Teachers Unite Newsletter, April 2007

Teachers for Equity Under Attack

There are educators across the country seeking innovative methods of teaching engaging content to children in urban schools. These teachers went into teaching because they hope that in some small way, their contribution would inspire children to be lifelong learners and leaders. Many of these educators recognize that white supremacy, capitalism, misogyny and imperialism are forces that permeate the globe, and they work to inform their students of both historic and current political realities that impact our lives. These teachers want to expose their low-income African American, Latino/a and immigrant students—who face systemic prejudice and oppression in innumerable ways—to the type of analytic skills that children in elite institutions are encouraged to develop.

Isn’t this…good?

The New York Post and New York Sun have featured several opinion pieces calling these educators everything from wackjobs to (gasp!) Marxists. Conservative writers have been particularly hostile toward this month’s Creating Balance in an Unjust World conference on math education and social justice (co-sponsored by Teachers Unite), a groundbreaking event organized by full-time schoolteachers who are so passionate about improving math education that they have taken on the enormous task of coordinating a 400-person gathering of exemplary educators. They have done this with no compensation whatsoever. These teachers should be publicly celebrated, but instead they are attacked and demoralized. It is no wonder public schools are in their current state.

One of these published pieces quotes Chancellor Klein as saying, “Giving schools ‘leadership' or ‘social justice' themes is fine with me, as long as the teachers and principals do not bring politics and ideologies into our classrooms.” I think everyone would agree with Mr. Klein if he meant that public schools should not indoctrinate students with particular ideologies. But of course, that is exactly what they do. It is a myth to think that there is an educator on the planet who doesn’t hold a system of beliefs that affects what and how they teach. When educators declare themselves neutral or apolitical, but then proceed to teach one interpretation of history or one approach to problem-solving, they inadvertently reinforce dominant ideologies about how the world works. At what point does a teacher’s vocal commitment to justice and equity become “politics”? At what point do “politics” become controversial?

One goal of Teachers Unite is to support teachers who strive to make classes academically rigorous, culturally relevant and intellectually inspiring for New York City public school students. These are some of the tenets of social justice teaching, and it’s difficult to imagine why anyone would find something wrong with it.

In struggle,
Sally Lee
Founder and Executive Director
Teachers Unite

(Very) Young Environmentalists

By Molly Dengler

"Hey, I remember you! You did the puppet show!" Today my class ran into the first graders on our way to lunch and was greeted by this welcome directed at Manuel, a stocky and generally introverted second grader in my class. He played the bear in a puppet show vignette about a bear who got sick from eating a piece of garbage that he thought was an apple.

Storyboard for puppet show created by students

I teach in a first and second grade self-contained special education class that follows a dual language (Spanish/ English) model at Cypress Hills Community School in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn. It was November and we had just finished an intensive community study in which we interviewed community members and went on neighborhood walks to learn about our immediate surroundings. It was on these walks that we noticed the large amount of garbage that littered our sidewalks and streets. We classified different kinds of garbage, made tallies, and even made signs in writing workshop that urged people to take care of the neighborhood. Meanwhile, an idea for a larger community action project was brewing in my head. I had studied several Latin American community action models such as Proyecto Ciudadano in the Dominican Republic (Pontifica Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra) and worked with Amigos de las Americas across Latin America, but I wondered, could my students, as young and special education-classified English Language Learners, handle such a sophisticated endeavor?

Our garbage observations and community signs sparked further study on recycling. We explored essential questions on the subject, such as: what can be recycled? What happens to things that are recycled? And what does it mean to “reduce, reuse, and recycle?” We even played recycling computer games! Now our next goal, as “recycling experts” was, how can we teach other kids in our school about the importance of recycling? Whereas other models of student-driven action projects gave examples of public service announcements, leaflets, and letters to politicians, I knew my students would need more scaffolding. With an array of special needs, I have some students who lack the communication skills for an oral presentation, and others who are still in the early writing stages--these options would not be the most appropriate ways to showcase their learning. I presented several options to the class: a recycling demonstration, starting a small-scale recycling program in the school or a puppet show. The students immediately jumped on the puppet show idea; we had been using a collection of puppets for literacy activities and they loved them. I also have a puppet background and saw potential in introducing puppet show scripts as a new writing genre.

We began by playing. We did not have time to make new puppets, so our characters (a collection of animals and different professions like police, nurse, and fireman) were pre-established. Students formed heterogeneous groups, took on the personalities of the puppets, and started translating their knowledge into short vignettes that touched on different recycling themes. In writing workshop, the students focused on recording their original storylines and dialogue on paper so it could be practiced again and again. To provide differentiation for the writing process, the early writers took on the task of drawing the storyboard in multiple frames, while the more advanced writers recorded the corresponding dialogue. The final product was a series of three vignettes promoting recycling. One featured a frustrated little boy who was wasting papers by making only a small mark on each before tossing it aside to move on to the next. He was lectured to “use the back [of the paper]!”

