University investigates professor who requires students to bring snacks | Inside Higher Ed

University investigates professor who requires students to bring snacks | Inside Higher Ed

Pictionary and cat photos

 This year's crew...

 

Ollie the cat. 

Kohn, Zappa, and Superchunk

The Trouble With Rubrics:
     For me, the realization came about 15 years ago during sophomore English class when I heard Brandon talking about a shirt he wanted to order from the clothing catalogue he was reading.  More than in the past, I had noticed boys and girls wearing brand-y clothes (Gap, Abercrombie and Fitch, Aeropostale) in school that year.  Over the course of that year, I began slowly putting together that those stores didn't just exist in the mall nearby, but in malls across the country, and the teenagers in my town were made up only a small percentage of the teenagers nationwide who shopped at them.  This became clearer and more wide reaching as I got older and spent more time away from my town.  I met people in college who showed me pictures of their friends from their towns, many of whom were dressed like people I had gone to school with.  It spread beyond clothing as I began to notice the pictures on the walls of homes in one (part of the) country were identical to those on the walls in another.  This was my early experience with what I came later to understand as something like what people mean when they talk about globalization, standardization, and homogenization.
     NCLB, from my understanding, is a sort of paragon in this mold.  Much in the same vein of box stores and malls dictating the personal tastes of the population in its area toward a people unified in its appearance, No Child's attendant legislation has sought to unify students' thought processes through national standards and standardized assessments.  To complete the metaphor, every student in every school is shopping in identically laid-out stores and choosing from identical rows of products that Corporate has decided will a) serve most students adequately, and b) sell well.
     Based on what Mr. Kohn writes in "The Trouble With Rubrics," it appears that he is alternately bemused and frustrated with contemporary education policy that emphasizes salvific use of the tool.  Though he states that rubrics could, "...conceivable play a constructive role [in education,]" he objects mainly to their posturing as transferable, supremely objective assessment devices capable of delivering reliable, standardized scores.  He wonders where room for the judgement of teachers has been made in this schema: "Rubrics are, above all, a tool to promote standardization, to turn teachers into grading machines or at least allow them to pretend that what they're doing is exact and objective."
     For Kohn, neither do rubrics aid students in learning, nor teachers in "offer[ing] feedback that will help them become more adept at, and excited about, what they're doing."  He even goes so far to say that the same lethargy that rubrics imbue a student's experience with is present in the teacher's lesson design.  Below, he balks at the idea that something designed primarily to keep parents at bay with regards to grades can inspire teachers to be creative in their approach to instruction:
     "First of all, something that's commended to teachers as a handy strategy of self-justification during parent conferences doesn't seem particularly promising for inviting teachers to improve their practices, let alone rethink their premises."
     He is frustrated that the subjectivity rubrics presume to root out just manifests itself differently, namely in, "...adjectives that are murky and end up being left to the teacher's discretion."  "It's shortsighted to assume that an assessment technique is valuable in proportion with how much information it provides."  He does leave room for the tool, however, as long as it does not stand alone as the only measure of assessment.
     To the earlier autobiographical point, Mr, Kohn adds support from studies showing that standardization accomplishes nothing greater than its name.  He cites research by Linda Mabry who states that, "...compliance with the rubric tended to yield higher scores but produced 'vacuous' writing."  This vacuousness is the same that an ardent embrace of subjectivity fends off.  To use his words, "Just as standardizing assessment for teachers may compromise the the quality of teaching, so standardizing assessment for learners may compromise the learning."
    Mr. Kohn does not offer a concrete alternative to rubrics as assessment tools, just a call to evaluate why it is that teachers assess in the first place.  That blew me away for a couple of seconds.  The metaphysical underpinnings of such a charge were surprising as it made me confront the question.  To be honest, I have spent very little time thinking about why I, or anyone, would assess an other.  Historically, this means for me that I likely know the answer but the form of the question surprised me so that I have momentarily forgotten. The author does leave us with an interesting proposition to be gleaned from his fourth paragraph from the end - despite stultifying standardization, student work will make clear the means to evaluate it.  Perhaps this is also true of Brandon and box store shoppers, too.  

This is only tangentially related, but I have been waiting to get in some Zappa all semester...

