Showing papers in "Harvard Educational Review in 1989"

Why Doesn't This Feel Empowering? Working Through the Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy

Abstract: Elizabeth Ellsworth finds that critical pedagogy, as represented in her review of the literature, has developed along a highly abstract and Utopian line which does not necessarily sustain the daily...

Toward a Social-Contextual Approach to Family Literacy

Abstract: The increasing realization that family members can contribute to children's literacy development has given birth to family literacy programs designed to support immigrant and refugee families' participation in their children's education. Elsa Auerbach critically analyzes those family literacy programs that focus on teaching parents to do school-like activities in the home and to assist children with homework. She contends that the theoretical stance of these programs is not based on sound current research. Furthermore, she argues that in practice these programs function under a new version of the "deficit hypothesis," which assumes that the parents lack the essential skills to promote school success in their children. The author proposes a broader definition of family literacy that acknowledges the family's social reality and focuses on the family's strengths. As an alternative framework to program design, the author presents a social-contextual approach in which community concerns and cultural practices ...

Stories Told and Lessons Learned: Toward a Narrative Approach to Moral Development and Moral Education

Abstract: The telling of stories in moral education has a long and universal tradition. In the study of moral development, however, the uses and power of narrative in both forming and conveying a moral sense have been largely ignored. Mark Tappan and Lyn Brown argue that narrative is central to the study as well as to the teaching of morality, and that acknowledgment of authorship of moral choices, actions, and feelings marks the endpoint of the development of moral sensibility. Children's storytelling, they believe, creates authorship when the audience is responsive and the story told represents real experience. By presenting thoughtful and challenging evidence for the role of storytelling, these authors represent a perspective much needed in the field of moral development.

The Influences of Salaries and "Opportunity Costs" on Teachers' Career Choices: Evidence from North Carolina

Abstract: Richard Murnane, Judith Singer, and John Willett analyze data from a larger study on the factors influencing career paths of teachers, focusing specifically on the career paths of White teachers in North Carolina who were first hired between 1976 and 1978. Using methodology known as "hazards modeling," the authors explore the relationship between the risk of leaving teaching, on the one hand, and teacher salary and opportunity cost, on the other hand. By employing hazards models, they are able to examine simultaneously various predictors of risk of leaving teaching — gender, National Teacher Examination (NTE) score, subject specialty, and the level of teaching (elementary or secondary) — and to determine whether the effects of these predictors remain constant or vary across teachers' careers. The authors conclude by discussing implications for policy and for teacher supply and demand models.

The Algebra Project: Organizing in the Spirit of Ella

Abstract: This article analyzes the unique impact of civil rights organizing — in the spirit of Ella Baker — on the grassroots effort of a community activist parent, Robert Moses. Moses, who is also a mathematician, argues that all children should have access to the college preparatory mathematics curriculum of the high schools, and that children without access to such programs are barred from acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary for participation in an economy driven by rapid technological change. In this article, the authors describe the interaction among parents, students, and teachers engaged in The Algebra Project, a seven-year ongoing effort to establish a pedagogy of mathematics that expects, encourages, and supports every student to study algebra at the middle-school level.

Opening Up the Classroom Closet: Responding to the Educational Needs of Gay and Lesbian Youth.

Abstract: Eric Rofes, gay community activist and author, explores the issues surrounding the schools' failure to meet the educational needs of gay and lesbian youth. He argues that there has been an across-the-board denial of the existence of gay and lesbian youth, and that this has taken place because "their voices have been silenced and because adults have not effectively taken up their cause." Rofes goes on to present some promising initiatives that are designed to change the status quo: Project 10 in Los Angeles and the Harvey Milk School in New York City. He concludes by proposing needed changes in U. S. schools if they are to become truly accessible to gay and lesbian youth.

Play as Thought: Thinking Strategies of Young Writers

Abstract: In this article, the author raises both provocative and necessary questions about the nature of children's play in relation to their classroom learning and writing Colette Daiute draws from children's transcribed dialogues and written texts to argue that play is critical to a more complex and representative understanding of how children can and do learn Further, she believes that children's learning ought to be evaluated on its own terms, and not in comparison to adult models of writing proficiency Her argument is based upon a fundamental belief that children approach learning with a variety of strategies and skills, and this article offers convincing evidence to support a view of children — and of learning — that is respectful and inclusive Daiute concludes by presenting suggestions for ways to consider child-generated and playful strategies in learning environments

Serving the Purpose of Education.

