Reading through the assigned readings this week really shows the contrast between methods or curriculum from the late 1800s to today. Obviously, many of the things I read in Painter’s content was appalling but I cannot honestly say that I was truly surprised. I would argue that many biases towards students from minorities are still very prevalent in schools today. It makes me feel as though not as much progress as we take claim for has actually happened.
“What does it mean to be a “good” student according to the commonsense?”
I think this is fairly straight forward, as many people of my generation would agree. There was in fact an idea student, certain qualities were always present in the preferred students. Qualities such as; listening, being attentive, participating, sitting down, keeping quiet, not questioning the teacher’s methods, not questioning school rules, what the teacher teaches is right. If you displayed these qualities or at least a majority of them, you were likely to pass with flying colours.
” Which students are privileged by this definition of the good student?”.
Well, the students who don’t challenge the commonsense stand to gain the most. It almost seems as if, if you’re willing to just coast along in school and not cause any commotion you’re likely to do well. I can’t say that I put in a lot of effort at school but I was also very good at reaching a bare minimum of acceptance. Since my school was very product based during my attendance, I got good a picking up the essential of each class, committing it to memory and regurgitating it on a test. It would be unlikely that I pass the same test today. I find that this is still a problem in society today, even in university. You would think that a institution of higher learning such as a university, would take into account the knowledge advancements in educational theory. Considering education is their business, it may be of interest to them to make it a good one. There are still classes to this day that I will show up to the exam, circle the word on the page that looks the most familiar to me and move on to the next question. It’s not to say that what we learn in elementary school and university isn’t important, but if we’ve found transmit learning to students, it should be put into action at all levels of education.
” What is made impossible to see/understand/believe because of these commonsense ideas?”.
I would say that what’s impossible to see is the true potential of each student, Kumashiro says it himself in the assigned reading. A student of his did not take to learning the way that he thought was the most effective. The way that he perceived all students to need to be. That doesn’t mean that the student was incapable of learning, each student takes to learning their in their own way. Further, teacher’s will often never really know what the student’s background is like. Home life may not be the best, or maybe they have traumas in their past they are trying to work out. School needs to be a safe space for students, where they can truly be themselves, free from judgement that they may have in their social lives. That’s why I’m a big subscriber to Don Hellison’s Idea of Teaching for Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR). The essential concept from this teaching method is that relationships need to be built between students and their teachers as well as their peers. If we can build an understanding and respect for our own and other’s religions, cultures, race, gender, sexual orientations we can begin to develop a more critical understanding of how the world around us works and how we can make it better.
It’s up to teachers to nurture learning using several different means, this could be experiential learning, lecturing, writing, expression through art or writing. Not every project needs to approached the same way, if students are given the means to choose how they want to express what they’ve learned, they’ll want to be more involved in their development. TPSR also accounts for this dilemma by bringing forward experiential learning. If a relationship built on trust between the teacher and student is present then we as teachers, should have the believe in our students ability to make responsible decisions about what they need and want to learn and be able to display that in a coherent manner. Anyways I feel I’ve rambled on long enough, see you all in seminar!
Painter’s stereotyping of education from different cultures is really bad even though it was a 19th century book. However it is not just a phenomenon of that time. We often see such stereotyping even in today’s society. The definition of a good student also is from a teacher’s perspective not what may be good for the student.