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 Bitter Lessons 
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Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:46 pm
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After reading this article and "Why Johnny Can't Disobey" I had to ask myself:
Do teachers really have the freedom to teach as they see fit?

In posing that question, I have to wonder if teachers "aren't allowed to do waht they think best for each student" (by Gatto page 4 in the Bitter Lessons article). This really bothered me. I like to think of myself as being able to teach how I think it would best benefit my students, but it seems sometimes teachers repeatedly come up against a wall. It seems like the system of education seems reluctant to support that non-conformist. A movie comes to mind: "Dead Poets Society". This movie highlights the life of a teacher who was a non-conformist and eventually had to leave teaching altogether because of his unorthodox methods of teaching. Are teachers so reluctant to teach in new and exiting ways for fear that they will be reprimanded? Another article I had for another class a teacher points out "In 1971, when I started teaching high school English to Chicano students, I tried to supplement the required texts with works by Chicanos, only to be reprimanded and forbidden to do so by the principal. He claimed that I was supposed to teach "American" and English literature. At the risk of being fired, I swore my students to secrecy and slipped in Chicano short stories, poems, a play" (Gloria Anzaldua, "How to Tame a Wild Tongue", 1987). I want to be a good teacher, but is the system so stifling that one of the reasons teachers leave the profession is because they feel stifled?


Sat Jan 22, 2005 5:08 pm
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