Two Generations of Teachers

Student achievement is directly related to teacher training. Well-trained teachers have a better chance of increasing the learning of their students. Now that I have lived long enough to have anecdotal data from two generations of teachers, the high school educators that taught me from 1974 to 1978 and my cohort of teachers working now, I have come to some conclusions about their differences.

However, when I compare my Campolindo High School social studies department to mine, I am surprised by the great amount of similarities: both departments are almost completely white, male, and athletic, fun-loving but able to manage the rowdies in a classroom with just a glance.

The AP program had not yet achieved great popularity in social studies, and the Campolindo social studies department did not offer AP Macro/Micro Economics, AP European History, and AP US History. Three of my teachers have received the specialized AP training to teach these courses, and one (Spinrad) has served as a reader for the AP US History essays. But the AP universe is the only area where my department excels over the Campolindo faculty. Why? Every social studies teacher at Campolindo had a Masters degree, and many earned their advanced degrees long after joining the Campolindo faculty. In contrast, only two members of my faculty hold an advanced degree, and only one (again, Spinrad) holds a Masters outside of the education field. The Campolindo faculty felt that getting an advanced degree was a basic prerequisite to successful teaching. My department does not.

Does holding a post-graduate degree really make a difference in teaching quality and student learning? Did the Campolindo social studies department generate higher levels of student achievement than my faculty? I believe the answer is yes, but I have no comparable test scores or other psychometrics. Muddying the waters further, the literacy of students nationwide has declined, and I will not blame that phenomenon on teacher quality (since the computer and communications revolutions are probably more to blame). Certainly, though, the Campolindo faculty was more committed to their chosen field of study, usually political science or history. They boasted of their expertise and kept up to date in scholarship. That excitement and interest oozed out of their teaching. Since these teachers proved their dedication to themselves as well as their fellows, they would be subject to cognitive dissonance if their practice showed a lack of dedication. For that reason alone, I would like all in my department to earn graduate degrees as well.

Another Look at Bridging Cultures and Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching

The writers of, Bridging Cultures in Our Schools (Trumbull et al.) and A Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching (Wlodkowski and Ginsberg), both assume that teachers holding traditional Western values should replace or modify them. The authors of Bridging Cultures believe that one should interact with some students and their families using a collectivist orientation. The writers of A Framework argue that one must adopt a constructivist philosophy of learning to successfully engage all students.

The writers of both articles assume that teachers should motivate and educate ethnic minority students. I agree. The authors also assume that teachers should embrace cultural relativism--that all cultures, American, Mexican, Korean, Vietnamese, etc., are of equal value in the classroom and should be respected as they are. There is no reason to change students’ value systems to “traditional American” values. Here I disagree.

The tone of Bridging Cultures is much less strident and less far-reaching in scope than that of A Framework. I found little to object to in Bridging Cultures. As a counseling intern I used in clinical practice a collectivist framework with some ethnic clients, and the contrasts of individualism versus collectivism are well known when counseling the culturally different. I have seen this dichotomy between individualism and collectivism explained differently in other texts. For example, a future-based (Western) world view may be compared to a present-based (Native American). In counseling, the therapist must enter the world of the client, and the client must feel that the therapist has entered her world. The therapist assists the client in changing his problems, thinking more logically, or assisting the client in attaining a cathartic release, but the therapist does not attempt to change the client’s primary world view, collectivism in our case. Here, in my opinion, is the difference between the purposes of psychotherapy and education. A professional educator should teach more than mathematics, history, or music. She must teach Western values and attempt to change the world view of her ethnic students. All students should be taught the benefits of individualism, and therefore, train students to succeed. How can I be so sure of myself, or be as some might say, chauvinistic (or, as others may label, racist)?

My ancestors immigrated to this country from roughly 1880 to 1910. They left to escape “interdependence and success of the group” (Trumbull et al., P.10), the stifling socialism of Bismarck and rigid social roles of the Czar. They came here for a better life--for private property, flexibility in roles, self expression, and university education--as well as to escape forced conscription and political oppression. They thrived under America’s individualist framework. Individualism works! Immigrants continue to come here, not to collectivist countries like Cuba or Venezuela. What worked for my ancestors will work for anyone with an open mind.

Despite my disagreements with the underlying philosophy, I agreed heartily with the cross-cultural techniques explained in Bridging Cultures. I certainly can “allow students some flexibility when their cultural background has not prepared them to voice opinions or publicly ask and respond to questions” (P.50) through using journals or small discussion groups. Similarly, taking a “partnership approach” (P.54) when conferring with parents makes sense whether the child is from Seoul or Boise.

A Framework, on the other hand, is a theoretical article, with concrete examples (P.19) of a teacher using the constructivist perspective but less practical suggestions. I find A Framework to be more controversial on many levels.

Wlodkowski and Ginsberg examine only one perspective when they state that motivation is inseparable from culture. People are motivated by many different factors, including biological (for example, whether the student had breakfast), psychological (for example, whether the student hates all authority figures), talent (for example, whether the student has artistic ability) and historical factors (for example, whether an Irish Catholic student was persecuted by Irish Protestants or English soldiers). My brother and I grew up in exactly the same culture, and I greatly disliked art classes and was poorly motivated no matter who was teaching. My brother loved art classes no matter who was teaching. I would argue against Wlodkowski and Ginsberg’s overemphasis on the importance of culture. Culture is only one of many factors that influence motivation, and motivationally effective teaching comes from knowing students well as individuals rather than as members of a cultural group.

In addition to ignoring many factors of motivation besides the cultural, Wlodkowski and Ginsberg complain that education is still overly influenced by “deterministic, mechanistic, and behavioristic” orientations towards human motivation (P.18) but fail to define “deterministic, mechanistic, and behavioristic” models. Perhaps they are referring to psychoanalytic and operant conditioning (Skinnerian “carrot and stick”) models for human motivation. Even though these models are no longer fashionable in the education establishment, and to my knowledge, rarely taught to prospective teachers, Wlodkowski and Ginsberg find behaviorism rampant in the educational structure. Simply using external rewards and punishments is evidence of rampant behaviorism. In other words, if teachers and students are held accountable to State standards, they are behaviorists. Furthermore, Wlodkowski and Ginsberg say that culturally different students will not be at all motivated by such “behavioristic” means. I see little evidence that they are correct.

After setting up the behavioristic straw man, Wlodkowski and Ginsberg destroy it with their pet constructivist theory, based on intrinsic motivation, which, supposedly, is more effective than extrinsic motivation. They argue that you can’t have both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and that extrinsic rewards dampen intrinsic motivation. (pp. 18-19). My own personal experience does not bear this out. I was motivated through school primarily from intrinsic factors despite the presence of extrinsic rewards. In fact, I hypothesize that the majority of working teachers were motivated intrinsically as students despite the prevalence external motivators.

Lastly, Wlodkowski and Ginsberg set up an intrinsic motivational framework (P.19), four steps or motivational conditions, that can be used in the classroom. Step three of this framework assumes that students have “perspectives and values,” which, of course, they do. However, these perspectives and values have not been solidified in a fifteen-year-old. It is the educator’s job to gently challenge the student’s belief system and confidently teach American values and individualism. Putting Wlodkowski and Ginsberg upside down, I believe that relating lesson content to the student’s background is only a first step. One should aim for eventually changing the student’s background, the belief system, itself.