Abstract: In this article, Leona Okakok analyzes differences between the Northwest Alaska Inupiat and the Western world views, discusses the history of Western culture's influence on her own culture, and explains why the Native school board has taken full control of the educational system. She includes a discussion of the Inupiat's struggle to preserve their mother tongue and details how the school board has managed to adapt a foreign educational system to contemporary Inupiat culture (which accommodates both Western institutions and a traditional, subsistence-based lifestyle). Okakok's perceptive analyses encompass multiple viewpoints and engage the reader with concrete images and experiences of community-based education.

School as Community: The Rough Rock Demonstration

Abstract: Teresa L. McCarty takes us to Rough Rock in the center of the Navajo Reservation, and to a bold experiment in Native American ownership of education. As the first school to be run by a locally elected, all-Indian governing board, and the first to incorporate systematically the native language and culture, it proved to be an influential demonstration of community-based transformation. McCarty describes the changes in Rough Rock's social, economic, and political structures, and examines the relation of these changes to educational outcomes for children. Further, she critiques the irony created by the larger institutional structure of federal funding, which both "enables and constrains genuine control over education by Native American communities."

The Computer in Schools: Machine as Humanizer

Abstract: This has been a quite personal and idiosyncratic view of an important role for the microcomputer in mathematics education. I believe that the arguments presented here can be extended to include any subject based on formal definition and formal reasoning. A growing number of students and teachers in this country and abroad have had experience learning and teaching with the GEOMETRIC SUPPOSERS in real schools and in conditions constrained by the demands of real school settings. O n the other hand, the conjecture about the extension of these ideas to other formal subjects is mine alone and is still a matter of speculation. The validity of the con­ jecture remains to be established. Lest I be misunderstood, let me be clear that I support with enthusiasm attempts to create "intellectual mirror" software in the widest possible variety of other domains. Suppose that, encouraged by the success of these efforts in mathematics, we suc­ ceed in building environments in other domains that allow people to explore their own understandings. Suppose, further, that we are willing to augment our notions of subject matter so that the making of new content is an endless process to be en­ gaged in by students and teachers. Finally, suppose we are willing to rethink what we think we understand about the roles of students and teachers. If we do all this, we may well be standing at the threshold of a new era in education.

Foxfire Grows Up

Abstract: For more than twenty years, students at Rabun Gap High School, a conservative, traditionally organized public school in Appalachian Georgia, have published Foxfire books and magazines. Conceived by students in Eliot Wigginton's English classes, the project's publication of oral history grew into what was called cultural journalism. The national recognition and financial success of the Foxfire books and magazines led to the adoption of the approach by teachers throughout the country. However, many who attempted such projects did not recognize that Foxfire is not really a magazine, but a philosophy of education firmly grounded in principles of democratic, experiential education. Using the magazine as a device without the principles upon which Foxfire had been based often resulted in methods as traditional and teacher centered as those they were meant to replace. Recognizing this, Wigginton and the Foxfire staff began to carefully define the ingredients that led to the success of the Foxfire approach in Rabu...

The Palestinian Uprising and Education for the Future

Abstract: From the time of the Ottoman Turks, Palestinians have been educated under systems imposed by outsiders. Since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the situation has been exacerbated by the combination of an Israeli civil and military authority and a Jordanian curriculum. The intifadeh (uprising), which began in December 1987 and continues today, has challenged the Israeli occupation and all its institutions. All educational establishments have been subject to frequent closures by military authorities, forcing Palestinians to reexamine their present system of education, and to look for both short- and long-term alternatives.Khalil Mahshi and Kim Bush review the current educational system in the West Bank and Gaza, and analyze the intifadeh as a catalyst for educational change. They examine informal, community-based education; alternative modes of instruction designed to bypass closures but still using the existing system and textbooks; and long-term planning as part of the nation-building proc...

