Category: Critical Thinking

Teaching in the Time of Cholera

“She felt the abyss of disenchantment.”
― Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

My brain feels like soup with small chicken bones lurking behind dumplings and carrots, just waiting to splinter and choke. I worked hard for calmness, for strength, and it’s fragile. I had this intrusive, nightmarish thought while trying to sleep that my _______and ______have plans to travel to ________and _____is pregnant. What if what if what if what if what if what if what if

What if we are not going to make it?

Wait, I can’t do better than that? Apparently not.

Writing is therapeutic, yet I procrastinate to the point of sabotaging the 19+years of keeping this blog, this blog that has gone nowhere, sputtered out, out of gas, while others have monetized, gained traction, followers, fans, and my creativity chokes on the weeds of envy and slime.

Well, that got dark fast.

I will do better, I say. I will. I will write more consistently and offer something of value to folks who read this.

While I am not sure how I can encapsulate this moment — there are far more qualified scholars, journalists, and writers than I, but I am a darn good bullet list maker, so here it goes.

A Non-Exhaustive List of the Things That Are in Constant Rotation In My Brain:

  • Since #gamergate hit in 2014, a targeted attack against Anita Sarkeesian and other women in the gaming field, boys have been fed a steady diet of trolling lessons, toxicity, and indoctrination.
  • Boys were and are under a barrage of toxic messages from men: men who seem wealthy, abuse and objectify women, and break the law and never seem to pay or have a consequence. Now I get boys mentioning Jordan P, Andrew T, and others. They defended PewwwwdEEEE Pi years ago, too. They showed students images of Hitler and “trains” and laughed.
  • We’re up to four women (and of course it’s more) in our nation who have been murdered for the act of losing a pregnancy. This particular nightmare swims in my brain– the idea that they are in a hospital parking lot, and inches away from care, and no one helps them. Not one brave medical staff goes out to HELP THEM.
  • And I can’t warn students and their families because teachers have been censored.*

*So, let’s talk about this.

Long story short, I had to talk with admin about some recent…events. It’s okay, everything is fine, and it did shore up my resolve to continue to teach critical thinking skills. And if anyone thinks this is simple, easy, or engaging in this day and time of misinformation and disinformation, that is the very air we breathe, the Bird-Boxing of us all, it is not. It’s not healthy, it’s heartbreaking, and it doesn’t matter. I have to do this. I have to do it so carefully, cautiously, and with huge amounts of wisdom and grace that some days I just don’t have. I don’t trust many adults now. I don’t trust them with their own children. And I have to get over that, now. Like, right now. Reflecting on what it means to trust means to let go of control. It is not my job or purpose to control or coerce. In actuality, I’ve never been one to try to control others — seriously. I believe in respect, self-respect, reciprocity, and love. And that my internal dialogue says is I am deeply grieving — we all are. Even if some don’t realize it yet because they think they “won.”

But even a forest fire generates new growth. I can plant seeds and hope for a new forest.

Some seeds:

https://www.comm.pitt.edu/argument-claims-reasons-evidence

Next post will be more ‘seeds’ of critical thinking ideas.

Summer Series of Saves: analysis is life

@gacruz_phd

“Try That in a Small Town”, Polysemy, and Ideological Fragments #teachersoftiktok #popculture #phd #academia #jasonaldean #music #greenscreen

♬ original sound – Dr. C

Key phrases I learned from his video, ones I knew, and all of them I need to share with students:

Ideological fragment: Dr. Cruz explores how a piece of media can be an ideological fragment, meaning a piece or artifact that represents an larger ideology (belief system).

Transgressions: Wrong-doing against others.

Extralegal: Definition (not sanctioned by the law)

Polysemy: having multiple meanings

Yes, I did Venmo him some cash for his content. You should, too.

Now, next school year when I provide instruction on analyzing media (literature, poetry, videos, etc.) and through the lens of facts, opinions, and truth, as well as poetry instruction (revised from Mud & Ink) What an amazing #mentortext to discuss our purposes for analyzing and discussing the media we consume.

Series: White People Homework (12) Bad Behaviors

A quick look at school behavior programs.

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Our current institutions are in dire need of systemic overhauls, and education top of the list. Please read and keep Ilana Horn’s thread and work close to your work and research. I am. If you’re a teacher who’s work in a school during the past ten years you may have heard or read, or even supported some of the behavioral management programs. And the trend is to have a white man create, package and sell these programs. This post is going to upset some educators and colleagues, but the intent is to provide information and background, with the hope of impact being you change and help change your own classroom policies, know how to push back, and keep districts accountable.

