Chinese Summary/中文概要:
教育圈 也喪失社會正義
全美前20大教師部落格格主Jose Luis Vilson跳脫框架思考
為教育改革、社會正義奮鬥歷程與省思
Jose Luis Vilson是位黑人,在紐約下東區長大,在成長及受教育過程中與貧窮、髒亂、充滿毒品的環境為伍,飽受種族歧視所害。畢業於紐約雪城大學資工系之後,本書作者Jose Luis Vilson帶著理想及僅剩不多的幾百美元存款,到紐約公立中學擔任數學老師。
滿懷抱負的他在打進教育圈後卻發現教育制度、教師制度等都有問題。他建立部落格TheJoseVilson.com宣揚教育改革理念,也與「教師品質中心」的創辦人兼總裁Barnett Berry等教師合著《未來教育:2030年教師備忘錄》(Teaching 2030)一書,同時也擔任教學品質中心(Center for Teaching Quality)董事會成員,以及「拯救學校」運動(Save Our Schools Movement)督導委員會會員。Scholastic Inc更選其部落格為全美前20大教師部落格。
本書綜合他從一介菜鳥老師成為教育界改革的領導者之一的奮鬥歷程、成長過程中經歷的教育、對現有教育的省思:(以下為內文節錄)
教育不能以自身經驗來制定教學方式,因為此種教學方式只對跟妳同樣背景、出身、家庭經濟狀況的人有用,而無法讓來自不同背景的孩子了解。不能以自身觀點看待孩子,要跳出自我思維。
“…In the teaching profession, most of us have a great collective mentality, but one of the major failures of “group think” is that we think every teacher around us who agrees with us is automatically a microcosm of the average student who we grew up with. It’s just not true. Logically speaking, people who participate in this type of this discussion are saying that almost everyone who is within our age range, income level, education level, and profession learned the material exactly that way and that’s why it was so effective.
What we ought to say is that “My teacher taught me this way and it worked for me and a few of my friends, so that’s why I’m teaching this way.” We could also take it a step further and say, “I’m open to other and possibly more effective ways of teaching the material based on real research and improve my pedagogy if I think I’m going to reach the most children possible.” We can own up to the fact that there’s a good chance that the people within those meetings were more often than not the best kid in their elementary school class.”
教育是僵化的,老師本身也深受其害不自知。老師教導孩子規範,然而這種規範真的是「規範」嗎?
Outside of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, I didn’t know much about my own history. Sadly, even the adults with the best intentions never handed me those much-needed resources for my own knowledge. Outside of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Mildred Taylor) and Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe), I don’t remember having access to the same cultural education my colleagues from middle class Black families had. Most of my teachers were either Jewish women or White male Catholics, but I had a sprinkle of Black and Latino teachers too. It made me wonder if the curriculum they were bound to almost assured that they would teach me a “normative” set of standards rather than deviate to highlighting culturally appropriate models for people like me.
教育,應該像農夫耕種植物一樣,依據孩子天賦培養孩子,而不是改變孩子。
“The art has to be present in the job because the art is the humanity. The reason teachers exist, too, is to cultivate kids the way farmers cultivate crops. Technologies change, chemicals change, and the earth changes, but the relationship between a farmer and his harvest comes out in the texture and zing of the crop. Same goes for the student and the teacher. My kids, like me growing up, don’t want teachers to change who they are, either. You’re not telling this apple he’s a grape.”
(Eva)