Week 5: Four Teaching Traditions

I identify with three of the four teaching traditions outlined in Chapter 5 of Reflective Teaching.

Progressive: Over the past two years, I have been revamping lessons in to units that lead, I hope, to meaning making by the students. I look for trends in student interests to guide lesson planning. I introduce units with meaning making activities more, and Powerpoints less often. I use VTS to engage students in discussions at their developmental levels. I hold conversations with the kids during work time. But I am not Ms. Hussey from the Blue Balliett books, who I imagine is the quintessential progressive teacher.

Why? It seems reasonable to engage students by employing their interests, and giving validity to their personal developmental needs. At the elementary level students are trying to make meaning of the world and naturally ask why? If we teach away the questioning and curiosity, then we teach away the ability to find problems, which gives us students who are not inclined to think creatively or critically.

Conservative: I teach at the two highest poverty schools in my district. There are some background experiences that a huge chunk of my students don't have. I do sequence my lessons for basic skill acquisition, especially in the younger grades. I provide activities and snap shots of cultural experiences that some of my students may not have experienced - theme parks, the circus,  science centers, plays, travel, etc. I also believe in explicitly teaching thinking skills that correlate to different  disciplines so that kids have a tool box of strategies to pull from. I pull in art history when it lends itself to a bigger idea, but more in terms of the experience of art making throughout human history.  I do not teach a certain cannon of artists as an essential artistic inheritance in all grades. The art world has a center - the internet - and i have a hard time focusing on a set of people to use as exemplars.

Why? In part because I need the structure, and so do the students. And like it or not, education is a socialization process.

Social Justice: This is the big one that I focus on professionally. I am a big believer in getting all of my students to post-secondary education - whether college or trade school. I believe that even the youngest students need to be told they can go to college. I began a Career Day at my school five years ago. Twenty or so parents and community partners come to our school each May and talk to the students about their jobs, and how education helped them meet their goals.

Two summers ago I worked with my principal, district administrators, and a handpicked group of teachers to develop an after school enrichment program for our students. I was sitting at a conference with my principal and asked why we focused so much on bringing the low students up, but neglect to take the average to above average students higher. Within two months we had a plan for arts and STEM centered offerings, within 3 months we were told there was not enough money. I went ahead and held an after school Spanish class for students in grades 3-5, taught by two student volunteers from the high school needing volunteer hours for graduation.

This year I had received a grant to get my students to Crystal Bridges Museum, 3 hours north of Little Rock, but was told no by those higher up than my principal. It is hard not to get depressed and bummed out being told "no" when trying to go above and beyond.

Why? I came from a single parent home that experienced situational poverty when my dad left. My mom dealt with keeping the family afloat and getting my sister and I through a good school until senior year. Plans past high school graduation were not spoke of at home - my education about things beyond came from reading and from my high school teachers.