Here are some I’ve encountered, and others I’ve read:

Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess: I read this book on my own a few years ago, and it didn’t sit right with me. I am already a creative teacher, and I found the ‘pirate’ thing gimmicky. He also fan-boy’d Tony Robbins, and yeah. No. Thanks. So, I put it aside, and moved on. I am kind of repulsed by a grown man who wears a pirate-style bandana on his head and a black t-shirt. I tried to go through the #TLAP hashtag on Twitter and can’t find precise criticisms, but a whole lot of fans who gush over this work. But the criticisms tend to run toward this: It’s teacher-centered. And since 80% of teachers are white women, that’s problematic.

PBIS: PBIS stands for “Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports.” It’s based on a Tier System. Every school I’ve worked in (now at three) has used PBIS, or when I’ve gone in for interviews have been asked about my knowledge and expertise with this system.

It’s a glorified “Change your clip” chart. And these are only my observations, because life at school goes so fast, any chance to discuss and create a sustainable method falls apart. The problems with PBIS is it’s a token economy: it rarely gets to the place for students to get to internalized positive behavior motivation. I have witnessed years of students ‘gaming’ the token system, too. One year in particular, kids kept the tickets that were intended to be traded for prizes and snacks, hoarding them as the treasure or trading them on the open market. It was actually quite genius. Students know inauthentic, tokenized systems of oppression. And the more important factor which lead to lack of success and meaningful change: there wasn’t the support for students. The physical, real-time qualified adult bodies to support students. My dream: instead of school safety officers we have a counselor and adult support for every 30-50 kids, including classroom teaches, counselors, and administration. We don’t overcrowd schools in the first place. We don’t use harmful, hateful violent curriculum (looking at you, programs that use racist, colonized canon). And we stop the systems that promote meritocracy. PBIS is that.

https://www.pbis.org/

Teach Like a Champion: see the above thread for #TLAC. Also: these articles, please:By Layla Treuhaftali, The Power of Pedagogy: Why We Shouldn’t Teach Like Champions

This School Year, Don’t Teach Like a Champion by Ray Salazar

“To some white eduinfluencers who are starting to speak up” by Benjamin Doxtdador

https://dianeravitch.net/2015/09/21/peg-robertson-eviscerates-teach-like-a-champion/

“To be honest, after reading over 100 pages of the book (there will be a follow-up blog when I finish reading the entire book), I have to say it’s incredibly shallow and simplistic – yet the scary part is the dictatorial demand to keep everything shallow, uniform and simplistic. And as mentioned above, Lemov’s beliefs about “teaching like a champion” are beginning to co-opt what true educators really understand about teaching, child development, and engaging learners. This book is a great primer for reducing learning to uniform and robotic student behavior which is easy to “track” (Lemov’s word – not mine) and manage, in order to get the results that you want. And the results that they want are high test scores. Lemov is clear in stating that this work is gauged via state test scores.

https://dianeravitch.net/2015/09/21/peg-robertson-eviscerates-teach-like-a-champion/

“Fast LLama” by Doug Curry http://www.fastllama.com/free-resources – sat in on his trainings. Cute, and he’s congenial, but same stuff.

Second Step: I’ve been through two districts with this and both times they don’t have the money to purchase the support materials. And it’s hokey.

So what to do instead?

Read.

Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond https://crtandthebrain.com/about/

Troublemakers by Carla Shalaby

Article about Troublemakers: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/05/the-power-of-the-troublemaker/525159/

Work with experts on understanding ACES, trauma-informed teaching, etc.

The End of Police in Schools

What do you think of some of these ideas? https://ctl.iupui.edu/Resources/Classroom-Management/Tips-for-Handling-Disruptive-Student-Behavior

What are the goals?

Every parent want their child to be able to go to school and feel free to learn, free from obstructions, bullying, racism, distractions, and fear. They want to know when their child comes home after the school day they have friends, healthy relationships based on mutual respect from adults, have grown their brains, bodies, and joy. And we humans are messy. We have bad days. We experience grief, anger, frustration, and a hundred ways to express these emotions based on our upbringing, context, culture, and desires. We get stuck with labels. I don’t have the answers. Every year I’ve made mistakes. I do know there are better ways to do this. I was a troublemaker in school.

