Problem-posing

One of the "questioning the texts" items asked us what the difference between Wallerstein's (and Freire's) problem-posing curriculum and our 1-2-3 project.

The problem-posing curriculum does not assume neutrality. The interaction between the educator and the student does not occur in a vacuum, but we co-participate in the learning process. The purpose of the educational process is to engage in a dialogue that will promote critical thinking and lead to the participant's awareness of the possibility of change. The tools of problem-posing are listening, dialogue, and action. The "curriculum" will evolve from these processes.  

Considering this, I think some of the difference relates to positionality - where I am - what role I play, or would play, in either situation. However, it is not as straightforward as it might seem at first. For the project, I feel I must assume neutrality. I need to put myself in the place of an observer - which is related to listening, and certainly, I plan to engage in a dialogue that will help me understand how the literacy event I have chosen to study is understood in the workplace (it gets a little messy here because we are talking about my co-workers - my workplace). I can feel the tension, because I have an opinion about the phenomena I want to study and the 1-2-3 project is not about me. The project will be about revealing the tensions surrounding the literacy event and looking at those through the lenses of critical theory, trying to identify what causes resistance to the literacy event, and how meaning is construed from artifacts that codify the event. My goal will be to look at the event from the edges and not place myself into the process.  The project will stop short of the final problem-posing step of "action."

In the project, I will be a researcher rather than an educator. While there is some overlap in research tools such as observing and interviewing with listening and discourse analysis/dialogue, the difference will be that for the 1-2-3 project I want to explore and discover (reveal) literacy practices in a given workplace. My neutral stance will help me to question critically what I am seeing and hearing. In the problem-posing model, I am an educator involved in "arousing consciousness and critical awareness among the students about the need for and possibility of change." I am learning with the students and our respective values and experiences interact in a social exchange that creates learning. I think, too, that in the 1-2-3 project to a certain degree, I will "name" the world. Whereas in problem-posing, the students name their world. Although I have tried to lay out these things logically, I am very aware of the tension between the two roles and realize keeping them separate will be difficult. 

The Power of the Pen and Those That Read It

Last semester I began graduate studies eager to uncover how much I still had yet to discover and learn.   I knew there was so much more to what drove a person to want to learn and how they took in the information that they sought.  I am still, and may forever be, uncovering the layers of the onion known as education.  My most recent "ah has" have absolutely come from the readings and discussions found on Tuesday nights in Adult 650.  Collectively I am discovering a layer that is so much more complex and powerful than I could even begin to imagine.  As the newly discovered (for me) and now revered Paulo Freire mentions in the video posted last week, "Literacy is a fundamental chapter of education as a whole." A "chapter" or layer I believe that is truly underestimated in its power. The words on a page can be used as a vehicle to get a message, skill, or ideology across.  But literacy can also go much further than just the text in one's hands.  What is the individual(s) true understanding of what they read?  Was it the message intended?  Or was it something else entirely?  What experiences and prior learnings do they attribute to what they have read and how they understand it, or even feel about it?  What then do they do with that comprehension? Perhaps these considerations and more were the reasons behind so many efforts historically to oppress individuals and their opportunities for literacy.   As Arnove and Graff cite in their article, "One basic reason for doubting the resolve of political and educational leaders in many countries is that widespread possession of literacy by a populace may lead to unpredictable, contradictory, and conflictive consequence."  Literacy can after all standardize language, expose cultures and perspectives, spread the religious word, and even promote continuous economic growth of a nation.  Literacy efforts can be paused by the limitations of support as resources are instead attributed to war; or literacy can be the key to what begins a war among us.  So while many may not yet truly understand the power that literacy can wield, perhaps sharing another quote from our readings this week may assist in putting it in perspective "literacy…(is) not just the process of learning the skills of reading, writing and arithmetic, but a contribution to the liberation of man and to his full development.  Thus conceived, literacy creates the conditions for the acquisition of a critical consciousness of the contradictions of society in which man lives and of its aims; it also stimulates initiative and his participation in the creation of projects capable of acting upon the world, of transforming it, and of defining the aims of an authentic human development." (Arnove and Graff, 598)  Literacy can truly be power and empowerment.

Practicing and studying problem posing curriculum

Today, two new ESOL students joined my class.  We are a small group (5) of intermediate/advanced level speakers that meet on Saturday afternoons in a computer lab.  I never know in what direction our class discussions will go.  We have the Internet at our fingertips, the possibilities are endless.   Everyone agreed to read and discuss stories about famous Americans.  In the absence of special requests, I chose Rosa Parks in honor of  Black History Month.  Just as I had hoped, discussion about Rosa Parks generated the word discrimination.  We talked about this word at length, and then I heard the word immigration.  We decided to watch YouTube of President Obama's call for immigration reform.  However, we stayed on the surface. We didn't get personal.

