Fall Quarter 2002
"Teaching Against the Grain: Resisting the Culture of Schooling"
Masters in Teaching Program Year One
General Overview
of the Program
"Can prospective teachers learn to be both educators and activists, to regard themselves as agents for change, and to regard reform as an integral part of the social, intellectual, ethical and political activity of teaching?" This provocative question, posed more than a decade ago by Marilyn Cochran-Smith, nationally prominent professor of education at Boston University, provides the contextual framework for our study in MIT 2002-04. To learn to reform teaching, hence to reform U.S. schools, our exploration of "educative practice" in John Dewey's terms, will be integrated with larger issues of social justice in our diverse democracy.
The often irresistible pull of our own experiences in schools, in combination with the culture of schooling, can impede both the awareness of a need for change and strategies for inviting change. All culture is inherently conserving and preserves the way things were done in the past. Hence, we will look inside ourselves, at our own culturally shaped beliefs and confront our comfort zones in order to take steps beyond them. We will also investigate the larger culture to dismantle and then re-image what it means to learn, what it means to teach, and who our learners are in our culturally pluralistic society in this age of rapid globalization. MIT teacher candidates learn to become advocates of academic success for all children and leaders in anti-bias educational practice.
Fall Quarter, Year One
In the first quarter, this full-time graduate program will engage each member of our learning community in the exploration of the question: "What are my ideas about education and where do they come from?" The quarter’s exploration will be informed by readings, weekly observations in urban, rural and suburban schools, reflections on our own cultural backgrounds and experiences, and regular opportunities to share perspectives. Each of us will examine our assumptions, values, and attitudes about learning, teaching and the role of the public schools in our society. Weekly field seminars and book seminars, reflective papers and Web Crossing discussions, an ethnic autobiography project, workshops, guests, talks and projects will provide opportunities for us to examine our ideas about education and our relationship to it. Our study offers an effective way to examine ideas through multiple perspectives on history, culture, and pedagogy, critical analysis, and self-reflection.
Program Schedule and Room Guide
TUESDAY |
WEDNESDAY |
THURSDAY |
FRIDAY |
SATURDAY
|
7am-12pm (Lincoln Elementary, Shelton Middle School, Foss High School) 12-1pm 2:30-4:30pm
Seminar bldg. 5-7
p.m. 7:30-9 p.m. Library General Computing Classroom (GCC) |
5-9
p.m. Workshops/
|
Web Crossing Post your own draft seminar paper by 9:00 p.m. |
Web Crossing Post response to at least two seminar members’ postings by 3:00 p.m. |
9-9:45am Workshops/ 10am-12pm 1-5
PM Workshops/ (NOTE: on three Saturdays we will meet in CAB 110 and CAB 108 instead. They are Oct. 19, Nov. 16 and Dec. 7)
|
Weekly Book Seminar Preparation Papers
Being prepared for book seminars promotes the dynamic exchange of perspectives that is so vital to our inquiry and discussions. Seminar is the intellectual center of the program. Therefore, we expect each student to enter the seminar on Saturdays with a two to three page (maximum) typewritten paper about the reading of the week. These are not book reports, instead, use this opportunity to help you construct what is important for you in understanding the text. This work should capture your thoughts about concepts or issues presented in the readings for the week that you think warrant further discussion during seminar.
As you write these weekly essays, ask yourself:
Since you read from several different authors each week, work to integrate material from all readings each week by choosing an integrating question or theme that lets you pull together material from these different sources. Pulling together or integrating material from different sources gives you practice with the kind of writing required in your Master's projects.
As a part of the program writing process, your seminar papers must be representative of your "best work", that is, fully edited. Make use of your on-line colleagues on Web Crossings and the Writing Center (Lib 3407) for writing advice and editorial review. Be sure to cite the author and page number(s) in the text, e.g. (Zinn, p.202), when you refer to a specific idea so that you can find it easily in seminar discussions. Your faculty will read your writing with an eye for competency in specified writing skills (see attached rubric). Keep all of these seminar papers for your program portfolio.
Weekly Seminar Preparation Using Web Crossing
Each week to support your thinking about the readings and your preparation for seminar, you will begin "discussions" on Web-crossing, a computer supported bulletin board.
These discussions are designed to help you to identify and clarify the theme, issue or question that you are exploring in your seminar paper for the week. They also will let you gain some new ideas, suggestions and feedback from your colleagues about the theme that you chose and about the effectiveness of the materials from the reading that you are using to support your perspective in the seminar paper. The discussions should prime your thinking for discussions in seminar and help you to visualize your audience as you write. As a result, they should help you to see writing as part of an ongoing dialogue with a reader.
