Article Abstracts:
Also in this issue:
In this article, Denis Hayes discusses the competence model for teacher training in England in the 1990s. This model uses Circulars — policy guidelines that list competence statements — to outline the level of achievement that student teachers must reach before obtaining qualified teacher status. Hayes considers the impact that the competence approach to monitoring standards of achievement has had on teacher-training institutions and student teachers. He explores questions of terminology and examines the limitations of using a competence model, the difficulties of separating competences for the purposes of assessment and of structuring competence statements in a hierarchy that reflects the way that student teachers progress in their ability to teach. He presents a case study based on his own institution’s attempt to develop a hierarchy of competence acquisition and cautions that a competence approach to the training and assessment of teachers is extremely complex. Hayes concludes that, in aligning their programs with the statutory competence model, teacher-preparation institutions must not neglect the developmental aspect of the skills that enable student teachers to reach the competences. (pp. 1-28)
Good Readers, Good Teachers? Subject
Matter Expertise as a Challenge in Learning to Teach
In this article, Diane Holt-Reynolds critically examines the importance placed on subject matter expertise in the training of secondary school teachers. Recognizing that knowledge of subject matter has been a major concern in national calls for education reform, Holt-Reynolds explores the role that such knowledge plays in a prospective teacher’s conceptualization of skillful and successful teaching. Through a case study of Mary, one subject matter expert enrolled in a college-level teacher training program, Holt-Reynolds demonstrates how, for this teacher, subject matter expertise does not translate into an understanding of how to model that expertise or share it with students. Providing extensive data to support her identification of Mary as an expert reader, she then shows how Mary fails to see her expertise as learned and suggests that this failure causes Mary’s expertise to be “unavailable” for teaching literature as a subject. Drawing on her conclusions from this case study, Holt-Reynolds expands the definition of subject matter expertise to include an awareness of that expertise as learned. She ends with a clear challenge for teacher educators to help prospective teachers recognize their subject matter expertise and learn ways to share and model it with students. (pp. 29-50)
Critical Education in the New Information Age
by Manuel Castells, Ramón Flecha, Paulo Freire, Henry A. Giroux, Donaldo Macedo, and Paul Willis.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. 174 pp. $18.95.
Six of the world’s leading educational scholars have come together in
this volume to contribute key analyses and proposals needed by those committed
to developing critical educational options in the new information age.
In a collective effort, Castells, Flecha, Freire, Giroux, Macedo, and Willis critically portray and define the current challenges of education in our present age, countering many educational works that are based either on obsolete concepts or on new concepts oriented to doubt. On the one hand, works based on obsolete concepts analyze education as if we were still living in an industrial society in which specific content knowledge was crucial to secure a future. On the other hand, works bound within positions of doubt argue that things are not as they used to be, that we live a different reality, and from that perspective only contribute by questioning the way things are today instead of providing updated proposals. Critical Education in the New Information Age, with an introduction by Peter McLaren, contributes to what both of these types of work miss: a clear analysis of the present informational society in which the ability to select and acquire new information is crucial, and the critical perspective needed to create educational proposals that will help move society toward values of equality and solidarity.
In the opening chapter, “Flows, Networks, and Identities: A Critical Theory of the Information Society,” Manuel Castells begins the discussion by providing an analysis of the information society that synthesizes his extensive work on this topic. Castells, one of the authors most cited internationally for his analysis of present society, here presents possibilities for social transformation that new social movements generate.
Ramón Flecha analyzes education in the informational society. In his previous work, Flecha analyzed the way cultural inequalities emerge in the information age, as well as the critical educational options that contribute to overcome these inequalities. In “New Educational Inequalities,” Flecha presents a new communicative approach that overcomes both the traditional and the postmodern understandings of society and education.
Paulo Freire, the late world-renowned educator, discusses the importance of promoting continuing education for teachers in “Education and Community Involvement.” Freire states that continuing education can be a vehicle for promoting critical education: “Coherent, progressive educators cannot hesitate between ‘packages’ and permanent development; they must always opt for development. They know all too well, among other things, that it is unlikely that critical thinking will be achieved by learners through the domestication of educators” (p. 88).
