Ameliorating and Accommodating the 21st Century Education
“We are here to get the knowledge, skills, and habits we need to better the lives of our communities, our loved ones, and ourselves.” Students who come to Social Justice High School recite these words on a daily basis in the sophomore level classroom for Chemistry. The teacher of this class, Mr. Morales-Doyle strives to have his students live by the Essential Seven and Social Justice values. The determination in these children’s eyes to live by this statement are not reflected in the test scores among other things the people in charge of CPS, standing for the ‘Chicago Public School” system and the Board of Education review when deciding if a school serves the neighborhoods well. To meet the deficits in the CPS system, particularly for the Lawndale communities, Social Justice High School was born.
The issue of budget cuts is not a new problem (Barnette, 2010). Burnette discusses how CPS cut 20,000 teaching positions, increasing class sizes. This suggests that public funding is not being used correctly. This applies to the issue of 2010 where schools lost teaching positions, after school programming, and sports. For example, the voice of the community is not present in matters of education (Duncan-Andrade, 2007). This illustrates how Chicago Public Schools suffered due to budget cuts and a lack of community voice.
Students from all over Chicago are unhappy about the CPS cuts that have been happening and want to take action. Students are upset because they feel their education faces jeopardy due to social issues. Students have decided to take action and protest (Burnette, 2010). The problems that arose in 2010 are still relevant today in 2012. Schools have still faced being “turned around”- a phrase that means schools are closed down, teachers are fired, and a corporation or private business may own the school. A senior from Social Justice High School, David Rojas from the class of 2010, was interviewed and gave input on what students could do to protest (Burnette, 2010). This suggests that the idea of social justice is still being disrespected. Attacks on public education prove society to hold a bias towards certain groups instead of helping the lives of everyone.
Although students have protested and parents and teachers have also joined the protesting for equality amongst public schools, the Chicago Board of Education has still closed schools. The unanimous decision of the Chicago Board of Education to close schools and turn some around has negatively impacted how society functions. Since seventeen schools will be closed or fazed out – a phrase meaning a planned discontinuation—and ten will be turned around, many people will lose their jobs. Activists, community members, and the Chicago Teachers Union have decided to take the issue to the Courts. Board members feel they have done the right thing but educators feel otherwise (Fox Chicago News, 2012). The schools that are being turned around and closed are in low-income neighborhoods. Because of this, community members feel the issue is racial. In today’s society, capitalism has created a “dog-eat-dog” mentality in which education has become an industry.
Social Justice High School, which is one of four schools of the Little Village Lawndale High School Campus, has been created by a hunger strike that lasted for nineteen days. Seventeen residents of Little Village were told they would get a new school for their community but because two other schools were created, the state did not want to give them a new school. Because the community wanted and needed another school to accommodate the large amount of children in Little Village, members protested and got useful results. For weeks, protests have been happening all over the city of Chicago to go against closing certain schools. The protest for LVLHS has become a role model (Lydersen, 2001). Living in Little Village and North Lawndale, community members need to be aware of the change that can happen when going against the social norms. Inequality, like time, does not wait for anyone. If there is a determination to make change, the change needs to happen immediately. Things are not just handed to people; people have to go out and fight for what they want just as the hunger strikers did.
One change that can happen imminently is the change teachers can make in their profession to better help students become aware of their surroundings. In the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education Volume 20, Number 6, Jeff Duncan-Andrade answers the questions of what methods of teaching works best in an urban society, what educators have done to make the educational process better for their students, and how the educational process can withstand more improvement. Jeff Duncan-Andrade explains in a city, the best teaching methods follow the five pillars of education: a critically conscious purpose, a sense of duty to the students and community for educators, a constant preparation for the practice of teaching, a Socratic sensibility, and the building of trust with students. Duncan-Andrade explains that sadly, the concept of carino (caring), which is articulated by Valenzuela (1999) as a central tenet of good teaching, seems to have shot wide many education researchers working in poor and non-White urban schools (619). Researchers who work in city neighborhoods do not seem to take in account that teaching is not just about obligation but it is also about community involvement. Duncan-Andrade later explains that effective work in urban communities requires tremendous commitment and effort, but we must avoid notions that only exceptional people and circumstances allow for success. Rather than putting the work of highly effective urban educators on a pedestal, implying through their stories that they have some mystical gift that allows them to reach the unreachable, we must work to understand their success. This happens by examining what they do, why they do it, and how they do it (the purpose and the process). Then, we can better recruit, prepare, and support others with similar commitments (620-621). At Social Justice, every teacher and faculty member treats his or her student with the utmost respect and takes the time to hear the student voice as well as the voices of those they work for. Social Justice is a place that follows the five pillars of education that makes a great teacher-student environment. Living in a community that strives for social justice, there is a lot that needs to be accomplished to get to the ultimate goal of equality amongst all groups of people. If CPS could learn what Duncan-Andrade explains in his article, the opposing forces can come to an agreement of how students can learn best.
