guerilla instructivism, part 3

from Exo:

Yes, we cover up. I taught in NY, middle school. Workshop model prescribed, word walls, bulletin boards, not more than 20% of premade or teacher-made posters, the rest -students work... No seats in rows! No teacher talking longer than 10 minutes! Teach the whole child, not the subject.. etc, etc, etc. I was shushed by my more experienced and well-meaning fellow teachers from even saying "direct instruction" aloud. So when talking to my principal about what I do, and writing up the course descriptions I used "problem-solving", "case study method", guided discovery" to cover for my very direct teaching. Well, since my results in regents passing were good, the principal seleted to ignore my classroom when walking around the building, but I was warned beforehand about any external visitors so I could move the desks from rows into groups, and do a lab...

from Redkudu:

Not only does guerilla teaching live, but I'm required to have my lesson plans in a binder on the desk for any passing visitations by admin.

And, due to past experience, I now have a system of code in which my lesson plans look one way (constructivist), but the lesson goes another. Never yet had anyone complain because, I think, they truly don't know what they're looking at.

guerilla instructivism, part 2

[A parent] wouldn't know of "guerrilla instructivists" because if they WERE known, they would be disciplined, transferred, or fired (or all of the above). I doubt if a single parent of the hundreds of students I've taught in the last 10 years would regard me as a guerrilla instructivist, nor do any of them, in all likelihood, know that I am using DI and other non-approved practices and curricula. I use the same lingo as everyone else, reporting on "shared reading," "making meaning" and whatnot, but I mean different things by those terms and use empirically-validated materials and methods to achieve the goals.

If I were to "come out," I would certainly be disciplined, probably moved to a position where I couldn't do any of the things I am doing.

....The fact is that methods, materials, instructional practices and use of teaching time is often prescribed at the district level, with no teacher input, even down to the last minute, and classrooms are searched for materials that are deemed inappropriate. Teachers have very little say in what and how to teach. They certainly can't do things like, junk Guided Reading and do DI (pdf file) instead. Teachers must follow the established protocols. They are lower-level employees, not independent contractors.

....Small districts tend to be more responsive to their clientele.^* The real edu-nazis are in large urban districts, where they have a population that they can manipulate, ignore or work around, and who rarely are politically active and almost never in an effective manner. The administration runs the show. Teachers, like me, who strongly disagree with what is being done have to fly under the radar. Kind of like being in the Underground in WW2. You need a good "cover," and you must under no circumstances let on what you are actually doing.

Of course many who want to teach effectively throw in the towel and go to the private sector. I have given this serious consideration from time to time, but am stopped by the realization that in the private sector I will not be able to serve the population I do now. Every year I rescue a few off the Titanic, in spite of administration, curriculum and other impediments. Their parents don't know, the admin doesn't know (everyone can chalk it up to sudden "development.")

But I know.

So I am still here. But if you were a parent in my school, you would not know that I was a guerilla instructivist. You wouldn't know who the others are, either.

This reminds me of my days writing for New Woman Magazine. I used to lace my articles with all manner of rupturous, pro-male sentiments, but I'd cloak my heresies in proper language and tone and I'd usually get away with it.


^* not in my experience, but I haven't been able to discover whether my district is unusual

palisadesk on guerilla instructivism

You talk about a long list of readiness characteristics in your district, but what about ed schools? You talk about a long list of readiness characteristics in your district, but what about ed schools?

In my area the 2 major ed schools focus on "big ideas" like diversity, social justice and being a change agent. They don't concern themselves with any practicalities, like how to teach anybody anything.

I surveyed the new teachers and the army of student teachers coming into our school over the last decade and they all report learning nothing about assessment, classroom management, cognitive or behavioral science, early reading/literacy, communicating with parents or indeed much of anything of a practical nature. They study Paulo Friere, Jonathan Kozol, Sylvia Ashton-Warner,^* and so on. The content is nearly all theoretical and philosophical, nothing empirical, evidence-based or useful on the classroom level.

This is not all that unusual a situation. In many areas it is the district that teaches new teachers what to do and provides workshops and non-credit courses on balanced literacy, how to administer the Developmental Reading Assessment, do Writers Workshop and Guided Reading, and so on. The mandate for these practices comes not from the Ed schools but from the district level and from the department of education level higher up. I haven't seen any evidence that ed schools set the agenda; they seem to be responsive to what the education bureaucracy wants -- in many cases, ed school staff are bureaucrats as well, sometimes on assignment for a 2-5 year stint at an ed school, other times they hold double assignments. It's one big cabal running both the ed schools and senior management in the bureaucracy.


An even more cynical blogger might take away that by pushing these literacy skills down to parents' responsibilities, it leaves teachers free to give Writer's Workshop instead.

I find that many parents and private citizens do not know this, so I will point it out: teachers are not, in most jurisdictions, "free" to give or not give Writers Workshop, or Guided Reading, or whatever curriculum practice is the latest craze. Most districts are quite prescriptive and require teachers to comply with very specific guidelines -- what materials they may (and may not) use, what practices they MUST employ (Word Walls, Writers Workshop, Readers Workshop, Guided Reading, Shared Writing, and so on). They may be specifically forbidden to do other things (teach standard algorithms, teach systematic phonics, hold students accountable for spelling, meeting deadlines, completing assignments). Many districts have "literacy police" (even "numeracy police") who go around inspecting classrooms and monitoring compliance. Teachers have very little freedom in most districts to choose their own methods or materials. That has both positive and negative consequences.

The infatuation with most of the practices so often deplored here (and elsewhere) does not come from teaching staff but from higher up in the bureaucracy. Indeed, surveys have shown almost as great a disconnect between what teachers want and think effective vs. what administrators and bureaucrats want/believe as the Public Agenda study "Different Drummers" showed exists between ed school faculty and the public at large, including teachers. There is a great divide, but the power is largely on one side.

Being a successful "guerrilla instructivist" requires camouflage and using the opposition's terminology and jargon to describe things totally incongruent with the prevailing philosophy. One can generally assume ignorance of instructional matters, research and cognitive science on the part of school and district administration, so unless you wave red flags in front of them they will not notice the details of what you do as long as you appear assertively compliant.

What would we do without palisadesk (and redukudu & Paul B & Instructivist & Concerned ....)?

That is not a rhetorical question.

What these teachers do for children, families, and for their country goes far beyond guerilla instructivism. I was about to invoke the samizdat, but that's not quite right, is it? This is America; palisadesk has a right to speak her mind, although if she were to do so using her own name she would put her job at risk.

I've just asked Ed whether there is a historical precedent for this kind of 'inside reporting.' He says that during the Ancien Regime there were members of the court who, using a pseudonym, wrote about court intrigues and the like.

But that's all he could think of on the spur of the moment.

The writings of guerilla instructivists make me wonder whether the internet really is something new and different: whether the internet has a "democratizing" effect in realms that have been anything but democratic.

We will see.