“Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communication, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the ‘banking’ concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits…Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” - Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed (p. 72).
This weeks readings felt like a wonderful response to the problem Paulo Freire calls the “banking system of education”. The principles outlined in the selections from Understanding by Design (Ubd) focus on ways to plan units that will help students developing understanding of big ideas instead of regurgitating facts that will easily be forgotten. I believe that education should empower students to solve problems and UbD’s goal for students to “‘know what to do when they don’t know what to do’” (p. 78) really resonated with me.
Ubd’s model of backward design emphasizes the importance of determining what acceptable evidence will be of the learning teacher’s want to take place. Designing ongoing and authentic assessments must happen at the beginning of planning a unit, not during or at the end. A shift in thinking I experienced is that the goal of assessments should primarily be to collect the evidence of learning rather than to generate grades. This shift represents an increased value in looking for and documenting learning, which has been encouraged during my time at Central Falls. This shift in the goal of assessments is one that could be felt by students. As the hypothetical 5th grade teacher Bob James posits, “...one thing that has always disturbed me is that the kids tend to focus on their grades rather than on their learning. Perhaps the way I’ve used assessments - more for grading purposes than to document learning - has contributed to their attitude” (p. 16). James wishes to see his students value learning. To see this shift, he must shift first. At the heart of UbD is the assertion that learning will be valued when it honors the big ideas that live beyond the classroom. This echos Freire’s call for us to acknowledge that knowledge is built “in the word, with the world, and with each other” (p. 72). I hope that this shift in how I perceive assessments will help me make my classroom a place that is interacting with my student’s worlds. This emphasis on classroom learning transferring to real world experiences is again reflected in the passages discussing what makes an essential question essential. Essential questions are alive, they are “essential for students to continuously consider so as to gain insight, make connections, and facilitate transfer of learning” (p. 76).
While many of the Essential Questions listed on pages 74 and 75 I found wonderful, one that aggravated me as future English teacher was, “What is the author saying? What makes you think so?” (I was under the impression that the author is dead.) I believe identifying the purpose of text is a useful skill, but a dangerous place to stop. The task at the heart of this essential question asserts that finding out what the author meant to say is the ultimate interpretation of a text. It disregards that the intent of an author can be very different than the impact of the text. I would submit for replacement: “What is relationship of intent and impact?” I think this would work nicely in a social studies unit as well.
What is your response to my critique and suggestions?
What were your reactions to the list of EQ’s? Any favorites? Any you might critique?
Hey Colleen,
ReplyDeleteI just finished my blog post and I saw you had yours done on Dr, Horwitz page. So I clicked on it and read. Its awesome that you started you post with a quote from Freire. I mentioned Banking Education on my blog a couple of minutes ago. I completely agree with what you've written, the readings go hand in hand with the ideas of Freire, What is crazy is that I took the same quote you took from the reading. I agree that the teacher needs to change in order to have the students value learning more than the grade. I was thinking about the grades really reflecting actual learning. I feel grades should be based on what the students can take with them.
Your critique is on point. Looking at the reading through the eyes of the author doesn't leave anything open for interpretation. It eventually goes back to being one sided, teacher-centered learning, telling the students what the author wanted to say. Now the impact of the text takes a person's thoughts somewhere else because that impact can be against anything. That would be open to interpretation and it would reach the students' worlds.
So yeah, about the essential questions I would say that there's one that I liked but disliked also depending on how you see it. How can I explore and describe cultures without stereotyping them?
Like: An understanding that not everyone is the same. Like how some Americans think being Hispanic is the same for everyone, I've even heard of people saying you're from Mexico if you speak Spanish. Which is like a slap in the face because there are 20 countries and a US territory that Spanish is the official language.
Dislike: Stereotyping comes down to an individual knowing that race or ethnicity doesn't define who a person is. Anyone can say general traits about a group of people without offending anyone. It all comes down to not making assumptions about a person just because of their race. It's something that every student should be taught.
When you brought up that question, "What is the author saying?", it made me think back to some of my high school English classes. I felt like the teacher never asked us what the author was saying, but instead told us what was being said, whether or not we believed it to be true. I remember, in particular, my 10th grade English class. We read "The Scarlet Letter," and I felt like all the teacher talked about was symbolism, symbolism, and more symbolism. She dug deep into the book, creating so much meaning and interpretation that it ruined the enjoyment of the book for me. She did that with another book too (but I don't remember the name of it. It started with a boy watching a baby bird in a try and it falls down trying to fly). She tried to build so much meaning into everything we read that I couldn't think for myself, and then later years, just analyzed the crap out of everything I had to read for school. It kind of took the joy out of reading for me. If she had just let us create meaning of our own instead of what the author was possibly trying to say, it would have been a better learning experience.
ReplyDeleteColleen,
ReplyDeleteI also really appreciated the Essential Questions on pages 74 and 75. I liked all of the Essential Questions in Science, but my favorite was: "Is this error an avoidable mistake or inherent in the data?" It is so easy to forget about the importance of error in scientific research; there is always error in any scientific measurement, but that doesn't mean that the data isn't valid. It's a great question for reflection and thinking critically about the methodology of an experiment.