In “Border Youth, Difference, and Postmodern Education,” Henry Giroux focuses on a new kind of student forged within the intersection of the electronic image and the popular culture. “Border youth” is neither a new class nor a new social group, according to Giroux, but rather a new youth phenomena that crosses race and social class. Giroux proposes a new pedagogy from which to rethink the importance of uncertainty, including the notion of dream and the struggle for a better world.
In “Our Common Culture: A Poisonous Pedagogy,” Donaldo Macedo criticizes the cultural model of E. D. Hirsch’s Cultural Literacy, and argues that such a model generates a poisonous pedagogy grounded in the knowledge that the dominant culture establishes and imposes “what every American needs to know.” Using a Freirean combination of critical pedagogy and the language of possibility, Macedo provides educational proposals grounded in “what Americans need to know but are prevented from knowing.”
Paul Willis analyzes popular culture in a society that is witnessing an important increase of commodification of cultural materials and electronic media. In “Labor Power, Culture, and the Cultural Commodity,” Willis criticizes the way postmodern perspectives paralyze action, thus positioning himself within an emancipatory approach. He proposes a pedagogy that is relevant inside and outside of school, reconstructed from the realization that, while production relationships are instrumentalist, new consumption relationships are expressive.
This book represents the contribution of six educators from diverse latitudes — Latin America, the United States, and Europe — who converge in their analyses and proposals for the development of critical education in the new information age. This convergence has been possible and enriched by these authors’ collaboration in previous works. Unfortunately, Paulo Freire’s death will prevent his participation in future collaborations. However, the presence of a Freirean spirit throughout this book promises that his ideals of solidarity and transformation will be present in the theories and practices of many educators in the twenty-first century.
M.S.G.
Whose Judgment Counts? Assessing Bilingual Children, K–3
by Evangeline Harris Stefanakis.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998. 126 pp. $ 21.00.
The challenge of assessing bilingual children comes from many sources: teachers and administrators who do not share the child’s first language; a lack of standardized instruments specifically designed to evaluate such students; and a mismatch between home and school cultures are just a few that come to mind. Assessment is necessary if schools are to monitor the bilingual child’s progress in content areas as well as in language acquisition. Whose Judgment Counts? provides some concrete ways in which both monolingual and bilingual teachers can better appraise the achievements of this particular student population. While this volume is aimed at helping teachers, it also serves as a useful resource on assessment for administrators and parents of school-age bilingual children.
Stefanakis begins by arguing that better assessment techniques are crucial to the successful education of bilingual children. She notes that bilingual children are disproportionately placed in special education classrooms where “it takes them on average six years to get out” (Ambert, 1991, p. 269, cited in Stefanakis, 1998, p. 4). In order to stop this “testing to find a disability” (p. 5), the author suggests that we examine the assessment practices of experienced, successful teachers of bilingual children. She targets a group of six such instructors and interprets findings derived from observational and interview data collected over the course of several months. The remaining six chapters are devoted to answering the following questions:
1. How do teachers in this study informally assess the language and literacy skills of bilingual children in their classrooms?
2. How do teachers link assessment of language and literacy skills to instruction for these children?
3. What reasons do teachers give for assessing bilingual students as they do? (p. 6)
It is a notable strength of this book that many of its lessons can be applied to classroom assessment of all children, for Stefanakis encourages a more holistic approach to evaluation. For example, she encourages teachers to learn about the student’s home culture and to observe the child in many and various learning situations. At the same time, it is clear that all of the featured teachers use their own individualized battery of assessment procedures, from making a “mental file” on each child to involving other students in “reading buddies” activities. Stefanakis also recognizes the importance of physical space in teaching and evaluating, and she includes some classroom diagrams in order to demonstrate this point. One of the teachers in the study, Manuel, explains that “when each child has a separate desk, they cannot help but be worrying about their own property instead of shared property. I really want to create a sense of community in this room” (p. 78). The main lesson to be gained from the variation in these reported methods is that it is only by providing the bilingual child with the most supportive environment possible that we are able to gain a true picture of his abilities.
