Our main aim is to get teachers talking constructively about teaching in a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere. The backbone of our plan is not in workshops or teacher training sessions but instead lies in the arena of teacher development. Our vision is to get groups of teachers throughout the country to get together and engage in dialogue about what is happening in their classrooms and then to support each other in finding constructive ways to make meaningful changes to their teaching practice. Along these lines we will be having a "reflective rendezvous" each month in Seoul with the hopes of building a model that can be reproduced nation-wide.
Last meeting we discussed ways of reflecting and challenged ourselves by designing personal plans for reflecting on our teaching. In our next meeting Michael Griffin will hold us accountable to our plans, facilitate some norming and push us further towards becoming reflective practitioners. So, bring your plans (successes and challenges), your active listening skills and an open mind to our third reflective rendezvous on Sunday April 10th (2-5pm).
Where: Meeple Book Cafe (http://www.meeple.co.kr/v1/eng/index.php) near Sinchon Subway station. Get out at exit #4 and head straight. It's just a little ways and on your left. If you've gotten to "On the Border" mexican restaurant you've gone too far. The room will be reserved under the name RP SIG.
How much does it cost? For members of KOTESOL the meeting is free. If you're not a member of KOTESOL it will cost 5,000KWN which includes a tasty beverage.
Hope to see you all there,
The three reflective practitioneers Kevin Giddens, Manpal Sahota and Michael Griffin
--
Reflective Practice SIG
http://reflectivepractice.posterous.com/
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Words, Werds, Whirreds...
Lots of thoughts on last week's class:
The first thing I want to address are comments one of our presenters made on her blog. These comments were quite insightful and I think they can help us elaborate on the way we're reading and discussing things. The presenter shared that she created a Power Point presentation that summed up the main ideas in Chapter One, only to get to Chapter Two and confront the concept of banking education. She explained that she worried that her way of presenting the information in the first chapter was based on banking ideals and she questioned her approach. I think these are important questions and that perhaps, the most important thing one can take from these readings is the sensation of questioning oneself as a teacher. I think it is crucial that we can ask difficult questions about our teaching practices. Unfortunately, in the age of accountability teachers are more and more often placed in a position of having to defend their practices rather than questioning them. It's good to be able to do both but probably more constructive to do the latter. I think that the presenter's willingness to question her approach is commendable and I hope that our class can be a 'safe space' where we can all question our practices.
That said, I think that there is a danger in all of this. Freire's ideas evolved a lot over the course of his life. Pedagogy of the Oppressed was published fairly early in his writing career. As he traveled and as his ideas reached further and further out into the world he rethought a lot of things. Of course he never abandoned the idea of emancipatory education, but the ways that he framed it continually shifted within the contexts where he did his work. If Freire had been an English teacher in contemporary Korea, I believe his ideas would be dramatically different. Why is this important? Well, I think that it's easy to fall into the trap of seeing these concepts as prescribed methods to universal problems. Banking education contributes to oppression. This is a nice straightforward equation but it has little to do with real life and real teaching. If we begin to judge ourselves according to a set of abstract principles, no matter how 'emancipatory' they purport to be, aren't we falling into a trap? Isn't the idea that our teaching must be 'emancipatory' according to “Freire's principles” in its own way oppressive? Banking education (whatever that means) certainly seems like something to move away from, but I don't think it's helpful to let Freire loom above our heads like some 'emancipatory' paternal figurehead.
So... I really enjoyed the presentations and the conversations they inspired. I think that the open conversation style each presenter employed was engaging. I also think that we saw clear evidence that no classroom format is really 'neutral'. No matter how we set up the chairs and no matter how we structure our group activities, certain voices are amplified by particular forms of interaction. I will continue to play with classroom and conversation formats and I encourage all future presenters to do so as well. Let's keep an element of play in our activities.
Finally, I think it's worth mentioning some of my reservations about Freire's ideas. First of all, I have to admit that I'm a little uncomfortable with the ease with which Freire throws out the terms “oppressed” and “oppressor”. I have no doubt that in his own teaching contexts (the early 60's in rural Brazil) it was quite clear to him just who was oppressed and who was the oppressor. I'm not sure that these sorts of designations are so transparent in (post)modern, (post)industrial, globalized spaces like Seoul. Certainly oppression exists (at least it certainly seems to). But I'm not so sure the noun “oppression” necessarily leads to the need to designate fixed identities like “oppressor” and “oppressed”. Take the fairly straightforward descriptions in Chapter Two. Freire implies that teachers are in the position of “oppressors” and students are in a sense, the “oppressed”. But I'm not sure that at the time he wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed he could have foreseen the emergence of the intense “age of accountability” which has implemented some very creative ways of reducing the freedom teachers have in their classrooms. Indeed, the trend is toward teacher proof curricula. I personally find it hard to ascribe a simple “oppressor” identity to teachers in this sort of context. Further, I think that static categories like oppressor/oppressed carry with them the danger of reducing the complexity of real life human relations into theoretical/academic jargon. Once we feel comfortable with these categories it is easy to see how everyone and everything can fit into them. It is in this way that language is productive rather than simply descriptive. Naming such categories determines what we are able to see. And perhaps ascribing any identity to the other or to the self is in some senses an act of violence. While the events in North Africa and the power transfer in North Korea are nice clear-cut examples of oppression, our day to day interactions and dealings are usually not so clear. Perhaps words like “oppressor” and “oppressed” are ways that we avoid the messiness and the ambiguity of day to day life. Perhaps calling another “oppressed” in some way serves to silence them. Perhaps calling myself an “oppressor” is a way of avoiding responsibility. This is not necessarily the case but I think the danger is there.
