Misogyny is a theme that appears again and again in my classroom. (I raise it sometimes; sometimes it rears its own ugly head.) We recently finished the Freedom Writer’s Diary, in which some students shared their painful experiences of rape and sexual abuse. The reactions of my young students to this is fascinating. Many of the young men in particular state that they’d become violently angry if someone abused a mother or sister of theirs. I can see them shaking their heads and almost growling as we read. The young women sometimes do the same. And of course, some of my own students have written about their experiences of rape, abuse or even prostitution.
The journal of one of my young women, who is happily not here any more, wrote about having sex with strange men who “offered” her food and shelter. At this point in her life, she was sleeping on park benches. Was she raped? Or was this consensual? I certainly can’t see a thing consensual about it given her life circumstances and age. Just like being a racist doesn’t have to mean you’ve got a pointy white hood for lynching, sexism doesn’t have to mean you beat up women. They both can be much more subtle than that.
How then do we teach against misogyny? How do we make it visible in the Hobbesian world of random, family or gang violence? How do I tell my students misogyny is wrong when I’ve seen other adults here snicker along with the kids at the music video portrayals of women? One recent conversation with my students really drove this home. In a couple of poems we were reading, the young women who wrote them expressed the desire to be taken seriously for their ideas and mind. Some students expressed the view that that’s great except in the ‘hood. There, men are and should be in charge, the argument went. That’s just how it is. Life is too dangerous otherwise. Even more depressingly, it was two of my girls expressing this view! I was reminded once again that part of “reforming” schools is developing communities. All too often efforts at reforming methodology, holding teachers accountable or reducing school violence happen in isolation from or in the absence of community development initiatives. Unless they harmonize, school reform will fail.
Showing posts with label character education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label character education. Show all posts
Monday, December 7, 2009
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Isn't that Goldie Hawn?
With a new school year, a new convocation, and I'm pleased to say that I heard some of my most deeply heard concerns about standardized education at least addressed (in words) by the new Superintendent and....wait, isn't that Goldie Hawn next to him?
It certainly was. Turns out that she has a foundation intended to bring what she called "mindfullness" into the classroom. With all the warmth and likability you might expect from her, she spoke as a mom worried about the violence, suicide, drop out rates and disengagement that I have written about repeatedly here. I loved most of all that she explicitly argued that addressing qualities like empathy and caring in the classroom is a learning outcome. That is, she argued that such character traits support student learning since, as teachers have been saying for decades now, kids learn better when they feel safe and when whatever they may be dealing with in their personal lives gets addressed instead of ignored. I would push her argument one step further, though, and say that we must begin thinking of skills (yes, SKILLS) such as empathy, communication, problem solving and compromise as learning outcomes in and of themselves, rather than needing to "justify" them by noting that kids' reading and math scores will go up, too. Yes, the will go up and yes, that's crucial. But in a country with such high rates of violence, with a prison population at an all time high, clearly we neglect such ideas as ethical reasoning and empathy at our peril. It's good to see someone with Hawn's charm, fame and money money money getting involved. I've visited her website and look forward to perusing the curriculum it offers.
The above said, though, I did have a concern or three about what she may have thought of as an offhand comment but which I felt was very problematic, especially from my viewpoint as a teacher in a juvenile jail. She stated (perhaps with statistical accuracy, I don't know) that our affluent kids are the ones most "at risk". Because she didn't elaborate (at risk of violence? suicide? dropping out? addiction?) and I haven't yet seen a transcript of her speech, it was worryingly unclear what she meant. Does she think we overlook our rich kids ("oh, they'll be fine, they're rich")? All the evidence I've ever seen is that middle class and rich kids go to schools with better trained, happier teachers, are more likely to graduate and more likely to go to college. They are also less likely to be the victim of violence. In fact, if memory serves, just this past school year a study came out showing that suburban kids are far more likely to graduate as urban kids. Social justice as I understand hardly suggests that more resources (financial and social) need to go to affluent schools. Yes, it may be true that rich kids sometimes have disconnected parents with jobs that demand they travel and work constantly, and no doubt there is an impact from that. But what about the kids who show up here in my classroom whose parents are sometimes themselves illiterate, have themselves been incarcerated, themselves didn't graduate high school? Remember, Mom and/or Dad's level of education is still one of THE best predictors of how a kid will do. The invisibility of these kids is dangerous, which is why I had such a strong objection to that aspect of what was otherwise a very worthwhile talk by (wow!) one Ms. Goldie Hawn.
It certainly was. Turns out that she has a foundation intended to bring what she called "mindfullness" into the classroom. With all the warmth and likability you might expect from her, she spoke as a mom worried about the violence, suicide, drop out rates and disengagement that I have written about repeatedly here. I loved most of all that she explicitly argued that addressing qualities like empathy and caring in the classroom is a learning outcome. That is, she argued that such character traits support student learning since, as teachers have been saying for decades now, kids learn better when they feel safe and when whatever they may be dealing with in their personal lives gets addressed instead of ignored. I would push her argument one step further, though, and say that we must begin thinking of skills (yes, SKILLS) such as empathy, communication, problem solving and compromise as learning outcomes in and of themselves, rather than needing to "justify" them by noting that kids' reading and math scores will go up, too. Yes, the will go up and yes, that's crucial. But in a country with such high rates of violence, with a prison population at an all time high, clearly we neglect such ideas as ethical reasoning and empathy at our peril. It's good to see someone with Hawn's charm, fame and money money money getting involved. I've visited her website and look forward to perusing the curriculum it offers.
The above said, though, I did have a concern or three about what she may have thought of as an offhand comment but which I felt was very problematic, especially from my viewpoint as a teacher in a juvenile jail. She stated (perhaps with statistical accuracy, I don't know) that our affluent kids are the ones most "at risk". Because she didn't elaborate (at risk of violence? suicide? dropping out? addiction?) and I haven't yet seen a transcript of her speech, it was worryingly unclear what she meant. Does she think we overlook our rich kids ("oh, they'll be fine, they're rich")? All the evidence I've ever seen is that middle class and rich kids go to schools with better trained, happier teachers, are more likely to graduate and more likely to go to college. They are also less likely to be the victim of violence. In fact, if memory serves, just this past school year a study came out showing that suburban kids are far more likely to graduate as urban kids. Social justice as I understand hardly suggests that more resources (financial and social) need to go to affluent schools. Yes, it may be true that rich kids sometimes have disconnected parents with jobs that demand they travel and work constantly, and no doubt there is an impact from that. But what about the kids who show up here in my classroom whose parents are sometimes themselves illiterate, have themselves been incarcerated, themselves didn't graduate high school? Remember, Mom and/or Dad's level of education is still one of THE best predictors of how a kid will do. The invisibility of these kids is dangerous, which is why I had such a strong objection to that aspect of what was otherwise a very worthwhile talk by (wow!) one Ms. Goldie Hawn.
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