After reading “Looking for a struggle: Exploring the emotions of a middle school reader” by Cheri Foster Triplett and “Re-Seeing (Dis)Ability: Ten Suggestions” by Patricia A. Dunn, I was struck by the similarities between the two articles. Dunn “challenges us to think about disability as socially constructed: that many barriers encountered by people with disabilities are not the ‘fault’ of their disability per se, but are rather a result of the ways they’re treated in society” (Dunn 14). Triplett’s case study demonstrates that we can conceptualize struggling readers in a similar manner. Literacy thus becomes a socially constructed phenomenon that is not the sole responsibility of the students, parents, or teacher, but rather the result of the interactions between these different social frameworks.
Thinking of literacy in this way really made me consider what a teacher can do to shape and manipulate the social environment of his or her classroom. Although Mitchell, the student from Triplett’s article, states that he enjoys classes when teachers appear to like what the are teaching, I do not think that just enjoying one’s subject matter is enough. Teachers need to actively foster an educational environment that accommodates all students. But how does one accomplish this task? Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer to that question. Part of me wants to say that educators must employ the Principles of Universal Design, get to know their students personally, and consistently validate and incorporate students’ funds of knowledge into the curriculum. However, I realize that saying is easier than implementing. These three teaching principles seem to be, in some incarnation or another, the solution for everything.
Although achieving a classroom that incorporates all these elements may be difficult, I think that the readings don’t indicate that educators need to be successful in all these respects. My take away is that, regardless of how this is accomplished, teachers have a duty to shift a student away from a negative perception of his or her abilities to be a student. Perhaps Mitchell is right: if teachers construct a positive space for learning, then the finer points will follow.
I think Amanda is right in questioning the degree to which a teacher’s positivity and enthusiasm can effect a student’s perception of the class and subject matter. While a teacher who jokes around, fosters a relaxed classroom environment, and gets to know his students personally, can make him or her more successful than a teacher who maintains a strictly academic classroom, I am not sure how much his personality will effect the students’ actual success in the class.
I can’t help but wonder what the effect of standardized testing and frequent assessments has on students like Mitchell who harbor anxiety towards testing. No public school teacher, regardless of personality and enthusiasm, can free his students from standardized tests like the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Regents tests in New York State. While he can lead activities that are personally-relevant, explorative, and exciting, he can’t erase the fact that these students will need to sit for exams and will need to pass them in order to be deemed academically successful. In other words, while Triplett’s discussion of the link between teacher-student relationships and student success is definitely important to note, there are limits to a teacher’s impact on success.
Perhaps her argument is more relevant in a one-on-one tutoring situation in which the student just needs to develop a skill and is not judged heavily on his or her performance on tests. In the long run, however, testing and assessment poses a challenge to Triplett’s argument.
I was having very similar thoughts to Amanda’s as I was reading these two articles. A student’s ability or level of literary proficiency, though socially constructed and determined by others, certainly comes to define her/his identity as a reader, writer and thinker. Students who are challenged beyond their ability level and continually encounter outside pressures to fit certain norms or standards begin to internalize notions of personal incompetence and disappointment. They come to view themselves as hopelessly inferior students and can express emotions of sadness, frustration and anger. Engagement and motivation then become elusive abstractions that only make it all the more difficult to learn. This vicious cycle is an unfortunate one that is purposely maintained by our school system’s incessant focus on intra-classroom competition.
For the reason that perceived literacy and ability come to mark students as capable or in need of extra assistance, we can use a student’s strengths to shape his/her identity as a successful student. This has come up several times over the semester, but teachers really should be trained not to focus on what students are lacking or doing “incorrectly,” but instead focus on what they bring to the classroom. Triplett admits that there is still a great amount of contention surrounding the debate of how to accommodate students of all abilities and literacy levels. I personally believe that we must find ways of eliminating grouping and tracking based on perceived ability, and instead be flexible about the placements we make in our classrooms.
Certainly, attempting to do this will present a fair share of challenges, particularly to teachers unprepared to work with a group of students with such a wide range of abilities. But what makes a teacher a good teacher is her capacity to genuinely care for the learning of her students and to use her creative faculties to overcome obstacles of difference.