we can envision a promising future.
In this series of blog posts, Christina and Geoffrey will highlight how our personal experiences have helped shape these beliefs. We hope our fellow teachers, students, parents, and other stakeholders will help inform the public about what makes teachers so passionate about our profession.
Christina has had a wide range of teaching experiences, from elementary to high school, in a diverse array of neighborhoods from Kensington and Port Richmond to Germantown and Chinatown. She is on maternity leave this year. Geoffrey’s teaching has been richly informed by his work in North Philadelphia and Mt Airy, in two high schools. He is a product of the Philadelphia public schools himself. Cumulatively, our teaching experiences have afforded us the great opportunity to work with students and families that reflect a broad cross section of the racial, economic, and linguistic diversity of our vibrant School District.
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Comments (6)
Submitted by MS. MATTIE DAVIS (not verified) on Thu, 04/07/2011 - 18:06.
As an eternal optimist, I must look at the bright side of an issue. If the Inquirer's most recent series is directly linked to the commencement of honest dialogue regarding the topic of violence, then the journey would be better appreciated.
My fervent wish is for all voices to be included in this important conversation. Our babies in elementary school, our adolescents in middle school and our young adults in high school are demanding for us to hear them: sometimes in very dramatic ways.
While it is definitely necessary for educators to teach and students to learn the three "R"'s, we must continue to search for more ways to co-construct curriculum.
Kudos to the two guest bloggers. I hope your positive words are welcomed by all.
Submitted by Samuel Reed (not verified) on Thu, 04/07/2011 - 21:45.
Geoff and Christina;
Thank you for your timely post. I cant wait to read your next post?
Collaborations is the key to getting buy-in from diverse stake holders in school reforms. If only the "reformers understood what collaboration is about.
I am thinking about doing a blog about the artistic collaborations and how we need to rally to save art programs in our school. I don't get why the "reformers" don't get it.
Art and music provides the "soul" for schooling experiences. Cutting art and music will only results in lower student engagement.
Art Saves Lives. I am curios what agency we could provide the community to rally save the arts.
Submitted by Joshua Block (not verified) on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 11:36.
Thanks for this post. We need to keep putting these types of ideas out into the larger discussions about education that are happening in our society.
It is disheartening that this important series of articles leaves us with little more than an idea that schools need more police and NTA's and more effective policies and follow-up for those who violently misbehave.
While the issues raised in the series most definitely exist and are pressing, discussions of "reform" must be discussions of how education should be defined, what it means to educate citizens and thinkers in a democracy, and what makes education relevant and meaningful.
Instead, so many of the larger reform conversations seem to end up being conversations about how to "program" set pieces of knowledge into subjects who are being taught to passively accept what they are told.
I would love to see a major newspaper do an investigative series on the the larger issues of different definitions and visions of education within our society. It wouldn't have the same amount of drama but it is a public conversation that is long overdue.
Submitted by Susan L. Chast (not verified) on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 14:40.
Bless you, Geoff and Christina, for deflecting the conversation from "what went wrong" to "what goes right" and "What next." Consider: If history books were about the history of peace rather than about the history of war, than there would be so much more to say--and so much more creativity. That is what happens when we learn from and with our students. I have been told--by teachers, administrators, and by some students--that this way of teaching means giving up responsibility and that it is easy and that "you should just do your job." On the contrary, collaborating is hard, time consuming, and essential. Thank God, then, that it is also full of Joy and Passion and Reward. As problem solvers, students invent solutions that can change the world--and certainly change themselves. As a side product, the intellectual challenges also help students pass tests.
Submitted by Jim Salvucci (not verified) on Sat, 04/09/2011 - 14:44.
The comments of Christina and Geoffrey offer students and educators a glimmer of hope.
As a university administrator and faculty member, I have long been frustrated (and, at times, deeply disturbed) by the poor preparation our freshman have coming in our doors. I do not blame the teachers, and I certainly do not blame the students. Still, something is obviously wrong with the educational system, and those problems have long extended themselves into the college years as professors lower standards to compensate for inadequate preparation. Consequently, as recent publications have documented, there is little significant learning taking place in college.
More and more incoming college students have been placing into developmental courses, and--lest anyone be mistaken--developmental courses (the current euphemism for "remediation") are the postsecondary way of delivering secondary-level skills that, for some reason, are lacking. The increasing numbers of developmental placements are devastating.
That is the complaint, or part of the complaint, and I do not put all the burden on high schools. Postsecondary and secondary educators are not in the habit of discussing their concerns and expectations so that, frankly, we do not know what you are doing, and you do not know what we expect. The situation is reaching the breaking point, and our students are at the nexus of crisis.
Christina and Geoffrey's blog post suggests a way forward at the high school level: "We are talking about intellectually engaging, culturally relevant curricula. This is teaching and learning that encourages students to develop strong relationships with schools and offers them the chance to demonstrate what they have learned in ways other than traditional tests and standardized assessments." This statement, which will need considerable fleshing out, caught my attention because it is exactly right and it is exactly in sync with what universities should be--and sometimes are--attempting: integrative, inquiry-based, student-focused learning that deemphasizes "traditional" content in favor of student learning. Notice, I say nothing of standardized tests, which have already proven useless--or worse--when it comes to college preparation. (Pretending that these tests can "fix" education is like pretending a biopsy is a cure for cancer.)
Their blog post offers an opportunity for long-overdue conversation and collaboration between high school and college educators, which needs to be both broad and deep. I realize, of course, that not every high school graduate is destined for college, but currently, college-bound students, particularly the most vulnerable, are either struggling to get in or are struggling with the basics once they get there. Many of these developmental students have stellar high school records, by the way.
Without more curricular conversation and collaboration between high school and college educators, we will only continue to increase the number of students we set up for failure. The positive direction Christina and Geoffrey have indicated is insightful and encouraging. I look forward to reading more.
Jim Salvucci
Dean, The School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Stevenson University
Submitted by Che Che Bradbury (not verified) on Sat, 04/09/2011 - 20:39.
Thank you so much for offering such a positive idea to the reform discussion. I look forward to your future blogs.
The times, they are a-changin' . . .
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