 

Another was about a boy who littered with a plastic bottle, which was later eaten by a turtle, causing him a trip to the doctor to get it removed. We decided to record the dialogue on cassette tapes to make the performances as uniform as possible, combat cold feet, and make sure the students’ voices were heard from beneath the covered table we used for a stage. In reading workshop, students practiced reading the dialogue on their scripts with expression and fluency until they were ready to record.

For two periods on a Friday afternoon, my class picked up our crate of puppets, a bed sheet, and our stereo and transformed into a troupe of traveling puppeteers. We made four stops, and performed for six classes, kindergarten through third grade. All but one class were general education. Through this journey from room to room and class to class, the kids were able to dictate their inclusion and take charge of their acceptance. A self-contained class has the potential to be isolated and even ostracized from the rest of the school, but when my students used an integrated study to make their debut to the rest of the school, they were able to defuse their “special” classification and truly connect and educate in their own right.

Talking Points: Explaining Why It's OK to Teach with IndyKids

by Indy Kids

IndyKids has received reports of teachers who have stopped using IndyKids in the classroom because of complaints from parents, and school librarians refusing to keep copies of IndyKids on display because it is biased. This set of talking points is aimed to help teachers and librarians address these concerns.

I have trouble using IndyKids in the classroom because it’s biased.
All news publications and all media children are exposed to are biased, whether they admit to it or not. Mainstream publications are financed by corporate sponsors and wealthy people. Writers and editors write from the perspective of their class and cultural background, and it is generally from the dominant class and culture. They present a view that is overwhelmingly favorable to the U.S. government and corporations. This is bias too. When Time for Kids says that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is “working to help bring peace” to the Middle East and, “After all, she is making history,” (Feb. 9, 2007), Time for Kids is presenting a biased perspective. Time for Kids does not point out Rice’s role in the U.S. drive for war in Iraq or call the millions of people who protest the war in Iraq peacemakers. It does not present the perspective that the people play a role in making history. This is a perspective you can find in IndyKids.

While it is fine for Time for Kids to present a biased perspective, it is certainly questionable that school districts across the country to spend public monies for Time for Kids for their classrooms while IndyKids is driven from classrooms and libraries because it is biased.

Why doesn’t IndyKids try to be more balanced so that it won’t have problems in schools?
It is not possible to be balanced. All media is biased. IndyKids does present the mainstream perspective and an alternative perspective. IndyKids is open in that it is a progressive publication presenting an alternative point of view. IndyKids especially makes efforts to present points of view generally not heard in the mainstream media. IndyKids gives space to the voices and issues of marginalized people such as kids, people of color, poor people, immigrants and issues of people in other parts of the world that we don’t often hear about in the mainstream news or in textbooks. Educated citizens in a democracy need to hear the perspectives in IndyKids. IndyKids should be welcomed into every school and library as a way to present an alternative perspective to children.

The librarian at my school does not want to have IndyKids available for students because she says it is biased.
The American Library Association’s “Library Bill of Rights” states: “Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

It is the responsibility of public and school libraries, which are funded with taxpayer money, to provide materials with a range of perspectives, not only those the librarian agrees with.

Some parents might get upset if I use IndyKids in the classroom.
It is the job of teachers and schools to teach kids to think critically, to be empathetic and to understand the points of view of different people. This is a part of the standards of most, if not all, K-12 curriculum.

Well-known professor of education, Sonia Nieto, writes in her book, Affirming Diversity, “The pedagogy of effective teachers is empowering because rather than simply teach students blind acceptance of the inherent values of the dominant culture, these teachers encourage students to think critically and work actively for social justice.” IndyKids can help you do your job and be an effective teacher.

Good teachers who want to challenge their students to think critically and to become active participants in a democracy will always face opposition. It is very hard to face the pressure in an already stressful job. The challenges and pressure put on IndyKids and teachers who use IndyKids indicate that we are doing a good job toward making change in our society.

What can I do if I’m facing opposition to using IndyKids in school?
1. Use the arguments put forward in these talking points to advocate for your students’ right to hear different points of view;
2. Bring other publications into the classroom and use them in conjunction with IndyKids as teaching tools on media bias and perspective. This is a good way to teach about bias in media and that all media is biased. Teachers can help their students evaluate what is fact and opinion. A class can compare the issues various publications choose to put on their pages. A class can evaluate the different points of view in the articles and who is served by the perspective presented;
3. Find other teachers and administrators who are open to different perspectives. Get to know them and be supportive of each other;
4. Find other progressive educators in your area and form an organization or support group;
5. Let IndyKids know about your experiences.