Schools are complex social institutions.Have numerous GOALS.Many pressures from society. This is the CONTEXT to explain why.

SCHOOLS

POVERTY

FAMILY

ECONOMY

RELIGIONSDOMINANT CULTURE

BELIEFSVALUES

LEGISLATION

SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS

FEDERAL &STATE LAWS

DEMOGRAPHICS

No one right answer.No simple recipe for teaching.

Why was the Library of Congress classification of Holler if you hear me a shock to the author Greg Michie?

First edition-- Socially handicapped children

Second edition-- Children with social disabilities

Michie comments that is harkens back to “cultural deprivation” theories of the 1960s

Their disadvantages arise not from within, but from a society not willing to invest in their schools and communities (xxvii).

The book has received praise for its honest reflections about the challenges and rewards of teaching in an urban school.

Michie aims:

To show the goodness and possibility that reside in all children—sees his students as resilient, courageous, and creative.

To contradict cultural deficit thinking about urban students and to document conditions (parents care, kids care-- but can be discouraged or overwhelmed).

To show the need for greater investment in education of all children—all students need best teachers and best teaching approaches, support services, and resources.

To highlight the voices of urban students.

Michie rejects the reading of his story as the urban teacher-hero. Because he:

Learned from students

Is not a hero—that is he did not sacrifice everything for his students, he made mistakes, did not work miracles.

Is not a lone hero--gained from collaboration and support from other teachers.

Michie applies ideas and teaching approaches contained in critical theory (Tozer, Chapter 13).

Cultural subordination (Michie pays attention to the impact of uneven power relations, structured inequality in their lives, and their inferior status in society, inferior schools).

Cultural difference (Michie is a culturally relevant teacher).

Resistance theory (Michie understands why students resist, acknowledges inequities, works to engage students in studies that are relevant and challenging).

How can you explain poor outcomesin many urban schools?Michie takes a critical theory view.

Holler highlights how schools, combined with political, economic, and ideological forces of society impact the lives of students--

VOCIE OF STUDENTS to express their views about:

Challenges presented by urban conditions Police don’t want to come into their neighborhoods (146) Gang activity limits their mobility (181) Consequences of concentrated poverty

Cultural difference

School policies and teachers that are hostile and antagonistic

toward students (causes resistance and apathy)

Michie is a Culturally Relevant Teacher He holds these views about culture and identity, relationships, and knowledge: (Tozer, on Ladson-Billings, 430)

Conceptions of themselves and others. Recognize that culture impacts everyone’s learning. Caution about cultural generalizations that would

erase individuality (experiences, gender, class, family, etc.)

Conceptions of social relations. TRUST, SCHOOL CLIMATE Social relations impact motivation, why we learn,

interpretations, how the community views the school.

Conceptions of knowledge. Knowledge is constructed, useful, changing, linked to

experiences.

Michie Applies Goals of Culturally Relevant Teaching

Academic achievement To promote academic success for all.

Maintaining and supporting cultural competence. Cultural Difference Theory--Different cultures are

respected, all cultures seen as having ASSETS, minority cultures are not viewed negatively.

Fostering a sense of sociopolitical critique in students. Cultural Subordination--Acknowledges injustices,

discrimination, institutional racism, the need for structural changes in school, the neighborhood and the larger community.

Aim of Education

GROWTH AND

“I have learned to think for myself.”Have all students had this experience?

Freire offers 20th centurycritique of education andschooling marginalizedstudents.

“Literacy for Liberty”

Paulo Freire began teaching peasants in Brazil who were illiterate, and had no rights and no voice in governing. Eventually, Freire became a city superintendent, and he implemented democratic reform.

“Every person, regardless of education is capable of looking critically at the world.” Freire

Human beings – have equal rights to be free, are capable, can solve problems, can learn from each other through dialogue, and are creative.

Education – to understand and transform the world.

Through schools and other social experiences in their lives, students learn what?

Any student experiencing banking methods of teaching can feel:

Like objects rather than subjects Alienated Silenced

Are disadvantaged students: Taught not to question? Taught to internalize failure?

Even though structures can promote failure.

Not educated to understand their position in the world?

Michie’s Teaching Connects with Freire’s View of Knowledge

Friere’s View of knowledge

Teachers and students learn together. INQUIRY & DIALOGUE, ACTION & REFLECTION

Non-authoritarian relationships.

Values all kinds of knowledge.

Seeks to connect knowledge with the reality of students’ lives.

Teach students how to transform their own lives (to grow in their autonomy, to find their education liberating and relevant, to help them exercise their basic rights, to pursue higher education, to work for change).

FREIRE PURPOSE #1 Education should be liberating, by

learning to engage with the world that you experience through communication and intelligent inquiry with others.

PURPOSE #2 SEEK CHANGE

Rejects a “Banking” View of Knowledge, with aset body of knowledge transmitted to students, testing, and traditional teaching methods.

What does it mean to be EDUCATED?

MEDIA STUDIES CLASSMichie advocates critical literacy “No Zombies Allowed” Chapter 6 To engage students in critique.

Inspired by the movie “Night of the Living Dead”

Michie- Teaching CRITICAL LITERACY “No Zombies Allowed” Through media literacy class kids

expressed their ideas and creativity through film, poetry, writing. Michie respects the students as social critics.

Michie includes study of issues important to their lives such as cultural difference, poverty, safety, gangs, how their neighborhood relates to Chicago politics, and their relationship with police in the neighborhood.

MEDIA STUDIES CLASSMichie advocates critical literacy “No Zombies Allowed” Chapter 6 To engage students in critique.

Analysis of messages in:

TV programs

Talk shows

How are youth portrayed in the media?

How is Mexican culture portrayed?

Michie is worried about basic skills and critical thinking.

Freire Rejects “Banking”Approaches to Teaching

Teacher teaches, students are taught Teacher knows everything, students know nothing Teacher talks students listen Teacher chooses, students comply Teacher acts, students follow passively Teacher holds authority, students are alienated The lives of the students don’t matter

Receive, memorize, repeat

For FREIRE Knowledge emerges through invention and reinvention, restless, hopeful inquiry, to engage in critical thinking and mutual humanization.