So, I appreciate everyone's willingness to keep playing the theory games. We have one more week of the thick stuff and then we're going to (hopefully) transition into some more hands-on work that can carry over into our classrooms. Keep blogging!
The first thing I want to address are comments one of our presenters made on her blog. These comments were quite insightful and I think they can help us elaborate on the way we're reading and discussing things. The presenter shared that she created a Power Point presentation that summed up the main ideas in Chapter One, only to get to Chapter Two and confront the concept of banking education. She explained that she worried that her way of presenting the information in the first chapter was based on banking ideals and she questioned her approach. I think these are important questions and that perhaps, the most important thing one can take from these readings is the sensation of questioning oneself as a teacher. I think it is crucial that we can ask difficult questions about our teaching practices. Unfortunately, in the age of accountability teachers are more and more often placed in a position of having to defend their practices rather than questioning them. It's good to be able to do both but probably more constructive to do the latter. I think that the presenter's willingness to question her approach is commendable and I hope that our class can be a 'safe space' where we can all question our practices.
That said, I think that there is a danger in all of this. Freire's ideas evolved a lot over the course of his life. Pedagogy of the Oppressed was published fairly early in his writing career. As he traveled and as his ideas reached further and further out into the world he rethought a lot of things. Of course he never abandoned the idea of emancipatory education, but the ways that he framed it continually shifted within the contexts where he did his work. If Freire had been an English teacher in contemporary Korea, I believe his ideas would be dramatically different. Why is this important? Well, I think that it's easy to fall into the trap of seeing these concepts as prescribed methods to universal problems. Banking education contributes to oppression. This is a nice straightforward equation but it has little to do with real life and real teaching. If we begin to judge ourselves according to a set of abstract principles, no matter how 'emancipatory' they purport to be, aren't we falling into a trap? Isn't the idea that our teaching must be 'emancipatory' according to “Freire's principles” in its own way oppressive? Banking education (whatever that means) certainly seems like something to move away from, but I don't think it's helpful to let Freire loom above our heads like some 'emancipatory' paternal figurehead.
So... I really enjoyed the presentations and the conversations they inspired. I think that the open conversation style each presenter employed was engaging. I also think that we saw clear evidence that no classroom format is really 'neutral'. No matter how we set up the chairs and no matter how we structure our group activities, certain voices are amplified by particular forms of interaction. I will continue to play with classroom and conversation formats and I encourage all future presenters to do so as well. Let's keep an element of play in our activities.
Finally, I think it's worth mentioning some of my reservations about Freire's ideas. First of all, I have to admit that I'm a little uncomfortable with the ease with which Freire throws out the terms “oppressed” and “oppressor”. I have no doubt that in his own teaching contexts (the early 60's in rural Brazil) it was quite clear to him just who was oppressed and who was the oppressor. I'm not sure that these sorts of designations are so transparent in (post)modern, (post)industrial, globalized spaces like Seoul. Certainly oppression exists (at least it certainly seems to). But I'm not so sure the noun “oppression” necessarily leads to the need to designate fixed identities like “oppressor” and “oppressed”. Take the fairly straightforward descriptions in Chapter Two. Freire implies that teachers are in the position of “oppressors” and students are in a sense, the “oppressed”. But I'm not sure that at the time he wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed he could have foreseen the emergence of the intense “age of accountability” which has implemented some very creative ways of reducing the freedom teachers have in their classrooms. Indeed, the trend is toward teacher proof curricula. I personally find it hard to ascribe a simple “oppressor” identity to teachers in this sort of context. Further, I think that static categories like oppressor/oppressed carry with them the danger of reducing the complexity of real life human relations into theoretical/academic jargon. Once we feel comfortable with these categories it is easy to see how everyone and everything can fit into them. It is in this way that language is productive rather than simply descriptive. Naming such categories determines what we are able to see. And perhaps ascribing any identity to the other or to the self is in some senses an act of violence. While the events in North Africa and the power transfer in North Korea are nice clear-cut examples of oppression, our day to day interactions and dealings are usually not so clear. Perhaps words like “oppressor” and “oppressed” are ways that we avoid the messiness and the ambiguity of day to day life. Perhaps calling another “oppressed” in some way serves to silence them. Perhaps calling myself an “oppressor” is a way of avoiding responsibility. This is not necessarily the case but I think the danger is there.