ALSO
Select one or more chapters from your favorite part of the week's reading and imagine that you are teaching this material to your own class. You know that you need to assess their understanding of the reading they have done, and have decided to use an essay question to do that.
Democracy Project Presentations
In the Fall Quarter, you and a group of colleagues will be working together on a "democracy" project that you will present as a group on Saturday of Week 5. This project will involve choosing and dividing up some research tasks then working together to shape a group presentation for the rest of your colleagues. The individual research work that you do, as a part of the project, is to be put together in a format that you can include in your final Portfolio.
Ethnic Autobiography
During the fall quarter, you'll be writing your ethnic autobiography. An autobiography is a personal history, a self-account. An ethnic autobiography is a particular kind of personal history. It focuses on your evolving awareness that you are different from others and others are different from you; different in race, tribe, nationality. Your ethnic autobiography will be a reflection on your evolving awareness of your own ethnicity and that of others. Self-awareness and awareness of others are the experiences that form the core of this paper.
Research Question and Annotated Bibliography
By the end of Fall Quarter you each will have identified a question on some aspect of teaching or education about which you are most interested. Eventually, this question will be the focus of your Master's Project research -- a critical review of existing research on that question. The goal of the Master's Project is to help you become a skilled poser of questions and an educated consumer of research that will inform your work throughout your professional career as a teacher and school leader.
A series of hands-on workshops will give you an opportunity to learn about and explore data bases and different kinds of studies, and to read and annotate some research related to your initial question(s), as you work toward making a final selection. These exploratory questions and annotations will be included in your final portfolio.
Field Observations, Field Journal, Triad Discussions and Field Seminar
A major objective of field observations in Fall Quarter is to give you practice "seeing", and describing what you see, in the culture of public schools. In a sense, you are trying to see "the grain" -- what is there. As artist John Berger (1995edition) said in his classic book Ways of Seeing, "The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled" (p.7)… "The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe." Each week for the first year of the program you will observe in a public school classrooms. By Spring Quarter, you will teach short lessons in a classroom that you have observed during the Winter. In order to explore both the culture of schools and your own assumptions and perceptions about that culture, you will:
Reflective Portfolio
Throughout the MIT Program you will be required to maintain a variety of portfolios for different purposes. At the end of Fall quarter, you will submit a portfolio of evidence of your quarter's work, accompanied by written self-reflection on its quality and your learning. One good description of such a portfolio is,
…a purposeful collection of student work that tells a story about the student's efforts, progress or achievement in one or more academic disciplines…(and which) shows evidence of student self-reflection (Arter and Spandel, 1992).
In anticipation of this final portfolio, keep all of your quarter's work in a three-ring binder, e.g. each final seminar paper, sample exploratory bibliographies and questions related to your master's project, democracy project material, ethnic autobiography, etc.
Fall Readings
Sacks, O.W. (2000). Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf. Vintage Books.
Spring,
J.H. (2000). The American School 1642-2000.
WCB/McGraw-Hill.
Zinn, H. (2001). A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present. Harper Perennial.
Loewen, J.W. (1996). Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. Touchstone Books.
Dewey, J. (1997). Experience and Education. Scribner
Shor, I., & Freire, P. (1997). A Pedagogy for Liberation. Bergin & Garvey.
Harste, J.C., Woodward, V.A., & Burke, C.L. (1984). Language Stories and Literacy Lessons. Heinemann.
Eric Jensen, E. (1998). Teaching with the Brain in Mind. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.
Gould, S.J. (1981) Mismeasure of Man. W.W. Norton and Co., Inc.
Moses, R.P., & Cobb Jr, C.E. (2001). Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights. Beacon Press.
Delpit, L.D. & Kilgour Dowdy, J. (2002). The Skin that we Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom. New Press
Kozol, J. (1992). Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools. Harper Perennial.
Kirszner, L.G. & Mandell, S.R. (2000). The Pocket Holt Handbook. International Thomson Publishing.
Moore, D.S. (2000). Statistics: Concepts and Controversies.W H Freeman & Co.
