Learning in the Delta: A New Teacher's Adventures

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

The topics for this month’s blogs were all centering on information involving coursework and expectations that applicants to the MTC should have involving the coursework. This particular blog is intended to touch upon two topics: My best class in the program, and what this program – in my own opinion – can do to make itself better.

I have had many memorable and useful experiences during the classes at Ole Miss. Methods is a great way to get some new and creative teaching strategies; Listening to influential politicians and leaders has helped to inspire and excite my passion for education; and building my own school district gave me a deeper respect for those involved in promotion and support of public educational systems. My favorite class, though, was the law class I took over the summer of my second year. I believe that there are a few different reasons for this: time, instruction, and content. Time was a factor because it was a month long class, which only lasted 90 minutes, and which took place over the summer. I didn’t have to deal with my job or struggle to stay awake. Another factor for making this my favorite class, perhaps the largest one, was the instruction style. The professor treated everyone in the class as a college student, giving us work that we found interesting, never-EVER asking us to do some project involving scissors and colored pencils. All of the work in the law class was thought provoking, challenging, age-appropriate, college level work. The final factor that I believe made a difference in my enjoyment of the class was the content: we read the Constitution of the United States and I learned about its application and how the laws apply to me and my situation – what is cooler than that?

To continue, though, discussing the importance of instruction and content in one’s college class environment, I would like to switch gears a little bit and focus on what MTC can do to change itself for the better.

When I was applying to colleges and Universities in high school, I expressed interest in becoming a teacher and looking for a program that offered a degree in education. Most of the teachers and counselors who were aware of this interest tried to persuade me to pursue another field of study, explaining to me that a degree in teaching was not very useful. I was confused by this statement, assuming that if teaching was the career that I ultimately wanted, than nothing would be more useful to me than a degree in that particular area. Now, only half a year away from attaining my Masters in Curriculum and Instruction, I am beginning to understand what those people meant by this whole pursuit being useless. The schools of education, in my opinion are filled with the most non-intellectual, watered-down, nonsense! Most of the coursework that I find myself doing is insulting. I am a 23 year old person with a degree in philosophy and mathematics, and I have been asked to fill out worksheets, draw colored paper out of cups to figure out what group I’m in, write 10-day lesson plans that correctly mark all of the STAI points (do they really think that helps?). The things that I have been tested on, quizzed on, graded on – I could care less about most of these things. I enjoy the conversations, the debates, and some of the genuine readings about making our public education system a better place. However, if you continue to breed teachers using the instruction of the school of education, nothing will change. A smart 14 year old could pass most of these courses.

I believe that MTC is wise in only accepting people who have a degree in something other than education. A degree in something else means that you might have actually had an education that benefits you in other areas of your life. However, recognizing the benefit of a different degree, why are they then forcing this crappy coursework on us? If you know its not worthwhile, change it.

Jim Collins is not an intellectual. Good To Great reads like a textbook: Venn diagrams, flow charts, elementary school analogies to buses and forest creatures. There were no profound sentences or core-shaking ideas. The only time I became passionate while reading his book was when I complained to a friend about the absurdity of the Stockdale Paradox (NOT A PARADOX!). It may not be necessary for Jim Collins to write well in order to make his point, but his book is so full of images and quotes and analogies and data; one begins to lose interest in the point.

Collins has discovered a way for good organizations to become great. Excellent. However, after the list he gave of good organizations, why should I be inspired to become great? Coca-Cola is only a good company. Personally, Coca Cola seems to e doing just fine. If you asked me to choose between my organization being a Coca-Cola or a Walgreen’s, I could be persuaded either way. The fact that one of those companies is only good, while the other is great according to Mr. Collins does not mean much to me.

While on the topic of organizations, how well does Good To Great translate to schools? Throughout the book, there are statements that Collins makes which seem to be applicable to all organizations: the five levels of leaders were applicable not only to CEOs, but to dead presidents as well. However, there were other statements he made which made me stop and question how he pictured anyone other than a businessman putting his word’s into action. For example, the first of the three circles, or, What you can be the best in the world at (Ugh): “The good to great companies understood that doing what you are good at will only make you good; focusing solely on what you can potentially do better than any other organization is the only path to greatness.”

Am I supposed to believe that JPS is better at something than any other district in the US and should therefore give up endeavors for anything else? Or, is it that Public Schooling as a whole is better than any other organization at education, and should therefore focus on that? Hopefully it is neither because both are useless and silly statements. The mere fact that this notion of focusing on what you can do best is part of process called The Hedgehog Concept, though, doesn’t discourage me from thinking that so many of this man’s statements are silly.

I hate to write this man and his research off as silly. I am sure that data in this book is beneficial and that certain CEOs have plaques hanging up of THE COUNCIL mechanism so as to remind everyone that questioning needs to happen in a clockwise motion. Unfortunately, I cannot take seriously a person who decides it is a wise move to convince people of the superiority of hedgehogs by writing, “What could be more simple than ? What could be simpler than the idea of the unconscious, organized into an id, ego, and superego? What could be more elegant than Adam Smith’s pin factory and ‘invisible hand’?”