History Equals The Game Plan Against Hate

 

Maya Angelou said: “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”

Reading between the lines of these Florida and Texas Governors who want to ban books and factual history. It is not about Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, or CRT; it is TRUTH they fear. 

What frightens the hell out of them; is the actual historical truth. History is the game plan showing how racist attempts to suppress Black, Brown, Women, and LGBTQ Americans always fail in the end. 

They are not afraid of their children feeling bad; they don't want children to see how miserably hate has failed time and time again.

Case in point, the Georgia State Legislature denied Civil Rights Activist Julian Bond his seat three times. He took it to the highest court in the land.  Georgia lost in the Supreme Court. History gives people a game plan against hate. These book and history haters fear truth more than anything else. Why attack history? They lack the courage to face actual history. They do not want you to see the game plan to defeat them. 

History is the game plan against hate,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner 

Uniting to Save Our Schools

Badass Teacher

If you like to listen to the tune that inspired my morning walk today, it is Roots cover of
"Aint Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" from The Soundtrack For A Revolution. 
Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ6mhRZ8LjM

PS History is the game plan, read it, learn it, and use it. 

Doing their best to kill the joy

 

A bit of Jackson Brown's Great Pretender lives in me. I wake up some days a bit lost, but then I find my dreams in the smiling faces of those children and teachers I work with.. My fellow teachers and our CCSU Literacy Teachers are path finders. 

When I was a young university student, Dr. Jerry Weiss asked us to consider stories from different points of view. He said what if you read To Kill a Mockingbird from the point of view of a Black Person, Hispanic Person, LGBT person, Immigrant, White person, a person of faith, and a person of no faith. What happened in that in class that day became one of my deepest most sincere learning experiences. Readers bring their life experiences to the text they read, and those experiences lead to multiple meanings. I would learn later on about Louise Rosenblatt's Reader Response Theory which took it to the next level. 

Well, teaching that novels have different points of view leads right into Rudine Sims Bishop's Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Doors. Teachers have learning experiences that shape them; they are fed not by Common Core State Standards, but by theory. Research shapes us. 

Our work is hard, and our nation's policymakers and legislators are working around the clock to make it harder. They don't care much for research; they prefer counting numbers. Professionally my view is a public school system that often tries to break teachers. It is around the concept of breaking teachers that I begin to feel lost, a great pretender. I then remember research guides me in the right direction, not test scores or policymakers. I remember teachers can make learning joyful. Then I put on my Mr. Icredible outfit, and say Does anyone feel like winning a gold medal today. 

Then I remember these teachers and children needed me to rise above the noise. When I do that, I find my teaching soul. With teachers it is never about us; it is about those we teach. 

For 40 years the ones I teach have always brought me back to my teaching dream. That dream that said I will be a teacher who makes a difference. Teaching is difficult, and the system appears to be making it harder, but those faces in front of me make it worth every day for 40 years. 

I am the Great Pretender renewing my dream,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner 

CCSU Literacy Center Director 

If you like to listen to the song that inspired my morning walk it is Jackson Brown's The Great Pretender. >  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xowaOsutxA4&ab_channel=MaliYojez <

Is there a test for the love of reading?

 

A great deal of what happens around teaching children to read in our public schools is based on test scores. 

The assessments used are Norm Reference and Criteria Reference Assessments, which in order to be standardized must demonstrate large failures. If they can’t do that, then the assessment becomes invalid. We should not surprise that the conversations always revolve around large academic failures. Norm Reference Assessments must show 50% falling below the mean. Criteria Reference Assessments are Mastery Based requiring 75-80& correct responses. They are created to show large failure, and this is also why there is a never-ending Reading war. Regardless of the reform failure is guaranteed. They are informative, and can help us see how schools are doing nationally, and how they measure up using a performance-based measure. They are however weak measures to judge how individual students are doing in their everyday school performance, and often contradict class grades and student Grade Point Averages. Failed to consider variables, such as poverty, race, linguistic competencies, or emotional or cognitive challenges. Basing education reform policies on this data is an invitation to an endless cycle of aggravated data pitfalls. Most of all they often lead to reforms that fail to engage children in learning to read in joyful and meaningful contexts. The result can be “Aliteracy” readers who can read but are uninterested in reading. > https://ccira.blog/2022/08/09/combatting-aliteracy-mentoring-todays-students-to-become-tomorrows-avid-readers/ <

There are more relevant assessments, diagnostic ones with clear individualized instruction paths. Those rich data informal classroom-based assessments, the ones informing teachers here and now, where their students are. The results of those other high-stakes ones will generally come in during the next school year. They often offer little to no immediate benefit for children. 

It is no big secret that focusing on high-stakes assessments increases anxiety and always ends up turning learning to read into a chore. I will suggest focusing policies solely on Norm Reference and Criteria Reference Assessments is a dog chasing their own tail syndrome, that often fails to inspire teachers and a love of reading. They also almost always cut out the voices of those closest to those learning to read, teachers, parents, and students. 

If our public schools want to develop generations of readers who love to read, they might consider rethinking our 100-year love affair with standardized testing.

Just Saying,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner 

CCSU Literacy Center Director

Show us the joy, Dr. Turner! 

If you like to listen to the tune that inspired my morning walk it is Three Dog Night's Joy to The world > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ndl0LAidU <