The Case Against Tougher Standards:

     Mr. Kohn makes the point that those most concerned with the implementation and results of activities associated with "raising standards" are physically and philosophically separate from those who are actually doing it - the classroom teachers and their students.  He likens school committee campaigns aimed at "accountability" to the toothless but palliative "lock-'em-up, law-and-order" announcements of politicians in the midst of a particularly violent season in their city.  As if teachers don't demand accountability from their students...   

There is a Superchunk song called "Skip Steps 1&3" that came to mind immediately when reading and sums up the way I think he's feeling. For me, it's always been an inspirational song about both the urgency of doing things now, and the uselessness of the activities that can surround and prevent that action.     

Step 1 - talking about doing it, 

Step 2 - doing it

Step 3 - talking about what you did

Its strident energy is an argument against "accountability" and "tougher standards," and for accountability and tougher standards (or whatever it is that Kohn wants).  View below.

 

     Kohn is coy in his approach, but he does feel strongly about the crushing and ultimately noneffective nature of "high-standards," though I'm one hundred percent sure he also believes very strongly in getting the best out students.  Just before he enumerates his "five fatal flaws," he makes what I took to be his most cogent point in a story about the Wisconsin teacher.  The line that talks about how the teacher used to help students design their own learning projects helped explain that that's what Kohn meant in the short paragraph prior to the story when he talks about, "The kind of teaching that helps students understand ideas from the inside out...".

    If there is one unifying thread in Kohn's writing for this week, it is his dislike of the standardizing effect that educational standardization is having on students, on people.  He and Frank Zappa certainly have this in common, and he will continue shoveling against the tide, wearing a wry smile and waiting for the work of others to vindicate his view.           

     

Something interesting about race

I heard an interview this morning on The Takeaway with Jay Smooth, a radio dj who recently gave a TEDx talk about how to talk about racism.  The talk can be found here.   
His Youtube channel also features a video (which I suspect as the impetus for the TED talk) called "How to Tell People They Sound Racist" and is posted below.  See ya'll tonight.

 

Listening

Utilitarian ideals argue that society exists to further the interests and goals of the individual.  Democracy in this context is not that great experiment hallowed by so many speakers, but rather an arrangement among the willing charged with maximizing individuals' personal liberty while providing for a contract of protection from harm or impingement of those freedoms.  This type of setup is predicated on the notion that an individual is etymologically just that, not divisible; unified; singular.  This modernist thinking places the concerns of the individual at the center of any discussion of freedom or governance.  Because of the stratospheric importance modernism ascribes to the one, it allows for the diminishment of the many and relegates it to a depedestalized place.

This gives rise to "entrepreneurial individualism" (72) and, for the author, celebrates a mis-embrace of Darwinian social codes.  "Those who appear not to make use of these conditions (supposedly open to all), or who appear to lack the potential to accrue privileges, are systematically devalued as less than full citizens" (72).  In other words, the contributions of people who do not strive for widely accepted and widely desired social capital are not recognized as legitimate.

This is ameliorated by listening, and is very much more in line with a definition of democracy that is not separate from those its governs, but rather arises from members' acknowledgement of each other's personhood.  Associated living, for Dewey.  And this listening has much more to do with actual listening and much less to do with speaking a common language, as illustrated on pages 76 and 77 when Shayne easily translates Isaac's sounds into words for the researcher (76-77).  The reason she is so adroit is because she has had experience listening to him.  Given the nature of last week's reading and its primacy of sound, I guess this is not surprising to me.  I can see examples of this in my life, as well.  The people and situations I am familiar with are the easiest for me to navigate by sound.  The author wants us to have this revelation, I believe, and to do so at the beneficent expense of highlighting the myopic inadequacies of utilitarian thought.

Not unlike culture at large, school culture arbitrarily privileges certain types of knowledge over others.  The author points out that Shayne teaches in a way that acknowledges this and tries to turn it on its ear by listening.  "She intuitively rejected the notion that nonconformity to the academic norm meant a student  inherently lacked intelligence or was intrinsically burdensome" (83).  Modernism and utilitarianism favor behavior patterns that lie closely with the ideals of ancient Sparta where all human activity was directed toward the goal of warrior-making, with any undesirables becoming uncharitable by-products of this aim.  The author illustrates the vestiges of this kind of thinking in contemporary society just before telling the story of John Mcgough, "According to Shayne, the notion of Down  syndrome often obscures our ability to recognize the child as a child. She or he becomes a walking pathological syndrome, a mobile defect on the loose" (86).  But Shayne and others think that, since the formal and informal tests that students are being endlessly subjected to are made and scored by people who think that children with Down syndrome are intrinsically burdensome, then it is the assessment and not the student that is flawed.    

