piaget is dead...

A lot of things stuck out to me while reading this week's articles. But the one thing that really seemed to hit home was a quote from a teacher in the Lapp article. The teacher said, "Sometimes we have to learn that the textbook gives us good method [and] good theories, but Piaget is dead. Freud is dead... these are kids of the 21st century".

I seemed to keep this quote in the back of my mind throughout the rest of the reading, as well as our classroom discussion on Monday. We are taught methods and theories as a way to understand our students and their learning process. We are asked to think about what it means to be in an urban area and how environment affects our students. Naturally, we want to use the method and theory to explain our students, and often think of what we learn in class as an end-all, or a sort of quick fix to the challenges we may face in the future. What I have realized, though, is that in order to truly look at my students from multiple perspectives, I cannot always or only rely on what I have read in textbooks.

First, I want to say that learning these methods and theories have not been bad in any way. In fact, the knowledge we have gained through all of our courses is a great tool. But it is simply not everything we will need to teach, relate to, help, and learn from our students. I thought it was interesting how Tim said that we immediately think of negative aspects of urban areas because that is what is drilled into us from the start. I think this is true. I learned in another one of my classes that as people, we often like to think of things in a "glass half full" way, with a positive lens over things. This is known as the "Pollyanna Effect", which I think is true for the most part. Because of this innate tendency to look at everything positively, when we are introduced to something negative, it sticks. This is why negative media sells, and perhaps why we only typically see "bad" news on television, and why we cannot get past the negative aspects of living in an urban area. However, this does not mean that we should not be paying careful attention to the negatives, and really thinking about their causes, and their effects. I am a firm believer that in order to change the cause of something negative, it is first imperative to recognize the effect. Talking about the effects of poverty, adult responsibility, inadequate resources, etc. is the first step to making a difference. How can we change anything if we don't analyze it as it exists? The Lapp article also touched on this, saying that one of the greatest challenges for practicing teachers had to do with "recognizing the impact of the urban context on teaching and learning in the classroom". Thankfully, our program is allowing us to do that now. Although full realization will not occur until we are experiencing it, we are at least thinking and talking about what is going on. We will be that much closer to understanding the diversity in our classrooms.

However, as I am writing this, I am still thinking back to the first quote mentioned. To really look at my classroom from multiple perspectives I will have to be able to relate to each one of my students, get to know them and what they are going through, and learn from them. The only way to reach that level is to look at every child as an individual. Piaget's theories will be helpful at times, but we can't simply apply them to every child. We can't use Freud's theories to explain every student's actions. People change, situations change, and no two student's backgrounds will be identical. We have to take what we know and expand on it, and use our student's experiences and life situations to grow as teachers, and to help every individual student learn.