In spite of it many helpful suggestions, Whose Judgment Counts? falls short in some instances. First, although a glossary of terms is provided, several of the more unusual literacy terms, such as “Gillingham Method,” are missing from this section. This is unfortunate, since the book aims to involve all teachers in the assessment of bilingual children, and therefore a definition of such terms might point readers toward another educational resource. More important, however, is the dearth of attention given to standardized testing. In chapter two, Stefanakis successfully casts doubt on the validity of standardized intelligence tests for evaluating bilingual children, yet she does not provide help for interpreting these oft-required exams. Her suggestion is to supplement these quantitative measures with more qualitative observations, yet many in the educational community use standardized scores as an important means of evaluation. One wonders if there is a way to offer alternative interpretations of such scores, or if there are better standardized measures that would help teachers accurately describe the abilities of their bilingual students to the general public.
In sum, Whose Judgment Counts? is a practical, well-researched, and clearly written addition to the current discussion of student assessment. It is clear that Stefanakis brings her many years as a teacher of bilingual children to the analysis of this issue. Yet it is the reflections of the six teachers in her study that give welcome guidance in the assessment of bilingual children.
L.K.N.
by Ivor A. Pritchard.
Norwalk, CT: Judd, 1998. 256 pp. $24.95.
Ivor A. Pritchard, in Good Education: The Virtues of Learning, mounts a strong argument for the need for moral education in schools. Pritchard believes that schools cannot avoid sending moral messages, noting that most moral messages in schools are implicit rather than explicit. For example, when students are encouraged to appreciate other cultures, values such as tolerance and openness are clearly transmitted. He therefore argues that schools have a responsibility to develop specific strategies for teaching students “why standards of right and wrong are worth following, and developing the capacity to apply those standards” (p. 25).
Pritchard notes that, all too often, moral issues that capture our attention tend toward the extreme — violence without conscience, gross infidelity, or, conversely, heroism and capacious self-sacrifice. Along these lines, Pritchard writes:
To confine morality to such great acts overlooks how people constantly define themselves in their daily trafficking with each other. Stepping on someone else happens less often than merely stepping on their toes, but in both cases, we should be asking if it happened accidentally or on purpose, who is hurt, who is sorry, and what steps could have prevented the whole thing. (p. 13)
In short, schools need moral education that is relevant to the daily lives of the students.
However, by advocating for the promotion of moral values in schools, one should ask: Whose values? Using data from a recent survey sponsored by Public Agenda, Pritchard makes the case that some values enjoy widespread support among parents, but he nevertheless asserts that their consensus, while important, is an insufficient reason for incorporating particular values into the curriculum. Instead, he argues, the values incorporated into a school’s curriculum must somehow enhance its academic mission.
Pritchard offers four specific moral values to this end — friendship, honesty, courage, and justice — holding that they “are the primary virtues whose exercise strengthens education. If parents, teachers, and students all acquire and display the virtues, education gets better” (p. 74). For example, friendship provides a system of social support and binds students together in pursuit of common interests. Honesty is consonant with a central purpose of the academy: the pursuit of truth. Courage implies the ability to take risks, which facilitates learning. Justice ensures that the learning community upholds the rights of the individual. Pritchard includes a discussion of how these four virtues might influence classroom practice and be expressed in the curriculum. By doing so, he suggests, teachers will strengthen the academic mission of their schools by actively encouraging students to behave in ways consistent with friendship, honesty, courage, and justice.
Good Education is a useful resource for teachers or administrators who are interested in developing strategies for promoting ethical reasoning and moral behavior among their students. Pritchard offers illustrations for how moral issues can be introduced into, and ultimately enrich, mathematics, science, geography, civics, and history curricula. He also makes the case that any school reform that fails to consider the moral dimension of education will fall far short of its potential for serving the common good.
M.H.
The Curriculum: Problems, Politics, and Possibilities, Second Edition
edited by Landon E. Beyer and Michael W. Apple.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. 417 pp. $19.95.
This collection of nineteen essays is aimed at sparking inquiry among educators and others interested in why schools teach what they teach. It seeks not to answer the many questions educators might have about curriculum, but to add to those questions by raising ethical and political issues that are often overlooked. The volume also seeks, as Beyer and Apple note, to help educators “think about education relationally” (p. 4) — that is, in terms of the institutional, political, and ethical contexts in which curriculum decisions are made.
