How YOU do'in?

"The question arises: to what extent do environmental pressures-- home, school, societal-- lead the child to focus attention on the efferent handling of language and to push the richly fused cognitive-affective matrix to the fringes of consciousness?" (40).

I was drawn to this question while reading Rosenblatt. Current school culture dictates efferent thinking. Weekly (or daily) bundling (read: bungling) of curriculum, teaching to the test, rubrics, multiple choice tests, etc all contribute to developing a habit of mind which encourages students to detach personally from the learning experience. I can not help but be reminded of Applebee's notion of knowledge out of context and his discussion on the listing of curriculum. When we privilege quality over quality, students have a tendency to reject schooling. I understand why the schooling culture has developed this way, but I don't have to like it, and I will do my part to counter this myopic system by returning the "heart" to my classroom.

I spent the entire morning on Saturday bundling the 6th grade Language Arts TEKS into weekly plans. The district now wants us to make a specific TEKS our weekly focus. On Mondays, they want us to collaborate as a 6th grade Language Arts team. By Friday, we must turn in a plan which outlines how we will teach and assess the specific weekly TEKS. We have been told that they want to be able to walk into our rooms and see the same instruction occurring. Yeah right!

I'm not done thinking this out, but alas I must go and plan with my team; it's Monday. [Insert pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth here]