As I am doing my reading for my Thursday Seminar course, I can't help but reflect on my earlier post about good pedagogy. Is it a lack of good teachers that is holding our failing schools back? Is it a systemic issue of teachers holding back students until they have master basic skills? Who determines what basic skills, and what the benchmarks are? Well those in power (and those that lobby them)... it all starts to smell of institutionalized racism.
The movie running in my head is of newsmen reporting about our "failing schools," and saying "well kids can hardly read." This is then followed by societal outcry that leads to skill building boot camps deconstructing reading, writing and math so that students "get basic skills." Even the best teachers in the world would struggle making those isolated skills relevant. Our system of benchmarks and limbo bars has much to do with the state we are in... as much as good teaching and good pedagogy does.
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