Constructing Kasun, Educator

Avuxeni, thanks for your comments–I wrote down all the questions from yesterday’s group and asked their permission to include them in this post.  They agreed.

Here are the questions my 12 students asked yesterday about US Public Education–I was hungry to get at the answers to these questions and impressed by the teachers’ thoughtfulness:

How do we assess and evaluate students?

Do high school students experience a lot of pressure as they try to get into college (relative to the massive anxiety Korean students face)?

What kind of extracurricular activities do schools offer?

Do we censor our textbooks, and how are they controlled, in the US? (The teacher who asked this said it was only when she traveled to France and was questioned about communism from the French that she looked into different narratives about North Korea’s and communism’s histories, for example.)

How is inclusion being implemented in the U.S. for special education students in general education classrooms?

Are community college students treated differently by peers and professors when they go to four-year institutions?

What are the requirements to be a teacher?

What is the role of boarding schools in the U.S.?

Are there regulations for student appearance in schools (like the strict ones Korean students must adhere to)?

What is the role of charter schools?

Do we have tracking (”ability level” courses)?

Are teachers allowed to share their political positions as they teach (in Korea teachers must remain neutral–a seemingly objective standard but one that ultimately becomes problematic–as in the case of journalism, for example)?

How do students, especially foreign students, get scholarships to attend college?

The class is only six sessions long–I wish it were longer to be able to offer thorough attention to each of these questions.  It will be interesting to see what Korean teachers actually learn from our course at the end.  I hope they’ll be satisfied.

I’ve taught the Korean Fulbright teachers three times now (two separate groups).  I am impressed at their self-discipline and curiosity.  Despite jetlag and overall fatigue from the rigors of the program, they are in class, on-time, every day.  I find myself enjoying the teaching (and the professionalism and insights of the other staff at the institute) a lot.  

But I struggle with the classic question–what do I teach them?  Before their arrival, I wrote a set of US student identities (including immigrant students as well as black, white, Latino, and Asian students from varying social classes).  Each teacher receives an identity, and each class the teacher learns a bit more about that person’s identity.  This was to solve the question of how to help the teachers understand the diversity of students in US public education as well as the challenges we face in attempting (not so well, oftentimes) to educate all students.  So far the feedback from the teachers is that they like learning these identities; as one put it, “I feel like I’m getting to meet many Americans this way.”  I hope I have not essentialized identities based on race and class, but I have tried to create these personalities based on demographic trends I know in the US.

Yesterday we did the classic K-W-L activity (what do you “K”now about US public education, what do you “W”ant to know, and what have you “L”earned?”).  I wrote down their questions to help me guide the course–including: What is the role of unions? How is curriculum established? What and how are teachers paid, and what is their status in the US? What is homeschooling?

Nonetheless, I still wonder what kind of picture is forming in the minds’ eyes of these teachers of US Public Education.  I’ve had a lot of guidance from a former (and current) teacher of the course, but I can’t help but wonder.

Today, Saturday, I will attend a University of Texas men’s basketball game.  It’s not school pride; it’s an outing with the Korean teachers.  My husband will come along, as will a couple other staff members.  Hook ‘em Horns!

***

I spent most of yesterday morning at the middle school.  I met with those famed counselors I have previously mentioned who do such good work with kids that is empowering and relevant.  We talked about how we could use advisory around several upcoming issues–the Presidential Inauguration and President-Elect Obama’s call for community service, considering love and how we express it as Valentine’s Day approaches as well as thinking about respect (including self-respect) as state standardized tests approach, too.  Meeting with those counselors is always a sort of blessing–they bring such good energy and ideas, and they are so good at caring. 

