Blog Post 3: Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals

Blog Post 3

Kumaravadivelu Chapter 1

Monday September 3rd, 2012

In Kumar’s first chapter in his book, Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for Language Teaching, he discusses different types of teachers.  Not only does his chapter describe different types of teachers, but it conceptualizes the general nature of teaching as a professional activity.  Teachers may see themselves as passive technicians, reflective practitioners, transformative intellectuals, or a combination of these three. As he states, it depends on the mind engagement of the teacher and how they “recognize the symbiotic relationship between theory, research, and practice, and between professional, personal, and experiential knowledge” (22).

I found Kumar’s first chapter incredibly fascinating and self-reflective.  What kind of teacher do I want to be?  I think to answer that question I need to look at myself and see what type of person I am and how I go about educating myself.  I believe that out of the three teachers described, I would most likely fit under the Teachers a Transformative Intellectuals.

Teachers who are transformative intellectuals are a “particular group of educationists called critical pedagogists” (13).  “Critical pedagogists view teachers as ‘professionals who are able and willing to reflect upon ideological principles that inform their practice, who connect pedagogical theory and practice to wider social issues, who work together to share ideas, exercise power over the conditions of their labor, and embody in their teaching a vision of a better humane life” (13).

To break that down into their actual teaching practices, Kumar quotes Joe Kincheloe (1993, p. 201-03) who lists the way this type of teacher teaches.  So many of these reflect my main beliefs of teaching such as teachers being inquiry orientated.  Teachers need to cultivate and extend research skills that help them and teach their students how to explore problems they themselves have posed about life outside the classroom.  I am a strong believer that education should mainly be about educating students to function in society in whatever discourse they choose to reside in.  We should teach them how to go about solving their problems vs. giving them the answer to their problems.  That is one major way to help prepare them to function on their own and to be proactive about their personal issues.

I also agree with the statement that teachers should be dedicated to an art of improvisation.  Not everything goes as planned and in a classroom, especially a classroom that is discussion based, there are many teaching opportunities.  The discussion may travel to a different, yet still relevant and important topic.  Teachers need to have the flexibility to improvise and alter their lesson plans in order to realize that there may be something else that needs to be addressed.  Learning takes place when the content is meaningful to the students and when they can see how the content is relevant to their lives.  Letting the lesson drift into a different direction may be beneficial to the learning environment for the teacher and students alike.

Another topic on the list is a teacher who is extended by a concern with critical self- and social-reflection.  This will encourage students to be introspective, and self-reflect.  This is so important especially for adolescents who are learning meta-cognition and need practice thinking about what helps them become a better student and a better person.

Teachers as transformative intellectuals is by far the most interesting type of teacher that I believe I will be one day.  While I agree with the majority of what is described by Kumar in this section, I do, however not agree with one particular description of this type of teacher; or maybe I am just a little confused as to what he is stating Freire’s philosophy on teachers as transformative intellectuals. 

Freire’s philosophy is that within the description of teachers as transformative intellectuals, “critical pedagogists believe that pedagogy, any pedagogy, is embedded in relations of power and dominance, and is employed to create and sustain social inequalities.  For them, schools and colleges are not simply instructional sites; they are, in fact, ‘cultural arenas where heterogeneous ideological, discursive, and social forms collide in an unremitting struggle for dominance” (13).  What does this mean exactly?  That these types of teachers are power hungry and believe that they need to dominate the classroom? Or that any type of teacher has the need to dominate the classroom? I do not believe that this follows the rest of the description of teachers as transformative intellectuals because it seems to be based on the teachers helping students to become self-reflective while they themselves are transforming and learning along with the students.

           

Blog Post 2: There Is No Best Method? Why?

Blog Post 2

August 27, 2012

Article: There Is No Best Method-Why?

In this article, Prabhu discusses the controversies over the concept of the “best” method of teaching a second language.  Prabhu makes it pretty clear that he does not believe that there is a best method, but he wants to get past that and discuss why there is no best method for teaching a second language.

Prabhu discusses something at the beginning of his paper that I think is very important. He discusses the term method and what he means when he uses it. “I use the term inclusively, to refer both to a set of activities to be carried out in a classroom and to the theory, belief, or plausible concept that informs those activities (162).”  This is an important thing to do when writing a paper that uses terms that may not globally have the same meaning, especially when it depends on the context in which the word is used.

