Teaching in the Contact Zone

While reading this book, I couldn't help but wish I had been in Gaughan's class when I was in 9th grade. I mean, Mrs. Thomas was nice and everything, but for some reason I feel a bit cheated.

Gaughan's classroom promotes the kind of democratic ways of being I want to nurture in my classroom. Teachers who are committed to the well-being of all students must begin to reflect and rethink how and why they teach. Gaughan's book highlights the need for teachers to be aware of the multiple voices in the classroom. By envisioning the classroom as the intersection of multiple ideologies, we begin to become aware that teaching and learning are never neutral. This awareness allows us to engage in conversations that surface underlying assumptions. However, oftentimes, we are pushed by outside forces to focus on the content instead of the person, but Gaughan's book illustrates how powerful engaging students in the academic conversation can be. Gaughan doesn't shy away from the difficult topics and appears to enjoy teaching within "the contact zone." Gaughan's way of teaching is messy and unpredictable, and I fear that for many teachers it is by far easier to hide behind the curriculum then to connect with students in the ways Gaughan suggests.

More "Reconceptualizing. . ."

I just want to say first that I have a huge man-crush on Gee. TMI, perhaps, but I can't help it. My first read in grad school was Gee's Social Linguistics and Literacies, and I've been hooked ever since. Gee's work is relevant and important to schooling reform because he focuses on the "darker aspects" of our capitalist reality and how schooling tends to contribute to social and cultural reproduction. His notion of "Shape-Shifting Portfolio People" informs my practice as I attempt to apprentice my students into the academic discourse (Gee, would that be a "D" or a "d"?). If Gee is correct in his thinking that modern reality requires young people to engage in self-fashioning practices that recreate their identities, students should be provided ample opportunities to engage in such practices. Unfortunately, however, students of privilege tend to participate in self-fashioning acts to gain social capital that will be used for future successes; whereas, working-class students "display themselves as immersed in a world of action and feeling untied to vaunted futures of achievement, transformation, and status" (p. 182). In addition, what I found most surprising was that the upper-middle-class schools in the study did not engage students in social critique and the working-class schools did not engage students in conversations about living in a ever-changing, technological society.

Gee suggests that exposing students to digital literacies may bridge the "divide" between the haves and the have-nots, but alas, in the Wilder and Dressman chapter they show that often teachers and students fail to reap the transformative benefits of technology. The authors argue that students need more explicit instruction in using technology, and the students need to participate in authentic technological tasks.

Reflections on "Reconceptualizing. . ."

"In short, an education within this framework encompasses much more than learning academic subjects; education is the valuing of students' humanity despite any beliefs to the contrary that may exist in society" (p. 111).

"Valuing of students' humanity" seems to be a common thread throughout our readings this week. In particular, this notion of "as if" educational communities struck a chord with me. Having our students who have been marginalized by current schooling practices and ideologies revise and refashion their identity in ways that may empower and engage them truly returns the focus of education back to the students. We must make explicit the common instructional practices which ignore certain student voices and reject certain students by encouraging our students to imagine a different world.