(Note: superscripts refer to reference list, not included
here.)
The chaos of
last Wednesday’s Multicultural Ed class couldn’t have come at a better time for
the Teaching and Learning curriculum.
Our discussion began with the implications of the children’s book Nappy
Hair[1]
and quickly moved to the bigger issue of white teachers and black
children. Soon caution and decorum were
thrown to the wind and people began to speak passionately, their words running
over and on top of each others, interrupting and accusing. This crazy moment happened the very week we
were focusing on classroom management and culture in our Dilemmas class. The next day in Dilemmas we had an even, measured discussion
about the day before and the implications for our classrooms. The tone of that discussion was calm, rational
and critical of the day before. A
classroom measured and controlled is better right? You can’t let your classroom get out of hand
and still be a good teacher, can you?
There is a huge amount of terrain
between Wednesday’s chaos and the IRE[2]
driven classroom, and most of the readings this week were about how to
negotiate that narrow yet expansive area.
At their core, all these writings are essentially constructivist; they
hold to the tenants that students are responsible for their own learning and
must be given as active a role as possible in order to nurture the feeling of
responsibility that will motivate the student to undertake “risky and ambiguous
cognitive tasks.”[3] Along with this transfer of responsibility
comes a transfer of control from the teacher to the student. This comes about as a result of the greatly
increased amount of talking students do as a part of the suggestions these
writings make. Although the teacher is
ultimately in charge and can direct the path of a conversation, it is important
to recognize that the horse is being given the reins.
Cazden has a number of excellent ideas to
offer after her harrowing description of IRE.
The decisions about who gets to speak when (Speaking rights), the
teachers’ style of speech, and what questions are asked[4]
are all ways for the teacher to transfer control and agency to the
students. The most powerful tool and the
one that Cazden was pushing towards was cross-discussion. Cross-discussion, a type of discussion where
the teacher is short-circuited and the students engage their ideas one on one,
is the norm in our graduate classes, but relatively rare at the high school
level. Allowing this type of discussion
is a teacher’s dream and his nightmare.
It is very exciting to have your students engaged in this kind of
discussion and very frightening to let the direction of it pass out of your
hands. In the Blumenfeld article there are several examples of classroom
conversations, and even the ‘good’ ones show the teacher largely in control. Their questions read like examples from the
Wolf article, they are “authentic” and “decent,”[5]
but there are few hints that the students have much control over the direction
of discussion. Even though the teachers
in the case study are using IRE, the questions that they choose to ask are
deeper and more challenging than is typical.
As a result, they can access student agency and responsibility through
ideas rather than through the form of the discussion. The last textual example that I would like to
consider is Lisa Delpit’s theory about explicitly teaching the “culture of
power.” Lisa Delpit maintains that
students functioning in the culture of power and outside their own culture must
be explicitly taught the rules that govern behavior in the culture of
power. This powerful argument can be
generalized to all students functioning outside their familiar culture, which
in the case of classroom culture is a lot of students. It is difficult for anyone to pick up the
subtleties and implications of a culture that they are unfamiliar with. Also, the chance of making mistakes and
gaffes is greatly increased. It is very
helpful to be clued in directly as to what the expected behaviors are in a
particular setting and in the case of this discussion, it is the classroom. When attempting to teach students to discuss
or engage in significant cognitive tasks, it is helpful to directly instruct
them in what the expected and acceptable behaviors are. Although these ‘norms’ will seem hollow at
first, as the students begin to engage with material and each other through the
courtesies of the ‘norms,’ the ‘norms’ will gradually become invested with
meaning. Our class on Thursday is a
great example of negotiating the middle ground.
By requiring that everyone speak and by placing a peculiar formalism on
the manner of discussion, the tone and nature of the discussion was radically
different from that of the day before.
It was calm, students discussed their ideas and while they were in
partial control of the content of the discussion, Sue was in control of the
manner of discussion.
There is an oddness in comparing our classes to high
school classes. What is acceptable for
graduate students is not necessarily acceptable for high school students. Using examples from our classes to create
understanding about high school classes is risky, yet in class on Thursday,
however, we did this very thing. We used
our experience from the day before to explore what acceptable classroom
behavior and norms are without explicitly examining the differences between
graduate programs and high school classes.
A much more reactionary conclusion about Wednesday came out of
Thursday’s discussion because we were unconsciously applying high school norms
to ourselves.
Wednesday’s class needed to happen. It is impossible to discuss issues that are
that emotionally charged and expect people not to get fired up. In fact, to think that people will remain
rational and calm and engage in “coffeetalk” is both unrealistic and
irresponsible. These issues need emotion
and vigor and argument. To treat them
with anything less is to sell them and ourselves short. Thursday, too, was a very productive class. After the heat the day before, we needed
coolness and we needed an opportunity for people who hadn’t spoken to
speak. The calmness and pace of the
talking was such that usually silent people felt more comfortable and able to
put their thoughts and words together.
Letting a
class get as out of teacher control as we were on Wednesday is a good idea for
a high school class. In “Lost in Words,”
the class is out of teacher control with regard to content, but not in regard
to discussion format. This loss of
control and the subsequent discussion makes an interesting point that ties our
classes together with high school classes.
Sometimes, it is important for things to run to places the teacher
doesn’t expect or want. A conversation like that in “Lost” or like Wednesday’s
exposes crucial issues, regardless of problems of content or form. The point is not to stop or discourage these
conversations, but to use them as a springboard for more learning. Coming back to class and having a discussion
like Thursday’s where all voices are given a chance to speak is an awesome thing
to do after a blow up. “Lost” wasn’t
about how to stop that kind of discussion, it was about how to address it
later, about what should be said and what considered.