Fear, Failure, and Flexibility: In Four Classrooms

By Robert Rose Ph.D.

To get into this let me first reprise what I said about "MICROSCOPE," because these two books are part of the same research project and are related.

Even though the incidents occurred in 1978, "TEACHER UNDER A MICROSCOPE" examines ongoing issues in education through the eyes and ears of trained observers and evaluators. They observe, comment, and critique everything I say and do.
The intake and exit interviews explore my philosophy of education as well as my comments and responses to their questions about what I actually did and why I did it. The conflicts between a disturbed principal (who was backed by the District) and me demonstrate the lack of balance of power in the schools. One of my main contentions is about the necessity of teacher autonomy. You see how I fight for it, not for me, but to better serve and teach my students. There are some basic questions asked and answered through the Observers interviews and protocol and the daily and weekly journals or commentaries I was asked to make. A few times I give you some overlapping of the same incidents as seen by the Observer and then in my journal so you can see them in greater depth.

First. What should life in the schools be like for the children and their caretakers teachers and support personnel? Second. What are the basic goals of public education and how should they be accomplished? Third. How much freedom or autonomy should a teacher have or needs to properly achieve these goals?

With the accountability movement gaining strength coupled with powerful back-to-basics and safe schools components, it appears the public believes schools should emphasize basic skills. To assure this happening testing is the rage to demonstrate that the students are achieving higher standards of skills and as a way to evaluate the effectiveness of each teacher.

Testing is reasonable and necessary as one way to determine what a student has learned and a teacher has taught. It is one way. It does not take the place of all the complex and useful things a teacher has learned about a student during the year. Often, because a student is learning English or is enduring serious emotional distress or has some type of learning handicap, the teacher is in the best position to know whether a test assesses accurately his skill levels, knowledge, or progress. When a single test is the only determiner of whether a child passes or fails, injustices occur. The same is true when the test results of the class are the only determiners of the teachers ability or success. The threat of being fired for the poor performance of a class will discourage even good teachers from taking classes or individual children who have academic or behavior problems. I have already read about and seen instances of teachers trying to insure they have more than their share of "good" and capable students. This stacking of a class will most affect new teachers (and their students) who have always suffered trial by fire. It makes good sense for the experienced teachers not to jeopardize their career, but is it ethical or good educational practice?

The positive aspect of mass testing and accountability is that more students are being exposed to a much wider variety of useful academic skills In many poverty areas the students, because of alleged or believed weak academic abilities, were limited in what was taught to them. Asking teachers to carefully examine what they teach and expecting them to know why as well as what they are teaching is a positive step for the profession.

However, school should offer more than an enhanced basic education, because those skills are what are most easily testable. Schools are where students can learn the social skills that enable them to move successfully through society in their personal and work lives. This was a job parents and extended

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 9, 2001
• ISBN: 9781462831623

Robert Rose Ph.D.

I would like to be seen first as a great husband and father, but I have often failed my wife and the mistakes I’ve made with our children (yours, mine, and ours - the magnificent seven) I have tried to make up for in their adult lives. They say I have. My wife and I have gone through many conflicts and difficulties, but we have survived them all and now our love is flourishing and deeper than ever. I used to fantasize about being a Nobel winning novelist, but now I just want to share my experiences and visions with others. My books are psychological self-help, educational workbooks and teachers’ guides, children’s plays, and novels. My most consistent success has been as a teacher. In “BECOMING A MORE CREATIVE TEACHER,” I explain the characteristics of a creative teacher and environment and answer the questions I have been most frequently asked.

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Copyright © 2001 by Robert Rose, Ph.D..

