Chicago School Chief Shows Little Understanding of What Constitutes Good Teaching

Last week, Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd Bennett unveiled a new Interdisciplinary Latino and Latin American Studies Curriculum (ILLSAC) for the city’s kindergarteners through 10^th graders.  According to CPS’ press release, this curriculum “focuses on the history, arts and culture, and contributions of Latinos and Latin Americans, along with the cultural diversity of the Americas, including Central and South America and the Caribbean.”  Bennett stated in the press release that these diverse populations’ “triumph over ignorance, prejudice and discrimination is the quintessential American story – and finally that story will be told in every grade and in every school across CPS.”  The curriculum consists of individual units of study and “launch lessons” aligned with Common Core standards.  The new curriculum is expected to make CPS a “pioneer.”  “This is huge,” Bennett told The Catalyst, adding, “We copyrighted it so we can sell it.”

Image from Chicago Public Schools
Available at http://cps.edu/Spotlight/Pages/Spotlight362.aspx

While the inclusion of previously underrepresented populations into school curricula is a positive development, CPS’ new ILLASC unfortunately represents what is wrong with current educational reforms.  The top-down development and dissemination of prepackaged curricula from administrators to the classroom is the worst form of teaching, demonstrating a lack of awareness of students’ academic abilities and intellectual needs.  There are several reasons why this is.

First, disseminating a prepackaged curriculum of lesson plans, instructional materials, and assessments assumes what students already know and are able to do.  Good instruction should be based first on teachers’ assessments of their students’ knowledge and abilities in order to tailor instruction for their students’ cognitive and academic needs  Students cannot be expected to get to point “C” unless their teachers know if they have been to points “A” or “B” to begin with.

Second, prepackaged curricula like the ILLSAC advance a homogenization of students’ knowledge and abilities.  Teaching an out-of-a-box curriculum with predetermined lessons, supporting materials, and assessments not only assumes all students know all of the same content and possess all of the same abilities, but also assumes that all students can and should progress along the same learning curve towards the same outcomes.  The fact is that each teacher’s classroom contains a multitude of students who possess a variety of skills and different levels of content knowledge.  This holds true for teachers across the city as well as for teachers within a particular school.

The irony with this of course that in devising a curriculum that promotes awareness of and appreciation for diversity, Bennett ignores students’ diversity of skills and knowledge.  When speaking of diversity, administrators, policy makers, and politicians tend to speak solely in terms of race and ethnicity.  What often left out are other forms of diversity, such as language abilities, cognitive abilities, gender, and socio-economic status to name a few.  Granted some students do receive additional supports in the forms of special education or bilingual education, but recent treads of shrinking financial resources supporting those with differentiated instructional or language needs does not inspire much confidence, nor does the fact that some of these other aspects are not addressed at all.

Finally, Bennett’s declared intent to sell this curriculum should raise concerns among all educators.  The lack of explanation of how the ILLASC will be sold and who will reap the profits of such sales is problematic indeed.  More so, however, is what I have outlined already.  Bennett’s implicit assumption is that students outside of Chicago will benefit from a curriculum designed for the students of Chicago.  As such, the city’s schools chief assumes that all students – regardless of location, educational backgrounds, or other aspects of their existence – are just like CPS students in what they know, what they can do, how they learn, and how they develop educationally.  This is an unfortunate assumption Bennett and her ilk have made about contemporary teaching and learning, representing the worst kind of education.

Politics and the Academy Awards

Last night’s Academy Awards ceremony contained some of the more politically charged acceptance speeches I have seen in some time.

Patricia Arquette used her Best Supporting Actress win to speak in favor of ecological preservation and against wage inequality. Musical artists Common and John Legend used their win for Best Original Song to bridge the past of the African American Civil Rights Movement to present struggles of human rights. The crew responsible for Best Documentary winner Citizenfour described how the country's democracy is lost when the government spies on citizens with impunity. Adapted screenplay winner Graham Moore spoke directly to young people struggling with societal alienation because of their sexual identity. Finally, the ceremony became a venue to discuss U.S. foreign policy and immigration – either for the better or for the worse.

