Like most Providence public schools today the curriculum that is taught at FNED Elementary School is scripted. The teacher is given the lessons and is told to read word for word a script that goes along with it. After the first or second day in m Elementary School I could tell that this was not working. The children were just not interested in the boring lessons. Which makes it even worse is that as I watch my teacher interact with the students in the classroom I notice that she doesn't seem interested in them. My class has a diverse group of kids. Informationworks shows that half of the schools populations is African America, 27% Hispanic, 22% white and the rest of the population are either Native America or Asian. From my classroom observations the statics in my classroom are close to this. As I watch her work with the children I realize that they will say things about there home life and personal experiences but she will just keep going on with her teaching, completely ignoring the things the students have to say. I understand that when she is teaching the class as a whole it is hard to listen to these things but I have observed her doing it even when she is working one on one with the children. I have yet to see my teacher be responsive to any linguistic, ethnic, or sociocultural characteristics of any student. For the time that I spend working with the children I feel like all they do is talk to me and want to tell me things because they just want someone to listen. I was working with a child, Stephanie, and she would not stop telling me about herself and her family and personal stories. I listened to her because I know that in order to be a good teacher you have to listen to the student and have a interest in what goes on in there life out of school. I feel bad for the students because as I watch the teacher she just seems like she does not want to be there which affects the kids.
Seeing these things in the classroom make me think of Ira Shor's article Empowering Education. In the article Shor quotes "You must arose children's curiosity and make them think about school". A scripted curriculum does not excite students to learn and it doesn't encourage teachers to make their students excited about school. Shor talks about cognitive and affective. In my classroom I have observed an absents of both. With a scripted cu it is hard to integrate emotions into a lesson. Because there is no emotion connected to the lessons that the children in my class learning the children are not thinking. Because the students have no passion to learn and because the script requires not thinking at all the students seem to be all over the place. My teacher seems to do more yelling to try to control the students than teaching because the students do not want to pay attention since there is no emotion in the classroom. A scripted curriculum gives the child the impression that thats the way it is and things wont change. As a teacher this is not what you want your children to be thinking about. You want to teacher you students and empower them to think about what they learn and interpret everything there own way.
It is obvious that Stephanie is slower at learning concepts than the other kids in class. When I am not working with her in class I can see that she is confused and most of the time she is doing other things than what the teacher is teaching. When I work with her and I listen to what she is saying I can see a change in her and her work quality. After reading so many articles in FNED I know to listen to what she has to say and then use that to encourage her to learn more and be interested in the things she is learning.
3 comments:
Seems like your classroom if full of chaos. Your teacher should be sensitive to her students. Listening and observing students should be some of the characters of a good teacher. By listening the teacher would be able to know her student better. Some of these students have no one at home whom they could talk to about their feelings, they see the teacher as someone who they can talk to, who would be able to help them with any problem.
A scripted curriculum is very boring to a young child. If this is not working, the teacher should try a more passive approach. More hands-on and fun lesson plans. Even with adults, if someone is just reading to us we get bore and start to move around.
Shor also talks about a curriculum that encourages student questioning, and one that's empowered students. Reading from a script does not achieve this goals.
Shor also argues that if students do not like the knowledge, process or rules set out for them in class, students would react. Maybe that's what happening in your classroom. The students are reacting to her style of teaching.
This post seems similar to one I just made about scripted education. It seemed that all of our classmates found it wrong when it was discussed in our FNED class. I will again say I believe scripted education is wrong. As a performer I can say that scripts are important. However, that is just the start. On stage, once you learn your lines, it is up to you to create your own character and make them come alive with spirit and personality in order to grab the audiences' attention. Teaching is no different. The classroom is your stage. You are the actor with a single spot light on you. Take your script, if needed, learn your lines and grab the attention of the little kids. This could also be related to Dewey who speaks of progressive learning and the natural curiosity of students.
Strong and relevant connection to Shor, Alexa. Scripted curriculum leads to boredom--not only for the students, but for the teachers as well.
Well done,
Dr. August
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