This group is working through the process of getting acquainted.  We need a foundation before we can begin digging deeper.  Asking too many questions would have been rude.  It's too soon to reveal personal stories.  We will take it one step at a time, bringing in "important things" (realia, codes, artifacts).  Week by week, we will dig deeper.  We will read and write our stories.  We will position ourselves on the edge of taking action.  I have no idea what we will do or where we will end up.  One time, students created skits and performed them for other classes.  Another time, students spoke about perseverance, sharing successes and failures with fellow learners.  I am the facilitator at this stage.  I make the arrangements so that "action" can take place.  This is what I was doing before I had a name and label for it.  I didn't know what to call it, I didn't know what the heck I was doing  Then I took my own action.  I began to study.  Now I see that one label for what I do is problem posing/critical pedagogy.    

It was because I felt so strongly about this methodology that I knew I needed to study and learn more.  Taking literacy to the streets (my bold way of describing it) doesn't exactly translate well to a grant proposal.  I need to describe pedagogy and show how what I do brings positive outcomes for my program.  That's how I ended up in Oliver Hall. 

To me, an important difference between study and practice is our positioning.  I am a subject in the practice on Saturday afternoons.  I am physically part of the process.  If we consider our sociocultural model, I am positioned somewhere in the muck around the inner culture of learners, trying to connect with them, trying to show  how action will put them on a path out, or to a bigger circle?   OK, getting a little too metaphorical and hokey.   I will be describing this in detail in my study.

When I sit at my computer to blog and write a papers, I am in a different position. I am not "in" the model, or in sync with any practice.  I am a detached researcher (ha ha), an object on the outside looking in.  Even though my ADLT 650 1-2-3 project includes my practice, my work environment, my colleagues, I am standing back and looking through a lens.  I am not in sync or practicing, I am studying now.  To me, there is a big distinction between the two, though I probably need to do a better job of describing it.   But then again, that's why I'm studying.  I'm somewhere in my own inner circle looking for a path.

Thanks for reading my post!  Susan

       

What Muppets Do

“(Kids) don’t remember what you try to teach them.  They remember what you are.”  Jim Henson, It’s Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider

So who are we?  Are we teachers or counselors?  This question jumped off our list to me immediately.  This question was me and my job in special education.  I was hired as a teacher and I am paid to teach.  So what do I do?  I teach, I counsel and I counsel some more, some days I even counsel more.  The teaching becomes secondary in my field as I try to help students find their feet in the world.  I walk into the classroom of my first period each day, where a young man with Autism sits near the door, and the first skill of the day is just saying “Good Morning.”  When he started to reply, saying “Good Morning” back, I kept it that simple for a week before I added, “How are you today?”  We’re working our way toward more.  If I was only interested in teaching I would just head to my desk and dig out the lesson plan for the day, but my lesson already started and it wasn’t on paper either.

Looking at our generative list I went to Freire for the Classroom and looked at page 40 as noted.  Having read the chapter a week before I had highlighted two things on the page, one of which was the sentence about the nurturing process, the second thing I’d highlighted was “the teacher can step back from the discussions as student project their experiences”.  We need to nurture and sometimes that means stepping back and listening.  We can learn as much from our students as they can learn from us and always what we learn from them should be used in our plans to make us better teachers.  If we can offer a transfer of power in the classroom we can offer life lessons that are much influential than the basic skills.  In the “Open Letter to Bahamian Men” the students were given the power to transform their lives because someone did more than teach, they counseled and they listened.  Presenting information in class isn’t teaching, but presenting opportunities for learning allows students to internalize and lower their own defenses.  As the students take more responsibility in their learning, they grew to trust in themselves.  Do we just want the student to be neutral sponges that just absorb what we spout?  No!  We should work to reveal a student’s “hidden voice” according to Wallerstein so that we can uncover the blocks to learning.  If we can discover the blocks, break them down, or climb over them, we’ve done much more than teach.

When Kermit sings “It’s not easy being green” he is accepting himself and saying it wasn’t easy but here I am.  Jim Henson was both a teacher and a counselor to multiple generations, disguised in red fur or green felt.  He once said, “I cannot say why I am good at what I do, but I can say I work very hard at it...Perhaps one thing that has helped me in achieving my goals is that I sincerely believe in what I do, and get great pleasure from it. I feel very fortunate because I can do what I love to do". 

