Friday, 14 March 2014

Tyson Gross - Going Public With Our Teaching



Going Public with Our Teaching

Summary

There are many issues that face teachers on a daily basis. Teachers must make decisions concerning these issues each time they enter a classroom. Teachers often lack support from their profession as a whole and sometimes require assistance to resolve these issues. Going Public with Our Teaching is a collection of anecdotes and examples of situations from the field of education. The purpose of the collection is two-fold: to serve as a voice for teachers; and to offer insight and solutions to a variety of pedagogical and sociological issues in the classroom. The introduction of the book acknowledges that each individual teacher has little ability to voice their concerns and receive widespread advice and affirmation. Each school supports its teachers; however, there is a lack of communication between each teacher and almost every other member of their profession. Going Public with Our Teaching addresses a number of prominent issues in the field of education. The lack of communication between teachers (across the field of education) means that teachers don’t necessarily have the resources and strategies to meet the needs within their classroom. This book outlines strategies, based on real experiences, that can be applied in a classroom when issues arise. 

The introduction sets the reader up for twenty-one chapters of resources and personal accounts. Each chapter is written by a different author, with experiences in negotiating and resolving different educational issues. The chapters are divided into four major categories: school and classroom culture; curriculum and student understanding; sociological issues of race and culture; and pedagogical issues. The four categories encompass a large amount of issues in the field of education.

The first section of the book explores the value of school culture. There are six chapters that discuss different themes and issues under this topic. The section starts with one author detailing the importance of the first school day as a foundation for school culture throughout the entire year. The author outlines their experiences in building school culture with new students, and offers strategies for other teachers to use. The next chapter discusses the importance of culture as a defining aspect of school. The author emphasizes vision and teamwork of teachers in building culture. There is discussion of “pull-out” programs (students are removed from class to work on literacy or numeracy goals) and how they affect students in a particular classroom culture. There is an artistically-presented personal account of experiences in the classroom. Another author explores the academic effects of school culture. The section ends with a  chapter that places school culture into the context of a surrounding community with its own culture. 

The second section of Going Public with Our Teaching discusses curriculum content and student understanding. This section approaches issues and findings concerning different academic subjects.  These include English language arts, mathematics, and social studies. Each chapter (that addresses curricular understanding) explores issues with teaching these subject areas. They include personal experiences in each subject and strategies that were derived from these experiences. The section also explores learning styles, including participation and oral learning. 

The third section of the book explores a variety of sociological issues surrounding education. The first chapter discusses differentiated education in response to marginalized minorities. The next chapter explores the role of teacher expectations on student growth and achievement. Chapter three discusses racism in schools and the impacts on academic growth and success. The next chapter recounts the story of an immigrant student. This student had always been underprivileged, and then marginalized by education and society. She hadn’t achieved any major academic success because there were low expectations for her and little effort was made to help her. This chapter outlines an unfortunately common situation in education. The section ends with another account of children that were afforded low expectations by educators and marginalized. This chapter includes the personal account of a teacher who addressed this issue and their reflections on the strategies and methods used.

The last section addresses a broad topic: the issues of teaching and instruction. Each chapter offers perspective on a pedagogical or sociological issue concerning teachers. The first chapter discusses teaching individuals within the context of classroom management. The second chapter discusses how a teacher must balance student empowerment and enforced standards of the encompassing education system. The author outlines their personal struggles with finding and maintaining this balance. The third chapter explores the role of chaos in the classroom. The author defines chaos as a force that leads to new variables within the classroom environment. They offer perspective on recognizing and acclimating to this change. The last chapter offers personal perspectives on a number of general issues in teaching. Often the resolution of one situation in a classroom can contribute to the development of another issue. The author writes about analyzing the possibilities associated with the actions of teacher utilizing classroom policies and procedures.

Resources

Going Public with Our Teaching is purposed as a resource book. Each chapter responds to a different educational issue. The chapters involves personal accounts and the strategies used by the author. There is a website for the book (http://www.goingpublicwithteaching.org/).
The website provides a number of resource links (including some associated with chapters in the book):
These are extra resources written by the authors of individual chapters in the book. The website includes several other resource databases and toolkits, which were developed by the Carnegie Foundation:
-          CASTL K-12/TE
-          Quest Project
-          Knowledge Media Laboratory
-          KEEP Toolkit
When addressing any of a variety of pedagogical issues, it is important for teachers to communicate with others. Communication between teachers (and teachers to students) can be the most valuable tool in resolving any classroom issue. It is important for teachers to seek resources and the advice of others.

Critique

Going Public with Our Teaching is well-purposed. It is written from the viewpoint that educators are often voiceless in a field that relies upon communication. It was designed to address issues and give a voice to teachers. The book uses a number of articles from different authors (all who are practicing teachers) to explore different educational issues.

The book has a number of strengths. There is a good intent behind the writing. The offered conclusions aren’t based on theory, and are instead founded upon real experiences. The authors also wrote their individual chapters professionally. Many of them collected data (concerning their topic) and completed analyses and reflections based on their findings. The collection of individual chapters allows the book to address a number of issues in education. It can offer insight on a lot of different topics, which can be valuable to a teacher seeking help.

There aren’t many weaknesses of this book. There are a few concerns. The devotion of chapters to a diverse range of topics prevents any topic from receiving adequate depth. There are many issues touched upon, but greater depth and clarity in the chapters would benefit the book. For a resource book, it uses strongly-academic language. This is a side effect of the professional authorship, but it increases the difficulty of interpretation of findings and strategies in each chapter. The chapters were written by teachers in the United States of America. There is a different landscape to American education than Canadian education. Readers may not recognize this throughout the book. Many of the situations presented in the book are exclusive to American education. This is especially important to recognize concerning sociological and racial issues of education.

Going Public with Our Teaching is a good resource. It aims to meet a need for communication between teachers. It can offer a number of valuable strategies for different educational issues. It is also important to recognize the context of the personal accounts within the book. Going Public with Our Teaching has information and resources needed to resolve classroom issues. It could be a beneficial part of a teacher’s resource collection.

Literature Reference

Hatch, T., Ahmed, D., Lieberman, A., Faigenbaum, D., White, M. E., & Pointer Mace, D. H. (Eds.).   (2005). Going public with our teaching. New York: Teachers College Press.

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