And I still am.

Series: White People Homework: (11)

What I tried to say in this post, But Justin Schleider (@SchleiderJustin) said it so much better:

And We Still Need You

I am specifically talking to White people because we are the ones who created the problem and we are the ones who need to work towards rectifying what we have done. Plus I can only speak to the groups I am a part of and understand.

https://slowchatpe.com/2020/06/09/and-we-still-need-you/

Still, others may be young and just entered the field of education. You have been raised in a White bubble (like myself) and through the purposeful guidance of our communities and family, you have not fully grasped the magnitude of the problem that permeates school. Now is the time to listen before you act. Listen to queer Black feminists and the leaders in social justice within the world of education such as Val Brown and Dr. Rosa Perez-Isaiah. Listen to professors of sociology like Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom. Once you have listened follow the people who have been doing the work for years. Nothing you are thinking of is new. Activists have been working toward collective liberation for years. You as well are just coming into the fight in the 10th round. And we need you.

https://slowchatpe.com/2020/06/09/and-we-still-need-you/

And to my fellow white teachers, whether you teach English/Language Arts, History, Science, Math, an Elective, Music, etc.–we need to talk about language and literacies. Everyone, and I mean everyone, code switches. No one speaks the ‘standard’ or “formal’ language all the time. So if you’re using language or policing BIPOC students’ language as a mean to silence them, stop. Thanks.

This is an area of study I must do more research: since becoming an ELL teacher with my ELA endorsement, it’s important for my students for me to do my best and do better.

Series: White People Homework: The Cost (8)

How does racism affect children?
The featured image was designed by a 4th grade student in one of my dear friend’s classes.
https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/29-the-final-speech-from-the-great-dictator-

I am an amateur in so many areas, it’s really kind of lame. One of the mental games I like to play with myself is the hidden costs of things, like trying to pull data from chaos. I am ill equipped and humbled. All I can offer is I like to think about big things, and this will be separated by multiple posts.

The question is: How does racism affect white people? Understand this question is not intended to center white people. We’ve been centered plenty. It’s meant to explore why this construct of race and power keeps getting propped up, exploited, and used to keep groups in fear, confusion, disoriented, and in danger.

When I was in high school, I went to a predominately white, wealthy parents, large high school in suburban Denver. Kids wore $300 boots and drove BMWs. I was not one of these kids. I was friends with a boy named Bryan. Bryan was Black. He was funny, smart, and always cracked me up. One evening, when we were at a football game, he told me he and his family were moving so he could attend the mostly Black high school. I did not understand fully why, and was heartbroken. I didn’t have the emotional means to express what was happening then, and I’m not sure I do now. It may have been a mixture of things: wasn’t our current school ‘better?’ And trust me: I tell the truth when I say I also recognized why going to the other high school was important and was indeed, better for him and his brothers. Was my friendship not enough to make him feel part of a community? But we lost. We lost his smile, his gifts, and his friendship. I knew once he moved, even if it was only twenty minutes away, he was moving to the other side of the world, our world.

I found my high school yearbook during the great Quarantine Time of Purging All Closets, and saw his picture. I miss that friend.

Flash-forward to the election of 2016. White kids chanting “BUILD THE WALL” in those predominately white schools in my former district. When I told my principal about her previous school and what the students did she said no, it wasn’t them, it was another building. Her denial was somewhat shocking at the time, but now considering she’s still social media friends with a teacher in the building who is a loud and proud Trump supporter, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. The amount of energy and time for white educators and parents they spend on building their mental fort is incredible. What if…WHAT IF…they spent that time and energy saying and doing something ELSE. ANOTHER ACTION.

What if

What if all teachers had to do a study with Jane Elliott’s and Cornell West’s work in educational philosophy? Why, when I was in second grade, did I get the teacher who, when asked if she believed in “women’s lib” answered, “Oh no, I like having the doors opened for me!” I was crushed. I was born a feminist, and to hear my teacher say this was devastating. And the little boy’s smug face as he got the answer he wanted is burned in my brain. Now think of all the trillions of micro and macro aggressions: what if?

What if when people had land, resources, built a community they understood that the community is better with diversity of experiences, gifts, talents, and contributions?

What if…

Threatening teachers’ voices is a common tactic.