So, I appreciate everyone's willingness to keep playing the theory games. We have one more week of the thick stuff and then we're going to (hopefully) transition into some more hands-on work that can carry over into our classrooms. Keep blogging!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
A Word on Your Blogs
Just a word for everyone. I enjoyed the pop culture artifacts on your blogs. Please bring your artifacts to class next week-- we'll most likely be using them to begin brainstorming potential lesson plans in the next class. Also... I will be checking the blogs weekly, so anyone who has not posted (and particularly anyone who has not set up a blog) please begin doing so (i.e. points/grades/final scores) and if your blog address is not posted below, send it to me as soon as possible. Happy Reading
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Quotes for Today
"The teacher does not always have to be more knowledgeable than the pupil; and the pupil is not necessarily always less learned than the teacher."
"Among any three persons, there must be one who can be my teacher."
-- Confucius
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Student Blog Addresses
Here is a list of all the class blogs that I was able to access
Sophia: http://eunjupark.blogspot.com/
Chris: http://goatinabeanpatch.blogspot.com/
Matthew: http://tesolworkshopthingy.blogspot.com/
Martin: http://thecriticalbeatdown.blogspot.com/
Miran: http://neomyst.blogspot.com/
Major Jee: http://militarymj.blogspot.com/
Christy: http://christykimck.blogspot.com/
Michelle: http://michelle-criticalpedagogies.blogspot.com/
Su-ah: http://sueglish.blogspot.com/
Catherine: http://nothappyblogging.blogspot.com/
Andy: http://andycritpedblog.blogspot.com/
Joseph: http://oznogcriticalpedagogies.blogspot.com/
Sophia: http://eunjupark.blogspot.com/
Chris: http://goatinabeanpatch.blogspot.com/
Matthew: http://tesolworkshopthingy.blogspot.com/
Martin: http://thecriticalbeatdown.blogspot.com/
Miran: http://neomyst.blogspot.com/
Major Jee: http://militarymj.blogspot.com/
Christy: http://christykimck.blogspot.com/
Michelle: http://michelle-criticalpedagogies.blogspot.com/
Su-ah: http://sueglish.blogspot.com/
Catherine: http://nothappyblogging.blogspot.com/
Andy: http://andycritpedblog.blogspot.com/
Joseph: http://oznogcriticalpedagogies.blogspot.com/
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Can popular culture subvert anything?
This is a tough question... and it's one that we'll begin to address in class next week. I think it's worth asking if this sort of expression can be or is subversive or oppositional(via the perspectives of the Frankfurt School). As English teachers, I think this is worth thinking about for a lot of reasons. Not least of all because our students' contact with English and with English speaking worlds occurs via the channels of popular culture- and many of the attitudes and beliefs that sit just beneath the surface in our classroom interactions- are intertwined with representations found in pop culture. Anyway, here's a video I've enjoyed/thought about quite a bit.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Great Sandwich
Thanks Chris, that was a fantastic sandwich....
I enjoyed class last night. I think that I could have been clearer about what I was looking for in the first task- but I think that good conversation was happening and so I saw no need to interrupt to ensure small group discussions conformed to my 'plan'. That said, in my experience discussion based classes need a bit of variety in order to 1) stay fresh, and 2) ensure that we don't limit ourselves to one or two ways of expressing ourselves. In fact, my goal for the class is to conduct a large group discussion where I (as the instructor) am not positioned at the center of the conversation (in other words, where I would not call on people to contribute and where members would speak to one another rather than to me). This is something that I have found to be quite difficult in any teaching context- and it probably carries its own set of pitfalls.... but I'm definitely interested in the possibility of class conversations where I could be just another participant.
Small group work has been effective at instigating discussion between class members (where I am not playing a mediating role). But again... I think I'll have to keep considering alternatives.
My question of the week:
In what ways do particular classroom formats favor certain kinds of participation and certain voices? To what degree is the form of the conversation as important as or more important than the content of the conversation?
Small group work has been effective at instigating discussion between class members (where I am not playing a mediating role). But again... I think I'll have to keep considering alternatives.
My question of the week:
In what ways do particular classroom formats favor certain kinds of participation and certain voices? To what degree is the form of the conversation as important as or more important than the content of the conversation?
Thanks everyone for the thoughtful comments and questions....
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