I'm excited about week two of our presentations. Marianne and Ryan present tonight. If the two of you want to write anything in advance, you may write it here. Otherwise, we'll all reflect on your presentations in this space after class tonight.
See you soon.
Janet
Ryan, I wondered during your presentation how the environment has been affected by continuous mining. I wondered to what extent you think environmental destruction might influence the educational environment in Appalachia. In his book Ordinary Resurrections, Jonathan Kozol talks about the presence of garbage incinerators in the neighborhood upon which he focused and how illnesses associated with the incinerators affected school performance. I realize that might be way outside the scope of what you are doing, so I understand entirely if you don't have any information to share.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, thank you to both of you, Marianne and Ryan, for the presentations. Both were fascinating!
ReplyDeleteMarianne, I don't have any other questions for you. I just wanted to say, if you find the magic key to unlocking students' ability to really reflect, let me know :-)
I was really intrigued by both presentations last week. I like how Marianne's allowed us to continue our discussions about discourse analysis and the act of student reflection and how Ryan's presentation focused on intersections between culture, education, and teacher/researcher identity. These are all topics we've discussed throughout the semester. What both presentations might have in common is how they reflect the complexity of education in the US--it's not just about test scores and teacher assessments. Education is inexorably linked to family, economics, geography, race/ethnicity, gender, etc. etc. Those of us who are educators understand these complexities very well, and teacher research seems to be a compatible research methodology which honors difference, local contexts, and teacher decision making. However, as we know, many policy makers do not want to see these complexities; it is easier and "cleaner" to look at scores, value added performance assessments, and AYP formulas. But the conversations we have are gratifying to me regardless of the political landscape. After all, change happens one person, one classroom, one student at a time!
ReplyDeleteCourtney: Your question about the environment and education in Appalachia is a very important one. I think about this issue quite a lot. A good example of these two discourses (environmental destruction and education) in conflict in WV is realized in the situation at Marsh Fork Elementary in Sundial, WV. This school is located at the bottom of an earthen dam that holds back 2.8 billion gallons of toxic coal sludge. If the dam were to break, the students would just have a few minutes to evacuate before being covered in several feet of the sludge. Another issue at this school is the coal silo located adjacent to the school. This silo is where the dirty coal is washed with lots of nasty chemicals (the leftover waste is what is kept in the sludge pond). The smoke that these silos release is laden with lots of chemicals, and the students here breathe in this air every day. There are reports from parents and some health officials that many of the students are, in fact, sick from this air--many of the students at Marsh Fork have things like asthma and sores on their mouths. The most outrageous thing, perhaps, is that the coal company that owns the silo and pond--Massey Energy--will not do anything to remedy the situation. Don Blankenship--their CEO and, I think, the Devil--says that these kids are not their responsibility. He argues that Massey pays taxes and if Raleigh county wants to move the school that the school board should pay for it. Since this area is sparsely populated (therefore, low tax base) and schools are on tight budgets as it is, I doubt that this would happen. On the other hand, Massey made 20.2 million in net income in just the second quarter of 2009. It seems that they could afford to move a small school up the road out of harms way. Anyway, this is a huge issue to me. I think that much of our identity is tied up in our environment--both immediate (such as home) and local community. Here are some links to the Marsh Fork/Massey debate:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sludgesafety.org/what_me_worry/marsh_fork/index.html
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-04-07-don-blankenships-record-of-profits-over-safety-coal-pays-the-bil
If you 'google' the school name you can find additional resources and pictures of the site.
I can also mention a couple authors whose thoughts about the environment I find helpful. C.A. Bowers is an emeritus education professor who writes a lot about education and the environment--his area of research is called ecojustice pedagogy. Another writer to check out is Wendell Berry. He is an amazing poet and prose writer, but also writes very insightful stuff about culture and the environment. I haven't heard of the Jonathan Kozol book, but I will definitely check it out!
By the way, Bowers has several e-books available on the U of Oregon website for free. They are unedited (full of typos and the like), but the ideas are really excellent.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of that school at the bottom the dam is just horrifying. Those poor kids. I would think that Massey Energy would be looking for all kinds of projects they could do that would shine up their public image a bit after the mine disaster at Upper Big Branch.
ReplyDeleteRyan, I think you and I probably have a lot in common when it comes to the intersection of our lives as citizens and our lives as educators. I've been thinking about how I can involve my students in local food projects when I go back to teaching. I'm in the process of trying to turn my backyard into a suburban farm. Sadly, my husband is not keen on the idea of me keeping chickens.