Prabhu then lists and describes the “three general lines of argument that can be advanced in support of the statement to be discussed (162).”  These are: a.) that different methods are best for different teaching contexts; b.) that all methods are partially true or valid; c.) that the notion of good and bad methods is itself misguided.

I believe that his argument is pretty straight forward but his general lines are vague at first but then he goes on to unpack and explain what is meant by each.  The first statement, it depends on the teaching context, is explained first.

This, in a nutshell, means that there is no best method because no single method is best for everyone because of certain variations that will always exist.  Some of these variations that Prabhu lists are social situation (language policy, environment, linguistic/cultural attitudes), educational organization, teacher related factors (status, training, belief, autonomy, skill), and learner related factors (age, aspirations, schema).

These are all pretty much self explanatory. I think that the majority of readers would agree with what he states because it is so true.  For example, the variation that I think is important to look at is the variation that we as teachers can alter, teacher related factors.  Let’s say there is a specific method. Teacher A and Teacher B both subscribe to this method and decide on employing it.  This one method can be so very different depending on which teacher is teaching it.  This does not just have to do with the success of the teacher either.  This can just come down to different styles, neither of which being wrong.  However, there is something to be said about this.  That is that we must look at how the method is being employed and realize that there is human error.  Maybe finding the best method is impossible because no two teachers can teach the method exactly the same, which cannot be thought of as a reliable study.

The next general line that Prabhu lists is that all methods are partially true or valid.  This, as stated by Prabhu, is not an argument that different contexts should use different methods, but it is rather an argument that the same context should use a number of different methods.  This statement needs to be seen as an eclectic blending of all or several methods. It is a method within itself, I believe, that is like any other method but it overlaps the understanding of other methods.

The last general line is important, just how it was important to define what the term method means.  It is: we need to rethink what “best” might mean.  This is simple, but when you try to make sense of it, you realize that this is a daunting task.  We may assume that the best method is the method that yields the best results, but as I stated with the first general line, there are variations that will undoubtedly alter these results.  We then must question ourselves with whether we should observe the quality of knowledge obtained or the quantity of knowledge obtained.  This is another argument within itself that then calls more variations such as the context into account.

In summary, the question of what is the best method is a loaded question.  The question of why is an even more loaded question.  In general, I believe we need to keep in mind the context in which we are teaching, such as the learners we have and their aspirations, and the quality or quantity of knowledge that we wish for them to obtain.

Blog Post 1: All About Me

I am a fifth year senior and I will be student teaching next semester at Buffalo Grove High School back at home.  My major is secondary English education and my minors are TESOL and Children's Studies.  I have endorsements in ELL, middle school and reading.  I will also be a certified reading specialist.

Next semester I am teaching three English classes and two ESL classes.  I am so nervous for the ESL classes!  I feel that I am ready to teach English literature, grammar and composition, but I do not feel ready to teach ESL.  I am hoping and I am sure that I will learn a lot this semester and I will feel much more secure and confident in my ESL teaching abilities.

In the future, I have always wanted to be a high school English teacher.  But now that I am minoring in TESOL and am becoming a reading specialist, I feel that I could be happy in many different disciplines.  I think that my student teaching experiences will allow me to figure out which I enjoy more.

I believe that my interest in TESOL began in high school.  I went to a high school that was extremely diverse; it was 53% Hispanic as well as many Asian, Polish, African American and Russian students.  Being amongst the minority of the population, I learned a great deal about different cultures and how people assimilate to "American" cultures and lifestyles.  I found it fascinating how the students were able to maintain such a strong relationship with their home culture.  I always loved when my high school sponsored Cultural Week.  Groups of students had tables that had information, food, decorations, etc. from their culture.  It was so much fun and educational.  They then had a variety show where each country would perform traditional dances from their cultures.  It was such an inviting environment and really helped everyone appreciate the diversity that we have that we sometimes take for granted.

My future ambitions in this area would be to continue and add on to these types of programs.  I would love to sponsor something like this.  I think that one of the most valuable things that high school students need to learn is about diversity and how important it is to our society. When they then go out into the real world they will have a better understanding of the people around them.