One very cool moment during that discussion was a graduate school to middle school connection I made.  One of those counselors is developing a unit in working after school with kids in community service about violence and the outcomes of violence.  Part of that project includes having her students discuss films about genocide, including the World War II Holocaust, as well as reading a Guatemalan Civil War testimonio, the famed, “I, Rigoberta,” by Rigoberta Menchu.  Several of the students will go to Houston in March to hear this Nobel Prize winner speak.  We plan to have these kids produce some educational materials they can share during advisory.  But the graduate school connection was related to discussions I had last semester in my Narrative and Oral Traditions class where we talked about Menchu’s work several times and reflected on individual and collective memory.  I shared a bit about that discussion in light of the criticisms Menchu’s work has received.  

I’m a little worried that one of next week’s advisory activities won’t go over very well.  Each advisory is to write a collective poem, one line from each student, based on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  I’ll update later.

Today I have positive energy.  Spirit has moved me, so I’m writing again.

Students are back at the middle school.  I’m not there, but I just talked to the guidance counselor who I work closely with.  Polite as he is, I gathered in our two minutes and eight seconds of conversation that he and the guidance staff were overwhelmed.  ”Kids are showing up just now to register; we have kids coming in from the ALC (alternative learning center); the front office is swamped.”  I kind of felt bad for him, but I also enjoyed the thought of the energy of school (and I’ll be there tomorrow).  I’ve written lesson plans for the next couple of weeks–getting students to reconsider the purpose of advisory, to evaluate their own groups, and also getting them to reflect on Martin Luther King, Jr. (the holiday is coming up soon) and doing collective writing projects in poetry based on MLK’s vision and their own visions for the future.

***

All this good energy may come from meeting the Korean teachers yesterday (ok, and maybe also the days off I took).  It was so exciting to see them facing such an interesting experience.  I enjoyed meeting with several of them over lunch.  Conversations ranged from American standards of beauty (primarily whiteness) to politics in the U.S. to comparing education systems.  We also shared personal stories about marriage, social expectations regarding marriage and children, and our experiences as teachers.  Today is the first day I actually teach them.  I’m so looking forward to the feedback loop of teaching (daunting as it is).  Maybe I’ve really missed the teaching aspect of my life.  

Most of the books I ordered have arrived for my spring classes.  I’m looking forward to reading them and intend to get started now (though I can’t seem to put down the novel I’m reading in my free time–Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz).  I need to read a lot more Pierre Bourdieu–especially for a paper I’m working on… and there he is, author of “Outline of a Theory of Practice,” among the books waiting for me.  

Here is a smattering of observations from last semester’s work here and how it felt.  They’re some final reflections before other activities drive my attention elsewhere (I’m about to go to the Opening Ceremony for the Korean Fulbright teachers I’ll be teaching over the next several weeks, for example).

I never took a day off.  Not. one. day.  That was unwise (I’m being kind to myself).  Yes, we moved during the semester; I went to a friend’s wedding in California; my in-laws visited for ten days; my dog got sick and had emergency surgery, etc.  There were a couple days when I really needed a day, just one.  But I refused to allow it.  It was a sick sort of fear that if I missed just one day, I’d fall behind, and I’d have only myself to blame.  In reality, if I had given myself a day off–even a day a week–I probably would have been more clear-minded about doing my work.

I almost didn’t take time off during this holiday (yes, I still have work–the Korean teachers, the advisory program doesn’t follow the university schedule, unfortunately).  I started to realize I was angry at myself for not getting a break, fantasizing about summer break already.  That was wrong, especially since I was feeling guilty for not working enough during my break.  So I just came off four days of a self-imposed break.  At Pedernales Falls on Rob’s birthday (Saturday), I felt myself having thoughts, the kind I used to have when I wasn’t working and feeling sick about working.  

When I finished writing my last paper at the end of the semester (I wrote forty-five pages in the last couple weeks… this isn’t remarkable for graduate school, but an indicator of how busy I was), I felt not just a sense of relief.  I felt like I had just gotten out of jail.  When did graduate school become prison?  Again, I like what I’m studying; I’m passionate about it.  But I do not want to feel imprisoned.  

So, next semester, I will give myself permission to have breaks.  If I end up feeling constantly shackled, my work will suffer, and I will suffer.

And now it’s off to work.