The Audacity to Teach! by Easley Jacob II;Easley II;Easley Jacob II;

Author:Easley, Jacob, II;Easley, II;Easley, Jacob II;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UPA
Published: 2011-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Discussion

What can be extrapolated from these perspectives is that teachers’ attempts to engage in TLIs are made dynamic by the policy demands of forward mapping regarding assessment and curriculum. Their work is challenged by contradictory perspectives—one that values governance over teachers’ practices for the purpose of implementation purity versus one that values teachers’ use of professional decision making about teaching and learning as guided by teachers’ broad assessments of students’ learning needs such as their readiness and motivational levels. Hence, their work is affected by conditions outside of the school, outside of the classroom, and beyond the design of policy. Such is the critical correspondence of policy driven school reform.

In order for them to engage in TLIs, teachers have to uncover the immediate and ever-changing needs of students and reinterpret curricular demands in relation to the dispositions of students, resources, their own instructional repertoires, and other environmental factors. Teaching is more than following procedures for assessment or a textbook driven curriculum guide. Cohen et al. (2003) explain that, “Teaching is what teachers do, say, and think with learners, concerning content, in particular organizations and other environments, in time” (p. 124). In order for teachers to motivate students, they must go beyond the curriculum. They must meet students where they are. This chapter reveals that teachers must first recognize the basic needs of students—a need for motivation and a need for academic readiness to engage in policy driven, high stakes instruction. These needs are uncovered and accommodated as a result of teachers’ skillful and continuous assessment of students’ progress throughout the teaching and learning process.

Bailey (2002) and others (e.g., Comer & Haynes, 1991) suggest that teachers support student learning by engaging parents in the learning process. This means understanding what parents value about education, providing structures by which teachers and parents can (co)construct homework modules, and providing opportunities for parents to help out in classrooms. Yet, teachers’ capacity to engage parents in meaningful ways is made difficult by their limited preparation and know-how—skills that are rarely addressed during their pre-service experiences and skills that are under supported through in-service trainings that are aligned with strategic plans for strong classroom-family relationships through the organization.

Returning to the notion of a one directional pathway between the community and school, Mathews (1996) argues that good schools are the roots of good communities and a good country. He continues to stress that communities are “an essential source of ‘social capital,’ a necessary form of reinforcement from outside of the school that encourages students to learn” (p. 6). This means that schools and communities are intricately connected. Yet, many low-income African American students living in the inner-city, like the Hillside children, live in communities marred by few resources, racial isolation, limited local capital and political influence, crime, violence, drugs, poor public health, teenage childbirth, and intergenerational poverty (Cooper & Jordan, 2003; Kozol, 1991; Noguera, 2003b). A lack of social capital burdens inner-city, urban communities’ potential to access the resources of social networks like schools (Noguera, 2003; Easley, 2009).

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