March 6, 2015 - 12:19
The issue I’ve chosen to focus on in urban education is student disengagement. One struggle of teachers in urban schools that has come up a few times in education classes I’ve taken is that it’s very difficult to teach a classroom of students who don’t want to be in school, and don’t want to learn. The lack of enthusiasm and disinterest in learning seems to be more prevalent in large inner-city schools than in wealthier suburban ones, and there are many contributing factors to this discrepancy, for example: standardized testing that forces struggling schools to follow a strict curriculum at the risk of being taken over or shut down; stereotype threat that makes inner-city students believe they won’t do well in school and that it is pointless to try; and a lack of understanding and personal connection between teachers and students, especially when the students come from diverse backgrounds, poverty, or any background very different from that of the teacher. Some of the causes of these issues are very difficult to address and attempt to fix without lots of additional funding, but in our class discussions and readings, several solutions come up that I will explore, such as using culturally relevant pedagogy and classroom management, promoting cooperative and project-based learning in the classroom, having high expectations for students and encouraging them while offering higher-level courses, and connecting a core curriculum with topics and issues that the students are interested in.
The first obstacle getting in the way of urban students being engaged in school is the high amounts of standardized testing that forces teachers to use a strict curriculum designed to help as many students as possible pass state exams. In inner city schools where many students come from lower socioeconomic classes and/or are not native english speakers, there isn’t room for teachers to stray from this curriculum, because they are afraid that too many of their students will fail these exams, and the school will become at risk of being taken over or even shut down, if adequate yearly progress (AYP) is not met. Often, this curriculum is seen as easy and boring for students who will likely pass exams, but because teachers are so worried about helping other students pass, these students don’t get as much attention and don’t get to ask questions that don’t relate directly to material on the test. Additionally, the curriculum that teachers are required to follow presents problems for all students, whether they are struggling or not. Chapter 18 of City Kids, City Schools (CKCS) explains how this to-the-test curriculum can feel alienating to some groups of students, and how it focuses less on learning concepts and more on memorizing facts and formulas: “...the history curriculum reflects ethnocentric and sometimes xenophobic attitudes and regularly minimizes the faults of the United States and some European nations. Even an area such as mathematics is susceptible to ideology that leaves poor children of color receiving mathematics curricula that focus on rote memorization and algorithms whereas middle-class students have early access to algebraic thinking and more conceptually grounded approaches”. Finally, the pressure to have all students passing state exams takes the enjoyment out of learning for the sake of learning, and creates a high stress, “oppressive atmosphere of standardized tests; the wholesale retention of groups of students; scripted curricula; and the intimidation of students, teachers, and parents.”
Another cause of disengagement of urban students is stereotype threat; many students in urban schools, especially minorities and those from low-income families, are almost expected to fail, and as a result they are less motivated to try to succeed. In the article “Calculus as a Catalyst”, the authors describe how even in Mr. Dixon’s advanced calculus course, “negative characterizations of the capabilities of inner-city students can stymie efforts to give these students access to the very curricula that would help level the academic playing field.”
Finally, many students don’t care as much about school and learning when they feel that their teachers don’t care about them and/or don’t understand them; This can be an issue in schools where a lot of the students are racial minorities or live in poverty, but where many of the teachers are white and from higher economic classes than their students. In “Tough Fronts”, a students explains why he hated his fifth grade teacher, saying that she didn’t care about her students’ backgrounds and how much they already knew about a certain topic; she was just going to teach what was in the curriculum. Throughout that chapter of the book, students described their least favorite teachers as those who don’t care about them and their learning, and also expressed that they wished teachers understood what it was like to be on the streets, and that the teachers brought up that understanding. The students interviewed said that they felt most of their teachers did not care about them or understand what it’s like to live in their neighborhoods. Many expressed frustration with these teachers, and didn’t want to listen to what those teachers had to say.
Finding solutions to the many causes of this problem is difficult, but there are many things that educators can do to address demotivation and disengagement of their students, and to begin fixing the issue. In the introduction to part 3 of CKCS, the author writes about his experience in urban schools: “Yet, I have also learned that the reason why a small number of schools do better than others and succeed at engaging their students, cultivating a desire to learn and finding a way to respond to their basic needs, has less to do with skill than with will.” There are many ways that educators can learn to cultivate in their students such a desire to learn.