Because right now we have administrators, parents, school boards and parents who force teachers into subterfuge and “asking forgiveness” whenever they talk about Malcom X or want to teach books from the #ProjectLit or #DisruptTexts communities. Right now, I’m trying to remind myself as a new person in a district/building that change takes time, even if I’ve been doing this work for almost 15 years as a teacher. Just getting some titles that aren’t white, colonized canon approved is painstakingly slow. There are gatekeepers and bureaucrats.

The hidden costs may include:

  • losing a friend
  • no collaboration
  • decreased joy
  • stale thinking
  • fixed mindsets
  • destruction of parent/child love and relationships
  • loss of respect and inclusion (think of cancel culture but more hidden)

Since this series is “White People Homework” keep in mind it’s not for BIPOC to do your work for you. Take some time, pray if that’s something you do, meditate, relax, and think: how would your life be better if we all practiced anti-racism work?

One idea: if an administrator asks you to do something in your classroom that is counter to anti-racism work, ask why, and request a detailed response. Ask if they are willing to have a conversation with the school board, the parents, and other teachers and students: identify the real stakeholders in the community.

Resources:

Merritt, K. (2017). Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge Studies on the American South). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316875568.

https://www.macucc.org/racismhurtseveryonecoststowhitepeople

Series: WPH: Militarizing Racism (3)

What is our history and current situation of militarizing police?

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A man was murdered by the state in broad daylight, with witnesses. And maybe, this time, most of us in the United States finally, finally realize that we have gone over the edge of the abyss. While many of us screamed over the injustices, for others, cruelty was the point. We’re not there yet. We’re not anywhere near a place of peace and equality in our nation. When we address the militarization of our police we must address the grip of fear instilled in us by Republicans. They’ve used fear and the military force to keep us silent. Privilege benefits from the silence.

The Trump era is such a whirlwind of cruelty that it can be hard to keep track. This week alone, the news broke that the Trump administration was seeking to ethnically cleanse more than 193,000 American children of immigrants whose temporary protected status had been revoked by the administration, that the Department of Homeland Security had lied about creating a database of children that would make it possible to unite them with the families the Trump administration had arbitrarily destroyed, that the White House was considering a blanket ban on visas for Chinese students, and that it would deny visas to the same-sex partners of foreign officials. At a rally in Mississippi, a crowd of Trump supporters cheered as the president mocked Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who has said that Brett Kavanaugh, whom Trump has nominated to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, attempted to rape her when she was a teenager. “Lock her up!” they shouted.

The Cruelty is the Point by Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, October 3, 2018

In a recent interview, Ben Carson had the audacity to parse out that it wasn’t “tear gas” that was used. Listening to him support Trump was too much. He got so many things wrong. But in the Cabinet of the Damned, Carson played his role well: he’s Black, a doctor, and is brought out to play some role I can’t describe. The naive, innocent voice? The gentle portrayal of Trump? It certainly isn’t a role any other Trump supporter can play, not even his complicit, birtherism wife. She really doesn’t care, do you? Well, Carson does:

“I am very disappointed with the fact that people have used this as an excuse to vandalize and tear up the neighborhoods of the people who are so vulnerable and are least able to afford such things,” he says. “And, you know, I understand the anger and the wrath, but I do not understand why they can’t see that they’re hurting the very people they purport to be standing for.”

Ben Carson, Here and Now interview https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/06/03/ben-carson-protests-coronavirus

Carson: it was White Nationalists. He needs to read Langston Hughes.

Resources:

https://theconversation.com/militarization-has-fostered-a-policing-culture-that-sets-up-protesters-as-the-enemy-139727

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/03/president-trump-can-send-military-police-americans-is-doing-so-wise/

Fresh Start 101

Do students come to your classroom year with reputations? 

Well.

Yes.

And–I’m struggling with the past clinging to some students.

That’s about as diplomatic as I’m can muster right now.

How Black Girls Aren’t Presumed to Be Innocent

THE PRESENCE OF JUSTICE

A new study finds that adults view them as less child-like and less in need of protection than their white peers.

ADRIENNE GREEN

A growing body of evidence has shown that the American education and criminal-justice systems dole out harsher and more frequent discipline to black youth compared with their non-black peers. But while most of that research has focused on black boys, a new study from the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality specifically turned its attention to society’s perception of black girls.

 

Further in the article:

Black girls describe being labeled and suspended for being “disruptive” or “defiant” if they ask questions or otherwise engage in activities that adults consider affronts to their authority. Across the country, we see black girls being placed in handcuffs for having tantrums in kindergarten classrooms, thrown out of class for asking questions, sent home from school for arriving in shorts on a hot day. … We also see black girls criminalized—arrested on campus or referred to law enforcement—instead of engaged as children and teens whose mistakes could be addressed through non-punitive, restorative approaches.