Marianne,
ReplyDeleteLike Courtney, I would love to know if you find “the key” to helping students really reflect! I am sure it is difficult to do so in a multicultural class where some students may feel uncomfortable being open and honest and truly reflecting on their own thoughts and experiences. Given this, perhaps a step to finding “the key” may lie in helping students become comfortable. Don’t get me wrong, I think there is value in being uncomfortable sometimes (as it can cause us to think about why we are uncomfortable), but how might we (in any classroom) help our students be comfortable with being uncomfortable and showing this in their reflections (Does that make sense?)? This is just one thought, but maybe it’s one way to help with fostering reflection – though the critical thinking component is perhaps of greater importance. Other than that, great presentation, and thank you for sharing the reflections with us!
Ryan,
I really found your presentation wildly informative – as I know very little about Appalachia. One thing I am curious about is how teachers feel about many of the issues facing the communities. Though I know it is outside the scope of your project for this class, I would be fascinated to see or read some interviews with teachers about their concerns and ideas for their students, themselves, and communities as a whole.
You wrote in your post about identity being tied to environment, and I absolutely agree. This got me thinking about how teachers formulate their identities within the communities – what roles do they see themselves playing now and in the future? In the communities? Students’ lives? In relationships with other teachers? – Just some thoughts! Great presentation!
Ryan, as everyone has mentioned, your presentation was intriguing but troubling. When you were talking, I couldn’t help but consider the parallels between the disparities in the Appalachian region and those in urban areas, how both have a lack of money and resources. Another similarity seems to be that both tend to define success as rising above their communities rather than returning to them to work to make them better. I’m wondering too if, like in several urban schools, education is often reduced to test preparation because of concern that students will not meet their AYP. Do you think teachers might be so consumed with trying to help their students “succeed” that they don’t have the time and resources needed to complete teacher research? From the video it seemed like these students had so many needs beyond just education that it made me wonder too if teachers end up devoting an excess of energy to students’ physical and emotional needs at the expense of their own and students’ intellectual needs. It seems to me that these students would especially benefit from teacher research and a more critical pedagogy. When you were talking about Kennedy’s relationship with the Appalachian people, it made me specifically wonder how much students today are taught about politics or understand how the institute of education and the larger political system affects them. I feel like this could at least help these people to better understand their situation and in turn help them to consider some ways to proceed.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your presentation too, Marianne! It was nice to get to try my hand at some initial coding. Something that I didn’t mention in class but remember thinking when reading them, for whatever it’s worth, is that students all seemed to qualify the experience in the first line. I think every one of them started with a sentence like, “so far I really enjoy…” but then they wouldn’t give specific details about why this was. Like with some of my students’ reflections, I didn’t know if they were putting this in to show you that they were “enjoying” their experience or if they were reassuring themselves. It didn’t sound like you asked them to discuss how they have felt about the experience as a whole. I wonder too if students felt like this line was necessary before they would criticize what they have seen or not seen in some cases. Like Ryan mentioned with my reflections, it might be interesting for yours too to do some discourse analysis as far as how they wrote what they did in addition to what they wrote. Ultimately I think you’re going to learn the most from comparing the pre/post of the same students. I’m interested to hear what you find.
Thank you for reading my data and writing comments about the student reflections. English teachers have a way of extracting meaning from texts that social studies teachers lack. Your insights have helped me see larger patterns and connections than what I saw in my initial read throughs.
ReplyDeleteThe weekend after our last class session I saw Amy Gillan, the leader of the teacher-research group at Wabash College. She invited me to attend their meeting last Monday and share about the process I was experiencing with my project. It was fun to hear the research interests of currently practicing teachers adn share thoughts about their work. Most are struggling with question development and how to collect data. It magnified Cochran-Smith and Lytle's position that teachers need to be introduced to research as undergraduates. I remember being in their positions four years ago, knowing what I needed to focus on but not knowing what researchers labeled my inquiry or how to manage/interpret the data once it was collected.
There were only six teachers present at the meeting. I am not sure how funding was acquired so they could be absent from school, but out of three school corporations in the countly only six teachers are participating. Ryan, I was thinking about your presentation here and wondering what contributes to low involvement in teacher-research groups here in Indiana?
Thank you all for your comments.
ReplyDeleteCourtney: yes, I love the suburban farm idea. We're actually going to plant a vegtable garden here at PVIL in the spring, and, I'd have a few chickens too if that were possible.
Beth: You mentioned that in Appalachia success is seen "as rising above their communities rather than returning to them to work to make them better." Sadly, I think that this is often true. It's actually a common theme in much of Applachian literature--the idea that 'you can never really come back home'. In these novels there are often characters who leave the family "hollar" to go to college (usually law or medical school) and don't come back. I think that the biggest obstacle is that there aren't many 'educated' jobs in these areas, and, it's easier for people to just move where jobs already exist for them rather than moving back home and trying to change the culture so that they could work there. Sadly, I am in this group as well. I would love to move back home but I have essentially educated myself out of that being an option. I would still like to move somewhere close to home and try to bring some positive change to the area.