In which you get to read a portion of my equity dilemma paper from diversity class.
For at least three-quarters of the first marking period, I had a hell of time keeping one of my students, K, on track. He was (and is) extremely stubborn. He distracts the other students around him and has generally put his foot down about doing anything "productive." I have never been more frustrated with a student than with him. Recently, however, I noticed something about K that is the most insightful thing I've learned about a student (and teaching too, perhaps) thus far.
He can't read. Or he can, but not very well at all. Certainly not at the level he should be and needs to be, but for some reason isn't....
One day, I watched K from the other side of the room as my mentor read a short story out loud. He was more engaged than I had ever seen; his eyes were following my mentor as he paced around the room and K’s face might as well have been the author’s showcase of all the emotions he had hoped his story would elicit. When Mr. A asked the class questions to check for comprehension, K was shouting them out along with the rest of his peers. He was present. And only moments later, as drastically as if a switch had been flipped, K checked out immediately when my mentor instructed the class to finish the story by silently reading it to themselves. Unable to ignore the warning bells going off in the back of my mind, I walked over to him and tried to get him to read.
After some back-and-forth, K quipped, "Well, why don't you just read it to me?"
Frustrated, I said, "You'll follow along as I read? Okay. The minute you start goofing off I'm going to let you finish it on your own." He followed along the whole time. When I pause my reading to check-in, asking K questions about what I'd just read, he fired off the answers in rapid-fire succession. His tone was almost impatient, as if he I was asking him stupid questions. Or easy ones? The bells continued to grow louder, especially when he demonstrated more comprehension (verbally) than I had yet to see in any form from him. At the end of class, I asked our special education co-teacher about him.
“Ms. B… can K read?” I asked.
She responded with: “Oh, he’s probably around a first grade reading level, at best.”
My shock at this response was twofold. The first: how could a student in the tenth grade, who is not a former ESOL student as identified through MCPS, possibly have a first grade reading level? The second: to this point, I could count on one hand the number of times I had seen Ms. B working with K in class, and even then, I would still have fingers left over. For this reason, it seems important to try viewing K's situation through the lens of Ray McDermott’s article, The Concept of Culture in Education Research. With the lens of my slightly idealistic, mostly inexperienced teaching philosophy, Ms. B’s actions seem less-than-stellar, and I think McDermott’s culturally analytic framework might help me discuss K's and Ms. B's situation with less personal bias.
To view an issue from a cultural analytic framework, there can be no satisfaction when only considering the individual. Nor is the “solution” found when considering the individual in the context of his/her environment. It is a meditation over why that environment came to be, who or what helped in its creation, how it has been perpetuated, what are the possible movements the individual could/should/would have made in any given situation and why, etc. This differs from a traditional psychologist’s focus on the individual because that involves delving deep into one life - one person’s wants, desires, fears, failures, successes, losses, relationships, etc. - rather than considering them in the context of everything; asking why rather than how.
A cultural analyst will ask what it is about society and our structures that would shape or bring about this specific individual’s wants, desires, fears, failures, successes, losses, relationships, etc., whereas a social inquiry perspective might not see the individual as more than a product of his/her immediate surroundings.
A cultural analyst might ask: why pass a student who isn’t making progress? One might say that the current trend in the politics of education is a lack of tolerance for failure. With the passing of No Child Left Behind in George W. Bush’s presidency, schools were given an ultimatum: your students pass or you’re shutdown. And with the numbers from Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) ruling a school’s fate, schools would be hard pressed to fail students “unnecessarily.” Rather than being a learning experience, failure has become intolerable. K is a bright student, when he applies himself. He can demonstrate understanding when forced and is quick to catch on to new concepts when worked with one-on-one.
However, his teachers in elementary and middle school were most likely faced with classrooms filled with a wide spectrum of student ability levels. In the daily grind of trying to address all these needs, K’s need for intense individual attention could have prompted several scenarios. Teachers might have felt ill-equipped to address his needs, so they didn’t address them at all; they may have helped as much as they could, but felt torn in thirty different directions; or maybe it didn’t even register because K became increasing well-versed in being “disruptive” to hide his low-level abilities - better to be kicked out than embarrassed in front of his classmates. Perhaps, with AYP and NCLB, K's past teachers made a judgment call and determined his cognitive abilities qualified K to move on to the next grade level, regardless of reading level.