These issues share a common origin - emanating from governments making decisions that affect the lives of millions of people.  That the producers or director of last night’s broadcast chose not to interrupt these speeches and have the orchestra play off the speakers as their comments drifted towards the political is terrific.  Indeed, parts of last night’s event harkened to a time when cinematic artists used the Academy Awards to promote awareness of serious issues affecting millions of people.  Marlon Brando, for example, famously boycotted the event in 1973 to raise awareness of the plight of Native Americans, while Sacheen Littlefeather explained Brando’s refusal of Best Actor statue for The Godfather.

Certainly, in the decades since, the Oscars ceremony seems to have become an over-produced affair in the hands of network executive control freaks eager to avoid any controversy.  Last night’s proceedings suggest somewhat of a changing environment, but there also seems to be an inherent hypocrisy in all of this.

Twelve years ago, Michael Moore accepted the Best Documentary award for Bowling for Columbine - an excellent film that examines American gun culture and the violence it creates.  During his acceptance speech, Moore criticized the administration of George W. Bush for leading the country into an invasion of Iraq while questioning the legitimacy of Bush’s presidency itself.  While some in the audience applauded, Moore received more jeers than cheers for his comments.  In light of more recent events in Iraq, it seems Moore was ahead of the curve with his observations at the time.

The issues of civil liberties and human dignity that this year’s Oscar  winners highlighted in their acceptance speeches are important and need addressing because they affect us all.  Those among the Hollywood elite and their supporters, however, ought to be mindful that it is much too easy in a free society to applaud someone who advocates for a social issue with an opinion you agree with.  It is braver and more honest to applaud those you do not agree with and who stand for something not because it is popular, but because it is right.

Long Time No See

The start of a new calendar year as well as a new academic term provides an opportunity to return to writing for The Mexican Intellectual.  The obvious question to emerge, however, is why I was missing in action in the first place.  There are a few inter-related reasons that I wish to share with you now.

Mental fatigue: One aim of this blog has been to comment on the issues of the day in a timely and relevant fashion.  Among some of the news dominating public attention during the last quarter of 2014: 1/ events and protests borne from racial tensions between civil authorities and the communities they are sworn to protect resulting in the loss of life and ongoing tensions, 2/ airline disasters resulting in the massive loss of life, with at least one still unresolved and another with international geopolitical implications, 3/ the spread of a deadly disease with international geopolitical implications resulting in the massive loss of life and paranoid reactions to those committed to stemming the spread of disease and loss of life, 4/Charges and counter-charges of sexual abuse involving college students, university administrators, and a legendary celebrity.  At times, it was too much for me to take in, let alone to think of anything novel to say about any of it without thinking that I was adding to the cacophony of voices rather than providing any clarity.

Insecurity: Part of this stems from my observation of mental fatigue, namely that I could not or would not have anything new to say about the state of the world or the human condition that would be worth saying without it adding to the numerous voices already speaking.  Further, I thought that no one would read what I wrote anyway.  This spring will mark three years since my colleague and I launched The Mexican Intellectual, and while I touted the number of page views on the first anniversary, I admit that I have become discouraged with the numbers since then, which has prompted me to question the point of the entire endeavor.

Fear of writing: This is borne of my insecurity.  To put it plainly, I discourage myself from writing; convinced that what I write will not be very good or that no one would read what I have written even if it has any merit to it.  My fear of writing obviously is an irrational one, and I recognize it as such.  Nevertheless, it exists.

So what am I to do?

Several years ago, I was a contributor to a short-lived alumni blog for my alma mater (which unfortunately is no longer available.)  I devoted one entry to confronting the challenges of writing a weekly blog.  At the time, I found inspiration in George Orwell’s essay, “Why I Write,” in which he outlined “four great motives for writing.”  These are,

(1) Sheer egoism.  Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death…
(2) Esthetic enthusiasm.  Perception of beauty in the external world, or … in the words and their right arrangement….
(3) Historical impulse.  Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.
(4) Political purpose… Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.

