Adriana's FNED 546 Notebook: Thoughts & Takeaways

Author and Text:  Patrick Finn, Literacy with an Attitude Reflection: The story Finn shares in this chapter felt eerily familiar to my own experience as a student. About halfway through my 5th grade year, my family moved from Vancouver, WA (a suburb of Portland, OR) to Edmond, OK (a suburb of Oklahoma City, OK).  That move showed me firsthand the truth of Finn's argument that schools are not "great equalizers", but instead providing an education prioritizing obedience.  In Vancouver, I was in a full-day gifted cohort -- a model of "powerful literacy" where intellectual agency was the daily norm. Textbooks were an occasional tool we used at school, but most of our time was spent doing examples together, working on small projects, and exploring extensions of the material.  At my new school in Oklahoma, that agency was relegated to a "pull-out" program for just one hour a week.  For the other 29 hours, I was stuck in a rigid, textbook-driven curriculum th...

Author and Text: Alfie Kohn, “What to Look for in a Classroom” and Learning for Justice, "Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy" (Video) Reflection To be blunt, I found both of these resources to be incredibly bland and unchallenging. As someone whose daily work involves experiential education and community partnerships, these texts felt like a "safe" version of a much more complex reality. Alfie Kohn’s checklist, while perhaps revolutionary in 1996, feels like a superficial "starter pack" that focuses on the aesthetics of a classroom—furniture, posters, and noise levels—rather than the deep, systemic work required to actually reach students. Most of my understanding of these topics comes from real-world experience, not a "this-not-that" table. In the field, whether I'm delivering a presentation to a group of interested students at their school or working in community spaces, engagement isn't about whether desks are in clusters...

Author and Text: Lisa Delpit, "The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children" Delpit argues that there are five 'rules' surrounding the culture of power: Issues of power are enacted in the classroom. There are codes or rules for participating in power; that is, there is a "culture of power." The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture who have power. If you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier. Those with power are frequently least aware of — or least willing to acknowledge — its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence. I found many connections between Delpit's chapter from Other People's Children and my own experiences. Point number 4 stood out the most because I've struggled to perform to the level asked of me when expectations weren...