TBC....
He can't read. Or he can, but not very well at all. Certainly not at the level he should be and needs to be, but for some reason isn't....
One day, I watched K from the other side of the room as my mentor read a short story out loud. He was more engaged than I had ever seen; his eyes were following my mentor as he paced around the room and K’s face might as well have been the author’s showcase of all the emotions he had hoped his story would elicit. When Mr. A asked the class questions to check for comprehension, K was shouting them out along with the rest of his peers. He was present. And only moments later, as drastically as if a switch had been flipped, K checked out immediately when my mentor instructed the class to finish the story by silently reading it to themselves. Unable to ignore the warning bells going off in the back of my mind, I walked over to him and tried to get him to read.
After some back-and-forth, K quipped, "Well, why don't you just read it to me?"
Frustrated, I said, "You'll follow along as I read? Okay. The minute you start goofing off I'm going to let you finish it on your own." He followed along the whole time. When I pause my reading to check-in, asking K questions about what I'd just read, he fired off the answers in rapid-fire succession. His tone was almost impatient, as if he I was asking him stupid questions. Or easy ones? The bells continued to grow louder, especially when he demonstrated more comprehension (verbally) than I had yet to see in any form from him. At the end of class, I asked our special education co-teacher about him.
“Ms. B… can K read?” I asked.
She responded with: “Oh, he’s probably around a first grade reading level, at best.”
My shock at this response was twofold. The first: how could a student in the tenth grade, who is not a former ESOL student as identified through MCPS, possibly have a first grade reading level? The second: to this point, I could count on one hand the number of times I had seen Ms. B working with K in class, and even then, I would still have fingers left over. For this reason, it seems important to try viewing K's situation through the lens of Ray McDermott’s article, The Concept of Culture in Education Research. With the lens of my slightly idealistic, mostly inexperienced teaching philosophy, Ms. B’s actions seem less-than-stellar, and I think McDermott’s culturally analytic framework might help me discuss K's and Ms. B's situation with less personal bias.
To view an issue from a cultural analytic framework, there can be no satisfaction when only considering the individual. Nor is the “solution” found when considering the individual in the context of his/her environment. It is a meditation over why that environment came to be, who or what helped in its creation, how it has been perpetuated, what are the possible movements the individual could/should/would have made in any given situation and why, etc. This differs from a traditional psychologist’s focus on the individual because that involves delving deep into one life - one person’s wants, desires, fears, failures, successes, losses, relationships, etc. - rather than considering them in the context of everything; asking why rather than how.
A cultural analyst will ask what it is about society and our structures that would shape or bring about this specific individual’s wants, desires, fears, failures, successes, losses, relationships, etc., whereas a social inquiry perspective might not see the individual as more than a product of his/her immediate surroundings.
A cultural analyst might ask: why pass a student who isn’t making progress? One might say that the current trend in the politics of education is a lack of tolerance for failure. With the passing of No Child Left Behind in George W. Bush’s presidency, schools were given an ultimatum: your students pass or you’re shutdown. And with the numbers from Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) ruling a school’s fate, schools would be hard pressed to fail students “unnecessarily.” Rather than being a learning experience, failure has become intolerable. K is a bright student, when he applies himself. He can demonstrate understanding when forced and is quick to catch on to new concepts when worked with one-on-one.
However, his teachers in elementary and middle school were most likely faced with classrooms filled with a wide spectrum of student ability levels. In the daily grind of trying to address all these needs, K’s need for intense individual attention could have prompted several scenarios. Teachers might have felt ill-equipped to address his needs, so they didn’t address them at all; they may have helped as much as they could, but felt torn in thirty different directions; or maybe it didn’t even register because K became increasing well-versed in being “disruptive” to hide his low-level abilities - better to be kicked out than embarrassed in front of his classmates. Perhaps, with AYP and NCLB, K's past teachers made a judgment call and determined his cognitive abilities qualified K to move on to the next grade level, regardless of reading level.
TBC....