Essay Review: To Make the Spirit Whole

Abstract: "I was nine years old when I had the dream. . . . The year was 1923 . . . I was laid out in the middle of the living room as was the custom of the time when a family member died. On the wall of the living room facing the casket was a lifesized picture of my brother. . . . Then I was walking along the fence that bordered my front yard. I seemed to be an early adolescent. I . . . rang the bell. My mother opened the door. . . . 'Mrs. Morgan,' I said . . . 'I heard that Margaret died. . . .' Intently I searched my mother's face. The dream ended. . . ." (p. 312)

Teachers and Teaching: On Teaching, Knowledge, and "Middle Ground"

Abstract: Teachers often feel poised between dynamic forces in the classroom as they struggle to meet the needs of both individual students and the group, to promote children's self-knowledge as well as their knowledge of the curriculum. Here Jessica Howard, a teacher at the Prospect School, a private elementary school in rural Vermont, re-examines this dialectic. She describes how she, as a teacher, creates the "middle ground," a time and place that pulls together the disparate elements of classroom life, where children can make new and richer sense of themselves and the world.

So We Can Use Our Own Names, and Write the Laws by Which We Live: Educating the New U.S. Labor Force

Abstract: Sheila Collins, Miriam Balmuth, and Priscilla Jean discuss a pioneering program in workplace literacy begun in 1988 by two cooperating trade union organizations in New York City. In this initiative, the unions were responding to the changing needs of their members in today's shifting labor market, which has made traditional literacy programs irrelevant to improving the lives of most of today's workers. The authors discuss new conceptions of literacy that inform this initiative; in particular, the shift in focus from "worker literacy" to "workplace literacy." They present four case studies of specific programs various trade unions have developed based on their members' particular needs and workplace settings. These programs illustrate principles of workplace literacy aimed at providing adult workers with the kind of education they need to advance in their jobs and to take greater control over their lives at work and in their communities.

Teachers and Teaching: Beyond the Classroom

Abstract: Traditionally, little is expected of students in the area of eastern Kentucky where Carol Stumbo teaches. It is as true today as it was when Stumbo, the daughter of a coal miner, was growing up. Like many other cultural minorities, Appalachians are normally educated to "fit in" to the majority culture and to devalue their own history and culture. "Success," then, often comes at the expense of their Appalachian identity. In this article, the author discusses an oral history project designed to make the acquisition of writing skills more palatable to her students, and the unexpected and far-reaching consequences the project has had on her view of her own education and teaching, her students, and her community. This article captures the seriousness and honesty with which Stumbo confronts these changes and reflects her deep commitment to, and belief in, her students.

Reform or Reaction

Abstract: During the last decade various commissions, task forces, and independent re­ searchers have produced a flood of reports on educational reform, many of which focus on the high school. Despite variations in approach and sophistication, al­ most all paint a similar picture of the American high school. This collective por­ trait reveals an institution that fails to engage young people in serious intellectual inquiry, is uncertain about the exercise of adult authority, and, perhaps most im­ portant of all, has abdicated the responsibility of identifying for students what edu­ cational experiences are most valuable or what standards of academic achievement are most appropriate. Responsibility for this situation is a matter of some disagreement. Several of the reports implicitly blame students, who, they say, have become more disruptive, less committed to academics, and less interested in school activities than in the past. Others place the burden of responsibility on teachers and school officials who, they maintain, have been overly eager to ease standards in order to accom­ modate the various demands and complaints of students. But an increasingly com­ mon theme in much of the literature is that responsibility for the state of secondary education is not attributable to students or educators alone. Rather, high schools reflect the various arrangements that students and teachers have worked out to­ gether to make their lives in school more comfortable and less troublesome. These arrangements (what some scholars have labeled "bargains" or "treaties") are made tacitly to accommodate the wide range of preferences that teachers and students bring to the classroom. Both find them advantageous because they accommodate those who want to teach and learn as well as those who simply want to get through the day with as little effort or strain as possible. Just as students and teachers have sought accommodations with one another in individual classrooms, high schools have made accommodations with their stu-

The University of Puerto Rico's Partnership Project with Schools: A Case Study for the Analysis of School Improvement

Abstract: Ana Helvia Quintero examines recent reform initiatives by the Puerto Rican Department of Education (PRDE), and finds that their implementation was inadequate because it was based on a faulty view of education as a closed, rational system. Quintero argues instead that education is an open system that is highly interdependent with its environment and subject to change. An insider in the University of Puerto Rico's Partnership Project with Schools, an experimental project between the PRDE and the university to improve education, Quintero focuses on the work of the program in the San Juan II school district. One of the project's underlying assumptions is that improving education requires studying the processes of changing school practice. Quintero describes a collaborative seminar — with participants at all levels of education, from teachers to superintendents to university professors — that is the heart of the project, and then outlines preliminary results and lessons learned from this experimental program t...