 

Black Boys Viewed as Older, Less Innocent Than Whites, Research Finds

“The evidence shows that perceptions of the essential nature of children can be affected by race, and for black children, this can mean they lose the protection afforded by assumed childhood innocence well before they become adults,” said co-author Matthew Jackson, PhD, also of UCLA. “With the average age overestimation for black boys exceeding four-and-a-half years, in some cases, black children may be viewed as adults when they are just 13 years old.”

I’m sharing these articles in the hope that we all are a bit more cognizant of our implicit biases and perceptions about children, especially children of color. There are more than a few behavior issues in my afternoon classes, and I’ve been doing a mountain of reflection. I can feel my brain buzzing in the early morning from the currents of thought and concern. Juggling new, top-heavy curriculum, leveled, a prescripted reading program that flies in the face of everything I’ve researched, and thirty-minute schedules to teach U.S.History (yes, thirty minutes) along with the new committees, expectations, navigating the new culture of my new workplace and district–it’s a lot. As I remind myself I am the adult here– and if my situation is challenging I must keep in mind how difficult it must be for students. Listening and reading a book you don’t like or can’t connect with? Silent reading for thirty minutes? And then pivoting to other ideas that seem random, as instructed from the same teacher, same space? I’m going to have to do better: it’s going to take both tricks and treats to move learning along.

In the meantime, thanks to many generous donors, and getting a decent payday myself, my DonorsChoose was fully funded. I am hoping that the #projectLIT books help my scholars see themselves in narratives.

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Summer Series of Saves: Discuss, please

Twitter, well, Twitter is a lot of things but it does provide some great discussion/debate threads if you’re patient to find the gems.

Here are five threads that gave me some ideas for discussion questions:

What causes poverty: moral failures or society’s failures? (*remember, in strong argumentative reasoning there is always the third rail)

Why don’t more girls sign up for computer or technology classes? 

Is talking and learning about controversial topics more or less important than not causing conflict in school?

What is going on here?

Is it possible to stop gun violence?

 

Cake in the rain.

 

We all know this isn’t about cake.

I’m trying to sort this out for my own sake, and then for my students’.

Cornell Law Review Link.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Here is a chart I put together. It’s only a start, and I’m wondering what is missing:

Religious_structure
The different spaces and places for the First Amendment

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/15/liberty-fist-nose/

Someone sent me a full list of people who were discriminated against because of religion.  And though he didn’t mean to, he proved my point. It’s discrimination. The shop owner of the bakery and the flower shop are discriminating.

Consider providing this question to students, with a chart similar to mine: how would they discern and analyze various laws and where and when they fail or work?

Part I: Renaissance Fairness

I make digital art: this is Dolly Blueflower.

Sometimes we teachers may grow cynical about the ‘career and college’ ready mission statement. It’s not hard to see why: when our nation voted gave corporations the same voting rights as human beings we knew we were in deep trouble. To avoid that rabbit hole, I’ll just say this: we still work, and one of our jobs as teachers is to show students the opportunities and pathways so they can make the work-life decisions for themselves with the best and rigorous information.

And a secret to all this is — not all work is bad. Far from it. Modeling passion and personal engagement in our work lives is part of the mix of building relationships with students: when we point to the purpose of learning, the foundational piece comes from us. Establish our own engagement, purpose and love of our time in the workplace.

We were the nation of innovators and dream makers. We were envied the world over for our ability to create, for ingenuity and puppy-like enthusiasm. I am not sure we are that now, with a few exceptions (looking at you, Elon Musk). And I pin my hopes on the next generation of thinkers, inventors, writers, artists, and designers on helping students communicate and build the skills necessary to work together in order to solve problems.

The work I’m doing in the WABS/STEM Fellowship program and the PLU ELL Endorsement is guiding my thinking: I wanted to share some ideas from STEM group in terms of project/collaboration/employability rubrics:

Developed by industry leaders

Some ‘soft skills’ to look for when students are engaged in collaboration

From http://www.bie.org/

http://www.bie.org/

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/assessment-create-student-centered-learning-andrew-miller

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/assessment-create-student-centered-learning-andrew-miller

Part II of this providing those assessment pieces and lessons to go along with these initial rubrics.