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Contents

PART ONE

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

METHODOLOGY

DATA COLLECTION

DATA COLLECTION FOR MESE PROJECT

BRIEF SKETCHES: FOUR CLASSROOMS

DATA ANALYSIS

FINDINGS

INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

TEACHER AUTHORITY

NORMATIVE STRUCTURES AND REWARDS

AVOIDING TROUBLE

INCULCATION OF VALUES

SOCIAL CLASS VALUES AND ETHNICITY

MULTICULTURAL VALUES

ENCOURAGING SOCIAL INTEGRATION

THE DISTRICT’S ROLE

SITE ADMINISTRATOR’S ROLE

TEACHER TRAINING

UNDERSTANDING SCHOOL POLITICS

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

PART TWO

INTRODUCTION TO THE CASE STUDIES

PART THREE

DESCRIPTORS

INTRODUCTION

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

DESIGN

RESULTS

INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES

TEACHER BELIEFS AND CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT STYLES

TEACHER AUTHORITY

NORMATIVE STRUCTURE AND REWARDS

AVOIDING TROUBLE

INCULCATION OF VALUES

SOCIAL CLASS VALUES AND ETHNICITY

MULTICULTURAL VALUES

ENCOURAGING SOCIAL INTEGRATION

CRITICAL ISSUES. THE DISTRICT’S ROLE

SITE ADMINISTRATOR’S ROLE

TEACHER TRAINING

UNDERSTANDING CULTURAL AND ETHNIC DIVERSITY

FACILITATING PROFESSIONAL GROWTH

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES CITED

Dr. Rose’ s INTRODUCTION: {There were four of us. We were the only volunteers in our large district. We wanted the five hundred dollars we were to receive by allowing these people to intrude into our thoughts, beliefs, fears, and lives. But most importantly, I think each teacher believed that he/she was an excellent teacher and each was confident the observations would prove it.

I had the most at stake because I was attempting to prove that my philosophy, techniques, and materials could not only get children to be academically competent, but could make them socially proficient, aesthetically sensitive, and—happy humans!

In TEACHER UNDER A MICROSCOPE, I selected from the mountains of data that this project gathered to show how my system worked and how they evaluated the results. In this book I am sharing additional documents printed by the MESE staff.

In this book I want you to understand more fully how they designed the project, the steps in implementation, and this time, more of their evaluations of all FOUR TEACHERS. I only was given the materials that covered all of us in general and my part specifically. I was not privy to the CASE STUDIES ( Part Two of this book)of the other three teachers. None of them wished to see any of the results, so I only know what you will know about what the various evaluators concluded.

I didn’t write these books years ago because in 1979 I had no access to a computer nor did I have access to Xlibris.com publishing, which allows author’s such ease in getting published.

I scanned the booklets, put the data through Microsoft Word, and I left most of it as it was, except I deleted some parts that were repeated through the booklets. My comments throughout the book will be in { }. The suggestions of this research project and the need for further such research and our continued quest to reach so many minority children makes this book current and important.

In TEACHER I plugged in my real name, but in this book I have left it as Mr. Lewis. The other three also have their names changed. Mr. Williams was murdered in his home a few years after the study. M. Baker was promoted to principal the next year. Ms.

Garcia continued , mostly as a teacher in alternative programs, until she retired a few years ago. I’m still going full speed ahead; this year with a 4th-5th grade combination class, mostly Hispanic children, who are transitioning to academic competency in English.}

PART ONE

ABSTRACT

This paper reports the findings of the Multi-Ethnic School Environments Project, which examines the special training needs of teachers in newly desegregated classrooms. Ethnographic research investigated how teachers’ instructional and management strategies and features of the school context which impact the classroom can promote both learning and social integration.

Five hundred hours of classroom observations, interviews, and teachers’ daily reports provided in depth data for a multidisciplinary analysis that considered a broad range of issues, from student-teacher interactions to district policy. The findings identify policy salients for desegregation planning.

Recommendations are made about in-service training needs to pluralistic classrooms.

(The work reported herein was supported by the National Institute of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under Contract No. OB-NIE-G-78-0203. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of NIE, and no official endorsement by NIE should be inferred.)

INTRODUCTION

When a school district, voluntary or under court order, begins to implement a new desegregation plan, most efforts are typically devoted to administrative procedures and public relations activities aimed at preparing administrators as well as the total community. Usually the training needs of teachers and other local staff who must effectively work with a new student population are addressed haphazardly, if at all.

The teaching staff is often unprepared or ambivalent about the most appropriate teaching strategies to use when faced with the new instructional challenges.

This paper reports some of the insights and issues raised by the findings of the first phase of the Multi-Ethnic School Environments Study (MESE), a multiyear research effort funded by the National Institute of Education. The study was designed to identify both the special needs of teachers of racially/ethnically diverse students and the features of the schooling situation that inhibit or promote learning and social integration.

