In the book, Schoolhome, I found the idea of bringing home to school interesting. Home and school should be partners in a child’s education but I’m not sure if home should be brought to school. Roland-Martin described how the home should look and feel, but who is to say that her home is the correct home to model a school. This is not to say that I don’t agree with many of her ideas.
“What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must be the community want for all its children.” (John Dewey, The School And Society, 1899) I believe that most parents want the same things for their children. Parents want their children to become educated and to succeed in life. However not all parents believe in the same things or how to achieve success. How is this schoolhome not going alienate more students from their parents? Even though the teachers may become more familiar with each student I still feel that a wedge may arise between parent and child. I see this especially in the poorer communities where the school is taking on more of the home role. But is this wedge worth it because a more active citizen is born from this classroom?
Another idea I found interesting was Roland-Martin’s change on learning. Roland-Martin writes about the use of single sex education. She suggests using this approach in some areas of learning. I wonder who makes those decisions and how it is decided? In our world of declining verbal communication I believe that single sex education would not be fruitful. People already have enough problems communicating especially with texting being such a popular way to communicate. I believe that that schooling should be coeducational. An emphasis on listening to other people’s points of view could/should be incorporated into schooling. If the idea is to merge home and school then communication should be one of the three c’s discussed in the book, The Schoolhome.
In the article, Coed versus Single Sex Ed, and in the book it was mentioned that school is a place to help kids ready themselves for the workplace and adulthood. If more time was spent on communication between the sexes this could lead to a better homelife (marriages),which would lead to less divorces, which in turn could lead to more stabilized homelife for students.
Hi Jaimiee,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post! I enjoyed reading. Actually, you raise a number of very difficult and critical questions. It seems like we come out on the same side of many of these issues. In some ways, my new book is an extended response to the ideas of Martin in this book--where I think she is right and where I think she is treading on dangerous grounds (if you are interested, I encourage you to check out my book and then let me know what you think!).
Here, I will just say that I think you are incredibly wise to question what the family "should" look like. If Dewey thinks the "wisest parents" are the benchmark for what the school should seek, who gets to decide who the "wisest" are and how can we not be sure this doesn't just become the richest white people telling others how to live (if I can be so blunt)?
The question of teachers inserting themselves between children and their parents is a big one. We saw that abundantly with Richard Rodriguez in cycle two--I want this to be a big question for the course. The question for me is how we can empower homes and parents, not replace them!
Learning how to communicate--which in our world, means more than anything to learn how to care enough about someone to take the time to be present and really listen to what they are saying--is indeed important. I think Martin would agree with you wholeheartedly. The question is how the school can be a partner is this project that might have us rethinking both family and society as we attempt to make schools where all feel valued and welcomed.
Great post!
Kyle