Balancing Act

Teaching Social Studies is a balancing act.  From a pedagogical standpoint, I understand that best practices dictate the importance of making history tangible and real for our students through story-telling.  We are told over and over that getting our students to relate personally to what they are learning is the best way to make our subjects relevant. In that vein, descriptions about notable individuals, stories of triumphs and failures, case studies on historic leaders or participants, are what stick.  But on the other hand, I’ve always felt that our discipline is important and vital because of the overarching patterns that we can see emerge. We can’t see these patterns without taking a step back from the individuals and learning about big picture themes throughout history. I typically don’t like the adage, “History Repeats Itself”, because it implies a helplessness that I don’t adhere to (maybe a topic for a different post) but the longer that I study and teach these subjects, the more in awe I am of how often history develops in predictable patterns. So this is the struggle - how do we find the balance between huge, sweeping historical concepts and personal narratives that make history come alive?

In all of my courses, I start off the year by showing Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk titled “The Danger of a Single Story”.  In both history and government classes, I like to set the precedent that the things we learn are never an entire telling of what truly happened.  One of my favorite anecdotes from her talk is when she arrived in the United State for college and met her roommate for the first time, her roommate wanted her to play her ‘native’ music from Nigeria and was sorely disappointed when she turned on Mariah Carey.  As we study history (or political science, or geography, or economics) we run the risk of minimizing so many diverse stories into a single digestible narrative. We can try our best, but we will never be able to recreate every experience from the past. However, as good historians (or political scientists, or geographers, or economists) we must constantly improve our critical thinking skills in order to hold on to and validate multiple narratives and experiences.

Another example of where we see this balancing act is in conversations regarding globalization.  As we progress through the 21st century, the world is getting smaller in many ways. Technology has improved our methods of communication, the internet allows us to have more information at our fingertips than ever possible, and new jobs and industries are emerging at an incredible rate.  But at the same time, we are still seeing massive gaps in education, success, and wealth that would seem counterintuitive to how much progress we are making. I really enjoyed the narrative put forward in The Atlantic’s article, “The World is Spiky”.  Rather than validating one side of the round world v. flat world argument, it offers up the point of view that we are developing unevenly around the world.  This isn’t a new phenomenon because development is never uniform. Nothing puts this idea into perspective better than Han Rosling’s “200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 minutes” video on global change.  A point that is mentioned in both Rosling’s analysis and the Atlantic article is that people are living in concentrated urban areas at a higher rate than ever before, and that this is leading to bigger disparities within nations.  



So, what does this mean for our teaching?  I think that it is our responsibility to present our students with as many varied perspectives as possible, as well as the tools to analyze them.  Too often, I think that we expect students to be able to automatically connect the dots or think deeply about complex situations. If we are doing it correctly, the concepts presented in social studies classes should be overwhelming, we are tackling some of the world’s most enduring questions.  So why would we expect teenagers to know what to do with so many varied opinions, ideas, and contradicting information?  The best thing that we can do is to equip them with the ability to constantly question, and to do so in a way that is meaningful and not strictly for the purposes of ‘getting credit’ and moving on.  In Angel Kyodo Williams’ conversation in NPR’s “On Being” podcast, she expressed a concern about people’s growing inability to experience discomfort.  I see this being increasingly true in society and especially in my students. We become obsessed with who is right and who is wrong, we lose sight of the fact that multiple truths may be valid.  We are so used to having our questions answered immediately, we might be losing a sense of wonder and discovery. In her conversations, Williams says, “...without this particular place and location of a willingness to be flexible, open, soft-bellied enough to be moved by the truth of the other in whatever given situation, then it is not transformative.  It’s change, maybe; it can be moved backwards again, as we can see - the stroke of a pen.” This quote really resonated with me. If we can’t help our students transform as a result of their learning, we aren’t truly accomplishing anything.

Everybody is a Genius.

We were tasked to find an image that represented 'global education' to us.  Several years ago, I first saw the above comic accompanied by Albert Einstein's quote, "Everybody is a genius.  But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live his whole life believing that it is stupid."  It really spoke to me at the time as I had just started my teaching career and was thinking a lot about state standards, benchmarks, testing, and all sorts of assessment.  I was already noticing how over-tested I feel like our students are and how truly difficult it is to design and administer meaningful assessments.  