One example of this is using culturally relevant pedagogy and classroom management. When a teachers make an effort to get to know their students, and use culturally appropriate ways of communicating with the students and managing a classroom, the students will be more likely to respect the teacher, and since they feel that the teacher cares about them, they will care more about what the teacher is trying to teach them. In both the book by Dance (“Tough Fronts”) and the article by Bondy (“Creating Environments of Success and Resilience”), one of the most important characteristics listed that makes a teacher effective and culturally aware is being able to form relationships with students. To reach students from all cultures and backgrounds, teachers should be aware of their students’ backgrounds and never hold it against a student if they behave in a way that may be inappropriate in that teacher’s class, but appropriate in the student’s culture. Students in the Dance book were more engaged and liked their teachers more when the teachers demonstrated not only that they cared about students’ learning, but also that they understood where the students were coming from and what issues they might be dealing with at home. In the Bondy article, students were more engaged when a teacher (“Ms. Fifth”), took time to tell them about herself, and used humor and informal language that the students were familiar with: “I'm a big daddy's girl. My dad is 82 years old, and the man is still kicking it like you wouldn't believe”. All of these characteristics in a teacher made the students more likely to respect the teacher, pay attention in class, and approach the teacher with questions if they needed to.
Another possible solution is adding more project-based, cooperative, and conceptual learning into classrooms, instead of mostly using lectures to teach new material. In Mr. Dixon’s calculus class, students often work together and help each other on classwork, and they “have given presentations (the first quarter project involved explaining mathematical concepts to people with limited math backgrounds), tested and evaluated their physics bridges using calculus concepts, and traveled to an elementary school to introduce young students to more sophisticated math knowledge”. The group work, presentations, and projects that the students engaged in not only helped them learn the material better by teaching it to their peers, but also gives them a break from lectures and that they can be excited about. “Transactions of Mathematical Knowledge in the Algebra Project” describes how math teacher Robert Moses uses experiential learning in his classroom, and lets his students learn from physical experiments they perform, before he teaches them how to present what they learned in formal mathematical language (as part of a “five step curricular process”, which also involves having students draw pictures and explain what they found in their own words). In Changing Pedagogies of Math and Science, a course I took at Bryn Mawr last fall, we had a guest come in and give us a sample high school physics lesson that used many of these experiential learning steps. I definitely felt more engaged in this lesson than I did in my high school physics class, as did other students in this course. It is much easier to stay focused and engaged in class when doing physical activities and trying to draw conclusions from experiments than when sitting in a lecture.
Offering higher-level courses at urban schools and having high expectations for students is another way educators can keep students interested in learning and encourage them to put effort into their studies. Having high expectations of students can help to diminish the effects of stereotype threat directed at low-income, inner-city, and minority students. “Calculus as a Catalyst” describes how giving low-income students a challenging course such as calculus can raise their self-esteem: “The issue is, how do you get beyond that barrier [of equating low socioeconomic status with low academic ability]? And so that's one reason why I think calculus is helpful, because it sets up a standard that's so high that you start to see yourself [as a high achiever].” It also argues that offering such a class at a high school, instead of making interested students take the class at a local college, “sends a critical message about the school's expectations of what kinds of learning its students are capable of. Offering a calculus course at the high school is a very visible symbol of the school's commitment to challenging coursework and its belief that Burke students are worthy of that challenge.”
Finally, connecting what students are learning with real-life applications and examples that the students can understand and are interested in will answer the question that almost all students have: “Why are we learning this?” In class we discussed many ways that curriculum can be connected to real-life issues that students relate to, and created sample lesson plans for history and math classes. Teaching children and teenagers how the math that they’re be learning can help them manage money, build structures, or plan a party will make them want to pay more attention and understand math concepts. We also discussed how history classes should focus on a variety of historical figures, so that more students can relate to these figures. A specific example that was brought up in class is teaching children about Malcolm X and his role in the civil rights movement, because many students, perhaps especially minority students, have learned so much about Martin Luther King Jr growing up (as was described in the article by Dance) that in school they might want to learn about someone from a different background and with a different perspective on how to bring about social change.
All of these pedagogical and curricular changes can make a huge difference in how much students respect their teachers, care about learning, and are engaged during classes, but they don’t solve everything and I am still left with some questions. I wonder how much funding it requires to add higher-level math and science classes, or any AP courses, to an urban public school, and if students would be hesitant at first to take such a class. I also don’t know what solutions there are to the problem of standardized testing forcing some teachers to follow such a strict curriculum that they don’t have time to answer the questions of students who understand the test material, or to explore different ways of teaching the material. It’s possible that the common core standards may help, but there are many anecdotes of teachers not implementing these standards correctly, and causing students more confusion. Still, from discussions and readings we’ve had in this class, various field experiences I’ve had, and things I’ve learned in past education classes, I believe that hiring teachers who make an effort to form relationships with their students and moving towards culturally relevant pedagogy and hands-on, project-based, experiential learning is an important step in challenging, encouraging, and engaging all students in urban schools.
Sources:
“City Kids, City Schools”, Ayers et. al, chapter 18 and introduction to part III
“Calculus as a Catalyst: The Transformation of an Inner-City High School in Boston”, Werkema and Case
“Transactions of Mathematical Knowledge in the Algebra Project”, Davis et. al
“Tough Fronts: The Impact of Street Culture on Schooling”, Dance, chapter 4
“Creating Environments of Success and Resilience: Culturally Responsive Classroom Management and More”, Bondy et. al