Because there has been a lot of community violence around Social Justice, educators who can understand and communicate to their students about violence are vital. The idea of words being better than action, or in this case, violence, holds true. Once a person can learn the beauty of reading and the power behind words, there is no stopping them. In the “Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 54(6), Patrick Camangain explains what has happened to urban education. Camangain explains that urban struggles consist of various levels of tense cultural and gendered conflicts as well as profound economic underdevelopment. Without understanding the social struggles of local communities, many well-intentioned teachers may think of ‘good teaching’ apart from a large context of antioppressive work. However, this kind of thinking perpetuates social inequities as teachers use universally designed curriculum to engage students in local communities with particular needs (458). Because there are more than economic problems in urban neighborhoods, finding a way for students to succeed educationally is more important. Camangian later explains that technocratic approaches to schooling foreground academic content and assessment tools that ignore the immediate material conditions of dispossessed urban communities. Education policies like these do not recognize the inherent cultural bias in traditional curricula that prevents students of color from having positive orientations to institutions of schooling…As a result of these color-blind policies, ‘highly qualified’ teachers come into urban schools not realizing how socially toxic these institutions can be for young people. Although teachers may be highly qualified according to the language of policy, their lack of knowledge of the social contexts of urban youth of color prevents them from confronting these issues with their students. These policies further alienate historically underserved, colonized students of color from an empowering education (458-459). This further explains how education is not the same for everyone. Educators from LVLHS keep up to date with the problems that occur within the communities and take the time to help their students understand what needs to be done for them to succeed.
Something I have learned in my experiences here at Social Justice revolves around the schools’ belief of the different kinds of education and how to integrate that into students lives. In College Reading and Writing, a senior level class that introduces students to college level courses, students read portions of Paulo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire explains there are two types of learning in the world; problem-posing education and the “banking concept” of education. The whole point of problem-posing education is to keep history from repeating itself. This idea of oppressing one group to keep another group “on top” of the rest is something Freire discusses in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire noticed there are two forms of education. One kind is the “banking concept of education” in which “the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filling, and storing the deposits” (Freire, 2000). Children and students are seen as empty vessels that need to be filled with the education that a person who thinks of themselves as “higher ups” dictate. Freire states, “In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing” (72). This is the same idea the rich had implied on the poor. The rich filled the poor with this idea that there are more than two ways to classify people and that people are more different than they appear to be. However, problem-posing education “epitomizes the special characteristic of consciousness: being conscious of, not only as intent on objects but as turned in upon itself a Jasperian ‘split’—consciousness as consciousness of consciousness…It is a learning situation in which the cognizable object…intermediates the cognitive actors…The practice of problem-posing education entails at the outset that the teacher-student contradiction to be resolved” (79). Problem-posing education, in simpler terms, educates people by allowing them to be their own teachers and learners. No one is filling peoples’ minds with pre-conceived notions of what the world is like and no one is telling others how they should see things. At Social Justice High School, problem-posing education is seen through the different types of subjects people learn. For instance, in United States History, students learn the two sides of wars and the different perspectives of the American Dream. While learning about immigration and the two waves of immigration in America, students learned there was controversy between the two groups of immigrants. The “old immigrants”, people who had migrated to America early, had seen new wave immigrants as lazy, poor, and unskilled. During the Progressive Era, higher ladder people would try to help educate the poorer people on different skills and better assimilate to the American culture. Problem-posing education was not seen during the Progressive Era although many people would argue that by helping the new wave immigrants, people were saving others. In Social Justice, this is something educators strive to accomplish; the educators do not wish to fill empty vessels but to create more critical thinkers about the three types of education and knowledge that exist in the world. These lessons work in Social Justice because it is a small school designed to teaching each and every student at a level that they can understand the material that is taught.
The problems small-modeled schools face against CPS are similar to the problems Duncan-Andrade and Patrick Camangian explain that are problems of urban schools with the rest of society. Although my education is not conventional, I feel there is no other way I would prefer to have spent my high school career. The beliefs of John Dewey and Francis Parker believed when deciding a new way to look at education, which started here in Chicago, are now being ignored. John Dewey believed the best way children, in general, could learn was by getting into learning by doing things—take their natural interests and brings them out in class-form. The creation of CPS defies the work John Dewey created.
