Re-Envision and Imagine: A classroom with no Boundaries

 

OBSERVE and INFORM

          We (teachers', students', families', and communities') are constantly subjected to “the voices” (news, media and politicians) undermining the value of the classroom teacher and the belief that education is a “black hole” of wasted taxpayer money. Sending the neoliberal message that, “ what is private is necessarily good and what is public is necessarily bad… and any money spent on schools that is not directly related to economic goals is suspect”(Apple, 2001). Education is being marketed to the public to be for simply making our economy more productive- “education for employment”. Education is presented to be in a “crisis” and the NCLB act is here to save it by creating a high stakes testing environment which demands unrealistic goals be placed on schools - setting the perfect stage for schools to fail. Leaving “no other choice” than for private corporations to step in and “Save Us” – the perfect neoliberal storm. Taking advantage of “people’s common sense can be shifted in conservative directions during a time of economic and ideological crisis”(Apple, 2001). Theses neoliberal policies in practice, “reproduce traditional hierarchies of class, race, and gender; these proposals should give us serious pause”(Apple, 2001). Yes, serious pause…….

REFLECT

A pause to reflect on what is it that as an educator I strive to accomplish? I want to close the social gap? Teaching for social justice, teaching compassion and empathy, find students passion and use emotion and creativity to inspire them. I want to create an environment in which students want to learn and do for themselves, creating intrinsic motivation in which grades are unattached to the drive for the outcome of a project. I want to teach project-based learning that has real life implication, group projects with community connections. Projects that inspire students to live their dreams and which guide them in the realistic steps that it takes to live those dreams. Experiential learning that changes who students are and how they see themselves in the world. I want to open the window for all students and show those that the poor and racially disempowered are capable of more than the expectations of service work that has been placed on them. I want to teach students who and what they can become, I want to teach humanity for all, and I want to show the world that students, when given the chance want more than points to win a pizza party. I want to show students a different way, a different world, one in which breaks the mold. 

ENVISION

            So How….How do we break the mold? What can we as educators envision? I envision a busy classroom with lots of noise, busy students, using multimedia and multitasking, highly energized and productive. I want a classroom that reflects a 21^st century innovative business model. A classroom connected to real life learning. A classroom that allows and utilizes technology! Students listening to music, searching YouTube video’s, blogging about experiences, students with individual laptops in which students can instant message each other and send email links etc. A classroom that respects students whose Native language is digital (Alvermann, 2007), as well as supports trilingual, bilingual and home languages within the classroom walls. A classroom that is not responsible for teaching just one content area, an intergraded classroom that is based on multiple disciples with intergraded academics in which students strive for larger goals than passing regents test. Goals such as creating roof top gardens and solving hunger within their community. I want education that allows for ‘choices’ that help students to find their passion and direction to make real life connections, and to experience their future. I want to teach students, 21^st century skills: digital age literacy, inventive thinking, effective communication, and high productivity, (Beers, 2007) which is “preparing students to live productively”. I want Keene’s dimensions of understanding to become my classroom ethos, “ develop areas of passionate interest, dwell on ideas, struggle for insight, explore complex ideas, discuss ideas in different aspects, create models, and feel…” (2007).  I want to tap into the potential of every student, and foster there growth until it is bigger and brighter than anyone ever thought possible.

INSPIRE

As educators lets begin to challenge deep social injustice, discrimination and inequality that exist inside and outside our classroom walls. We can’t give up on public education, and support the massive trend of the “white-flight” (Apple, 2001) away from our public schools. We must ask the question are we acting in our own best interest or everyone’s best interest? There is an advertisement on the local radio station for the private Mountain Laurel school that states, ”where teachers care”, – implying that public school teachers don’t care? We (as educators) know this not to be true. Lets put practice into motion and fight back this constant rhetoric.  In Kylene Beers (2001) words, “… believe that in teaching all students, we must first teach each student, and that each student is a promise of a better tomorrow…. what you do and what you say to the students in your classroom make an incredible difference…. believe in a promise for a better tomorrow begins, in part, with the practices you offer them today”. We need teachers more than anything right now, we need them to fight back, educate the populous and show big business that were not failing and that we will not stand for the privatization of the education system. Public education is created for ALL and must remain for ALL. The education system cannot become like the health care industry, “the best insurance money can buy.”  Enough of the haves and have-nots, as the Beatles once said, “lets start a revolution,” demanding that we ALL have; whereas, no one has to be a spectator watching from the sideline – left to only “consume the image”(Apple, 2001)!! Lets make America what it should be- free and fair for EVERYONE.