WEEK ONE
Wednesday October2 |
Thursday |
Friday |
Saturday |
|
READ: BRING:
HANDOUTS:
HOMEWORK: |
9:00 -5:00
Camp Schechter Retreat Center
See detailed agenda at the retreat |
9:00-5:00 Camp Schechter Retreat Center |
9:00-3:00 Camp
Schechter |
9:00 -4:00 Evergreen Library 4300
6:00-9:00 Potluck, Families and Open Stage |
WEEK TWO
|
Tuesday, October 8 |
Wednesday, October 9 |
Saturday, October 12 |
BRING:
HANDOUTS:
HOMEWORK:
|
7am-12pm
12-1pm
5-7
pm
7:30-9
p.m (GCC) |
5-7
p.m. 7:30-9pm
|
9-9:45am
10am-12pm 1-2
pm 2:15
- 5pm |
WEEK THREE
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Saturday October 19 |
|
READ:
BRING:
HANDOUTS: HOMEWORK: |
7am-12pm 12-1pm 5-6:30
pm 6:45pm 7:30-9
p.m. |
5-9
p.m. "Historiography, Power and Ideology" Film and Discussion
|
Note: Meet in CAB 110 9-9:45am 10am-12pm 1-2
pm 2:15
- 5pm 7:00pm |
WEEK FOUR
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Saturday |
|
READ:
BRING:
HOMEWORK: HANDOUTS: |
7am-12pm 12-1pm 5-6:30
pm 7:30-9
p.m.
|
5-6pm 6-9
p.m. "The Political Economy of Racism" and video: Marlon Riggs Ethnic Notions and discussion
|
9-10am 10-12pm 1-3
pm
3
- 5pm |
WEEK FIVE
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Saturday |
|
READ:
BRING:
|
7am-12pm 12-1pm 5-6:30
pm 7:30-9
p.m. |
5-7
p.m. Workshop: Writing Essay Questions Using Loewen (read Ch. 7,8,9 of Lowen and bring book to workshop) 7-7:30 p.m. break 7:30 - 9 p.m. Meet to plan democracy project group presentations for Saturday
|
9-11
am Guest speaker: Dr. Elizabeth Minnich Philosopher, Union Graduate School "Teaching and Moral Responsibility" 11-12 a.m. Library 4300 Seminar on Schor and Freire 12
- 1 pm 1
- 5pm Democracy Project Presentations
|
WEEK SIX
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Saturday |
|
READ:
BRING:
HANDOUTS: HOMEWORK: |
7am-12pm 12-1pm 5-6:30
pm 7:30-9 p.m. GCC Goverment documents |
5-7:00pm 7:30-9pm Read Moore, Ch. 8 and bring book with you. |
9-10:00am Lib 4300 Portfolios and Advancement to Candidacy
10am-12pm 1-3
pm Bring draft of master's question 3
- 5pm |
WEEK SEVEN
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Saturday |
|
READ:
BRING:
HANDOUTS: |
7am-12pm 12-1pm 5-6:30
pm 7:30-9
p.m. |
5-7:00pm 7-9pm |
Note: Meet in CAB 110 9-10:00
10am-12pm 1-3:30pm
CAB 110 and 108 3:45
- 5pm CAB 110 |
WEEK EIGHT
Tuesday, November 19 |
Wednesday, Nov. 20 |
Friay, Nov. 22 |
Saturday, Nov. 23 |
|
READ:
BRING:
Notice that regular book seminar has been moved from Saturday to Wednesday evening. No seminar paper due! |
7am-12pm 12-1pm 5-7 pm CAB 108 Radical Equations Workshop,Part1 (Have read Moses for this workshop.)
7:30-9
p.m. Seminar Rooms (Note that field seminar and workshop are in a different order and place) |
5-6:30pm
CAB 110 7-9pm
Seminar Rooms
|
7-9:30 pm Lecture Hall 1 "A
Winning Smile, Losing Tears". Lecture/Demonstration This workshop will be credited toward WAC required physical education credit. Those earning elementary education endorsement should try their best to come to Friday. Anyone else who can should try to come Friday evening, as well.
|
9-5pm TESC Rec Center Dress in comfortable clothes for movement in the morning. 10 am - 1 pm "Child's Play - The Smartest Move in Education" Interactive Workshop. Bring comfortable shoes to play and think in. 2 - 5 pm Professional Forum - Perspectives on Movement Required of all - effect of movement on learning, development, ADD, and HDD. |
Vacation Week - Thanksgiving
November 25 - December 1
WEEK NINE
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Saturday |
|
READ:
BRING:
HANDOUTS: NOTE: Final (7th) seminar paper draft due on Delpit and Harste on Web crossing at the usual time on Thursday and comments by Friday. |
7am-12pm 12-1pm 5-6:30
pm 7:30-9
p.m.
|
CAB
110
5-7
p.m. "Literacy" NOTE: Read Harste before lecture and ask questions 7:30
- 9 pm |
Note: Meet in CAB 110 9-9:45
am
10am-12pm
in the Seminar Building 1-5
pm in CAB 110 |
WEEK TEN
Tuesday |
Wednesday |
Friday
& Saturday |
|
READ:
BRING:
|
7am-12pm 12-1pm 5-6:30
pm 7-9
p.m. in CAB 108
|
5-9
p.m. in CAB 110
Potluck (no seminar paper due) |
Evaluation Conferences |