Globally, education is a problem. The people who are allowed to be educated, the topics people learn about, and the ways people learn are all issues. Government involvement in who is educated, the extents of their education, and the value of their education are also issues that violate social justice. Social justice is the idea that one day, equality will be reached by all walks-of life, regardless of who they are, their socio-economic status, their sexuality, sexual orientation, and their overall ability to be human. Social justice and social equality are far from being completely attained but that is why people need to follow Social Justice’s influence and work towards identifying a problem and discussing the ways to fix it.
The issue of budget cuts is not a new problem (Barnette, 2010). Burnette discusses how CPS cut 20,000 teaching positions, increasing class sizes. This suggests that public funding is not being used correctly. This applies to the issue of 2010 where schools lost teaching positions, after school programming, and sports. For example, the voice of the community is not present in matters of education (Duncan-Andrade, 2007). This illustrates how Chicago Public Schools suffered due to budget cuts and a lack of community voice.
Students from all over Chicago are unhappy about the CPS cuts that have been happening and want to take action. Students are upset because they feel their education faces jeopardy due to social issues. Students have decided to take action and protest (Burnette, 2010). The problems that arose in 2010 are still relevant today in 2012. Schools have still faced being “turned around”- a phrase that means schools are closed down, teachers are fired, and a corporation or private business may own the school. A senior from Social Justice High School, David Rojas from the class of 2010, was interviewed and gave input on what students could do to protest (Burnette, 2010). This suggests that the idea of social justice is still being disrespected. Attacks on public education prove society to hold a bias towards certain groups instead of helping the lives of everyone.
Although students have protested and parents and teachers have also joined the protesting for equality amongst public schools, the Chicago Board of Education has still closed schools. The unanimous decision of the Chicago Board of Education to close schools and turn some around has negatively impacted how society functions. Since seventeen schools will be closed or fazed out – a phrase meaning a planned discontinuation—and ten will be turned around, many people will lose their jobs. Activists, community members, and the Chicago Teachers Union have decided to take the issue to the Courts. Board members feel they have done the right thing but educators feel otherwise (Fox Chicago News, 2012). The schools that are being turned around and closed are in low-income neighborhoods. Because of this, community members feel the issue is racial. In today’s society, capitalism has created a “dog-eat-dog” mentality in which education has become an industry.
Social Justice High School, which is one of four schools of the Little Village Lawndale High School Campus, has been created by a hunger strike that lasted for nineteen days. Seventeen residents of Little Village were told they would get a new school for their community but because two other schools were created, the state did not want to give them a new school. Because the community wanted and needed another school to accommodate the large amount of children in Little Village, members protested and got useful results. For weeks, protests have been happening all over the city of Chicago to go against closing certain schools. The protest for LVLHS has become a role model (Lydersen, 2001). Living in Little Village and North Lawndale, community members need to be aware of the change that can happen when going against the social norms. Inequality, like time, does not wait for anyone. If there is a determination to make change, the change needs to happen immediately. Things are not just handed to people; people have to go out and fight for what they want just as the hunger strikers did.
One change that can happen imminently is the change teachers can make in their profession to better help students become aware of their surroundings. In the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education Volume 20, Number 6, Jeff Duncan-Andrade answers the questions of what methods of teaching works best in an urban society, what educators have done to make the educational process better for their students, and how the educational process can withstand more improvement. Jeff Duncan-Andrade explains in a city, the best teaching methods follow the five pillars of education: a critically conscious purpose, a sense of duty to the students and community for educators, a constant preparation for the practice of teaching, a Socratic sensibility, and the building of trust with students. Duncan-Andrade explains that sadly, the concept of carino (caring), which is articulated by Valenzuela (1999) as a central tenet of good teaching, seems to have shot wide many education researchers working in poor and non-White urban schools (619). Researchers who work in city neighborhoods do not seem to take in account that teaching is not just about obligation but it is also about community involvement. Duncan-Andrade later explains that effective work in urban communities requires tremendous commitment and effort, but we must avoid notions that only exceptional people and circumstances allow for success. Rather than putting the work of highly effective urban educators on a pedestal, implying through their stories that they have some mystical gift that allows them to reach the unreachable, we must work to understand their success. This happens by examining what they do, why they do it, and how they do it (the purpose and the process). Then, we can better recruit, prepare, and support others with similar commitments (620-621). At Social Justice, every teacher and faculty member treats his or her student with the utmost respect and takes the time to hear the student voice as well as the voices of those they work for. Social Justice is a place that follows the five pillars of education that makes a great teacher-student environment. Living in a community that strives for social justice, there is a lot that needs to be accomplished to get to the ultimate goal of equality amongst all groups of people. If CPS could learn what Duncan-Andrade explains in his article, the opposing forces can come to an agreement of how students can learn best.
