Session 4: Disciplinary Lenses and Ravitch Chapter 9

English is just one lens through which we can view the world

I like the idea that disciplines are lenses through which we look and interpret the world, not facts that we all must memorize. Through my content research so far, I have really come to see the value in teaching non-fiction in high school English. The more resources I find, the more I realize how interesting non-fiction can be. Plus, when you give students choice about their topics, all of the sudden everyone in the class is reading and learning different things that they can then share with one another. I see the possibilities of using non-fiction to drive home themes that relate to the fiction or other units of my class. I also see non-fiction pieces as stand alone texts, not just as supplements to the literature we are already reading. My classroom can be a lens into the world for my students to develop English skills, but also to learn real-life lessons that will help them in our ever evolving society.

This week we also read chapter 9 of Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System, in which she discusses teacher unions. Critics of unions say that they allow for unsatisfactory teachers to hold onto their positions, and are thus hurting American education. However, Ravitch notes that there is no hard evidence to support this assertion. She presents several important facts, for example:

• The Southern states typically have the weakest unions and have always had the poorest student performance on national exams.
• Affluent communities have higher student performance, regardless of whether teachers belong to unions.
• Finnish students score the highest on international reading assessments and their teachers are almost 100% unionized.

To sum up, Ravitch says, "Unionization per se does not cause high students achievement, nor does it cause low achievement" (175). I agree that the issue here is not with unions. Sure, there are probably places where bad teachers are being protected by tenure when they shouldn't be. But Ravitch also explains that there are still processes for firing incompetent teachers, regardless of tenure. We should be spending our energy somewhere else besides trying to oust teacher unions.

Also, with Common Core on the way, we have changes coming. I think this is a great opportunity for everyone in the profession to examine their own practice and make changes to better the education of our students.

I commented on Whitney Campi and Jeff Vangene.