Fast forward a few years, I still think of this quote and image often.  I have very deep concerns about the direction of public education and really wonder why such an emphasis has been put on the competitive nature of learning. I see the amount of stress my high school students place on themselves - sometimes due to family expectations, sometimes from an intangible outside force.  The pressure for our students to be the most involved, the best academically, and the most outstanding performer while still getting enough sleep and staying healthy is unreasonable.  And to what end?  Education should be a process, and when we pit student's achievement against each other rather than celebrate all highs and lows, I wonder about our priorities.

So this then brings me to global education.  Why are we also competitive with other countries educational achievements.  I understand that we live in an ever globalized world, but when we constantly report how far 'behind' American students are when compared to our counterparts in European or Asian countries, and then take turns pointing fingers (usually at teachers) instead of attempting to learn from the successful things that are happening around the world, it makes me feel like we aren't truly interested in improving.  In my revised version of the cartoon, I'd love to see a panel of all of the animal experts who are able to showcase their abilities to learn how truly wonderful and diverse we can be.  

TE 867 Introductory Post

Growing up, I always wanted to be a teacher.  When I was in 1st grade, I thought I'd be a 1st grade teacher...when I was in 2nd grade, I thought I would be a 2nd grade teacher...and so on.  My interest in school came mostly from having wonderful teachers.  I felt loved, supported, creative, and successful throughout almost every single year of my schooling.  When I graduated and went to MSU as an undergraduate, I felt overwhelmed by the possibilities.  I felt like being 'just' a teacher seemed simple and that I wanted to pursue a career that, when you told a stranger what you did for a living, they said "wow".  I attended James Madison College (MSU's residential program for public policy studies) and planned on working in the state government.  Throughout my time at MSU, I continually found myself in roles that were educational in nature.  I worked at the Wharton Center for Performing Arts and it was my job to train new employees.  I was a member of the MSU Pompon program and I helped to plan and coordinate philanthropy and volunteer events.  I worked for five years on the staff of MSU's Model United Nations conference for high school student where my job was to communicate with all of the participants and visit high schools to help train their teams.  Then, for my senior year internship (the capstone of the James Madison program) I was invited to redevelop and teach GED classes at a wonderful non-profit in Lansing.  I had a hard time denying that education was what I truly felt passionate about.  I added secondary education to my degree program and haven't looked back since.

I currently teach in a suburban high school in Oxford, Michigan.  We have just over 1500 students and offer a diverse range of courses including an International Baccalaureate program, several pre-engineering tracks, and wonderful performing arts electives.  The Oxford community is in transition as it slowly emerges from it's more rural and traditional roots.  I'm lucky to teach in a district that provides such a well-rounded education for students and many growth opportunities for educators.  I'm just finishing my sixth year teaching in the district (one at the middle school and five at the high school).  My courses include US Civics (10th grade), World History (11th grade) and AP Comparative Government and Politics.  I love having a range of subjects and ages throughout the day.  In addition to teaching, I am our school's Model United Nations advisor, co-coordinator of the Link Crew (a mentorship program between upperclassmen and incoming freshmen), co-coordinator of our Gender and Sexuality Alliance club, and my departments PLC Facilitator.

Oops.

I have always been notoriously bad at keeping diaries or journals.  I have several dusty piles of very cute notebooks in my childhood bedroom that would prove this.  Apparently, this blog is another thing to add to that pile.  While well intentioned, I always find myself running out of time or too self-critical to properly reflect on things in the moment.  I'm just beginning my last semester of graduate classes at Michigan State University and for the purposes of the course I am taking, I need to write and publish all of my assignments on a personal blog.  Rather than starting a brand new site, I decided that I liked the poetic closure that continuing to work on this forgotten blog will give me.  Even seven years later, with many first days, many triumphs, and many challenges under my belt, what I said in that initial post still rings true.  It actually makes me kind of proud to still feel like my mission, while maybe a little more refine or specific, is still the same.  Everyday, I'm trying to find more sailors to inspire through my education.