Blog 2- Letter to Apple and Pinar

Dear Mr. Pinar and Mr. Apple,

           

I just read both of your recent publications on curriculum. Mr. Pinar, chapter one of your second addition, What is Curridulum Therory? book and Mr. Apple, your article, entitled “Grading Obama’s Education Policy.” Upon completion, I have some major connections and personal experiences that I believe would be of interest for reflection upon your pieces of writing.

            First, I am currently an administrator at a private school designed for students with special learning needs. This being said, many of our students attend using vouchers or scholarship funds through the state of Ohio. Again, I feel this swing towards choice and giving parents a wider variety of options is the reason that my school is able to run and operate. However, it must be said that our parents seek out our school because of the poor curriculum and programing that the public schools have attempted to use in order to reach their child. They feel as if FAPE is no longer “appropriate” and that their public school experiences are exactly what landed them at my school.

            Now, this can be seen as good or bad, depending on your educational paradigm. I tend to feel for those children stuck in ineffective public schools that don’t have parents seeking out options or exercising their right to choose the best placement for their child. Parents often leave the education of their child up to the educations, as they should in many cases. We are the licensed professionals who apparently have the greatest training and resources. However, with all the new policies and standards

in education, public schools, teachers, and administrators are not being seen as that. I agree with you, Pinar, about failing students, not failing teachers. Teachers are human, just as doctors and scientists, businessmen etc. However, when kids are not “passing” or “connecting” or thriving in their educational setting, immediately the teachers are to blame. You go on to talk about how this occurs; “The truth is that disconnecting the curriculum from the students’ interests and teachers’ intellectual passions ensures the “failure to learn””(Pinar, 18.) I related to this so strongly because many of my students are at my school because they simply did not learn the way that the public schools taught. Since they have special learning needs, they needed different approaches, high interest curriculum etc. in order to be successful in any educational setting.

Another way I related to this is this summer; we were hiring two new intervention specialists. It was overwhelming the number of those teachers that were leaving public education so they could “teach” again. They wanted to get back to their passion of teaching and use authentic and organic experiences that catered to the specific population of kids they would be working with. At that point, thought thrilled we had such devoted and qualified applicants, I realized how detrimental this was to the public schools. It said that education, for students and teachers likewise, has lost the foundation of what education used to be; discovery, passionate, interesting, life-long, engagement, investigating, understanding, seeking, etc.

            Mr. Apple, you too discuss how the basic foundation of education needs to be in connecting the curriculum to the students. You talked about how Race to the Top will ensure “even more uncreative curricula and teaching, ever more testing and more emphasis on it, and increasingly alienated students and teachers” (Apple,  27). This is just another example that I have seen and lived through. Basically, because oft this new movement, I have higher enrollment at my school than ever.

            When you, Mr. Apple, discussed connecting the curriculum and culture to the students and major needs of the community/society, I lit up. This gave me hope; someone sees the real issue! I feel that I am embracing this fact on a daily basis and I am learning what needs to be done and what should be done for my students if they ever re-enter in their public school districts. This would reverse a child’s failure to learn and would eventually, I believe, create new accountability for them because the curriculum would have meaning and “buy in” for them because it would cater to who they are and their background. The only hard part is how. How do we allow this flexibility and go from high control and conforming education standards to needs based curriculum that is child centered?

Maybe this is your next publication, Mr. Pinar and Mr. Apple. I would love to hear your response and would be interested to trouble shoot and put together a “mock plan” of how to accomplish this type of education in the future. Thank you for your work and I look forward to reading more.

Sincerely,

   Miss Lannie Davis

           

Blog 1-Class Survey

Web Log 1: Class Survey

PERSONAL INFORMATION
1. Lannie Davis, Hudson Ohio, lanniedavis@gmail.com
2. Lannie (Pronounced Annie with an L)
3. Administrator at Julie Billiart School- Located in the South Euclid School System, but JB is a private school for students with special learning needs. I taught there last year, and now am the Assistant Principal.
4. I like music, sports, shopping, and being on the water. (Water skiing, swimming, boating, etc.) I not only work in a "special" school, but I have some pretty "special" qualities as well. I already discussed my onesies that I like to wear quite often, but I also have a high interest in gators. I like to go on "gator hunts" when visiting my family frequently in Florida. I am willing to explain more if anyone reads this and has questions. :)
5. I feel very comfortable in the classroom setting. However, in order to take risks and really dive deeper into new intellectual levels, I need to feel respected and listened to. I am not one that needs others to agree with me, but I do ask that people listen to my stance, as I will always listen to yours/theirs.
6. I am confident in my abilities as a participating student in the classroom. I really enjoy classroom intellectual conversations and hearing different perspectives from others. I am a very responsible person who prepares for class. However, with work and my other life responsibilities, I tend to procrastinate and seem to work better under pressure. I think my most preferred learning style is active learning. I need to discuss things and take an active role in the material being presented. I also do best when I can relate or connect to the curriculum. I am a passionate person and learner. So, when I am interested, connected, and invested in the material, I am more successful. When I do not understand a concept, I usually ask. I like to be challenged, so I often do everything in my power to understand the material first, then ask for help. Overall, I feel like I am a highly resourceful person. If I need or want to find an answer or better understand something, I will.
7. The only thing that would be relevant to this question is that I am a first year administrator. This is relevant because of the long hours and very stressful year I have had thus far. To transition from teaching to administration takes a lot of time and patience. I am still navigating this new path for myself and struggle quite often in my new role. I am not saying that I am unhappy in my position, just simply saying that I am still adapting.
EDUCATION PAST AND PRESENT
8. I had a professor lay me out in class (and after) during my freshman year of college at the University of Dayton. I was talking during her class, and felt like I was in her class and it was MY choice. She asked to speak with me after class and basically laid into me and challenged me to be the student she saw in me immediately. She ended up being my favorite professor EVER and is still a dear friend of mine. I feel like she embodied what I hoped to be as a teacher and a professional. Challenging others to meet their academic and emotional potential.
9. One of my biggest concerns is in the funding of special education. I think there is a lot of misdiagnosis's and funds being utilized in a non-effective and efficient way.
Another issue is the "race to the top" and teaching to the test. I believe this is a huge issue because of what it has done to the nature of education and discovery. Many teachers that got into education feel there has been a major negative swing in the field because of the recent standards based assessments and standards for teachers in the curriculum.
10. I would like to see what curriculum used to look like and who/how it was created. I think a better understanding of how we got to where we are today could be extremely beneficial. Another area in which I feel needs to be addressed is how we believe the curriculum could be changed/adapted to fit our student populations. I also think that with the current changes in education, we need to brainstorm and trouble shoot with how to reach more students with curriculum. The people that originally created the curriculum and created theory is not completely relevant in my opinion. So, I believe that studying the people and history of "why" should not become the focal point of this course.
ABOUT DR. SHUTKIN:
11. What do you do for fun? What do you feel to be the biggest issues (negative) in education today? What is your true passion within the field of education? (Your highest interest area...?)