To accomplish this task, Beyer and Apple have divided the book into six sections based on what they term “perennial issues” (p. 4) in curriculum. The first section, entitled “Curriculum: Its Past and Present,” deals with the historical view of the problems and politics of curriculum. In “An Effort to Reconstruct the American Curriculum,” Herbert Kliebard notes that the American curriculum is “an assemblage of competing doctrines and practices” (p. 21), an idea that is developed throughout the rest of the book. An essay by Kenneth Teitelbaum, “Contestation and Curriculum: The Efforts of American Socialists, 1900–1920,” illustrates this idea by examining American socialism’s struggle to challenge mainstream school curriculum.
Beyer and Apple weave the concept of curriculum as a site of conflict and competition throughout the book as various authors examine the practical, political, and theoretical aspects of curriculum. The second section, “Curriculum and Planning,” includes George Posner’s examination of disparate curriculum models from Tyler to Freire. The next section, “Curriculum and Knowledge Selection,” examines the forces at work in selecting which knowledge schools will teach and includes George Woods’s essay, “Democracy and the Curriculum.” Woods argues that curriculum decisions are the result of political debates over “the way the world should be” (p. 177), and argues that these decisions reflect the visions of a small segment of society. He advocates creation of a “curriculum for democratic empowerment” (p. 186) that includes more people in the curriculum decisionmaking process.
The fourth section, “Curriculum and Teachers’ Work,” explores the ways in which societal and political changes affect what teachers do in their classrooms. In the next section, “Curriculum and Technology,” the editors focus readers’ attention on the curriculum debate about the role, value, and meaning of technology in education. The final section, “Curriculum and Evaluation,” maintains the book’s emphasis on the competing ideas in curriculum by exploring various “possibilities of evaluation” (p. 15) in essays by George Willis, Helen Simons, Landon Beyer, and Jo Anne Pagano.
This collection of new and revised materials reminds its readers that curriculum is not simply a question of how and what we teach; it is also a question of why we teach what we teach. Beyer and Apple’s The Curriculum: Problems, Politics, and Possibilities also reminds readers that there are many ongoing problems, a tangle of politics, and various possible answers to these important questions.
J.P.S.
by John A. Beineke.
New York: Peter Lang, 1998. 520 pp. $32.95.
For educational historians or readers interested in education history, this biography by John A. Beineke provides a new perspective on the life and work of William Heard Kilpatrick, a major figure in the progressive education movement in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Labeled “Columbia’s Million Dollar Professor” for his popularity and the financial benefits his popularity drew to Teachers College in that period, Kilpatrick was also known as Dewey’s chief interpreter for his popularization of Dewey’s somewhat dense educational philosophy.
Kilpatrick’s ideas, which often varied from Dewey’s, include project-based learning, curriculum integration, and whole child education. Although developed in the progressive period, they reverberate in contemporary debates over educational reform. Beineke’s biography, with its accounts of where and how these debates began, is therefore particularly important. Drawing from Kilpatrick’s voluminous, previously sealed diaries, interviews, and numerous other primary and secondary sources, Beineke draws a rich portrait of Kilpatrick to fill a gap that has existed in education history.
Although Kilpatrick has been both canonized and damned in educational circles, there has been little recent critical study of his life or his work. The last book on Kilpatrick, essentially a paean to the educator, was a 1951 celebratory biography by Samuel H. Tennenbaum entitled William Heard Kilpatrick: Trailblazer in Education. While Beineke’s book occasionally comes close to echoing the tone of this earlier biography, it generally avoids the celebratory trap. For example, in a chapter entitled “Race, Religion, and the South,” Beineke shows the contradictions present in Kilpatrick’s views on those subjects. He reveals that Kilpatrick, a native Georgian and the son of a Baptist preacher, was “able to advance his opinions on race beyond his native prejudices” to “a solidly liberal stance” (pp. 387–388), yet was never able to speak out against segregation. While he argued that a group should not be judged for its leaders’ actions, Kilpatrick railed against Catholics and the Catholic Church. The inclusion and discussion of such gray areas of Kilpatrick’s life make Beineke’s work a distinct step up from the beatifications and vilifications that have previously been published.
The portrait of Kilpatrick would have undoubtedly been richer and ultimately more human had Beineke explored these inconsistencies more thoroughly and not simply dismissed them as “cultural limitations” (p. 388), but his work is welcome for its extensive research, clear writing, and needed reexamination of the life and work of William Heard Kilpatrick.
J.P.S.