Because there has been a lot of community violence around Social Justice, educators who can understand and communicate to their students about violence are vital. The idea of words being better than action, or in this case, violence, holds true. Once a person can learn the beauty of reading and the power behind words, there is no stopping them. In the “Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 54(6), Patrick Camangain explains what has happened to urban education. Camangain explains that urban struggles consist of various levels of tense cultural and gendered conflicts as well as profound economic underdevelopment. Without understanding the social struggles of local communities, many well-intentioned teachers may think of ‘good teaching’ apart from a large context of antioppressive work. However, this kind of thinking perpetuates social inequities as teachers use universally designed curriculum to engage students in local communities with particular needs (458). Because there are more than economic problems in urban neighborhoods, finding a way for students to succeed educationally is more important. Camangian later explains that technocratic approaches to schooling foreground academic content and assessment tools that ignore the immediate material conditions of dispossessed urban communities. Education policies like these do not recognize the inherent cultural bias in traditional curricula that prevents students of color from having positive orientations to institutions of schooling…As a result of these color-blind policies, ‘highly qualified’ teachers come into urban schools not realizing how socially toxic these institutions can be for young people. Although teachers may be highly qualified according to the language of policy, their lack of knowledge of the social contexts of urban youth of color prevents them from confronting these issues with their students. These policies further alienate historically underserved, colonized students of color from an empowering education (458-459). This further explains how education is not the same for everyone. Educators from LVLHS keep up to date with the problems that occur within the communities and take the time to help their students understand what needs to be done for them to succeed.
Something I have learned in my experiences here at Social Justice revolves around the schools’ belief of the different kinds of education and how to integrate that into students lives. In College Reading and Writing, a senior level class that introduces students to college level courses, students read portions of Paulo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire explains there are two types of learning in the world; problem-posing education and the “banking concept” of education. The whole point of problem-posing education is to keep history from repeating itself. This idea of oppressing one group to keep another group “on top” of the rest is something Freire discusses in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire noticed there are two forms of education. One kind is the “banking concept of education” in which “the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filling, and storing the deposits” (Freire, 2000). Children and students are seen as empty vessels that need to be filled with the education that a person who thinks of themselves as “higher ups” dictate. Freire states, “In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing” (72). This is the same idea the rich had implied on the poor. The rich filled the poor with this idea that there are more than two ways to classify people and that people are more different than they appear to be. However, problem-posing education “epitomizes the special characteristic of consciousness: being conscious of, not only as intent on objects but as turned in upon itself a Jasperian ‘split’—consciousness as consciousness of consciousness…It is a learning situation in which the cognizable object…intermediates the cognitive actors…The practice of problem-posing education entails at the outset that the teacher-student contradiction to be resolved” (79). Problem-posing education, in simpler terms, educates people by allowing them to be their own teachers and learners. No one is filling peoples’ minds with pre-conceived notions of what the world is like and no one is telling others how they should see things. At Social Justice High School, problem-posing education is seen through the different types of subjects people learn. For instance, in United States History, students learn the two sides of wars and the different perspectives of the American Dream. While learning about immigration and the two waves of immigration in America, students learned there was controversy between the two groups of immigrants. The “old immigrants”, people who had migrated to America early, had seen new wave immigrants as lazy, poor, and unskilled. During the Progressive Era, higher ladder people would try to help educate the poorer people on different skills and better assimilate to the American culture. Problem-posing education was not seen during the Progressive Era although many people would argue that by helping the new wave immigrants, people were saving others. In Social Justice, this is something educators strive to accomplish; the educators do not wish to fill empty vessels but to create more critical thinkers about the three types of education and knowledge that exist in the world. These lessons work in Social Justice because it is a small school designed to teaching each and every student at a level that they can understand the material that is taught.
The problems small-modeled schools face against CPS are similar to the problems Duncan-Andrade and Patrick Camangian explain that are problems of urban schools with the rest of society. Although my education is not conventional, I feel there is no other way I would prefer to have spent my high school career. The beliefs of John Dewey and Francis Parker believed when deciding a new way to look at education, which started here in Chicago, are now being ignored. John Dewey believed the best way children, in general, could learn was by getting into learning by doing things—take their natural interests and brings them out in class-form. The creation of CPS defies the work John Dewey created.
Globally, education is a problem. The people who are allowed to be educated, the topics people learn about, and the ways people learn are all issues. Government involvement in who is educated, the extents of their education, and the value of their education are also issues that violate social justice. Social justice is the idea that one day, equality will be reached by all walks-of life, regardless of who they are, their socio-economic status, their sexuality, sexual orientation, and their overall ability to be human. Social justice and social equality are far from being completely attained but that is why people need to follow Social Justice’s influence and work towards identifying a problem and discussing the ways to fix it.