voicing concern

(this blog is in reference to my experience in/frustration with my every-other-satuday classes at ole-miss for the teacher corps. primary audience, mtc instructors/administrators. however, i hope it's readable for mtc members and others. i apologize for the lack of context, but it's long enough as is.)

- i'm in total agreement with jake about the relative unclarity of our classroom objectives, as well as the overwhelming sense of a lack of preparation/direction in classroom procedings.

- as for last week's rebound of "we're digging a little deeper," and "we're taking it to the next level" in regard to the purpose of the STAI lesson plan requirements, this was uncomfortably countered a few minutes later later with "some of you may ask 'why?' [...] well, just put it down" in regard to the same topic. my concern is that "why" is exactly the forum for "digging a little deeper," and that i have no real sense of why listing in a lesson plan the procedures for both a teacher and a student adds any realistic insight to the practice of teaching - beyond the level of one being called to offer minor contextual arrangements of that practice. sure - all these "wait until you're older" maneuvers probably correlate with an indirect richness over time and experience, but so many things in this program seem cripplingly indirect, contingent, and peripheral - merely setting up and head-nodding at rote performances in spaces where analyis, growth, and reflection should happen - and do happen upon an individual's coming to terms with the langauge of the task at hand - but doing nothing to promote, inspire, direct, explain, or prompt that analysis, growth, or reflection than deferring to the strangely ironic argument of inexperience - that is, if the purporteed richness of these lessons is always dependent on the alibi of time, then why are they being presented to a group of people for which time is exactly their definitional limitation? so, by being presented with a veiled, referential, inaccessible text of substance ("we're digging a littler deeper"), and a castration of the inquiry necessary to provide that substance ("just put it down"), all i seem to be left with is a sense of inefficiency as a teacher - by mythical definition of my rookie status - which continually runs up against a smug ingroup/outgroup dismissal of any analytical engagement with those practices. so, while i can surely perform by mimicry with those tools (re: the toolbox metaphor of the summer) i've been handed down from above, i am contintually been prevented any connection with their purpose, meaning, construction, adaptability, or limitation. to run with the image: just keep hammering at that nail, and - by the way - here's a hammer with a shiny new handle by a guy named howard gardner; it's clearly better than the last one - don't you agree? well, sure, but why am i hammering again?

- the continued response to all this is: wait until the next class. wait until germaine's methods. wait until doctor mullins. wait until you're older. wait until you're ready. there is clearly a reluctance to "theory" by the teacher corps, but this seems to be more on the definitional lines of academic politics - the production of the hyperlinguistic, the detached, and the critical versus the dataplay of the watery psychological, the name-branded, and the "studies show" - than as a reflection of classroom reality. we are continually shown theory, fed theory, asked to repeat theory (in fact, everything we've been show is some name-tagged theoretical trend or other), but prevented from absorbing or repsonding to it. bloom's what have you and skinner's views on pigeons are are highly theoretical approaches, and yet are passed off with bizzarre and reductive "practical" credence by the questionable logos of psychology-as-science, and in their dissemination become detached and meaningless hoops for all of us to jump through in our lengthy self-promoting process of not being ripped to shreds in the classroom - all the while neither thinking of the classroom as a visceral, complicated system of systems, nor as an series of articulated, empirical humanness (re: the theory vs. not-theory polemic), but as a weird, meaningless plug-and-play of instruments, models, and tools - all - in fact - deriving from some rich, valuable thought or other, which is nevertheless forever locked away in the promises of a more meaningful future, for which we must merely survive long enough in order to attain, for which we are provided tools explained only in form.

- after this rant, then what? and, "why" the rant - to make a meta-turn? well, let's call a spade a spade. either our saturdays are well-dressed instructions on how to fill out the STAI instrument in order for us to fulfill the NCATE (sp?) requirements, or they're not. if they are, then we shouldn't pretend otherwise, and utilize our time best so that we can just replicate the form (perhaps time in the computer lab to do the research we are hastily and unclearly assigned, or time to create rough drafts of STAI requirements while also communing in subject areas, or other exercises focused on fulfilling requirement standards that we don't particuarly need to be read to us every other saturday). if our saturdays are not this glorified STAI fill-in-the-blanks, then perhaps our objectives should be to come out of saturday with something that will help on monday, and not merely on a contingent or force-fit, force-fed level. right now, everything seems so artificial, detached, and/or jargon heavy to have anything to do with the 120 kids i'm responsible for every day. the irony is that all these silly instruments, models, and tools were developed to exactly manage this sort of repsonsibiliy - but if i have neither access to the theoretical, analytical, or scientific foundations of these objects (and a 2-page off-the cuff essay on top of a week of survival teaching won't cut it), nor any dedicated, direct venue for creating personal value for and articulation of these objects (this may be a more amenable approach for the anti-academic ethos of mtc), these are wholly and laughably obsolete on monday morning. all the bloom's in the world will do nothing for my performance in the classroom if i have no investment in their value, nor reason/time to develop such an investment.

- at some point we should start to give serious thought as to whatever it is we're doing or want to be doing in the classroom, and how and why we may be able to attain these goals. i'm part of a class of 27 brilliant, dedicated individuals who seem more than willing to invest intellectually and creatively in their approach towards the classroom (else they wouldn't have signed up for this insanity), and it seems there is an institutional glass ceiling that's severing the hoops of saturday from the frustrations of monday, as opposed to infusing the discoveries of saturday with the desires for a better monday. what it will take to help produce a meaningful, relevant connection - i don't particuarly know - but i do know that whatever's happening right now is completely insufficient, and at times depressingly counterproductive.