BEDUC427 week1 journal

What happened to New Math? And SRO? And all the other curriculum experiments I was subjected to in the 1960's? William Ayers began his teaching career in the same school system that I attended as a student. His writing challenged me think more about my experience as a student in a very wealthy system; in a forward-thinking time and place in education. I have over time noticed what a unique public school experience I had had. The community supported curriculum experimentation then and still does today. Due to being a university town, experimentation and exploration are part of the culture. Our schools were locally funded in the 1960's, and our parents approved large funding proposals because they knew it was going directly to the schools their children attended. in the late 1960's, a lawsuit put an end to that funding practice and the state of Michigan stepped in a re-distribute the funds so that the schools in Detroit were getting a proportional share of the whole pot of education monies collected through taxes. My public school experience was unique because of the community focus on the schools in Ann Arbor and the tax base that supported the schools. Community participation led to high expectations. I was motivated by the pressure of those expectations (culture of the community) and the excellence of my teachers.

Parental involvement at the wallet level led to high parental engagement and certainly contributed to student success. Everyone was invested in the educational outcomes, the quality of the facilities and the teaching staff. Accountability was high for all participants. But when the economics changed and the direct financial connection is no longer the case, as is typical of all public schools today, community interest waned. The question is how can we inspire the same level community interest/commitment that was provided when local dollars went directly to the schools? How can we provide parents other avenues of investment in the schools? If time really is money, then I think an investment of time is required of parents to get the best results. Reading and homework support are critical, yet with all of the curriculum changes in the last 50 years it is very hard for parents to provide help with homework, especially in math where the methods are so different and where parent can get the answer but not within the teacher's guidelines of how to arrive at the answer. This situation can alienate parents from the classroom, because they do not understand what is being taught or rather, how it is being taught, and in the end rely on test scores to measure successes. Parents need more tools to support the learning their children are experiencing. Curriculum need study guides for parents and parents need to invest the time. Knowing New Math has been of very little use to me in supporting my children's homework.

Historically the American education system was created to educate good citizens to participate in the democracy, thus insuring that politics will always to driver in education policy. What constitutes a good citizen will keep changing based on the needs of the country. Who is a good citizen today? Is it now a global question? Is it the consumer that drives the economy and keeps everyone employed? Is it a responsibility to the Earth that makes a good citizen? And how do we prepare tomorrow's citizens? In the changing face of America, we need to acknowledge and be inclusive of the "melting pot". Maybe the schools first task is to define what citizenry (not a citizen) is in this country, make the community model very big, and then brak it down to inventory the components through multi-cultural examinations which would link up global communities. Or move in the opposite direction, what are the characteristics of a citizen in this school/community?

Traditionally the neighborhood school was a hub where neighbors sent their children, and the school would reflect its very local community but not American society as whole and becasue it doesn't, it will struggle to achieve the over-arching goal of creating good citizens. But, it does insure community involvement. How do schools define community when neighbors attend different schools? Demographic cohesion in a town of 100,000 people is more probable, especially if the population is stable. My parents and grandparents went to neighborhood schools and the same high school. There were no very rich people or very poor people; the community was homogeneous in values regardless of racial make-up. What did I lose by not knowing the breadth of these differences, except through losing every athletic match up with the huge schools in Detroit and some well-orchestrated meetings with the Black Panthers? I don't know. There are many kinds of disadvantages besides economic; you don't have to live in Detroit to suffer.

The children on my street today go to 5 different elementary schools. They don't really play with each other because they don't really know each other, they have no shared experiences like a school provides. Their parents chose the best school situation they could for their particular child. After this match up was made it is important that the parents stay a part of this new community that they just signed the child up for. That family now belongs to the school community as well as their neighborhood, and their church, and their club sports teams, etc.

With a goal of investing families in schools and the success of schools, society as a whole has to agree on the value of an education and the goals of having an educated citizenry. Unfortunately, the school is not the only community a student belongs to and schools need support to promote their value. The neighborhood school has the advantage of having 2 aligned communities, the neighborhood and the school. A school with a large bused population of students puts stress on the ability of the school to sustain a community. I am going to explore the ideas of competing communities. What are they? What strategies do schools use to elevate their sense of community?

What would a school-centric community look like? Using a drawing of concentric circles representing layers of community, the group of students attending would be at the center, the teachers and facility would be the next ring, followed by parents, administration, school board, district, and so forth. This model would suggest that the address where the student lives is not her/his first community. This has a private school ring to it (once again, wallet driven allegiance). The Salmon Bay K-8 alternative school in Seattle has been able to foster a strong community with an all-city draw and has a long wait list for admittance to match. It is a beehive of family involvement, and the line-up of busses every afternoon is substantial. Its families want an ALTERNATIVE to the standard Seattle Public School experience, similarly with Daniel Bagley Elementary which houses a K-5 Montessori program. Both schools promise a unique (better?) public school experience for the right child, and as a consequence, a sense of "specialness" for the parents. Their participation in something "special" is somehow easier to accommodate. Why can't all schools be special?

I have volunteered at 2 very different middle schools this last year; one in the Seattle School District with an all-city draw, and the other in North Bend, basically a neighborhood school. The cultural make-up of the student bodies was significantly different. The school in North Bend was predominantly white, over 90%, and I could not help but worry that these kids are not getting the full breadth of American society because their community is so homogeneous and diversity is irrelevant in their everyday lives. While the Seattle school is very diverse, challenging teaching strategies to accommodate the diversity, but a much richer experience for the students, reflecting more of America's future population make-up. I believe in a diverse school community it better prepares our children for the global community.