BEDUC427 Journal - Week 5

Imagination
I am so excited about the Greene and Perlstein readings this week. The ideas around the value and necessity of imagination identified for me why becoming a teacher is so important and gave me more clarity around what a teacher's role is. Subject matter needs to go beyond the page and it is the responsibility of the teacher to open the window to the beyond. I have been a little impatient with the discussion about NCLB and tracking. For me, engaging the imagination, is at the core of a teacher's role. Innovation comes from the "what-if" questions. If we are always teaching to the "how-to" solutions then we are not providing a complete education.

Perlstein describes how the methods used for closing the achievement gap are creating an imagination gap. I think this is true. I see it with my stepdaughter who is getting all A's, yet struggles with having ideas. She is perfectly happy to follow instructions or figure out how to over-achieve inside the framework. When I align that with Greene's points about empathy and imagination, I wonder what kind of future we are creating.

I worry about the lack of artistic exposure poor children get, that the television is their window to the world and most of that is over described, presenting someone else's imagination as a truth. The focus on closing the achievement gap only exposes these children to an education out of context. Isn't it our responsibility to ignite the imagination of all children so that they can use this thing we call education to create fulfilling lives? Instead we are creating self-fulfilling prophecies, giving poor children, at-risk children, even middle class children only the tools to subsist instead of reaching for the stars. I thought education was the great equalizer in our society, the path of upward mobility (economically or spiritually), but if we are not providing an education that supports that premise, then we are in trouble as a society. I am not sure I want to teach to a lesser purpose.

For the children with whom we are not trying to close an achievement gap, the opportunities in schooling and curriculum are altruistic. These kids get the kids of education all children should get. There is time for making conceptual suppositions and connections. There is time for self-directed study. It is not the nuance of tracking that we are getting caught up in, it is the large schism between the haves and the have-nots that is perpetuating the classism in America that will keep us as an under-achieving nation with the top 10% continuing to pat themselves on their backs (or their wallets). In a short time, continuing in this vein, a small class of well-educated people is not going to define what being an American is about, it will be the larger, poorly educated population that will reflect back in the nation's mirror.

What I have liked about the last 2 weeks of class materials has been the juxtaposition of community building and imagination. I see one enabling the other. If you create a community in your classroom, you are breaking down classism issues the kids come to school with. In doing that, you are celebrating all of their differences, engaging imaginations in exporing the elements of the differences, and creating a democratic common memory that is positive. Imagination allows kids to tell their own stories, to empathize with other kids, to find possibilities for themselves that reach beyond their daily reality.

A funny thing happened for me this week with my middle school learners class project. We are writing an interdisciplinary lesson plan in small groups. My group picked Opera and we decided to combine History, Language Arts and Science. In dividing up the lesson plans, I took on the science part because I have limited background in science and the others were more interested in History and LA. While researching and choosing experiments, I found that I could not build a unit without using Art. We would be making strings vibrate (music), making megaphones and ear trumpets, and then building model opera houses applying the acoustical principles we discovered. So my question is, could I possibly present the Science without the Art? Is it because of my background in Art that I see everything through that filter?

I have started to have dreams of being the teacher in a classroom. The dreams have a warm glow. I am imagining how it could be.