Although I personally don’t go home every day and think, “Wow I loved my job today” because some days it wears me out; I can go home each day and say “It’s not an easy job, but I lived my beliefs and values today because I did more than teach.”

Respond to Susan Watson's Respond

This was supposed to be my respond to Susan's wonderful comments and questions about my last post. However, it appears to be much longer than I expected, and much more ideas are integrated here. So I decide to post in case any of you may also be interested  :)

Thank you for your questions, Susan. They are amazingly inspiring and lead me to deeper thinking.

Situation in China has begin to transform now, despite how subtle it is, and the internet plays a crucial role in it. Unlike the decades ago, the individuals who are willing to change unionize online via weibo (Chinese twitter) now. They support and defend each other's voice by paying attention and reposting. When an individual's voice is echoed by millions of people online, it became much harder for the government to tranquilize it.

One recent example is the sex video of corrupted officers. An ordinary journalist posted one piece of sex video of an Chongqing (a big city) officer online, which drew attention from millions of people. The Journalist claimed that he had clips of many other important officers, which nerved Chongqing government so much that 10 high-level officers had been dismissed because of "their corrupted personal life" . However, the journalists said none of the dismissed was in his video. The police in Chongqing was irritated, and wanted to arrest the journalist secretly. The journalist updated on weibo every hour to confirm that he was still free and alive. He said if he stopped posting, it meant he was in danger. Due to the intensive attention online, he is still free and have access to his lawyer now.

Chinese netizens shoulder a historically significant responsibility to save the country and change the country by expressing themselves online despite how hard it is. Compared with the printed media and official media, the internet is fresh and flexible. Although many words are sensored, there are strategies to deal with the situation. For example, people may write something in words as capture the screen as pictures. The picture may not be immediately detected and blocked online, so that they could be available online. Also, people use words of similar pronunciations or metaphors to replace the censored words. (It could be a very interesting to research about the online literacy undre strick censorship.) Although there are always risks for the posters to be detected, tranquilized and even secretly arrested, the people are not giving up to fight again the unfairness.

I feel grateful that I have the access to different voices, although I am not one hundred sure if they are always right. However, what matters is that my deep rooted concepts are challenged and shackled. I do not necessarily embrace all the American notions, but I embrace the new possibilities, in other word, open my mind to new ways of thinking. Marxism believes that everything created by human beings is rooted in what they have been exposed to. Sometimes people cannot figure things out because they are so locked within their own way of thinking and ignorant of other's ideas. One of the contribution I could make is to suggest other ways to look at the problems. I do not have to write a book of articulate my opinion, but just ask questions. I have tried this with one of my friend. When I kept asked questions about one social issue, and follow-up questions about the assumptions embedded in his answers, what we got from the conversation was amazing. If I, as well as those who want to make a difference, keep asking questions and challenging peoples assumptions, we will discover the power in the mass.

I am also thinking about the culture shock I may encounter if I go back to work. I know for sure it won't be easy. If I choose to be a teacher, I doubt to what degree I could practice the learner-centered philosophy.  If I am a teacher, which is the authority in the teacher-student relationship, I will have to challenge my colleague and superiors to let go their domination in classroom and empower the students.   It might be great to both students and teachers in the long term, but I am not sure if we are ready for this yet.

There are so many questions need to be answered. Despite how sophisticated, object and insightful I wish I could be, the answers I provide here is just based on my personal experience and the reflection I could have at my current cognitive level. I hope you enjoyed reading it and I will appreciate your comments and questions :)

Scaffolding

I've been doing a little bit of reading on the zone of proximal development and came across the term "scaffolding". The example of the word (credited to Wood, et al.) used a tennis player trying to learn to use her forearm to hit. Not applicable to what I do, but something that gave me pause. It's really an appropriate word, because the person using the scaffold has some skills, but needs a temporary support in order to accomplish a task.

In my classes I am the 'more knowledgeable other', but I'm not the only one. Each student acts as a support to the person next to them. I purposely seat students next to each other (I have the ability to set my labs up with workstations as I think best) so they can look at each other's screens if they're stuck. It's gratifying to me (although I'm not sure why) when I see a student reach over to another student's screen and tap on something to show the user where a particular command or button is.

I've always thought of myself as a trainer, not a teacher. But all of the readings have me thinking that I am much more of a teacher than I have been giving myself credit for. I'm not pinning any laurels, but I'm doing more than simply teaching someone to do their job. I'm giving them the tools to go further with their skills. My role as a more knowledgeable other feels good.