Essay Review: "We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest Until It's Done": Two Dauntless Women of the Civil Rights Movement and the Education of a People

Abstract: Stokely Carmichael taught classes in a Freedom School organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi in the early 1960s. Freedom Schools grew out of the civil rights struggle, as a vehicle for community education and involvement, and Stokely was famous as a Freedom School teacher in Mississippi long before he was nationally known as the leader who embodied the shift toward Black Power and greater militancy within the movement. Stokely's classes always began with some acknowledgement of what the students themselves knew, then traveled over new, often surprising terrain as students dis­ covered, constructed, and connected with things not yet known. It was exciting to be in Stokely's classes; challenging, funny, sometimes troubling, always lively. One class began with Stokely writing several sentences opposite one another on the chalkboard:

Essay Reviews: Quality and Equity: The Necessity for Imagination

Abstract: American higher education has changed dramatically since World War II. The last forty years have seen burgeoning enrollments; the creation of a multimilliondollar industry; dissolution of a long-established intellectual curricular framework; new student populations — older, poorer, and increasingly female; the assertion of student authority; greatly intensified vocationalism; and an increasingly promi­ nent role for higher education in the nation's economy. And yet, for all the growth and change, higher education is in trouble. At the end of the 1980s, strident voices denounce the closing of the American mind and higher education's intellectual bankruptcy. Costs have skyrocketed, American young people are undereducated,

Essay Reviews: Education and Freedom in the American Experience: Critical Imagination as Pedagogy

Abstract: "What is freedom and why is it prized?" John Dewey posed this question in 1939 as the war against fascism was about to be waged. Situated in this historical con­ text, "the problem of freedom" challenged philosophers and social theorists to re­ interpret its meaning in the face of Hitler's assault on democracy. No longer could they assume as certain the "guaranteed liberties" of a constitutional government. No longer could they isolate political institutions and abstract rights from the eco­ nomic, social, and cultural relations of a society. Reminiscent of Dewey, Maxine Greene in her recent book, The Dialectic of Free­ dom, challenges us in the United States to confront the problem of freedom in our present context; to expose the taken-for-grantedness of our "endowed freedom" (p. 24). Troubled by the acquiescence and complacency of the "majority" who no longer exercise even minimal choice through their right to vote, and who identify freedom in laissez-faire terms of autonomy and individualism, Greene draws a portrait of "the land of the free and the home of the brave" that is shaded by predic­ ament and paradox. Ever the dialectician, Greene recovers the possibilities of our democratic, pluralist past while making us mindful of those who have never been privi­ leged enough to take freedom for granted: people of color, women, working people, the poor. She poses their predicaments and applauds their resistance in dire cir­ cumstances. An appeal is made for an "education for freedom" that will provide the conditions from which young people learn to see their world, understand its complexity, and act upon it to create their futures. This education demands a criti­ cal stance, a willingness to question, a commitment to search, and the exercise of imagination, defining qualities of Greene's work. It is no mere coincidence that two prominent philosophers of education concern themselves with the meanings of and conditions for freedom. Modern philosophy, particularly educational philosophy, relies on the legacy of the Enlightenment, when freedom and reason were optimistically allied in the pursuit of popular edu-

Teachers and Teaching: "Yanoosh Who-o-o?": On the Discovery of Greatness

Abstract: Good teaching requires more than a prescription or a carefully circumscribed set of goals and activities. A truly great teacher is inspired by profound beliefs and inspires his or her students to develop their own beliefs. Here, Edwin Kulawiec, a teacher of teachers, shares his discovery of an inspirational educator whose life and work captivated him, despite the fact that this great teacher has long been dead, a victim of the Holocaust.