Gratitude

Over the past weekend as I listened to the Beastie Boys in homage to Adam Yauch, I reflected on the impact he had on me as a young white kid from the suburbs. In 1987, License to Ill blasted until the cassette tape wore out on my crappy GE one speaker boombox as I played countless hours of basketball in my driveway.  I became enthralled with that hip-hop/punk hybrid and the wanton attitudes of Adrock, MCA, and Mike D.  But it was MCA with his could give a fuck demeanor, 5 o’clock shadow, disheveled hair, and gravel road voice that was especially appealing.  He rapped about “stealing your honey like he stole your bike”.   The perfect juxtaposition to my sanitized life as an eighth grader.  He held the swagger that spoke to any shred of rebellion that existed in my 13 year-old self.  And despite the Fight for Your Right to Party anthem that played over and over, it was several other tracks from the album that peaked my curiosity and led me to listen to more hip-hop.  MCA and his crew opened the door to a world of hip-hop and music that was not on the radio.  So much so that by 2004, I went more to see A Tribe Called Quest who opened for the Beasties, than to see the Boys themselves.  But the Beastie Boys put on an amazing show demonstrating their ability to capture an audience.

Over a 25 year period the Beastie Boys have been a steady part of the soundtrack of my life.  By the time I was in high school, Paul’s Boutique released a cacophony of samples that were mind numbing with lyrical cleverness to boot.

oowah oowah is my disco call

MCA hu-huh I'm gettin' rope y'all

Routines I bust rhymes I write

And I'll be busting routines and rhymes all night. 

Once I was in college, Check your Head became a staple in my musical diet like Ramen noodles and beer.  At any party, a Beastie Boys track got people singing and on the floor dancing. It was the bridge between rock-n-roll and hip-hop.  In my 20s, Ill Communication became the definition of cool.  Teri and I chose Sabrosa from that same album as the intro track for us and our wedding party.  As I aged and sometimes matured, it was clear that Beastie Boys had matured as musicians.  Forging ahead of the curve, their act became epitome of showmanship, and behind the scenes they were becoming political, opening my eyes to issues in Tibet.  And for MCA, “what’s was running in his mind came through in his walk.  True feelings were shown in the way that he talked”.

To me, MCA was always "cooler than a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce”.   While Adrock clowned and Mike D acted as sidekick, it was MCA, lurking in the background, who would deliver the well-timed line and banter in seamless wordplay with his counterparts.  He didn’t rap as much as Adrock, but when he did, he commanded your attention.  He was the guy you wanted to hang out with because he was in the know.  Adrock might have acted like the life of the party but it was MCA who brought you there. 

I celebrate the life of MCA, an artist who brought me joy through his music from grade school through grad school.  An artist who infected my musical consciousness through my headphones and rocked many a party through tower speakers for the whole block to hear.  And so, "Give it up, the maestro.  All three cheers for the maestro".

A Lecture By Any Other Name...

I started hearing buzz about the flipped classroom via Twitter a few weeks ago and wondered what this new educational practice was all about.  When I read a few sources, my first thought was this scene from The Wire about the Barksdale crew rebranding their drug supply to bring back customers because it had turned into a bad product.

 (*Clip contains strong language)
   

Flipping the classroom is a buzzword with little substance because it rearranges the same bad product:  the lecture.  It is still a lecture whether it is in video format or not.  Lecture has its place and can be a good pedagogical tool, especially when laced with thoughtful questioning and opportunities for processing with peers.  One of the premises of the flipped classroom is that the traditional classroom lecture is watched at home via computer-embedded video like Khan Academy instead of at school. So in a science classroom, a student watches a video about titration before conducting a titration lab in school. 

In theory, the model is promising in that the activities in a classroom are dedicated to student inquiry instead of passive reception of information.  I don’t believe that is revolutionary teaching.  It is good pedagogy that has been espoused for years.  Dewey. Freire. Whitehead.  My critique is not that we shouldn’t be dedicating our time to classroom inquiry but that we need to flip traditional in class activities like lectures to out of class activities.  