These four, Orwell states, “exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living.”

These are worthwhile motivations for writing and, to some extent, were the bases for starting The Mexican Intellectual in the first place.  While I struggle to accept the fact that not everything I write will  be brilliantly perfect or perfectly brilliant, I hope at the very least that some of the things I have written already or have yet to write provide readers the opportunity to contemplate and discuss ideas from a different perspective.

Free Speech Under Fire? - The Case of Steven Salaita

Earlier this year, The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof used his column to call upon academics to engage a wider public beyond their usual audiences.  Kristof argued that our society needed the best and the brightest among us in order to solve some of the vexing problems we currently confront, noting the misfortune that “[S]cholars have periodically submitted meaningless gibberish to scholarly journals — only to have the nonsense respectfully published. ...” while concluding, “So, professors, don’t cloister yourselves like medieval monks — we need you!”

Kristof’s views raised a number of objections from many academics who essentially countered that many scholars already are engaging a broad public through their teaching and their writing, which often appears beyond professional scholarly journals and in outlets like the op-ed pages of major national newspapers, blogs, and other alternate venues.  While Kristof’s opinion may have been valid in spirit to some extent, he and some of his critics ultimately missed a major point about the current climate on contemporary college campuses – namely how academics increasingly are being discouraged if not out rightly punished for speaking publicly on important topics of the day.

One needs to look no further than the case of Steven G. Salaita.

Image Steven G. Salaita from Inside Higher Ed

For those unfamiliar with this situation, here are the basic facts.  Dr. Salaita was offered a tenured professorship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).  Ultimately, UIUC Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise voided Dr. Salaita’s appointment when she refused to advance his nomination to the University’s Board of Trustees, which was to vote on Salaita’s joining the UIUC faculty.  Chancellor Wise cited Dr. Salaita’s public comments via Twitter about the ongoing violence in Gaza – comments some characterized as uncivil at best and as anti-Semitic at worst.  During the subsequent weeks, the UIUC Board and Chancellor received criticisms that their actions and their justifications of them on the basis of "civility" are tantamount to an attack on academic freedom, freedom of speech protections, or both.

Writing for The Chronicle of Education’s blog "Vitae", Georgia Perimeter College Associate Professor Rob Jenkins discusses the chilling effects punitive actions such as those taken by the UIUC administration can have, stating:

I’m not denying that academic freedom is taking a beating all over the country.  But what is even more endangered, it seems to me, is the right of faculty members to speak their mind outside of the classroom, off-campus, and apart from their contractual duties.  In return for a paycheck, faculty members are increasingly expected to surrender their personal beliefs on controversial topics, lest—God forbid—they say something that might “embarrass the institution.”

My point here is not to weigh whether or not Dr. Salaita’s Twitter comments constitute anti-Semitism.  Rather, I wish to express my own concern about the broad application of so-called civility and similarly vague or ambiguous dispositional characteristics as the basis for punitive actions against scholars and academics by the institutions they serve or by the administrators responsible for the integrity of those institutions.

We must consistently bear in mind that colleges and universities are institutions founded on the free exchange of ideas.  Many scholars do what they do in order produce and advance knowledge for the benefit of all of society.  As such, practitioners of the various academic disciplines should challenge conventional wisdom and speak truth to power.  Indeed, this was a motivating factor for me in becoming an historian.

In his brilliant primer, History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2000), John H. Arnold addresses this idea, writing:

[H]istory is an argument, and arguments present the opportunity for change.  When presented with some dogmatist claiming that “this is the only course of action” or “this is how things have always been,” history allows us to demure, to point out that there have always been many courses of action, many ways of being.  History provides us with the tools to dissent (page 122, original emphasis).

As Dr. Salaita’s case demonstrates, punitive institutional actions against those charged with producing and disseminating knowledge can take tremendous tolls on both the professional and the personal levels.  Yet, I believe it is the work of academics and scholars - the producing and disseminating knowledge and speaking truth to power - that can serve as a corrective to such aggressions.