The Annenberg Promise

I'm starting off with a brief disclaimer. If you can't tell, my training and experience to date has been as a scientist/researcher. I am realizing that this gives me a very distinctive way of looking at the readings I discuss here. I tend to approach them the same way I would a research article on, say, cell biology or signal transduction. But of course they are very different and are written different ways for different purposes. I think learning to look at things in a different fashion is going to be a major lesson for me. Not that there's anything wrong with the scientists approach to these things, I just know it's not always the best way. Moving on.


As it says in the title, this post is discussing the Annenberg Promise, another article we read for my urban education class. The title of the article is actually, "The Promise of Urban Schools" and it is written by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. And no, I don't have any real idea who these people are (okay, they're a panel of "experts" in urban education, but that's all I really know) or why they're any more reputable then any other school reform group out there, but I'll set that aside and dive into the article.


The first thing that jumped out at me was a brief section on what is education for? This made me think of what *I* think the purpose of education is. I certainly think education should be more than just job prep. But I don't really buy what I view as the utopian ideal of "education as a vehicle for creating a more democratic and just society". My personal belief on what the purpose of education is? The goal of education is to allow students to learn the knowledge and skills required for them to be successful in life. These skills may include facts and basic knowledge, but also social skills, technology skills and especially learning skills. I think teaching students how to learn is the most important lesson a teacher can impart.
But hey, that's just me.



Agency
Yeah, so the major sections of this paper are all summarized by a vowel. A, E, I, O, U. And the A is for Agency. Agency is the power to cause positive change in ones life and the sense of hope and possibility that one can make a difference. Developing agency involves giving students a positive cultural and social identity and an understanding of their relationship to society. They then discuss ways to promote agency and the reasons why agency is important. Which is all good and I don't really disagree with it. What I wonder about is the feasibility. How can you empower students when many (most) schools operate in an environment of control and punishment? How can you help individual students develop a positive cultural identity in a class of 30, with perhaps a half dozen or more different cultures represented? Take the time to cover every culture? Or do you focus on the majority? I don't believe that's right. Overall I've found myself struggling with the concept that the best (in my opinion) teachers try to individualize the learning process with their students. Working with each students individual strengths and weaknesses, etc. But in practical terms, you can't. There aren't enough hours in the day. So how do you determine the "happy medium" of doing the best job for the entire class? Definitely something I've spent time thinking about so far. Moving on.


Equity and Justice
This section discusses equity vs. equality. Or fairness vs. equal, and how equal is not always fair. They talk extensively about Brown vs. Board of Education as an example of an attempt to increase equality without trying for equity. This is actually the first time I've seriously heard a discussion on Brown having a downside. It's not smething I'd ever really considered. Like most of the lemmings out there I've been taught racism bad, segregation = racism, removing segregation is ergo good. So this article touches on the downside of desegregation, such as the firing of African American teachers and the loss of autonomy and community engagement. But as my wife pointed out, it was still an improvement, right? Eh, I'm going to fall back on my "need more data" excuse. I can see how a plan that was great in principle may not work out great in practice.


Instruction and Curriculum
This section discusses the standards of education, and how urban schools should be held to the same high standards as other schools. Communities should also have a role in the development of standards for "their" schools. It also discusses powerful learning experiences, "highly challenging for learners, even at the risk of failing. They allow learners to explore and build upon their own, nascent ideas and knowledge. And they are bolstered by the caring attention of a teacher." I can agree with that. I like the view of a teacher as a mediator, who is there to guide and moderate the students on their individual educational journey, rather than as a galley master who flogs them along the path he or she has determined to be right. Not sure how to make that come about, but I like it as a concept. The article goes on to discuss some specific examples of these techniques, many of which had me thinking, "How will I go about this when I'm teaching?" Overall I thought this was a great section.


Outcomes and Impacts
My take on outcomes and impacts is that it refers to what the goals of education are, and how can progress towards those goals be assessed. To be honest, I was a little unclear on how the title related to the material here. The article is highly critical of the current paradigm of assessment, i.e. achievement on standardized tests. I wholeheartedly agree with this. I tend to do very well on standardized tests. In large part because I am just a very good test taker. I had a friend in grad school, smart guy and he studied his ass off for our exams. I doubt I studied a third as much as he did but I still tended to get better scores. Guess which of us is now on the faculty of a medical school and which of us is looking at a major carreer change? Because, big suprise, being able to do well on tests is not an indicator of how well you'll do in the real world.

This section also talks about accountability, and how currently teachers, schools and administrators tend to be the ones held accountable for poor student performance, even when they were never given the resources to be successful in the first place. I agree in the injustice of this, and I believe we need accountability throughout the educational process, from the students themselves up to the policy makers. Yes, teachers should be held accountable, but they should not have to bear the whole burden when others are part of the problem as well.


Urban Conditions and Context
There are both opportunities and challenges in urban schools. Then again the same can be said for any school system, and really for any field of human endeavor at all. But I will put forth the idea that in urban schools the relative magnitudes of the opportunities and challenges have been systematically minimized or exagerrated, respectively, by the media and by generally ignorant public perception. The opportunities exist because there are schools and teachers out there right now getting it right. And what one person can do, then so can another. And yes, there are serious and "unique" challenges involved in urban education, but they are by no means insoluble. Otherwise the cities would have fallen into screaming barbarism long ago. Sorry, I get these weird urges to try and sound eloquent from time to time. :-)

Anyways, that's it for this post. It's later than I planned, due to my wonderful experience with the flu. Class again tonight, so I'm sure I'll have more to talk about soon.