Annenberg Promise

The article, The Promise of Urban Schools prepared by the Senior Fellows in Urban Education discusses ways in which "social, political, economic, and cultural systems interact to influence schooling in urban settings." Although many of the ideas presented were intriguing, the one point that stood out among the rest was that "Unfortunately, in too many urban schools, especially those serving low-income students and students of color, control and punishment are the priority. Student's lives are dominated by hall passes, a profusion of rules and restrictions, searches, lock-downs, and lack of respect. Even older youth, many of whom shoulder adult responsibilities outside school, have little voice or opportunity for self-direction. This dehumanizing school culture is clearly disabling rather than enabling."

This quote explains my entire experience in my Fieldwork for Education class during the Spring 2008 semester. I was placed in a K-8 school in Paterson where I observed an art teacher instructing children from kindergarten through eighth grade. The class was made up of fairly low-income families; the demographic of the school being: 75% Hispanic, 20% Black, 5% Other. The experience was valuable in that I learned exactly what not to do as a teacher and what methods definitely do not help to promote learning. The idea of control and punishment being the priority hit the nail right on the head. On average, my cooperating teacher spent nearly 15 minutes forcing children to stand in perfectly straight lines outside of the classroom door. Before letting the students enter, they must also be completely silent. This before class ritual usually involved several telephone calls to parents or guardians. Once the students entered the classroom, the teacher would dish out "F's" like they were going out of style...a student would not sit down, they received an "F", a student talked to another student - they received an "F", and so on. The teacher wanted the students to conform to the notion that a "good" student is a quiet or inactive student and that a "bad" student is an active or vocal student.

The class time was spent enforcing rules and restrictions so much so that there was literally only about 10 minutes of instruction (if you could even call it that). The instruction involved the teacher saying, "Ok, take out your work from last time and continue working," combined with the teacher answering a few questions. There was (and is) so much room for improvement on the teacher's part and that's coming from someone with very limited teaching experience. When I would interact with the students by starting discussions and attempting to engage in a dialogue/forming a community of inquiry, the students were well behaved and genuinely interested in what was going on. When I was given the opportunity to teach, I challenged the students with new and unfamiliar projects and encouraged them to work together. I found that when the students were yelled at and forced to do mindless, cookie-cutter assignments they rebelled even more - yet when given the opportunity to make decisions on their own and express themselves, they were more productive than ever.