John Taylor Gatto- He believes that schools confuse children, programming them to memorize things that will eventually be forgotten because they have no application to the kids' real lives. That school is like a rigid "cell-block-style" place, that creates boredom and encourages childishness. He feels like school makes students accept their class position: "It teaches them to accept their class affiliation." For example, a poor kid that comes from a bad home may feel like they aren't worth anything and that they can't succeed in life. Or like the girls in books and movies that accept that they must be prom queens and soccer moms. To Gatto, schools make students indifferent to the outside world and their potential. That kids are constantly looking for approval and rewards in school, which can affect them in their lives outside of school. In Andy's words, John Taylor Gatto feels like the best thing to do is to "Get out of school [because] you're turning into a robot".
Some people believe that schools are the right place to send children to, because it keeps them out of the streets and under the watchful eyes of the teacher. It is like babysitting teenagers, so the parents don't have to worry whether or not their kids are okay, because they know where their kids are. Yet Gatto believes that school conforms students into all being the same indifferent, childish, dependent people. This is another way to think of the school system, compared to all those teacher as savior movies. Another thing that he said is how the students are bored, and blame what they're learning as the source of their boredom, and that the teachers are bored as well, and blame their students. That bells mean stop what you're doing and whatever you are doing doesn't matter enough to be completed. He feels like there are a lot of successful people that thrived outside of the school system, either by being home-schooled or taught outside of school. (Such as 'George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln') This is a different way to think about schools, compared to the philosophers and films that show school as the best place for people to start.
Paulo Freire-Paulo Freire discusses the banking method of teaching (where teachers insert knowledge and have their kids memorize it) compared to the idea that teachers and students should work together to process what they know and how this can be applied to themselves and the world around them. His book Pedagogy of The Oppressed discusses the oppressed -the people being weighed down-, and the oppressor, the figure that is doing the weighing down. There are two different types of possible relationships between teachers and their students in school: "teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers." (Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of The Oppressed, Page 80) The 'teacher-of-the-students' with the 'students-of-the-teacher' is a relationship where the teacher is doing the teaching, and the students are the ones dutifully memorizing what the teacher is saying and supposed to be learning. While the 'teacher-student' and 'students-teachers' is a relationship where the teachers are learning from their kids, and their kids are learning from their teachers.
The relationship where the teachers and students are learning from each other is much healthier than when the teacher is doing the lecturing and the students are the ones taking notes, because the first relationship has the teachers accepting that the students have actual experiences and insights worth sharing, while the teacher that teaches to be heard treats the students as objects and prevents them from learning. It seems that what Freire is saying is that the teacher that is only interested in planting facts in the students' minds is the oppressor, and that the students that are memorizing what the teachers are saying are the oppressed.
Lisa Delpit- believes that schools should have strategies to be able to teach both the kids that have learned the knowledge that help them to learn other things, as well as schools having to be able to provide that step up for the students who have not been given the information to help them learn. She believes that schools should help those who come from homes that cannot provide the education to prepare them for what's to come in school. One thing that she recommends is that teachers should get to know their students not just as students, but to get a glimpse at how they are outside of school. To speak to people that know them when they aren't in school. She also recommended art, as a way to see "students in a different light, whereas before all they saw was what their children couldn't do". Lisa Delpit is one of those teachers that believe that the teacher should build on how their students as individuals already are, and to incorporate that into what they are being taught. She said how if there is a kid in class that is loud and speaks for themselves, that "teachers can create a curriculum based on strengths rather than weaknesses, then they are teaching to their student's needs." In Andy's words, Delpit thinks we need to change the school so it works for everyone in the school.
This connects to Paulo Freire's theory that teachers should be able to help students thrive. She thinks that instead of teachers just teaching by the book, teachers should understand their students and how they can help individuals learn at their own pace and in their own way. This is also like John Keating in Dead Poets Society, who believes that his students have the potential to do what they feel passionate about and to incorporate that into the process of learning. Both John Keating and Lisa Delpit believe that art should be included in how their students learn. As an artist in a school that provides art class only to students for half the year, and only if they choose it, I wish that our school agreed with these teachers. Having art class as a creative outlet provides another way to think and feel. Yet right now, there is an absence of art in school.
SOF Educator(s) - Our school is an example of a different way to be taught and to teach. Given it's name, it was one of the first schools which had ideas that other schools did not (such as using the Habits Of Mind and The Four Pillars). In especially english and 'history' class, there is no such thing as the oppressor and the oppressed, but that students and teachers can interact with each other as a 'healthy' way to learn. Like a lot of other schools, the teachers and principal have hopes that the school can help its students to become individual and life-long learners. When our principal was being interviewed, he said that he thinks our school "models the student as an individual," and that he hopes that "[teachers have] empowered [us] to advocate for [ourselves] in life" and that "[we] should question everything." He also said that "a perfect education is a life long education. After high school. You should keep learning." During the interview he expressed his hopes that school can help us to become our own individuals, and that we can keep learning for the rest of our lives.
Another hope that teachers have is that their students are able to take what they have been taught, and to process it in their own unique way. For english class we had been reading Hamlet, and after we had finished reading we had an assignment to make films showing our own ideas and versions of Hamlet. And once it was through, Mr. Manley wrote us a letter to thank us: "I forget that, in the end, really I am just so grateful to get to spend this time with you, and I am so thankful to you guys for producing some of the work you do, and sharing some of the insight you have." This is an example of a teacher being affected by his student's work, and grateful that we can share some of what we know.
These interviews have helped me to think about what the principal and our teachers expect out of us. For us to keep learning even after high school, and that we are able to think for ourselves. That there are teachers who appreciate what their students have shared with them, instead of the teachers who don't listen to their kids. This is against John Gatto's idea that schools turn us into robots, and it agrees with Paulo Freire's belief that in order to have a flourishing learning environment it cannot be one-sided.
Resources:
-John Gatto, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto
-The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher by John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, 1991, http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html
-Paulo Freire, Pedagogy Of The Oppressed.
-Lisa Delpit: Interview with Lisa Delpit:
Discovering Brilliance in Our Children, interview with Nile Stanley: http://www.flreads.org/Publications/quarterly/samples/delpit_interview.htm
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