Why is a didactic lecture necessary before engaging in classroom inquiry?  This model reinforces the belief that students have zero prior knowledge or that meaning cannot be made without being first told by the teacher.  The lecture possesses all of the answers.  While activities are being “flipped” from classwork to homework, the epistemology of learning via transmission remains intact. 

           Flipping the classroom by having students learn a concept at home does not address scaffolded teaching.  I have yet to see how students are taught to make meaning from video like they might with written text.  It assumes that these so-called digital natives possess strategies for meaning creation with video.  It is unclear to me how students are equipped to process the information in the video without any teacher or peer interactions.    

Without instruction about the text itself, "flipping" also reifies the epistemology of “text as truth”.  I fail to see the difference between these videos and a textbook.  Flipping is not transforming; it is edifying dominant narratives.  The teacher is still defining what knowledge counts and what knowledge does not count.  And many of the video lectures contain no author.  Are students being taught to critique the source of the video and the information being delivered?  

The biggest affront may be the videos themselves.  Watch this “video” from Khan Academy.  It is hardly a video that utilizes any of the affordances of even rudimentary flash animation.  Why would a 15 year old be motivated to watch this?  Because it is online?  It is cool?  I know my students would have had my head, and rightfully so, if I shilled these videos as required text.  They may be a useful resource for some students, in some instances, but there are far better online texts and tools to utilize for instruction.  Flipping the classroom as conceptualized right now by the educational twitterati is just rearranging the status quo to make it look different but it doesn’t transform or empower student learning.  It is replicating an overused practice in class to outside of class with little to no student support for meaning making.  Until deeper thought is put into the uses of technology like online video,  it is just more of the flipping same. 

Democracy for Sale

It is March 9, 2011 and WI has just passed the legislation to end collective bargaining. As much as I try to post to Facebook and Twitter, I feel the need to share my thoughts and views on what is being reported as an educational crisis and the vitriolic attacks on teachers. The name of my blog is Pedagogical Consciousness. The name implies a call for awareness and action to all who care about public education in our nation. It is imperative that we fight for and defend our profession, our schools, and our youth.

Let's consider some proposals that take aim at public education. First in Wisconsin, the goal is to end collective bargaining rights for public employees. By purporting a so-called crisis, public workers, whose pensions make up 6% of the total budget, are being blamed for the woes of the state's finances. What is less talked about is how the governor is reducing funding for schools by over $800 million. The goal is to destroy public education and move charters in. And to the unsuspecting public, charters seem like such a great option. What the public is not told, is that charters have not been shown by research to show any significant improvement of student performance as measured by standardized tests. But what does a charter really mean? It means a privatized school with no elected school board. A cornerstone of American public education is that it is under local control through elected school board members. If you are unhappy with the direction of your school, yes you the American voter, can unseat those school board members and replace them. In a privatized educational system, the American voter loses local control. You lose your voice in the democratic process. A corporation now controls the schools and you, the citizen, the parent, the taxpayer, have no voice. You can't elect a new board of directors. Do you really think that taxes will be reduced? Instead of property tax money being allocated to the school board, it will now be allocated to a corporation that controls the schools. In essence, your democratic rights will be sold.

While the focus is on a national crisis, your local governments are being threatened. Consider what is being proposed in Michigan.

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Did you watch the video? Emergency power to divest local government. Your government. The government that impacts you the most. And the new call is for school consolidation for fiscal reasons. Read the research that contradicts the claims of these political plans. These plans are leveraging fiscal crisis to undermine local government.

Stand up and refuse to be sold. Educate your neighbors and friends. This is a corporate grab for an untapped source of wealth, your tax money that is allocated for public services. Tax money that is an investment in community infrastructure and educational opportunities. Keep control of your investment in your community.