Book Banners don't care about books, they fear how books humanize us

 

I remember reading "To Kill a Mocking Bird" in Middle School and watching the movie at home and in school. There was something transformative about those experiences in my youth that helped make me the teacher, son, brother, husband, and father I am today. 

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” ~ Harper Lee 

As a Literacy Educator, I am informed by a rich body of research, and experiences in the classroom. Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop said diverse Books are mirrors, (places we see and reaffirm ourselves), Windows, (places we come to see and know others), and Sliding Doors, (places where we step inside the lives of others). Literature is more than print on pages, it can be a communion with transformation of hope, peace, joy, and love. I would say diverse books humanize us. It is that potential to humanize us that racists fear most. The Humanizing factor is why people seek to ban books. I have asked college over a thousand undergraduates and graduate university students what the reason teachers gave you is to make you a reader. Their answers seldom come close to any transformative answers. Most are linked to employment or access to university.  Mrs. Stanfield my Hornor's English Teacher told us Frederick Douglas said " Once you learn to read you will be forever free". She was my first Black Teacher, she always linked literacy to freedom. Father Fitzgerald told us reading gives you another doorway to God when your ears are blocked. Reading is God's gift to all, and Brail is his gift to the blind.  

If we spent more time with young learners explaining why we want them to read, we would find powerful ways to motivate and engage them. It is my opinion that we spend too much time teaching how to read, and not enough time teaching why we read.

Respectfully,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner 

CCSU Literacy Center Director 

If you like to listen to the tune that inspired my morning walk today...its the "Teach Your Children" cover by Play For Change https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5AuFDHdrrg&list=RDP5AuFDHdrrg&start_radio=1 

Imagine opening all the doors of teaching and learning with Count Basie and Jackie Robinson

Who is afraid of AI, not I said this educator.

 
Yesterday my future teachers were asking me about "AI in class".

I began with a YouTube video of elementary kids using movement, dance and song to tell the Jackie Robinson story. this is the link of the video we shared. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqzaUxJ5JXA

Their questions such as "How do we ensure students are really doing their own work?"
We had some great discussion and I reminded them how just last week we had a discussion on disciplinary literacy, and learning foundations. With disciplinary literacy, the learning receptive processes are rooted in listening, reading, and viewing. This is how we learn about our world. I reminded them that their mission as teachers is to remember the importance of using all of these receptive processes in order to engage and motivate.

AI, I continued is another learning tool, just like Google. When Google first came out , there were some teachers and educators who thought "game over"! Now students had instant answers to any question! Google (they thought) would end teaching as we know it... We all learned while Google can point students to a million possibilities, the learners themselves still have to search for the best answer. And that search is a worthy academic journey! Rote assignments rooted in the old ways of assessing students, do not inspire learners, instead they just "rank and sort" learners in ways that no longer make sense, especially in the 21st century.

Our role as teachers, is not to be rooted in methods and ways of the past. We need to think about upping the ante with those learning foundation engagements. We need to teach outside the box, and then watch students rise. Challenge them to demonstrate what they know, the best way they know how. Open doors to all the arts, add dance, singing, and visual art to your productive processes every time you can.
In this new brave world let us not restrict students to their seats, but unleash the arts, and then see them shine ~ again and again.
Dr. Jesse P. Turner
CCSU Literacy Center Director If you like to listen to the tune that inspired my morning walk, it is Count Bassie's "Did you see Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-7Ac2LVVYU

Just Saying, another Reading War is the best you have

25 Billion every year for what? 

What do you call education reforms that spend billions on scripted reading programs, but not actual services to Black, Brown, and Special Education Children in our poor communities? Same old systemic racism that profits off the misery of children and teachers in our public schools.

JUST SAYING 

We have been fighting this war for over a hundred years, the casualties of war at this stage are in the millions. The profits are in the billions, and what have we gained? A vicious cycle of one-size-fits-all literacy programs, that increases profits, confuses teachers, and reduces children to data points.

Where is the humanity in endless war?

Where is the humanity in a public school system that spends annually 23 billion dollars more on wealthy predominantly White Schools, than on our poor predominately Black and Brown Schools?
Can we use that 2 billion dollars annually spent on high-stakes testing to give teachers the necessary resources?

JUST SAYING, I imagine something different, and this is what I am fighting for.

Just in case you like to listen to the tune that inspired my first day back teaching...its Barry Lane's "We Found Defiance" https://soundcloud.com/gaetanp/we-found-defiance-barry-lane-live-umass-dartmouth