My favourite quote from this article: “No oppressive order could permit the oppressed to begin to question: Why?” (Freire, 1970/1998, p.67)” as stated in Gutstein’s article.
It applies not only in the classroom, but also in the school and the school board. I have previously wondered, how can one say we want the students to learn social justice, but yet not allow them to question what is happening in their class, school and school board or limit what they question?
A year ago a comment was made by a visiting professor, in my urban Ed. class, that if we as educators were not liberating our students then we were oppressing them. He stated that there were no in betweens it was one or the other. That reality seemed quite harsh and I wondered how could we allow people to realize the realities of their pedagogy without being so abrupt.
With Gutstein’s reference from Freire, an educator can easily think about their pedagogy and know whether they are allowing students to question why and then at least have a reference of to how to start to change their pedagogy towards a more liberating one.
Personally, this article will allow me to better organize that questioning that is already happening in my classroom. I am now able to see a bigger picture that will enable me to find ways to integrate that questioning into mathematics.
I was already integrating a lot of discourse in my mathematics pedagogy, but in the lower elementary grades that discourse was a lot of questioning, that I believed was not necessarily about the math at hand, as opposed to actual discussions. I had felt I was not getting anywhere with all this questioning I was allowing. Now, I can look at these questions with a different lens and better integrate them into mathematics with the confidence of knowing it’s a teaching tool towards social justice.
Integrating the questioning of course would be the plan, but quoting Gutsteins again, “Doing all these within one classroom is a considerable challenge and raises implications for the preparation of teachers as well”. The reality is there is very little time to prepare these liberating and equity minded lessons and to change the students response/reaction to this different style of learning; little time to plan, think, prepare, implement, discuss, assess, record and report (not to mention defend).
When we as progressive educators take the time to learn, where do we get the time to teach in this liberating manner that requires much more effort, time and back lash from administrators and parents (as well as other teachers) who haven’t also learned how to liberate our students?
"little time to plan, think, prepare, implement, discuss, assess, record and report (not to mention defend)" So well said!
ReplyDeleteThis is such a change from my own education and teacher education that I need to discuss and carefully consider all parts of a such a lesson.
I agree with the point that there would be considerable backlash within the system from the pedagogy of questioning Glustein suggests. With that said, I don't see why there couldn't be a little more time and collaboration with other departments/experts to use towards developing and using the pedagogy of questioning as an additional teaching technique. This would mean time for professional development, and a considerable reframing of some current attitudes prevalent with some teachers. I'm not sure that this would be possible in the current climate of the Ontario school system. Personally, I do not see how the technique would work without taking some of the already crammed curriculum out of some courses and also placing boundaries on the activity. I could only imagine the confusion by teachers and eventual failure to adapt the practice if a pedagogy of questioning was implemented without some form of structure. Not just a theoretical structure, but something that has been tried and implemented by teachers (a limited trial for some teachers within a board to work through and then eventually introduce to a larger group). This would limit the “open-ended” nature of the activity but I think it would make it a technique that more teachers would be willing to try.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that we need more professional development on this topic. The understanding that we must teach this way and the willingness to do it are the first steps. But where do we start?
ReplyDeleteDT, your reference to teacher education reminded me of this article by Garii & Rule (2009):
I've uploaded the article on google docs and made it public so anyone can access it. Just paste the link in your browser.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_YrpITfs0DhM2VlMWU4MzUtYmMzYS00ZDJmLWIzY2QtNjcyNmNiMTdlYzZl&hl=en&authkey=CIvTjtkD
In their study, Garii & Rule (2009) found that students teachers had difficulty planning lessons that fully integrate social justice with mathematics (and science) content, despite extensive training in both areas. Garii & Rule concluded that "these student teachers needed more support and guidance from college faculty with dual expertise in the academic content as well as social justice, in order to effectively integrate social justice with the mathematics and science".
I think this holds try for us in-service teachers. We need guidance and support, as M P suggested.
Also, I don't think implementing what Glutstein suggests will create 'considerable backlash from the system' because I think the system (a.k.a. school boards) are trying to bring this pedagogy of questioning into classrooms. I think the backlash might come from teachers who are not ready to implement this way to teaching nor want to relinquish control of their classrooms.
Garii, B. & Rule, A. (2009) Integrating social justice with mathematics and science: An analysis of student teacher lessons. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 490-499
I have to admit this particular article had me thinking about how I could be more effective about questioning in the math classroom. I have to agree with all who has stated that time is a factor. Gutstein acknowledges that teachers need time to develop these skills because effective questioning is a skill to develop. I believe all endeavour to think 'deeper', 'more meaningfully', but to go beyond the 'math' to the more socio aspect of teaching/learning we need time and guidance in order to develop these skills.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Devika that I do not believe a backlash would come from the board, but more so from the teachers. Again, not because teachers are not willing to learn more, become more effective, but we do have a lot of curriculum to cover, especially with respect to the credit courses, that the time to do projects such as Mortgage project seen in this chapter may difficult to provide. However, if we were given time through professional development to develop a community of teachers/learners perhaps collectively we can look at the math curriculum for Grade 9 to 12, and develop projects that will not only include a social justice component, but ensure that the mathematics that need to be covered, is in fact covered.
I felt somewhat in awe of what Gutstein was doing in his classroom, and felt that the projects I have done in my classroom were woefully inadequate. Yet to give myself a little bit of a break, the idea of social justice is not pursued, in my opinion, as actively as perhaps it should be. We do want to develop well-rounded students, but maybe there is an expectation/perception that it might be done in other classes, e.g. English, Economics, Science, more so than math?