The study was exploratory in that it was designed to surface as many factors and issues as possible for examination in greater detail in subsequent classroom studies of the project. In contrast to schemes that attempt to generate generic models or isolate the effects of discrete teaching behaviors, the MESE project documented how teachers went about the everyday business of schooling in four newly desegregated classrooms.

The primary focus of these explorations is socialization—i.e., the process whereby students come to understand, perform in, and develop commitments to the normal (nonnative) forms of school life. In this context, school socialization was viewed from a number of vantage points: institutional arrangements, pedagogical practices, human relations, value inculcation, social stratification, etc. Each of these topics was felt to be germane to an examination of the preparation teachers and students need in order to grapple successfully with the impact of desegregation on their lives. When courts or other legal entities mandate social change in a district, the impact is felt in all normal functions and interactions in a school.

In this paper the following themes drawn from the study findings are presented. 1. The teachers’ responses to the impact of desegregation upon their instructional and classroom management practices. 2. The factors either contributing to success or precipitating problems for teachers. 3. Implications for teacher training needs and administrative responsibility in desegregated schools.

These themes focus mainly on the effects of teaching practices upon the behavior of students. While recognizing that academic achievement is the ultimate purpose of schooling, we have taken the position that in a desegregated setting the way socialization of students occurs in classrooms is the key to students’ development, and academic learning is but one part of this development.

{My focus in most of my teaching career was on socialization. Since my background was in psychology it was easy for me to take theories and techniques from psychology and apply them to my classes. I was first a psychologist in a classroom, then as I became more competent as a teacher, I realized I could function better as a teacher who was also a sensitive psychologist. This is one reason I was the most successful teacher in the eyes of the researchers, because they also believed that socialization was the basis for a good academic program.}

METHODOLOGY

The methodology employed in the study can be described as qualitative field research that uses a variety of ethnographic techniques: narrative chronicles of classroom events, interviews, investigative work and reports by observers. The increasing awareness in the research community about the applicability of educational ethnography to the study of social life in schools obviates the need for justifying remarks.

Discussions of the methodological issues surrounding the use of educational ethnography proliferate (e.g., Wilson, 1977; Tunnel, 1977; Rist, 1975; Smith, 1978).

Assumptions and considerations of the MESE design are contained in Dasho, 1978a; Beckum and Dasho, 1979a; and Beckum and Dasho, 1979b.

After a careful examination of possible research strategies, it was decided that ethnographic inquiry appeared to be the ideal strategy for comprehensively documenting how teachers coped with the new reality of a multi-ethnic student group. The goal of the inquiry was the generation of hypotheses about teacher training needs. While the project was small in scale (four classrooms), it was broad in scope.

This exploratory study had to encompass the wide range of concerns which are endemic to school life—e.g., school climate, instructional procedures, classroom management, moral socialization, institutional operations, and inter-personal interactions. Yet data on each of these areas had to be of sufficient detail that they could be meaningfully assessed.

The design developed to meet these needs emphasized narrative data from multiple Sources (ethnographic notes, interviews, teacher audio-tapes) which could be examined in raw form for a variety of purposes. Multiple approaches to analysis were employed—using ethnographers, the research staff and analysts/consultants—to cull various themes from the data.

All of these themes converged on the issue: What training needs might teachers of newly desegregated classrooms require? The conclusions of the study are to be validated through a second, more specifically focussed study to be conducted in another setting. An explanation of the use of multiple data sources and multiple approaches to analysis will be offered next.

DATA COLLECTION

Research Staff. The phases were: initial teacher interview, data monitoring, data summary design, analysis design, generate descriptive case studies, synthesize analysts reports, generate conclusions and implications for training and future research, and feedback findings and solicit teacher reactions.

Ethnographers. Phases were: initial teacher interview; background information, daily narrative; chronicles; daily activity logs, and informal reports; data summarization regarding selected foci; final teacher interviews.

Teachers. The study was conducted in a California school district which was implementing its first year of a voluntary desegregation plan under a court order to end racial isolation in its schools. Isolated schools included some which had been up to 99 percent black, white or Hispanic (Mexican-American). Four classrooms were selected from volunteer teachers to provide representative combinations of teacher and student populations.