To close this week on a personal note, this reading makes the most sense to me when I just focus on the author's early credence to the act of listening.  I think that most of my musical favorites are favorites because their music is born out of a great deal of listening.  To everything.  That which is within and without.  Making music with people who are listening is infinitely more enjoyable and productive than otherwise.  Listening is not passive, it's an activity that presupposes vulnerability on the listener's part and involves a bringing-in of the outside and reckoning it that which is within.  Miles Davis, for example, put together great bands because he knew how to listen.  And the tradition of large ensemble playing will reemerge and supplant the past 60+ years of solo player trends.  Until that happens, here is a band who exemplifies what it means to listen.

Also, view below a great poem by a consistently great poet that touches on an idea that has come up a couple of times in class.

Class Survey

Please be kind and rewind your mind back to the beginning of class today to fill out this short survey.
Follow the link, and thanks!

Okay, seriously, she wrote rules. And numbered them! Also, Rodriguez.

To simplify: Collier stands for "public" bilingualness and Rodriguez does not.

Santa Anna's reading of Collier leads him to aver the following: "Code-switching by (ELL) students should be accepted, and not penalized" (230).  This statement presumes an external activity - an outward expression, in which language is used to understand how the surrounding world looks to the speaker.  For Rodriguez, the analogous process exists as a means of understanding how the speaker looks to the world.

Santa Anna makes a point about the difference between learning and acquiring.  I think his differentiation lies along social lines, in that grammar and spelling are taught/learned, whereas idioms and cadence are transmitted/acquired.

Santa Anna again says that the best bilingual education is "bi-dialectalism" (227) and succeeds when grounded in "...the true appreciation of the different linguistic and cultural values that students bring into the classroom" (224).  Though it may be the encapsulation of a very effective model of ELL education, I find the statement itself nebulous and quixotic.  For him, "appreciation" seems to be code for "awareness" in a ribbon-campaign sort of way.  He later seems to shore up the argument when he elaborates on Collier's finding that the home language is best for initial literacy, but in a subsequent sentence he quotes her again as saying that the self-worth that a successful home-language literacy can build statistical, transitive success in second language acquisition (233).  Regarding this, Rodriguez would say that the self-worth that leads to successful second-language acquisition was built into him and needed no reinforcement in his own language by his "public" language teachers.          

Rodriguez, despite writing wistfully about his loss of language, has very little to say academically about ELL instruction.  This is fitting and expected as his piece is autobiographical and entertaining.  The point he does elegantly concluded, however, is that his transformation from a Spanish speaker to an English speaker came through sound first, and meaning second.  Moreover, the subject of his writing is not simply the slipping away of his language, or even the rift it created in his family, rather, it is an ornamented account of the pain of transitioning out of an idyllic childhood.      

Promising practice makes perfect

Inspired by the national "It Gets Better" campaign, students at the URI Women's Center have produced their own domestic version.  Some of the students responsible and their faculty advisers led a screening and Q&A during the PP conference.

I thought the film was good, and I liked the honesty with which the audience responded.  The takeaway for me was made clear when several audience members became emotional during the followup panel.  If settled, self-aware adults were affected by the interview subjects' candor and magnanimity of spirit, then surely an insecure person or someone of emerging sexual identity can easily find solace, too.  

The keynote from members of Teen Empowerment provided me with a couple interesting ideas as far as group facilitation is concerned.  I liked the beanbag toss and the tool about "the wind blows when..."  

The student panel at day's end was nice, and it was nice to just hear from each participant.  I particularly liked the stories that Chris, Ilyana, and Jamal told.  

It was also nice (maybe the nicest) to see, learn with, and converse with members of class in different environs.  

From tonight's class

Checking in:

Here are a couple of starting points from which to do some exploring about Miss Genovese and Superheroes.  Enjoy.

Kitty Genovese - the woman for whom The Bystander effect is named.

A clip from Superheroes.