Academic Freedom and the Politics of Education

I have really slipped as of lately on my content area reading, so in the coming days there will be more posts about what I'm reading and what I'm learning.

Social Studies for Secondary Schools: Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach by Alan J. Singer: Chapter 4 (What are Our Goals?) and Chapter 5 (Is Social Studies Teaching "Political"?)

Both of these chapters were great and I was able to fly through them because I was able to connect to them so well with where I'm at in my learning and understanding. This is true in particular for chapter four. Essentially, the chapter addresses the question of what goals we have for ourselves as teachers, for our students, and for our lessons and units. All of this is both short-term and long-term as we need to have different types of goals throughout the year and for our careers. Both chapters also looked at how ideology can affect the curriculum. This was discussed at length in the fifth chapter about how politics can shape what students are "allowed" to learn in the classroom. Chapter four addresses it as many packaged curricula will promote a certain ideology and it's evident in the phrases that are used and the messages that they send to the students. If teachers are not aware of this, then do we really know what it is that our students are learning and what message that they're taking away from our lesson?

Three Things I want to Remember:

More than anything, this is something I want to write down because I want to explore it more. Chapter four, and a bit of chapter five, references "culturally relevant pedagogy" and the importance of making sure that all of our students are represented in the texts we read and the history we learn about (57). We need to be intentional in our planning to make sure that we don't exclude viewpoints and perspectives that students may never have been exposed to. This all relates back to knowing who are students are, which is absolutely essential to being a great teacher, in my opinion. Because this is such a big piece of education and is so important, I want to do further research on culturally relevant pedagogy and find resources that give advice on where to find great examples of perspectives that we don't get in the whitewashed version that history textbooks traditionally provide.

This quote from Chapter five stuck with me long after finishing my reading: "our main choice as social studies teachers is whether we allow political forces to dictate us, or we become activists who shape what takes place in our classrooms and who influences broader policy debates" (71). This is huge. It relates back to what I said earlier about ideologies affecting what is taught. Often, the decisions that are made about what is allowed to be in the state and eventually school curriculum is decided by men in suits who have never taught before. This quote is empowering because it asks the question of if we simply sit back and teach based upon what those men believe is most essential for our students (who they don't know and likely never will know). Or we can stand up and really push back against this to regain control over what is actually essential for students to know. I believe it's related that we also empower our students to take control of their learning. This quote reminds me that we always have a voice and we get to choose how and if we use it. But where our students are concerned, if they're not getting what they really need and deserve from their education, then they deserve teachers who are willing to stand up and be activists to make a change.

Finally, I think it's important to remember the aspects on the importance of student input. Again, we need to allow students to find their voice. If students want to hear a perspective that is more reflective of who they are and what their background is, then I believe we owe that to them. They should have a say in some of the direction we take in our units and lessons. As long as the skills are being taught and the standards are being met, why not allow students to have some say in if they learn about one topic or the other in order to meet those goals? Of course they may not get what they want all the time, but I do think that if we let students have a voice in their learning and the direction we take sometimes, it will be much more engaging and memorable for our students.

Two Controversial Ideas/Things I Disagree With

A controversial idea I have brought up already has reappeared this week. This controversy is whether or not teachers should be able to express their opinion in the classroom. Chapter five addresses how one teacher was dismissed because she told her students that "she sometimes 'honks for peace'" (76). This is absolutely wrong, in my opinion. How on Earth are students ever going to hear different opinions if teachers constantly have to hide their own? As long as a teacher stresses the importance of students coming to their own conclusions and that disagreements are okay, why can't a teacher say how they feel about certain topics? If a teacher gives their opinion every single class period on controversial topics, sure that may not be the best. But it is not my belief that teachers automatically lose their First Amendment rights the second that they walk through the classroom door. We need to teach students to be critical of all opinions, including that of their teacher.

The second controversial topic that came up was the idea of academic freedom. I was really bothered by how many instances there were where individuals tried to limit what is taught in schools based upon their own beliefs. We hear about it often, unfortunately. The one story that really bothered me was when high school seniors were reading a book about teenage behavior and a parent took offense to it because "a passage referred to masturbation" (78). These aren't second graders we are talking about, these are high school seniors who are about to enter the outside world. If they did not know what masturbation was before they began reading that book, then the school had bigger issues to begin with. But the fact that one individual's opinion on the matter was enough to have the school initially drop the book from the curriculum before students and other parents fought to have it back really bothers me. The topic isn't a particularly offensive one and it is most certainly a real topic. Unless there are truly offensive aspects, why are we sheltering what our children will know because one person didn't like it's inclusion in the classroom? This bothered me tremendously.


One Question:
Early in chapter four, Singer describes how there has been disagreement with how classes are structured at different levels. For middle school courses and lower-level high school courses, teachers work harder to maintain student attention. But when high school students reach the AP level or when we enter college, many teachers or professors switch to a "chalk and talk" format where the instructor simply speaks and gives their knowledge to their students and leaves it at that. Singer, thankfully, expresses disappointment with this approach. My question is why this approach has stuck around for so long? I see it weekly in some of my courses. Sure, students may speak up here and there and we are "encouraged" to think for ourselves, but at the same time, we are subjected to listening to the professor speak for 90 minutes straight. We see students perform well when instructors use less passive approaches to teaching, so why have we allowed this model to exist at the highest level of our education? What can we, as students, do to demand that more interesting and better forms of teaching take place outside of our education classrooms?